A team of four Strathclyde students has achieved third place at the prestigious International Case Study Competition 2011.
Under the academic advice of George Vlachos (Department of Management), the Strathegians, a team of four MSc in International Management students -Dung Luu Cong, Vishal Gholap, Tushar Kaul, and Shubham Maheshwari - won third place (and $1,000) at the International Case Study Competition 2011, hosted by the College of Business at the San-Jose State University, USA. The theme for this year's competition was "Sustainability and Standardisation".
In the context of Climate Change and the ever-growing strain we put on our living resources, Sustainability is emerging as a challenge of paramount urgency for our communities in the 21st century. In consequence, it is steadily moving upwards in the agenda of priorities for the business community too. Standardisation is one tool we have for helping the matter.
The competition was an excellent opportunity to make students aware of the issues surrounding standardisation and sustainability from the corporate strategy, industry, international, and regional perspectives. The Strathegians were well equipped to tackle the challenge, having become well knowledgeable of the economic, strategic and cultural issues in play in doing international business.
Important sponsors came forward to support the cause: IBM; the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Foundation; the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE); the European Academy for Standardization (EURAS); the International Cooperation for Education about Standardization (ICES); the IEEE Standards Education Committee (SEC); the ANSI Committee on Education (COE), and others.
For 2011, the competition attracted teams from 6 different time-zones. Contestants were provided with a written case two weeks before the competition. Teams could send in questions and receive answers over a web forum. The task was to analyse the Case Study based on a thematic set of questions, under a given set of criteria. Only a limited number of teams from each geographical region (Americas, Europe/Africa, Asia) were shortlisted, and among them, the Strathegians. The final presentation was held via a web-based teleconference on May 5; shortlisted teams presented their analysis and recommendations to a panel of international judges for 25 minutes, followed by a 15 minute question and answer session. Their work was awarded third place, with first place going to a team from Purdue University, and second to a team from Universitas Indonesia. The Strathegians are now looking for their next challenge!
More information on the International Case Study Competition is here http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/icsc/