Case study course at SZIC – account of experiences
During the summer course registration in the Széchenyi István College there were nine of us who chose the ‘Decision making in business’ course that consisted of 12 classes. This implies that it wasn’t only an intensive training course for case competitions. The overview of the basics and the appropriate understanding of the consulting environment also received substantial emphasis. This duality was created by the two trainers, Bálint Balázs (BCG) and Zsolt Ábrahám (Prímagáz and one of the founders of the HBCS) who made the sessions interesting by sharing their own experiences. Complementing each other in a very positive way they showed us the challenges of competition and business through different cases.
We gave a good foundation to the semester by going through the requirements of meaningful and high-quality slide making then we dealt with four subjects by having a short theoretical overview, a joint case solving and an individual case analyzing. The solutions we came up with in teams were presented in front of each other and the trainers. Besides that we had the opportunity one time to test our case solving competencies with a one-hour time limit and as a closure to the semester we got a little taste of mock interviewing. The main body of the course consisted of four areas which were the market entry decisions, go to market strategies, an acquisition situation and crisis communication. The related methodologies proved to be very helpful (instead of being only filling content for the slides they actually had real functions), while solving cases together during the sessions helped in learning the necessary way of thinking, getting the appropriate attitude and defining and asking the relevant questions. The toughest challenge and the biggest learning potential occurred were when we solved cases in teams of three which happened four times over the course. We expanded with a fast food chain, renewed the product portfolio of Bonbonetti, made an acquisition offer by the state for Vodafone and carried out a PR campaign to react to a scandal video that threatened IKEA’s reputation.
We modelled the case competitions in a way that the two trainers acted as the jury (decision makers) while we acted as the consultants. This increased the challenge as at the end of the presentations they pointed out the weak points of our solutions with tough questions, then we received feedback on our work and presentation, emphasizing the strengths and the areas that needed to be improved.
Starting with different backgrounds we learned to work together by time, to structure and divide the case analysis, making it possible to work in a parallel way. We spent around 10 hours per person on average with solving a case and preparing the presentation. We improved a lot in ppt-making, both with respect to the look of the slides and to the quality and coherence of the content. We found it quite a challenge to analyze and process the cases but our competitive spirit and the expectations of trainers made us strong, while the received feedback worked as proper motivation for us. The tiring workload was offset by the good atmosphere during the course events and the interesting, real life examples and stories of the trainers that made the gained knowledge even more valuable and credible.