The Danish Job – Part 1
The CaseSolvers Team received a great opportunity three weeks ago: we had the chance to prepare the team delegated by the University of St. Gallen to the CBS Case Competition. This next post is the summary of the intensive coaching that took place over the last three weeks.
We need a team
On the 21st of January, the University of St.Gallen (Switzerland) received an invitation to the highly prestigious competition of the Copenhagen Business School that takes place at the end of February. The almost 20-person team organizing the competition every year for almost ten months says a lot about the seriousness of the competition besides the fact that the website is available at casecompetition.com.
However, the invitation only came in January which meant that there was only one month available for selecting and coaching the team members. The selection of the team began right away: dozens of the members of the Consulting Club at the University of St.Gallen applied for this exceptional opportunity. During the selection process, the Consulting Club and CaseSolvers decided to take the risk of putting together a whole new team. In the final composition, the members of the team – with the exception of two people – had never worked together before but based on their professional backgrounds and personalities, they were expected to form a great team. Despite their young age, the four members – Constantin, Martin, Nicolas and Nikolas – have all had international and (student) consulting experience. However, none of them had done any classic case studies – with the exception of Martin who had come across some at Harvard – especially not in this 4-person composition. Thus, it was evident that they needed a thorough preparation. I undertook the task with pleasure and excitement.
Training weekend
The preparation of the team began on the 1st of February with an intensive, weekend-long training combined with case solving. Beyond the methodological basics, we put a great emphasis on the team, itself. By the end of the day, the four strangers became an efficient working team following its own pre-defined rules. This potential team became very tight during the next few weeks which was shown by the great atmosphere and the performance of the team – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The exhausting first day was followed by a “restful” one which meant an even more intensive case solving process. Already at this point it was clear that the fears regarding the team composition had been unfounded: the guys were able to work together efficiently in a very fluent way. Of course time management was not yet perfect so for the Logitech case they submitted and presented a solution that was a little deficient, with some structural and content issues but altogether promising.
Case after case
The first case solving provided a lot of insights for both the team and the trainer. In the following two weeks the students solved three, rather different cases. The scale ranged from a bicycle-parts manufacturer, through an energy company, to an apparel store and the functional focuses of the cases were even broader.
However, the team didn’t get cold feet and they took the challenges with more and more awareness. As a trainer it was interesting to notice how actively they used the methodological tools that were learned during the first weekend and how they began to get familiar with the role and applicability of frameworks. It was also exhilarating to see how the team built on the feedback of the jury that was invited for the presentations and how they implemented the advices in their next solution already. Regarding the case solving process, they came up with a precise timetable in which they allocated the available 32 hours with Swiss punctuality (or with German precision, considering that the Swiss university is represented by four German citizens). I began to retreat to the background from my initial supporting role and my place was taken over by Gantt charts, process specifications and the transferred knowledge.
Although the preparation officially ended yesterday, I am in the fortunate position to have the chance to accompany the team to Copenhagen where I can support them until the beginning of the competition. I feel it is not my duty to praise the team but a remark from one of the members of the jury at the last presentation can say a lot: the lady asked if the team was in deed composed of second- and third-year bachelor students. The answer is: yes.
To be continued
In the second part of this article series I will write about the CBS Case Ccompetition, itself. In the meantime, follow our live blog next Friday and Saturday (28th of February and 1st of March) when CaseSolvers will be reporting simultaneously from three case study events taking place in Europe.
The author would like to thank hereby as well the members of the jury for their time and the lot of useful advice that they helped the team with. For the sake of completeness: Astrid Beyschlag, Alexandra Loth, Alessandra Morra, Christian Marcel Höke, Charles Le Brun, Daniel Cetin, Thomas Pohl, Jonathan S., Alexander Müdespacher, Julia Pfirrmann, Robin Deng, Amparo García Fernández, Katharina Schneider, Nastia-Lara Emde, Gergely Balázs and Zsolt Ábrahám. Thank you!