Three students from College of the North Atlantic’s Grand Falls-Windsor campus came out on top of the 10th annual Business Case Competition, held November 24 and 25.
The team of Christine Abbott, Jennifer Chaffey and Tom Healey, called Rock Solid Solutions, will travel to the Middle East in February 2013, with their coach, instructor Holly Dwyer, to compete against teams from colleges and universities in Qatar.
Dwyer also took a team to Qatar in 2010, placing third. In 2011, the CNA team, under a different coach, came in second.
"I am hoping that the trend continues and that this year CNA comes home with the gold," she says. "The international experience itself will be incredible for these students, and I couldn’t be more proud of them."
Eleven teams competed in this year’s competition, which was held in Grand Falls-Windsor.
During the two-day event each team is given a business case describing a hypothetical company which is facing a specific problem. The teams have two-and-a-half hours to analyze it, make recommendations for how to solve the problem and develop an implementation plan based on their recommendations. The plan is then presented to a panel of judges, and a winner is chosen after four rounds of competition.
Mary Vaughan, the college’s Dean of Business and Information Technology, says she was impressed by how the students rose to every challenge and pushed themselves to new levels over the course of the two-day competition.
“The growth and change in them from one night to the next morning is outstanding to witness. You can see their confidence rise, their innovative thoughts evolve, and their learning and knowledge increase,” she says. “The students should be commended for the level of professionalism they showed, their risk taking and innovative approaches to the cases, and for adapting quickly based on feedback from the industry judges.”
Vaughan says the instructors who volunteered as coaches for the teams also deserve recognition.
“They showed exceptional skills in bringing the students to new levels. They were very involved in the process and provided instant feedback to the students while helping them interpret the industry judges’ comments,” she says. “The high level of respect the students and coaches had for each other was clear and it showed in how well they worked together.”
The second place team, Simple Solutions from the Prince Philip Drive campus out of St. John’s, will also compete in Qatar. The third place team, Mighty Morphin Stock Exchangers, from the Corner Brook campus, will travel to a similar event in Montreal.
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Media Contact:
Gina MacArthur
Public Relations Specialist
College of the North Atlantic
Ph: 709-643-7928
gina.macarthur@cna.nl.ca