Making it to the Next Stage

A week after our not-so-polished first go at presenting a practice case, this time was the real deal - the Management Consulting Club (MCC) Business Case Competition!

We had to be at uni early in the morning at 8.50am. I realised it wasn't as early as I first thought, so I caught a later bus but found myself bordering on being late! Fortunately I got there in time!

We were given our case and were then led to a room upstairs in the Business School to start working on the case for three hours.

This time our case focused on a Chinese brewery which had expanded rapidly in the last decade by purchasing over 40 subsidiaries in China. The subsidiaries weren't working together though and they had over 100 different brands. The issue was how to get these subsidiaries working together and more efficiently.

Once again I was the strategy person, who would be talking about why the issues were important and introducing and explaining our strategy. I managed to find time before our three hours was up to practise my bit and ensure I was under my allocated three minutes. In fact, I could recite my part in 2 minutes and 30 seconds!

After the three hours, it was time to present! This time our presentation went quite smoothly. We all didn't rely too much on our slides, and we finished under 10 minutes!

We got asked a few questions by the two judges. This time I didn't answer any as I didn't want to jeopardise the team's chances.

It looks like I didn't though, as we were called into the room about half an hour later to hear the results and get feedback, and guess what? Our team made it into the semifinals! There were four teams in our round and only one team would progress. They said they liked our presentation! 

The semifinals are going to take place this Saturday though, so I might have to get Aonghas to teach some of my classes for me! 

On my way to the bus, I caught up with my old high school friend Zahir, and as we walked through Albert Park we realised the fog/cloud was so thick we couldn't even see the Sky Tower!

He also took me to this kebab place where I tried a kebab and I have to say it tasted good!

Shredded to Pieces

Today was the Management Consulting Club Business Case Competition Semi-Finals. Because our preparation time was to start at midday, I wasn't able to teach all my recorder classes and had to leave early, so I got Aonghas to take over halfway through.

I got there a little early, so I just did a bit of study before going up and joining the team. Once again we were taken to a small room, given our cases and three hours to discuss and prepare our presentation.

This time though the case was quite tricky! The case was on Al Capone, a famous American gang leader who made millions selling alcohol during the prohibition era in the USA. There was high tension between gangs and he  was worried for his safety. He was also spending a lot on bribing the cops and corrupt politicians.

We were having trouble coming up with a strategy for this case and ended up putting together something we weren't 100% confident on.

We didn't have as much time to practise either. By the time three hours was up, we went into the room to present our case. This time our judges were from respected firms like Deloitte!

Our presentation didn't go too badly. We finished just in time. However, question time was quite tough! The judges ripped into us! They didn't seem to agree with our strategy. I managed to answer one question this time though!

I wasn't able to stay to hear the results as I had to get back home to finish...or maybe start...my assignment that's due this coming Monday.

I later got a text message from Alice, my friend who got me into this, that sadly we didn't make the finals.

I feel a little bad that maybe I let the team down. I sure hope I didn't though!

It was a good experience doing something outside of pharmacy and away from science for once though!

Coming up with a Case

I went to uni early in the morning this morning (especially for a holiday!) to meet up with my friend Alice and two other guys to take part in this practice case as part of the Management Consulting Club Case Competition (or something like that). 

Earlier in the week Alice had asked me if I'd be interested in taking part as she was looking for another member. Originally I wasn't so sure as I don't study commerce and was afraid I'd be more of a liability than an asset to the team (like that business-speak right there? :D) In the end I thought, why not? I've only got six more weeks of uni left to go. I might as well give it a go and have something else to add to my CV!

So this is how it goes - we were given a case which was maybe over 20 pages long, and given three hours to read it, come up with a strategy to help the business improve sales and then prepare our presentation that we would have to do in front of the judges.

We spent about 40 minutes reading and while I first thought we had plenty of time, we soon had to rush towards our allocated time!

Once time was up, we went to a case room to make our presentation in front of two judges. We didn't do too badly, although I think I talked a bit too much and even missed a few things since I couldn't remember what I had written on my slides! We ended up running out of time!

We had ten minutes of question time. Alice and Kevin, one of the other guys, answered most of the questions, although I did manage to say a little bit!

We got given some feedback from the judges but mainly on presentation. Hopefully we'll be better next week!

I had to go up to Grafton for an MHSSSO (Medical and Health Sciences Students Symphony Orchestra) rehearsal as we're having a performance in a few weeks' time. We did sectionals for the first hour and a half though, which was scary since I was the only viola player there! The conductor kept picking on me!

Afterwards we all joined together to rehearse before we finished by 4pm. I bumped into Chen and just went off for some Subway before catching up with Natalie, one of my pharmacy friends.

Later in the night we had youth group, which we didn't really do much except prepare the Fathers Day presents for the fathers on Sunday, and just talked for most of the time.