| Business students compete to save imaginary firm 
Photo by Jeff Watts
Maura had been on the job only five weeks, and already she could see some of the reasons the Nicaraguan handicrafts firm was losing money. Faxes and e-mails didn’t work smoothly, the general manager was inexperienced and often absent, and an unmotivated staff often finished jobs half-heartedly, at the last minute. Her job was to find a solution that could put the company back on track. Maura and her case were imaginary, but the pressure wasn’t. The scenario was developed for the Kogod Gartenhaus Financial Case Competition, in which 21 teams of three to five graduate or undergraduate students competed to solve the company’s problem. Kogod developed a 14-page case study, complete with financial charts, monthly sales charts, and photos of the imaginary “products,” which included soapstone sculptures. Each student team had a few days to research and develop their presentation, which they gave in front of a panel of judges in elimination rounds all day Saturday. At the end of the day, the panel of judges from top firms and organizations in the Washington area gave the prize to a team made up of four Kogod seniors and one junior. But all of the participants in the 15th annual event learned what it meant to work as a team, face a thorny business problem, and prepare and promote their
solution—all in the space of a few high-pressure days. In the photo, from left, are Case Competition sponsor Howard Gartenhaus; first-place winners Peter Drummond ’07, Amanda Fuentes ’08, Gerardo Rodriguez ’07, Rich Golaszewski ’07, and Gabe Wilson ’07; and Kogod dean Richard Durand. —SA |
