There is an advisory board consisting of 19 highly successful industry representatives who guide the students throughout the e-ICC journey. Although the e-ICC is a completely student-run competition, Mr. Meder is involved actively from preparation until the end of the competition. He helps the organizing team find their way to approach the planning and execution.
As Marketing Organizer, I am responsible for strategizing the branding and promotion of e-ICC 2022: content creation for social media channels; execution of official communications on behalf of e-ICC 2022; creation of a detailed program booklet; promotion of sponsors; promotion of activities (such as volunteer recruitment and the case writing competition); as well as providing general assistance to the organizing team during the week of the competition.
Tell me more about the International Case Competition – what is the format and how does this competition differ from other case competitions around the world?
Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business MBA International Case Competition is the oldest and largest event of its kind. Since its inception in 1982, this prestigious event continues to provide a unique and international networking experience for students, academics, and business executives. For the past 40 years, the organizers, volunteers, judges, and sponsors, have contributed to creating more than just a competition – it is an opportunity to innovate, connect and compete. Our stakeholders include approximately 210 MBA competitors and coaches from around the globe, 300 local business executives acting as judges, and over 400 student volunteers.
The event takes place during the first week of January and involves 6 days of events with 7 cases (including a live case), and numerous networking and social activities.
Graduate-level business students from across the world participate in the competition, giving them the opportunity to network with their international peers while trying to win the grand prize of $10,000 CAD! High-quality cases are selected via the case writing competition and the event’s judges are carefully selected to ensure diversity. Our sponsors are some of the biggest names in their respective industries and many sponsors return every year because of the quality of students the competition attracts, and the excellent recruitment opportunities. For e-ICC 2022, sponsors included Bombardier, EDC, SuccessFinder, EY, CGI, CSL Behring, RBC, E2IP, SupremeX, KI HR, CN, PEAK, Alithya, Vacation Tracker and Meltwater.
The sheer scale at which ICC is organized and the number of stakeholders involved makes this event the most distinguished and the world’s largest MBA case competition of its kind!
How was it to organize this event during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Pandemic-related travel restrictions meant that we knew early on that all teams would be participating virtually from their respective countries. Hence, ICC was rebranded for this year as the John Molson School of Business MBA e-ICC 2022.
One of the biggest challenges was to manage the different time-zones where participants were located and to organize the competition fairly for all delegates. Judges and volunteers planned to be present throughout the event at Hotel Bonaventure in Montreal, Québec, where John Molson is located. All judges and volunteers were informed, trained and managed accordingly until December 2021.
Securing sponsorship monies, brand promotion, school recruitment, selection of cases, recruitment of volunteers, judges’ training, logistics, and finalization of technological vendors was all planned with the vision of executing the competition in a hybrid fashion. For more than nine months, our path was defined and we were predicting a more normal holiday season followed by an enthusiastic case competition for all stakeholders involved.
However, with less than two weeks before the start of the competition, further restrictions were put in place by the Quebec government due to the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant. This new wave meant that judges and volunteers were hesitant to come to the hotel, and rightly so. This led us to shift the e-ICC 2022 from a hybrid model to a completely virtual model. For it to work, we had to retrain our volunteers and judges on the new workflow, move the career fair online, modify or cancel the vendor deals for various logistical requirements, and move every aspect of the competition online.
We followed all the guidelines set by the government and hotel, dividing the organizing team as follows: one team would be at the hotel overseeing the logistical requirements of the event management platform, as well as other technological arrangements, while the other team would be operating remotely and executing their assigned tasks.
What followed was a phenomenal and hugely successful case competition! We are still getting emails and social media responses, especially via LinkedIn, on how the event lived up to its reputation. Participants were happy with the smooth and glitch-free virtual experience. Coaches were pleased with the quality of cases, and the fairness of the virtual judging experience. Judges were very satisfied with the overall approach and the high-quality presentations of the participating teams. The board of directors expressed how pleased they were with the overall execution and high-quality experience for everyone involved. Sponsors were swarmed at the virtual career fair, and were impressed by the overall caliber of potential candidates.
All the credit goes to the immensely adaptable, highly talented and hard-working organizing team and volunteers and, in sum, it was an incredible week for every stakeholder involved!
The John Molson e-ICC Organizing Committee (L to R): Hiral Parekh, Medrick Santavicca, Himanshu Srivastava, Connor Farley, Melissa Koury, Dylan Pearson, Nashit Vakil, Ishpuneet Singh
