Beedie Peak and Elite case competitions promote experiential learning

The Elite Case Challenge winning team. From left to right: Denitsa Doncheva, Jeremie Lachance, Sofiya Bychkova, Jessy van Kooten, and Casey Dorin, Executive Director, Undergraduate Programs at the Beedie School of Business.

Beedie School of Business undergraduate students applied their skills and knowledge to real-world business problems this past month at the annual Peak Performance and Elite case competitions.

The Peak and Elite case competitions are internally organized competitions, designed to introduce students to the case competition experience. Competing students have 24 hours to prepare their presentations, and are offered a nurturing learning environment supported by staff, faculty, and student peers.

Case competitions challenge students with real world business problems that they must solve within a limited period of time. This provides them with an opportunity to learn and strengthen a number of skills, such as analytical, problem solving, and presentation. Competing students receive advice from coaches and constructive feedback from industry judges, while the senior students who serve as coaches develop important mentoring skills.

The Peak and Elite Case Competitions participants attended case analysis training workshops offered by faculty and alumni during June in order to prepare. The teams then presented their cases to an extensive group of alumni, faculty, and community partners who volunteered their time as judges.

The 2014 Peak Performance Case Competition was held on July 5 at SFU’s Burnaby Campus, with competing teams consisting of four first and second year students coached by a senior student. The winning team was SICA Consulting, comprised of BBA students Sandy Shen, Isha Suri, Alicia Chan and Christina Van, and coached by Felix Cheu.

The 2014 Elite Case Challenge, held on July 19 at SFU’s Surrey Campus, is contested by senior student teams, and was this year won by Can-Pacific Consulting, comprised of students Denitsa Doncheva, Jeremie Lachance, Jessy van Kooten, and Sofiya Bychkova.

“Case competitions have become an important part of the Beedie undergraduate experience over the last two years,” said Rosanne Ng, Undergraduate Programs Student Engagement and Recruitment Manager at the Beedie School of Business. “With the support of numerous alumni, faculty and industry partners who have volunteered their time as coaches or judges, we have been able to developed an engaging environment for our students to learn how to solve problems challenging businesses today.”

For more information on case competitions at the Beedie School of Business, visit https://beedie.sfu.ca/competitions/ or for a student perspective on the Peak Performance Case Competition, read winning team member Sandy Shen’s Experience Beedie blog post.