Singapore silver for Team Beedie at APEX Global Case Challenge

The Beedie School of Business APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge team. From left to right: Carlos Hernandez, Robin Orford, Kyle Krystalowich and team coach Dr. Kamal Masri.

The Beedie School of Business continued its recent winning form in university case competitions by grabbing the silver medal at the high-profile APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge.

The competition, hosted by Singapore Management University (SMU) from May 12 to 16, is regarded as one of the top management information systems case competitions in the world, and this year featured 24 top universities from as far afield as Germany, Denmark, Hong Kong, Australia, and the US.

The team’s second place finish in this year’s competition sees the Beedie School of Business go one better than the bronze medal achieved in the 2012 Apex competition. It is also the fourth time in this global-class competition’s five year history where a team from the Beedie School of Business has finished in the top four.  

The Beedie team, consisting of undergraduate students Carlos Hernandez, Kyle Krystalowich and Robin Orford, along with team coach and Beedie lecturer Dr. Kamal Masri, navigated three rounds of judging to emerge with the silver prize.

Additionally, team member Robin Orford received an honourable mention from the judges as best speaker among all competitors.

“The APEX competition allowed us as representatives of the Beedie School of Business to compare ourselves to students from top schools across the globe,” said Krystalowich. “The team spent over four months preparing, and we would not have achieved our level of performance without the advice and guidance of our coach, Kamal Masri. After this experience each of the team now has the confidence to tackle real world technology and business issues.”

The APEX Biz-IT Global Case Challenge invites undergraduate students from universities across the world to propose solutions to real-life scenarios focused on Information Systems solutions, corporate transformation imperatives and business impacts.

Competing teams were given 24 hours to develop a business recommendation on their case before presenting to a panel of judges. After advancing through the opening two rounds, the Beedie team were faced with two components for the final, requiring them to spend 12 hours preparing for the main presentation, followed by one hour to prepare for a lightning round.

“The students delivered a fantastic presentation and to take silver in such a world class international competition is truly a memorable result,” said Masri. “The team finished ahead of 22 other major universities across the globe to show the world, once again, that the Beedie School of Business has some of the world’s top MIS students.”

The Beedie School’s top three finish in the APEX competition is the latest in a string of excellent results the school has enjoyed in case competitions. Earlier this year, the Beedie School of Business was named Academic School of the Year at JDC West, while BBA teams recently obtained podium finishes at the Belgrade Business International Case Competition, the Royal Roads University International Undergraduate Case Competition, and the International Case Competition in Maastricht.