Countdown to Guatemala NIBS 2018

Case competitions - What are they?

A case competition is an event where teams of 4 receive a case study for a limited period of time. During this period, the teams must identify the most prominent issues facing the company and develop a strategy to address these key issues in order to help companies achieve their goals. Winning strategies require attention to detail, creativeness and business acumen when presenting recommendations. Whilst competition formats differ around the world, the essence is for students to emulate industry practices and apply technical knowledge. Case teams must be able to work together to present a cohesive recommendation to a mock board of directors who judge their work. However, this is only an aspect of the experiences available at a case competition. Case competitions also allow students to network with other motivated and talented students and industry professionals from around the world through informal social gatherings and formal roundtable discussions of contemporary business issues (UCC, 2018).

NIBS case competition - What is it?

We are delighted to represent DIT. We are BSc Marketing students and have qualified for the final of the Network of International Business Schools (NIBS) International Case Study Competition, one of the top 16 teams from an initial entry of 44 Business Schools who entered this prestigious competition. This is the longest established international business case competition globally with 2018 marking its 23rd year of operation and is running from 24th February to 3rd March 2018. The competition is unique as each year a different university hosts the competition making it a truly global event. The Faculty of Economics and Business (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales) at the Universidad Del Istmo, Guatemala are this years hosts.

DIT College of Business along with many of its’ International university partners, are members of The Network of International Business Schools since 2000. More than 800 students have participated in the Championship Round of the competition since its inception in 1996 and DIT has participated in 12 finals since first entering in 2001 (DIT, 2018).

Our story so far:

This process started back in October 2017, we participated and qualified from internal qualification round. Next we had the big task to qualify for the NIBS case competition. We had 8 hours to upload 1500 word report of all our findings on the case we were presented with. We then had the anxious wait to see if we had qualified. Thankfully we did, then the hard work started. We returned two weeks earlier in January from our christmas break to start preparation. From then on we did two cases a week every case presenting a new problem that we had to solve. With the help of our esteemed coaches Roger Sherlock & Gerry Mortimer, and the help of various lectures in DIT (Tara Rooney, Alan McCormack, Serge Basini, Siobhan O'Regan, Paul Donnelly, Donnacha Ryan, Lesley Murphy, Michele Crepaz, Aileen Kennedy) and our own colleagues we feel we have grown every week and are reaching new heights. We are more than prepared to tackle the high competition in a weeks time in Guatemala.

Join us on our trip:

We created this website and company, as a platform to enhance our digital profiles, and also to blog our experience of our time in Guatemala. Our plan is to give daily updates on how we are getting on each day. Be sure to follow our journey on our LinkedIn profiles and our company Twitter handle.

Keith McCabe - LinkedIn Profile

Hamaad Sajid - LinkedIn Profile

Orlaith Keys - LinkedIn Profile

Shaun Spelman - LinkedIn Profile

Twitter - Profile