MONTREAL – For the sixth consecutive year, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) participated in Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (JMSB) MBA International Case Competition held at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
The five-member team (four of them women) was among 36 from business schools in 19 countries on six continents. BGU was the first (and so far the only) Israeli university competing, and was also the first from the Middle East.
This year, the 35th annual edition of the student-run competition, the region was also represented by the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon.
The Israelis’ presence is made possible by funds raised by the Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University’s local chapter. The organization hosted the team and its two coaches at a pre-competition reception, cheered them on at the case presentations, and showed them around the city.
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The teams tackle dilemmas real businesses around the world face and orally present their solutions to judges, selected from a pool of 270 local executives.
BGU has yet to make the semi-finals in its six outings, but the 2016 team racked up two wins and 83 points within its six-team division. This allowed it to pull ahead of the University College Dublin.
The division winner was Germany’s Heinreich Heine University (HHU) of Düsseldorf with three wins and 129 points, followed by JMSB, which wound up with three wins and 122 points. Both then moved on to the semi-finals, among nine other schools.
In total points across divisions, BGU finished ahead of such respected U.S. schools as Kent State University and the University of Arizona. AUB ended with a single win and 48 points.
Things looked shaky for BGU after the first three cases, by which time it had racked up only nine points and no wins.
The team registered its first victory during the fourth round – the “live case” – scooping up 46 points.
A highlight of the competition, a company, which remains undisclosed until the day of the case, poses an actual current problem within their organization, and participants must come up with a realistic solution.
BGU’s successful presentation was made for Beauty & Go, a Spanish company that makes drinks that purport to make skin look more youthful.
In the fifth case, the last in regular competition, the Israelis bested their Irish division mates in a challenge to develop a five-year plan for a financial services company in rural India, taking advantage of government incentives.
That they excelled in such an area of business development is not surprising because all of the students are enrolled in the social leadership MBA program, launched in 2012, at BGU’s Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management.
Established with the U.S.-based Mandel Foundation, the program is unique in Israel and has few parallels anywhere in the world, said the team’s head coach, Yaron Lahav, an assistant professor who holds a PhD from Emory University. He was assisted by Meital Magid, a management consultant and an honours MBA graduate from BGU, who was a participant in the 2011 JMSB competition.
The 15-month program is divided equally between the same management courses as those in the regular MBA program, and courses related to the “third sector,” preparing graduates for executive positions in non-profit organizations.
The students typically work while they study.
The team members were: Avigayil Heimowitz, who directs the marketing department of Ein Prat—The Midrasha, which brings together young Israelis across the religious and political spectrum; Hadara Steinberg, a project manager at MindCET, a centre developing educational technology (her mother is from Ottawa); Elisha Golbar, who works at the Adanim village for youth at risk; Shachar Liran-Hanan, a StandWithUs activist trying to improve Israel’s image in the world, who directs the new My Truth, a soldiers group trying to counter Breaking the Silence; and Gili Swary, who works at Maala-Business for Social Responsibility, an advocate for good corporate citizenship in Israel.
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While in Montreal, all of the participants had a chance to network when not dealing with case conundrums, and relax at social activities, such as a Montreal Canadiens-New Jersey Devils hockey game and a comedy night with local standup Joey Elias.
CABGU is proud of the team’s performance, even if they were not in the upper ranks.
“Our BGU students exhibited intelligence, creativity and stamina and, as objective as we try to be, the unanimous feeling among our supporters was that the BGU team outperformed the others and really should have won the second and third cases,” said Ellayne Kaplan, CABGU Quebec Region director.
The first-place team was HHU, which went home with $10,000 and the Concordia Cup.