The 15th annual Kogod Gartenhaus Financial Case Competition began Tuesday when 26 teams were first allowed to view a business problem and devise a strategy on how to solve it.
This year's question was announced Feb. 6 at 11:59 p.m. and involved a Latin American handmade goods exporting firm that is experiencing negative cash flows.
The teams will present their recommendations Saturday to panels of judges made up of AU alumni and local business executives, some who are also AU alumni.
The student-run competition is lead by a nine-person executive committee, which includes seven graduate students and two undergraduates.
JaNelle Hasty, a second-year graduate student in the Kogod School of Business, is the 2007 case competition chair.
"The Case Competition is intense, yet exhilarating," Hasty said. "Participants are performing at their highest academic and professional levels. The skills they gain here are invaluable and will be applicable for the rest of their careers."
According to Laura Barrantes, Kogod's student activities manager, the competition challenges students in a way similar to many Kogod classes by asking students to work together.
While a marketing class might work on a problem associated only with marketing and a finance class on one associated only with finance, the Case Competition problem will challenge students to use the breadth of their business understanding to solve the problem, according to Barrantes.
"It's a great opportunity for students to put the skills they're learning in the classroom into practice," Barrantes said. "They will have the opportunity to network with alumni and local executives and learn from their experiences as well."
The 26 teams are self-selected and are composed of Kogod students. Each team contains three to five participants and is made up of undergraduates or graduates or a combination.
Team presentations during the preliminary round will begin at 9:15 a.m. and will be conducted on the first floor of the Ward Circle Building. During this round every team will use a combination of oratory and visuals to present their recommendations to panels of five to six judges.
The final round will be judged by all 58 judges and will include five teams. Since the collective panel can only see one group at a time, finalist groups will be announced every 30 minutes from 12:30 p.m. until 2:30 p.m. so that each has an equal amount of time, half an hour, to review its recommendations and make any presentation changes, without changing any slides, as it sees fit.
The final round will take place in Ward 2 and is open to the public.
The top three teams will each receive a plaque and a cash prize. The top undergraduate team, which can also be one of the winning teams, will receive a special honor: the Slivinski Award, which also includes a cash prize.
The top undergraduate team will represent AU at the University of Maryland Case Competition, and the top graduate team will represent AU at the George Washington Case Competition.
This year's panel of judges consists of representatives from 49 firms and organizations, including IBM, Northrop Grumman, Time Warner Cable and The Futures Group.
Gartenhaus Financial, the sponsor organization for the 2007 Case Competition that will also help judge the contest, is headed by Howard Gartenhaus, founder and president of the company, certified fund specialist and an AU alum.
