Tough Calls: Business Decision-Makers’ Competition

v Analyze the given case and make decisions and plans for the company. We will select the groups that made top quality decisions and plans.

v Qualification: SolBridge Full-time BBA and MBA students

•      Please form a group of 3-4 students (minimum 3 and maximum 4)

v Three Tracks

1)   Junior level (BBA 1 & 2);

2)   Senior level (BBA 3 & 4);

3)   MBA level

※ Separate competitions by different levels

v How to participate?

•      Submit an application by October 16 (http://goo.gl/forms/K2TzgkjktD)and then submit your report by November 1.

v Selection Process 

•      Top 5 groups in each level will be invited to the semi-final competition on November 10 and then top 2 groups will be determined.

–     Judges ask questions on the decisions and plans made by the groups.

–     The best two groups in each level will be invited to the final round.

•      On November 27, top 2 groups will make presentations and answer questions asked by judges and the audience. With the evaluation on each group’s performance, #1 group in each level will be determined.

v Cases (Pick up the Senior-level and MBA-level cases from Room 1207)

•      Junior level: (For Junior level, there is no case study. Collect data and information to answer the case written below)

–     Producing Abroad or domestic? Suppose your company is producing certain products which are very popular in your country and you want to expand your market worldwide. Please describe the main factors and how these factors will affect your decisions on whether you should produce domestically and export those commodities or you should directly build a factory abroad and produce there?

•      Senior level:

–     Qihoo, one of the largest Internet companies in China today, was founded in 2005. The company started its business by offering a security software product, and quickly dominated the market in China after its unusual move of giving its product away for free in 2009. Later, it expanded its offering to cover a broad spectrum of Internet and mobile security products. In 2012 the company launched its own Internet search engine called So.com. By August 2013, So.com captured 18% PC market share, and had posed a threat to Baidu, China's largest and most established search engine provider. Yet to compete against Baidu and other Chinese Internet giants in the long run, Qihoo needed to find a way to replicate its PC market success in the mobile market. How could Qihoo continue to evolve its search engine business and what was the best mobile strategy to help company grow?

•      MBA level:

–     In 2012, Marissa Mayer became the CEO of Yahoo!, a tech giant with a tumultuous past. When Mayer tries to reinvigorate the company, she hires Jacqueline Reses, who has a private equity background, to head both human resources and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). As part of Mayer's turnaround strategy, Reses looks to build a mobile technology product development team by executing an "acquisition-hire" (i.e., "acqui-hire") to acquire New York City-based start-up Stamped, a mobile application company launched by former Google employees, Robby Stein and Bart Stein. Without an M&A team that is fully staffed and before new acquisition processes have been formalized, Reses must decide whether acquiring Stamped is a wise strategy. The case also considers the perspective of Robby and Bart and explores if selling Stamped to Yahoo! and transitioning the Stamped team into Yahoo!'s mobile product development team is the right exit strategy for their start-up.

v Important Dates

•      Submission deadline for Application – October 16, 2015

•      Report Submission Deadline – November 1, 2015

•      Semi-final –November 13, 2015

•      Final –November 27, 2015

v Prizes

•      We will award the top groups in each track up to 2 million KRW

v Author guidelines:

•      Topic: Work on the topic of your relevant level

•      Length: Up to 25 pages excluding the title page and back pages (References and Appendix).

•      References and supplementary information: The authors should include at least 10 current references as well. Good references would mean that academic journals, major newspapers or magazines, or sources from government agencies and companies’ press releases. Please try to avoid citing sources like blogs and personal websites.

•      Format: Use Times New Roman 12-point type, double-spaced, and A4 page setting with margins of 2.54 cm or one inch. Follow the APA style for other format (For your information, look into this website – https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01)

•      Contents organization: The suggested basic format for your paper is as following: 1. Executive Summary, 2. Table of Content, 3. Situation Analysis, 4. Problems found in Situation Analysis 5. Strategic Alternatives for Solving Problems, 6. Selection of Strategic Alternatives and Implementation, 7. Summary, 8. Appendices.

v Case Study Grading Rubric

•      Each item is rated on the following rubric.

1= Very poor

2 = Poor

3 = Adequate

4 = Good

5 = Excellent

Group Members:  _______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

Assigned Case Study:____________________________      Date:__________________

            Total Score: ________ (sum of Items 1-5)

Total Score X 4: ________  (to make the assignment of 100 points)

Comments:

v For more information and submission of report to

•      ck1competition@solbridge.ac.kr