On Oct. 29, the Broad College’s International Business Center conducted its first ever International Business Case Competition, in hopes of granting undergraduate students the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills to global case studies.

The competition was open to all undergraduate Broad Spartans and consisted of seven teams, each with four students. After three days working on the business case — which focused on exploring export opportunities involving a U.S. pet food company — the teams prepared 20-minute presentations and pitched their solution to a panel of judges.

“While many students took part in this type of competition for the first time, I was impressed by the level of student involvement, level of analysis and overall quality of presentations,” Victor Chernetsky, marketing doctoral student and case competition coach, said.

The judges consisted of MSU alumni and members of the business community currently working in a range of industries. They deliberated to ultimately award first place and a grand prize of $2,000 to first-year students Devangi Deoras, Luke Farinella and Mishthi Kapoor. (Their fourth team member was unable to attend due to illness.)

Ahmet Kirca, director of IBC and MSU-CIBER and associate professor of international business and marketing, with the winning team.

“The winning team had a strong presentation covering all key elements, such as analysis of the company, comparison of alternative markets, detailed market and consumer analysis of the target market,” Chernetsky said. “Finally, the team members impressed judges by their energy, positive attitude and acting as one team.”

In addition, the results of this inaugural competition assist in identifying teams of MSU students to compete at a national level. Just last year, Chernetsky coached and led students to participate in three national international case competitions, which helped to inspire the creation of the Broad-specific event.

“This competition is only the beginning,” Chernetsky said.

Ahmet Kirca, director of IBC and MSU-CIBER and associate professor of international business and marketing, also shared how the event exceeded his expectations and how it has built a foundation to continue forward.

“We are going to establish the Broad IB case competition as an annual event, and I hope that it will be a major event in the college in the future,” he said.