Part Competition, Part Fun!

Department of Business and Economics

Overview


BBA Student Competitions and Awards



Gold Medal Business Award
Marketing Gold Medal
Economics Gold Medal
The Gold Shoe Award
Business Case Competition


 

Gold Medal Business Award

The Gold Medal Business Award is given to the BBA graduating student with the highest overall average mark from among the core courses of the BBA program.

Marketing Gold Medal

This award is given to the BBA graduating student in recognition of achieving the highest overall average mark in the BBA - Specialization in Marketing Program.

Economics Gold Medal

This award is given to the BBA graduating student in recognition of achieving the highest overall average mark in the BBA – Specialization Economics Program. 

The Gold Shoe Award

In 'The Business Strategy Game' (BSG), class members are divided into teams and assigned to run an athletic footwear company in head-to-head competition against companies run by other class members. Companies compete in a global market arena, selling branded and private-label athletic footwear in four geographic regions—Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Decisions from all teams are entered into the software program on a weekly basis and a team ranking is determined based on the validity of individual team decisions when compared to the combined strategies and decisions of all teams. The Gold Shoe Award is presented to the team with the best performance based on how well each BSG company is able to meet or beat the 5 performance targets which board members have set for the company’s management team (EPS, ROE, Credit Rating, Image Rating and Stock Prices).


Athletic footwear makes an excellent setting for a strategy simulation for four important reasons:

  1. A simulation always has more power to engage students and stimulate learning when it entails a product like athletic footwear that they are intimately familiar with and when it is easy for them to grasp the workings of the industry.
  2. Modeling 'The Business Strategy Game' to mirror the real-world global athletic footwear industry is particularly fitting for a strategy simulation because the product is used worldwide, there’s competition among companies from several continents, production plants are geographically scattered, and the real world marketplace is populated with companies employing a variety of competitive approaches and business strategies.
  3. A simulation with a globally competitive market setting (as opposed to just a domestic market setting) is especially desirable because globalization is an ever-widening business reality and global strategy issues are a standard part of strategy courses.
  4. Accreditation standards for business school programs routinely require that the core curriculum include international business topics and the managerial aspects of operating in a global marketplace.

Business Case Competition

This competition brings to a conclusion the fourth-year Business Strategy and Policy class and continues the process of developing students’ analytic and behavioural skills, through team-based analysis of business issues and the planning of realistic, action-oriented solutions! Throughout the course, students have studied various business cases, and have been required to develop and defend a rational solution to the challenges posed by the material, in formal presentations to the class.

The purpose of these cases is to introduce students to difficult business situations requiring clear decisions and resolute actions. Successful business professionals need to be able to make sound analytic judgments under time constraints, in ambiguous settings, and involving many stakeholders. They also need to be able to garner cooperation and agreement within the team and be able to communicate their analysis and decisions concisely, clearly, and persuasively.

For the final case study assignment, teams present their analysis and solution to a group of judges selected from the local business community. The team judged as best, based on its accurate assessment of the key challenges, practical and innovative solution, and professionalism, receives the Business Case Competition Award.