A few days ago two teammates and I participated in the preliminary round of the West Coast Case Competition. Put on by Sauder’s Consulting Club, this competition, in its first year, asks participating teams to act as consulting firms and develop large scale solutions to a particular company’s problems.
The preliminary round case involved the well-known company Apple Inc. and asked teams to develop strategies that addressed Apple’s difficulties with dividing resources between new and old products, and also how they should develop and move forward with their unique retail strategy. The analysis of this case and the develop of our recommendations for this company required us to call upon all the knowledge we’ve amassed thus far in our education, including the big picture overviews we’ve received in Comm 486G of areas such as accounting, marketing, management information systems and supply chain management. Our team developed an approach that involved tapping into the market for company laptops by sending Apple outreach teams to targeted companies, changing the philosophy of Apple’s R&D department in order that they focus on one product at a time, and developing Apple’s feedback system.
Although our team did not advance to the final round, we gained valuable experience in case competition and consulting that most first year Sauder students do not get. I’m also looking forward to attending the final round as an onlooker in order to see the recommendations of more experienced teams and hopefully learn from them. This experience has peaked my interest in consulting as a possible career and its something that i would like to investigate further.