College teams selected for final round of Canada’s most prestigious business competition

Okanagan College Media Release

The Inter-collegiate Business Case Competition (ICBC) hosted by Queen’s University isn’t just Canada’s longest-running business competition – it is also the largest, most prestigious and is now open to the top business schools in Asia.

Every year Queen’s invites a select group of universities and one college to compete – that one college happens to be Okanagan College.

Okanagan College recently received the news that two of its six teams made it through the preliminary round to the final round, which takes place at Queen’s University from Jan. 6 -8, 2011. This will be the fourth time in five years a team from Okanagan College has made it to the finals.

The team of Robert Maier, Ramandeep Dhaliwal and Robert Moore will travel with coaches Lee Cartier and Laura Thurnheer to compete for national honours in Business Policy against teams from Wilfrid Laurier University, McGill University, Bishop’s University, the University of Calgary, and the National University of Singapore.

“We are doubly excited, as this is the second year in a row that a Business Policy team has advanced to the final round in Kingston. It really demonstrates how well prepared our businesses graduates are to take their place in the business world,” says Cartier.

A second team of students - Shawn Miller and Corey Wein - will compete in the Caro Systems MIS (Management Information Systems) event against Queen’s University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Brock University, the University of British Columbia and McGill University. The duo is coached by professor Glen Coulthard.

“The fact that these students have taken a single MIS course and are able to compete at such a high level speaks volumes about their ability to integrate, apply, and communicate all that they have learned in our program,” says Coulthard.

In the preliminary round, teams are presented with business cases and are charged with analyzing them to uncover weaknesses and provide solutions to strengthen the business, product or service. The cases are sent to invited participants by ICBC judges and teams are given a deadline to have their preliminary cases complete.

The top six finalists in seven categories (Okanagan College participated in six of those preliminary categories) travel to Kingston in January where they are presented with a brand new case and work under might tighter time constraints. The teams are given five hours to analyze the new case and spend just 20 minutes before a panel of industry expert judges where they present their case.

To find out more about the competition, visit: www.icbconline.ca.