Past Case Competitions
We received evaluations from 36 students: The event received much praise from the participants. Attendees expressed great satisfaction with the content and overall hosting of the event. Here are some representative comments: “This is a fantastic event. Keep up the good work.” “This has been an excellent experience. I am so thankful to have gotten to be a part of it.” “Great event!” “I truly enjoyed my experience here and took a lot from this competition. I am thankful for the opportunity.” “I will like to thank the organizers of the CIBER Case Competition and they should keep doing this to encourage students.” Who is Chisato? The experience Chisato had at Emirates became her great asset. She truly enjoyed assisting people and developing cultural awareness. She decided to study accounting at Georgia State University (GSU) after she left Emirates. Chisato was thrilled to participate in the CIBER international business case competition in her last semester as an undergraduate student at GSU as she saw it as an opportunity to test her ability and knowledge in international business and accounting. The Winner Team Left to right: Meritt Rabson, Florida Institute of Technology; Chisato Smith, Georgia State University; Kelsey Washington, Savannah State University; Marcel Toran, Johnson C. Smith University Her reflections on the IB Case Competition hosted by GSU-CIBER Click to access the photo gallery The competition was held March 26-27, 2015, and was structured as previous CIBER competitions with approximately 9 teams of 4 students with different majors from Albany State University, Clark Atlanta University, Florida Institute of Technology, Georgia Perimeter College, Georgia State, Kennesaw State University, LaGrange College, Oakwood University and Southern University at New Orleans. On the first day of the competition, the students had an opportunity to socialize and get to know their team members. A visit to the World of Coca Cola was included in the program. Following the introduction, students received an international business case and guidelines about the submission procedures, as well as overall ground rules. Students then began working on their solutions due that evening. On the morning of March 27th, four non-GSU faculty members and four senior executives from the Atlanta business community, including Rahm Sitaraman, retired dir., Eurasia and Africa Franchise Leadership Development, the Coca-Cola Co.; Frank Blount, CEO and chairman of the venture capital company, JI Ventures Inc., Trevor Williams, Global Atlanta’s managing editor, and Rahim Charania, founder and CEO of American Fueling Systems, formed a panel of judges. Upon completion of round 1, two semi-finalist teams proceeded to round 2. The judges jointly selected a winning team after Round 2. The winning team was composed of Brieanna Cannon, Oakwood University; Yahjah Brown, Southern University of New Orleans; Victor Westerlund, Florida Institute of Technology and Alexander Cann, Georgia Perimeter College. The competition concluded with an award ceremony for all participating students, faculty, advisors, and judges. This competition provided participating students with a real-life exposure to real business problems dealing with the concept of international business. It also provided an opportunity to improve their research and presentation skills. Additionally, students also had the opportunity to network with many professionals from the Atlanta business community, as well as with other peers from around the nation. The students were very well prepared, and they gave exceptional presentations with extensive analysis and convincing arguments. It was hard to believe that these students had only received the case few hours before the presentation was due. The competition was followed by an award lunch, during which the STARS team was announced as the winner, and both the first and second place teams were awarded. Dan Bogdan, a Perimeter College student from the STARS team, said “I was humbled and honored to be part of a team that took very seriously the task of competing against many brilliant minds of different students from different Southeastern Colleges / Universities. Not only did we come up with a positive, factual, and credible answer, as related to the task entrusted to us, but we also learned to trust each other’s wisdom, in a collaborative manner, putting our best skills at work in a selfless way, that eventually came to reward both, the team as a whole, and each individual member of it.” Overall, he thought the competition helped promote a culture of excellence, which is an asset that needs to be properly understood and practiced among the students if they would ever be successful in any professional, academic, or personal endeavor. Visit the gallery for 2013 IB Case Competition hosted by GSU-CIBER GSU Students Win Big at National Case Challenge Competition by Kirstie Brown Emily Palmeri, Vanessa Kropf, Jeremy Dollar and Ahmed Khairat GSU-CIBER celebrates the four undergraduate Robinson College of Business students — Jeremy Dollar, Ashley Knight, Ashley Shepard and Jonny Silberman — who competed in this year's (2011) CIBER Case Challenge at the University of Connecticut. Established a little over one year ago, CIBER already is building a strong reputation in the annual Case Challenge competition. Last year, GSU student Lateefah Taiwo competed on the challengeâs winning team. She and fellow 2010 GSU Case Challenger Alex Cannon met with this yearâs group to share advice. The team also received assistance from Professor Daniel Bello in the Institute of International Business, Craig Ruff in the Department of Finance, Walter Wallace and Marta White in the Department of Managerial Sciences, and the entire CIBER staff. Armed with helpful guidance, this yearâs Case Challengers proved they were strong competitors. Jeremy Dollar, a senior Finance and Philosophy double major, brought home the first place award, and Jonny Silberman, a senior Business Management–Economics student, took second place. Institutional teams of four students come from 15 business schools across the United States and abroad to compete in the Case Challenge. The students are then split from their school groups into teams of four with students from other institutions, including at least one international student. A student on each team represents a different business focus: Finance (including Accounting), Marketing, and Management and Operations. On the first day, the students complete different team building activities to better acquaint themselves with their new teammates, and at 9 a.m. the next morning, they receive their international business case. This year, teams received a 20-page case study on American Express and were asked to âresolveâ how the company could globally expand while maintaining their customer service program. Teams presented their resolutions starting at 8:30 a.m. the following morning. A writer for the Huffington Post, Stacie Nevadomski Berdan, described her admiration for the student competitors in a recent article, saying I was impressed by all the students for many reasons. They wanted to participate in a competitive and grueling competition. They worked through multiple cross-cultural obstacles, including different nationalities, language barriers and even diverse university cultures. But most of all I admire them for thinking globally throughout the competition. Jeremy Dollar described the preparation process as "really grueling... We worked for about 20 hours." Jonny Silberman said the biggest challenge was working with people from different backgrounds and commented it was difficult "coming from different perspectives." Both Silberman and Dollar agreed the experience was well worth the sleep deprivation and large coffee consumption necessary to complete their case presentation. Silberman reflected that the greatest moment was watching the "power of a team." Dollar and Silberman presented their awards to the CIBER office and are both eager to help next yearâs Case Challengers maintain GSU's winning tradition. 
This year’s international business case competition brings together 40 students from following 10 universities around the country on March 2-3, 2017 in Atlanta, GA: Alabama A&M University, Albany State University, Bowie State University, Claflin University, Florida Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Howard University, Johnson C. Smith University, Saint Augustine's University, and Savannah State University.Case Competition in Numbers
Selected Quotes from Participants
Chisato Smith's CIBER Case Competition Reflections
Chisato Smith was born in Japan and lived there for over 20 years. She received a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from Kyushu University in Japan. In her junior year, she studied abroad as an exchange student at University of Georgia (UGA) where she started growing her interest in foreign cultures and international business. After graduation, she worked for Emirates as a flight attendant for about 4 years and traveled to 44 countries.
“My team won the first prize of the International Business Case Competition. I believe that the biggest contributing factor to the victory is that all of us critically examined each other’s opinions and sought ways to polish them. As long as you maintain a professional manner, focus on the subject matter, and provide feedback in good faith, your feedback will contribute to improving your team’s final work and help your teammates. In fact, one of the judges asked a similar question as I had asked my teammate a night before the presentation!
Another important thing to keep in mind is preparation. We had a limited time for team building and preparation for the presentation. In order to spend the limited time efficiently, I recommend future participants to read the case and define the problem before starting the case discussion.
One thing my team should have done differently is to set a role for each team member at the beginning of the discussion (e.g., one person leading the discussion, one person creating the PowerPoint presentation, and two others researching). We figured out each member’s role during the discussion. However, if we set a role at the beginning of the discussion, our discussion could have been smoother.
Most importantly, enjoy solving the case and interacting with people! There is no right or wrong answer for the case. What most important is your thought process – whether you can critically analyze the case and offer feasible solutions. You should be confident in your opinion once you put a good amount of effort into solving the case! Also, I met many talented students from different universities. Conversations I had with highly motivated students stimulated me and broadened my view.
Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Cavusgil and Dr. White for giving me this great opportunity to intellectually challenge myself. I enjoyed every moment of the competition and feel more confident in tackling issues in the real business world after the competition.”
and get to know their team members that they are meeting for the first time. A visit to the Georgia aquarium was included in the program. Later that day, the students received an international business case and were guided to their rooms to work on their presentation due by 11:30 pm that evening. The next morning, four senior executives from the business community and four non GSU-faculty members formed the panel of judges and were divided in two rooms. In each room, four teams presented their case, and one team from each room was selected as a finalist to proceed to the second round. The two final teams, the STARS and the ANGELS, presented their case to all eight judges, and a winning team was chosen.
