UW Global Business Case Competition 2019 – 21st Anniversary
Last week, the Global Business Center celebrated the 21st anniversary of UW Foster’s Global Business Case Competition (GBCC). Sixteen undergraduate teams, representing ten countries, competed for the title of UW GBCC Champion. The teams and their respective countries were:
- Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
- Bishop’s University, Canada
- Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
- Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
- Erasmus University, The Netherlands
- Florida State University, USA
- IE University, Spain
- Korea University, Korea
- Maastricht University, The Netherlands
- Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Thammasat University, Thailand
- Tsinghua University, China
- University of Melbourne, Australia
- University of Minnesota, USA
- University of Southern California, USA
- University of Washington, USA
GBCC teams tackled both a short and long case during the week. On Thursday, teams analyzed an excerpt of the short case, “Netflix Dynamic Capabilities for Global Success,” published by Sage Business Cases; supplemented by the New York Times article, “Netflix’s Audience Is Multiplying, But So Is Its Debt”. The case asked teams to analyze and understand external threats to Netflix, boardroom style, to a team of business executives on Thursday afternoon.
On Friday morning, teams received GBCC’s long case, “Amazon Go Stores: New Directions in Grocery Retailing.” This case, written by Foster faculty member Dr. Debra Glassman, asked teams to prepare a strategic plan for Amazon Go’s global expansion. The plan had to include two parts: (1) identification of three strategies for taking the Amazon Go innovations to global markets and (2) recommendations for an implementation plan of the team’s top strategy option. On Saturday morning, after 24-hours of analysis, sixteen teams entered into the preliminary rounds. Only four were selected to move on to the finals: Chulalongkorn University, Copenhagen Business School, University of Melbourne, and Maastricht University.
The finalists presented their recommendations to an enthusiastic crowd of students and community members in Shansby Auditorium on Saturday afternoon. The competition was fierce but, in the end, after an hour and a half of deliberation, the judges chose Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) as this year’s GBCC Champion. Chulalongkorn University took home second place honors. The winners were announced Saturday evening at the GBCC 21st annual Award Reception, held at the Foster School of Business. Teams heard from case author and Faculty Director of the Global Business Center, Dr. Debra Glassman, and Jeri Wait, Final Round Judge and Founder of Orca Wave.
Copenhagen Business School Champions
We would like to acknowledge the hard work of our GBCC Student Leadership Team who spent countless hours organizing this big event. And finally, GBCC would not be possible without our major sponsors:
The Boeing Company
Costco Wholesale
F5 Networks
Starbucks Coffee Company
Wells Fargo
UW GBCC 2019 Leadership Team
Back Row: Gary Wu, Daniel Zhang, Sommer Weeks, Brianna Nguyen, Kristina Moutafov, Mike Guevarra; Front Row: Jamie Villanueva, Olivia Ling, Jennifer Chen, Mary Truong
