#casecompetition

Bloomsburg University international business students claim top honors at CUIBE case competition

BLOOMSBURG — Bloomsburg University’s Global Business Association took first place at the 2021 University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education (CUIBE) International Business Case Competition, held virtually in March.  

BU’s international business students,, Carolyn Benner, Glenn Klinger, Maranda Plunkett, and Patrick Dorsey, provided a thorough strategic analysis and recommended strategic actions for a company pertaining to a relevant area of international business. 

“The competition judges were impressed with the quality of the solutions, the depth of the analysis, and the professionalism exhibited by the team,” said professor Lam Nguyen, the team’s adviser and chair of the Department of Management and International Business. “The CUIBE IB Case Competition is extremely competitive and BU’s team placed ahead of all of other competing schools is a testament to the high-quality international business major program that we are offering to our students. I am proud of our students' dedication, hard work, and accomplishments. I want to also commend associate professor Wai Kwan (Elaine) Lau who is also coaching the team with me.”

Bloomsburg scored higher than teams from Michigan State University, Temple University, University of Oklahoma, Washington University in St. Louis, and five others to claim the top honor.

International Business (B.S.B.A.)

Bloomsburg University’s international business program is uniquely designed with a qualitative liberal arts foundation, a business core, an interdisciplinary IB core including a short-term faculty-led study abroad opportunity, and a functional specialization that provides you with functional skills in addition to the required business core and IB major knowledge, which increases your job marketability after graduation. As an international business major, you'll develop a global mindset, global competencies, and an appreciation of cultural and global differences that will give you the edge in the global job market.

International Business Specializations

 o International Business - Accounting  o International Business - Finance  o International Business - Human Resource Management  o International Business - Information Technology  o International Business - Marketing  o International Business - Economics *  o International Business - Policy and Globalization *

    * Collaboration with College of Liberal Arts

Graduates with an international business expertise are projected to be in an increasing demand, as the gross domestic products (GDP) of both developed and developing countries continue to rely more heavily on international trade and investment.

 o Program Requirements  o Course Sequence

Why study international business?

I woke up at 4:30 because I had to meet my group by 5:30 and I needed some time to get to our business school. I was there first and low and behold, Murphy’s law came true. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. So I spent 30 minutes waiting for my team in which one member showed up but then our two other teammates were unaccounted for. An hour later, we pick up our third teammate and head to the airport. It wouldn’t be such a big deal except our fourth teammate is our team leader and we had no idea what happened to him or why we were unable to contact him.

Our driver to the airport was great at waiting on us and showing interest in our lives but he also did one of my biggest pet peeves. In college students are worried about their future and that can often cause fears and worries to rise to the surface whenever anything regarding their path in life is mentioned. Well, this driver literally criticized my uncertainty in my future plans. When people you don’t even know are giving you unsolicited opinions about their future, it is so beyond rude. You don’t even know them, they don’t know you, and yet they’re giving you their “wisdom” on life. It’s unbelievably rude.

Nevertheless, we got on our first plane from Charlottesville to Chicago, and our second plane from Chicago to Indiana. From there, we took a shuttle from Indianapolis to Bloomington. I have to say that Indianapolis is a pretty cool place. You can definitely tell it’s the Midwest because when you’re driving through, the fields are flat and not full of grass like in Virginia, and it was kind of bleak outside but I was pleasantly surprised. Our journey began at 8 and we got to Bloomington by 3:15ish.

Then the day began. For the beginning of the case competition/conference, we all got dressed up and received welcome anouncements. Next was the networking. There was 21 tables of companies to network with and tons of students (170!). It lasted for 2 hours. We would have a conversation with each company for 4 minutes and then rotate. After a while, talking that much was exhausting. It was cool to see the companies. However, since this was a business case competition, a lot of the companies were corporate and it would be nice to have startups. As I am thinking of media as my career path, I felt like I wasn’t the best fit for the companies and marketing was too similar to sales for me to consider pursuing it.

After networking, we had dinner in which Charlene Vance gave a wonderful speech about persistence and determination. She definitely gave a wonderful presentation and it was great to see her energy revitalize those of us who were competing. After dinner, my team and I figured out our parts for speaking and what we wanted to say. I was up until 1 practicing before bed.

The next morning, we were up by 6:30, and walked over to the Kelley Business School. I am annoyed that I didn’t get any pictures of the school but it was incredibly beautiful. Indiana University is great and the stone structure works well for a place that is pretty dreary due to weather. We ate breakfast, practiced a few times in front of our advisor, and got ready to present at 10:15. It was nervewracking, and I remember getting in front of company executives and shaking. One executive came in late and we were waiting in anticipation. Our presentation went well. We all spoke eloquently and articulately. We were able to answer questions well and it was an achievement on our part.

Unfortunately, we lost. We thought that we would go to the second round or place as the runnerup, but we didn’t place at all. It was a fun trip. I got to see a cool new university, eat at some very good places, and create something from nothing that I am proud of. My team didn’t win but we tried our best and that is enough.

Throughout the post, I put in some cool pictures. I got my own hotel room, which was awesome! We got a cool t-shirt. National Diversity Case Competition 2020! #NDCC2020 The beginning of dinner. A few airport pictures. Can you believe I was on 4 planes in 3 days?! A picture of my professional outfit – shiny shoes and black pants. My new IU hat. It’s comfy and definitely a lifesaver when we reached Indianapolis on our way back to school and 15 minutes outside meant frostbite.

Thanks friends for reading this weekend in my life! Tell me if you want to see more in my comments below.

  Signing off,

Gigi

It's already a while ago, but this spring I was a participant of the Rotterdam100. A case competition for talented students and young professionals from different disciplines, working with big companies to solve challenges for the next economy. 

Friday, April 6th

After a selection procedure in February, I was nominated as a candidate for the MatchMaking day together with 250 other talented individuals. During this event, I was introduced to the participating companies and I had to pitch for the consumer-goods company Unilever to become one of the 100 participants. At the end of the day, I have made it to the Unilever team which enabled me to visit Unilever's office ‘De Brug’ and ABN AMRO’s new pavilion CIRCL at the Zuid-as. This circular building is besides being incredibly beautiful, also a source of innovative solutions which fitted the Rotterdam100 spirit. Another plus is that they serve incredible food with seasonal and locally-sourced ingredients;)

Foto by CIRCL

Thursday, May 24th 15:00 - Friday, May 25th 21:00 (including 3 hours of sleep)

The 24hour Creation Day (which was definitely longer than the 24 hours) was held in the Rotterdam Science centre. This final day was full of workshops, brainstorm sessions and no sleep. The case we worked on for Unilever was focussed on plastic waste reduction. Unilever is becoming more and more sustainable over the years, but there is still an enormous amount of plastic waste to be found in the ocean. Together with Denis Banuoku, Duco Kuiper and Jennifer van Dulfen, we wanted to empower communities to create shared value through innovative and sustainable farming solutions. This resulted in a product called Reclickables, a modular system of clickable units made out of used plastic bottles, to grow your own plants. 

Foto’s by SMO

Hiiiii everybody, we need your help, support & love!!! Our team‪#‎SuperFantastisk‬ is on the way to the final final round of L'Oréal Brandstorm (Official) 2016 very soon :D (yay!) Please send us your love & support by casting your vote to team Super Fantastisk in this page :-) Support us, support Nordic, Asia, hard work & innovative ideas! Much love <3