Third place for Lakeland’s case team

Business students had less than 10 hours to complete a real-world case study with no help during the 13th annual Alberta Deans of Business Case Competition last month.

“It was an honour to be a part of the business case team. The fiercely competitive nature of this competition makes you brainstorm hundreds of ideas until to settle for nothing but the best. Winning third place in this prestigious competition was a wonderful experience, and will always stay in my memories,” says Harmohit Singh, real estate appraisal and assessment major and Lakeland’s first international case team member.

When their time was up, the group wrapped up Friday’s competition day with four hours of fine-tuning their presentation with help from their faculty advisor Ben Acquaye, Lakeland business instructor. The following day, they presented their case to the judges.

"The experience was surreal. The hours in the war room seemed to fly by like seconds. We felt the pressure in the room, but the real butterflies came out minutes before we had to take the stage to perform. Third place means so much to us. It validates every second the team has spent practising and working towards this goal. We poured out our heart and soul into what we presented, and we could not be any prouder to represent Lakeland College. We truly proved that Lakeland is a force to be reckoned with and that we can roll with the big players as much as anyone,” says William Yap, business administration student.

Walker Grassl, general business administration major, added that the competition was a chance to apply all of their knowledge from their business courses to a real-life scenario.

“It showed that Lakeland does well in preparing its students for the real world. We also got to see how students from across the province are trained for business and winning third against such prestigious schools highlighted the fantastic job that Lakeland's faculty is doing at grooming us into a great team. It feels great to represent Lakeland and keep the winning tradition of the school alive in that competition, showing once again what our school is capable of. I firmly believe that the faculty of Lakeland will continue to put more winning teams together and I look forward to watching them succeed in the future.”

To prepare for the competition, the group completed practice case studies for four hours each week and presented their final practice case study in front of their sponsor, Metrix Group. The Business Department thanks Metrix Group for their continued sponsorship and support over the years. 

“The preparation was mentally exhausting – long hours of analyzing cases and preparing presentations. My favourite part of doing a case is the intellectual debate with my teammates about how to proceed. The best part of placing is knowing that all of the hours spent preparing paid off. It felt amazing to represent Lakeland in such a positive fashion and to show the post-secondary community that Lakeland College produces graduates who not only excel, they win,” says Rachel Lambert, business administration and Lakeland’s Board of Governor's student representative.

Morgan Sylvestre, bachelor of commerce and accounting student, added “It was a one of a kind experience. I’ve never done something like this before, so having the opportunity to enter the competition was worth it for me. It was challenging as the other 13 teams were the best of their respective colleges/universities, and their abilities were unknown to us, but the challenge was enjoyable and exciting. We spent many hours preparing for the competition and received a lot of feedback from our instructors, which I believe helped us and further equipped us to win the third place award.”

Photo: The team celebrates with their award cheque. From left to right are Walker Grassl, Harmohit Singh, Morgan Sylvestre, Rachel Lambert and William Yap.