Corvinus students win three gold medals in business case solving competitions this year 

In the international general business case solving competitions this year, Corvinus achieved excellent results. In view of the successes achieved, the members of the tournament winning teams and their coaches were welcomed by the rector of the university, Előd Takáts. They spoke about the students’ experience in the competitions and how, thanks to the three gold medals, Corvinus was invited to the Champions’ Trophy, a general business case solving competition for the twelve most successful universities.

The first victory of the year was achieved at the RSM Star Case Competition in Rotterdam. The team, consisting of Réka Kovács, Kíra Szabó, András Zareczky and Péter Zombori, solved two cases during the one week competition. The first example was the 12-hour case of Domino’s Pizza, which focused on how the company could tackle the current shortage of pizza delivery staff. The second example was the 24-hour case of IKEA: it asked how the furniture company can adapt and meet the needs of customers in the future.

Our team, prepared by Bence Pistrui, performed excellently. They were congratulated personally by the CEO of Domino’s, who stated that they will propose the implementation of the business solution at their next board meeting. With the second solution presented to IKEA, they won their division, as well as the final, and, thanks to the two successful results, the overall competition. Following their success with IKEA, they were contacted by IKEA in Hungary to present their solution and in return they got an insight into the furniture giant’s operations.

The international generic business case competition, Chulalongkorn International Business Case Competition, was organised at the end of May in Thailand, in which Corvinus University took part for the very first time. Fanni Fakli, György Gáspár, András Koleszár and Dániel Kostyal represented the university, and were prepared for the competition by Miklós Kozma, associate professor. Our university team was awarded first place for its outstanding professional performance during the competition. From the 20 leading business schools, our students emerged as the best. The seriousness of the achievement is further proven by the fact that no European team has finished in the top three for the past seven years of the competition.

The short case was provided by the online accommodation booking site Agoda, and the long, 24-hour case was sponsored by KBank, which is Thailand’s leading digital bank. A key component of the team’s success was learning more about Thai culture. It did so well that the jury even stressed the significance of the solution. In the final, apart from the Executive Vice President of the Thai commercial bank providing the case, our team got the chance to present their solution to a number of regional leaders and respected business professionals.

The latest success of this year has been the NHH International Case Competition in October, where our university was also invited for the first time. During the competition, teams solved the case of Odfjell, the tanker ship company shipping chemical compounds, within 24 hours. Their task was to see if the company could harness the resources it had previously invested in sustainability as a competitive advantage. Team members, Mirella Fekete, Noémi Kopka, Márton Nyikos and Zsanett Őrsi, with the guidance of associate professor Zsolt Matyusz, came up with a solution that wowed the division jury, including the sustainability director of the company. This helped them to qualify for the final, where they faced the home team, NHH and the University of Alberta. The final panel of judges included the company’s CEO and several members of the management team, who said that our team really stood out because of the passionate presentation of the solution and the emphasis on stakeholders, the company’s core values and past investments.

Owing to the highly successful year on an international level, Corvinus was invited to compete in the most prestigious undergraduate general business case study competition, the Champions’ Trophy in New Zealand. This competition is only open to the 12 best performing universities in the world in a given year, and for a second time after 2018, our university has the honour of competing with the best in the world.