The first ever CEMS Case Cup was organized by CEMS Club Budapest at Corvinus University of Budapest

The idea of the competition arose from former case competitors experience. The organizer team of CEMS Club Budapest consisted of Corvinus University of Budapest CEMS and Management and Leadership second-year students, who were former case competitors. Adél Hadházy, the President of CEMS Club Budapest in the 2023/24 Academic Year’s Spring term spent her exchange semester at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in Dublin, Ireland. Georgina Kovács the Co-Head of Social & CSR of the Spring term spent her exchange semester at Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo – FGV in São Paulo, Brazil. Judit Eszes the Head of Corporate of the Spring term spent her exchange semester at University of Cologne in Cologne, Germany. Katinka Orova, Member of Social & CSR spent her exchange semester at Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen, Norway. Gergely Keményfi, Member of CEMS Club Budapest spent his exchange semester at Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and previously won Cornell University’s 2023 Corning EMI Case Competition with Adél, and with two others fellow CEMS students from Corvinus. All of them wanted to innovate and were motivated to organize the first case competition for CEMS students. They had previously achieved outstanding results at international, national and corporate organized case competitions (e.g., John Molson MBA International Case Competition, CFA Institute Research Challenge, BCG Strategy Cup, PwC Business Experience Challenge, IFUA Horváth&Partners Case Competition). “Ever since I became a CEMSie, I have always been actively involved the life of the CEMS community. I always saw the greatest, most motivated people around me, which made me realize that there is room for a case competition among CEMSies. Being a case competitor myself, I wanted to bring together CEMSies for a competition where they can show off their consultancy, strategical problem-solving, communication skills in different business situations”- mentioned Adél, member of the organizing team.

CEMS Case Cup Organizing Team

The acronym “CCC” stands not only for the name of the competition, but also for its purpose. The main goals of the competition were the following. Connect CEMS Clubs with each other, and talents with CEMS Corporate Partners. Challenge each other in various business situations. Finally, celebrate the CEMS feeling, community and bond among CEMSies.

The competition consisted of two rounds, the first of which was an individual round, where the applicants solved a case in 4 days and submitted the results online, which was followed by the finals in person on May 22-23 in Budapest, Hungary. After the submission deadline of the individual round, 16 case solver CEMSies were selected to participate in the finals. The 16 finalists were invited to Budapest and were divided into 4 internationally diverse teams of 4 based on their first-individual round case solutions and CVs (skills and areas of expertise). Among the 16 finalists there were 11 nationalities (Canadian, Chinese, Dutch, Ecuadorian, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Mongolian, Slovakian, Turkish, Vietnamese), who represented the CEMS Global Alliance in Management Education’s 8 partner schools who offer the CEMS Master in International Management (CEMS MIM) program: Aalto University School of Business, Corvinus University of Budapest, Esade, Ivey Business School, Norwegian School of Economics, Rotterdam School of Management, The University of Sydney Business School. Participants arrived in Budapest on May 22, where they went on a sightseeing tour, and afterwards participated in the opening session hosted by the organizing team. During the welcome session, participants had the chance to get to know each other, as well take part of case-solving workshop, where they were given tips on how to prepare for the next day’s competition. At the end of the session, the participants were introduced to the 4-person case-solving teams, also, in the evening, the organizers revealed the topic of the case, and distributed a handout about open banking so that participants could prepare for the next mornings’ case briefing and Q&A session.

Opening session, May 22 – 16 finalists and the organizing team

The competition was held at Corvinus University of Budapest on May 23. The day started with a welcome session, where the 2023/24 Spring President of CEMS Club Budapest, Adél Hadházy welcomed the participants, which was followed by a case briefing by MasterCard and Raiffeisen Group, where they introduced the background of open-banking and Raiffeisen Bank International Group and gave the opportunity for the participants to ask questions to understand more their operation. Afterwards, Hilti Hungary and MET held a sponsor introduction. The welcome session was closed by the CEMS Academic Director of Corvinus University of Budapest, Richárd Szántó, who welcomed the participants and formally opened the competition day.

The competition day continued with the case solving. Participants had to solve the case about open banking and prepare the presentation within 6 hours. During the case solving, the teams had the chance to nominate 1 or 2 students from their group, who could attend an interim touchpoint meeting, where they could ask questions from Raiffeisen regarding the case that helped them narrow down the scope of their solutions. After the 6-hour case solving, the teams had to present their final solution in 15 minutes followed by 10 minutes of Q&A for the judge panel consisting of C-level executives of the sponsor companies (Hilti Hungary, MasterCard, MET Group, Raiffeisen Bank International Group), CEMS alumni representative, Kinga Dienes, academic members of Corvinus University of Budapest, Ágnes Szukits (Head of Strategic Management Department), and Tamás Józsa, second-year CEMS students, who Cornell University’s 2023 Corning EMI Case Competition together with Adél, Gergely and with another fellow CEMS student.

The CEMS Case Cup ended with the results announcement, where the winner team got an internship offer at MasterCard’s Budapest office. The winner team consisted of both pre-CEMS-year and CEMS-year students of four nationalities (Dutch, Ecuadorian, Hungarian, Vietnamese) whose home schools were Corvinus University of Budapest, Rotterdam School of Management and were or going on exchange to NUS, LSE, UCD, and WU. The competition ended with a closing dinner, where all the participants, sponsors, academic members, and CEMS students could celebrate together.

The winners

Congratulations to the winners, to all participants, and the organizer team of CEMS Club Budapest!