Tanja, Massimiliano and Alberto Win CaseIT
THE BOCCONI TEAM WON THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS GAME FOR FUTURE IT MANAGERS. IT WAS A LONG WEEKEND ON THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, BUT THEY SUCCEEDED BEFORE A JURY OF ACADEMICS AND MANAGERS. THIS EVENT WAS IMPECCABLY ORGANIZED BY THE STUDENTS OF SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY, IN VANCOUVERA team of Bocconi students won CaseIT, the world’s most important information technology business case in Vancouver. Before a jury of academics and managers, participants have to find a solution to an unprecedented business case and defend their management decisions.
It was a long weekend in early April, when Tanja Collavo (first-year MSc in International Management), Massimiliano Spalazzi (second-year MSc in International Management) and Alberto Xodo (first-year MSc in Marketing Management), coordinated by Gianluca Salviotti, Professor of Information Systems, overcame the competition of other 15 international universities to become the first European team to win CaseIT since its first edition in 2004.
“The decisive hours”, says starry-eyed Tanja, “were the 24 hours between April 1st and April 2nd, when, shut into a surveilled hotel room and equipped with only the computer and the material supplied by CaseIT, we discussed the case and prepared the presentation slides”.
“We read the case, analyzed it, set the strategy. The we re-read it again and again and revised the strategy a few times,” says Alberto.
“The point is that each in the team had a specialized role. We have discussed together the whole issue a number of times; we didn’t sleep for a second,” remarks Massimiliano.
“The case was not easy. It was made of two parts,” says Salviotti, who tutored the Bocconi team in their trip to Canada, “on one side you had tosay whether a certain project should be blocked or accelerated in its implementation; on the other, to adopt measures that whould in the future put remedy to all the setbacks that had hitherto affected the project. The double time horizon and the necessity of taking both an operational and a strategic decision were major hurdles for many teams.
“The jury,” goes on Salviotti, “rewarded the teams’ cohesion, the simplicity and elegance of business solutions, and the resolve and readiness with which they replied to the objections”.
This prestigious event was impeccably organized by the students of Simon Fraser University, “22-year-olds who displayed a surprising level of professional skills” Tanja, Massimiliano and Alberto say with admiration, glad to have participated and won an international business case game which put them in contact with North American and East Asian peers from some of the best business and economics universities of the world.
by Fabio Todesco
Translated by Alex Foti
