Hosts capture the glory!

Friday marked the end of the 3rd annual international Case Competition at Copenhagen Business School and thus the culmination of six intensive days of work, academia and social events. At the final round on Friday afternoon, more than five hundred spectators witnessed what turned out to be an extremely close and exiting finish in the race towards crowning this year's ultimate problem solvers.

For the very first time in the short history of the CBS Case Competition the local team from CBS found themselves part of the final round. Like the other two finalists, The Haas School of Business, Berkeley, USA and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, the CBS team presented their result of the hard work in the six days gone by. At the big awards banquet Friday night it was announced that the winning team of this year's competition was the one consisting of the four students from CBS, namely Lars Elmvang, Lea Kreiner, Katrine Kunst, and Patrick Vilhelm Setterling.

During the course of the past week, 12 teams from some of the world's foremost business schools, including last year's winners from Budapest, have been competing about putting forth the best solution to a business case uniquely developed for the purpose. The theme for this year?s case was Innovation Strategy and the case specifically dealt with strategic considerations in the development and marketing of a new technology, fuel cells, at the Danish engineering company Haldor Topsøe A/S.

On Friday afternoon, in front of a panel of 12 judges consisting of esteemed leaders in business and academia, the three finalists presented their respective strategic solution propositions and were subsequently engaged in a Q&A session were the judges tested the teams? analysis and generic business considerations pertaining to the case. Despite three very competent solutions with different solutions to market approach and positioning in the value chain, the CBS team succeeded in presenting the best overall strategic proposition, showing great depth and understanding of the industry in question, and thus captured the judges' favour. All in all, the decision was as close as can be and deliberations were indeed tough. As it turned out, each finalist team possessed certain strengths and especially the different approaches to presenting the respective solutions were apparent to everyone in the audience.

Early responses from participants, organizers, and sponsors bear witness of an unconditional success. All parties involved recognize the unique value of getting together in friendly competition and thereby strengthening the ties between the different schools, thus aiding the ongoing international collaboration between institutions of higher learning. In just three years the CBS Case Competition has established itself as the leading case competition for undergraduate business students in Europe and is hereby well on its way to achieving what has been the aim all along: to make the CBS Case Competition the most renowned undergraduate case competition in the world!