International Case Competition @ Maastricht (ICC@M) 2021
For the eleventh year running, our School of Business and Economics (SBE) proudly hosted the prestigious International Case Competition @ Maastricht (ICC@M), which ran from Sunday, 18 April until Friday, 23 April. During this week, sixteen teams of students from renowned business schools all over the world relied on their knowledge, business savvy and creativity to compete unseen against each other in a battle of wits. The teams solved one 4-hour case and one 24-hour case before presenting their solutions and recommendations to judging panels consisting of academics and business executives.
First case by CEI
During the first days of the competition, all the teams had four hours to work on the first case and present their recommendations. The first case was provided and sponsored by the Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI). CEI teaches the merits of entrepreneurship, which helps students to prepare for their future in a drastically changing labour market.
To increase students awareness about CEI, the ICCM teams were asked to develop a holistic and creative marketing and communication strategy that encourages students (bachelor’s, master’s and PhD level) to interact with and use the services of CEI! The winners of the first case were: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), UNSW Business School, University of Florida, Warrington College of Business and Queen’s University, Smith School of Business!
Second case by Covestro
During the second part of the week, the teams had 24 hours to develop recommendations for the second case company. The second case was provided and sponsored by Covestro. Covestro, formerly known as Bayer MaterialScience, is among the world’s largest suppliers and manufacturers of high-tech polymer materials.
The participants had to provide Covestro with a strategy on an effective and integrated risk management framework. It was a very challenging case with very different solutions. In the end, the winners of this case were: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), QUT Business School, Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, and Queen’s University, Smith School of Business.
Winner ICC@M 2021
The winners of the second case all reached the finals, which were truly international since the finalists came from four different continents! They presented their recommendations for the second case once again to a larger jury panel and in the end, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was the winner of ICC@M 2021. The second place was for our own SBE team, the third place was for Queen’s University, Smith School of Business, and the fourth place was for QUT Business School.
We would like to thank:
SBE for allowing us to organise ICC@M; CEI and Covestro for providing us with challenging cases; the case writers for spending free time and work time on developing the cases; the volunteers for hosting teams, being a Zoom operator, hosting Zoom sessions and many more things; all the staff of SBE (Scheduling, Aco, etc.), for all the help in organising ICC@M; SCOPE’s ICC@M committee consisting of Romen van den Boom, Laura Isasi Hernandez, Áron Majnár, Evi Voets and Ymke van Warmerdam for their commitment; Sabine Nievelstein, Myrthe den Braber, Maaike van Eck, Anita van Gils, Wendy Hardy and Elif Karakurt for all their hard work; and all the judges that watched the presentations, asked critical questions and provided the teams with valuable feedback afterwards!
A special thanks to all our SBE colleagues that participated as a judge during ICC@M 2021: Ton Geurts, Kelly Geyskens, Caroline Goukens, Jonas Heller, Jos Lemmink, Diogo Pinto Pereira Rebelo Cotta, Lieven Quintens, Frank Rozemeijer, Janjaap Semeijn, Mark Vluggen, and Bart Vos.
Article by Sabine Nievelstein