An MBA students team from Toronto University’s Rotman Business School emerged winners at the Sofaer International Case Competition (SICC) at the Coller School of Management in Tel Aviv University.
The SICC is an annual international strategic case competition on an Israeli company operating in markets abroad.
This year’s case study was Foresight, an Israeli High-Tech company that is developing leading technology for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), a vital component for manufacturing autonomous vehicles.
Eight teams from top business schools were to develop a ‘go to market’ strategy for the company in the space of two and half days. The teams are to take into consideration the company’s products and current status to make two strategic recommendations.
Apart from Rotman, the other business school participants were Cambridge Judge Business School, Copenhagen Business School, UC San Diego Rady School of Management, University of Cologne, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University, and Tel Aviv University.
The four-member winning team bagged the $10,000 dollar Barton M. Biggs Award, which was presented by Michael Sofaer, the representative of the donor family. The team members were Elad Barak, (MBA’16), Mieka Buckley-Pearson, (MGA/MBA’17), Gonen Hollander, (MBA’17) and Alys Richards. (MBA’16).
“This competition is a fantastic opportunity to apply what we have learned at Rotman to a real strategic dilemma facing an innovative Israeli startup. It was a privilege to represent Rotman and to compete against top business schools from around the world. For the second years we couldn’t imagine a better close to our time at Rotman, and the first years look forward to competing again next year!,” the team members said.
The three teams that reached the finals made presentations before an audience Including executives from Foresight, members of the Tel Aviv University community and a panel of judges including Israeli technology industry leaders and faculty from the eight participating schools.
Meanwhile, Elad Barak, one of the two Israeli students in the Rotman team said, “As an international student from Israel, this was an excellent opportunity to represent Rotman on my home court. Our team was able to blend Israeli Innovation together with the Canadian structured thought process which was key in our approach and one of the reasons we won.”
