Why case competitions are important in executive education

Experiential learning, or ‘learning on the job’ is one of the rewarding elements of MBA and executive MBA studies according to students and grads alike. 

Business schools across the globe incorporate case competitions into their curriculum, as a way for students to gain hands-on experience through a business case study or even building on their own start-up from scratch.  

One such case competition is The University of Chicago Booth School of Businesses’ Global New Venture Challenge (GNVC) where second-year students on the executive MBA programme are eligible to apply to the challenge and participate as one of their capstone course requirements.   

This year, top teams from the business school’s London, Hong Kong and Chicago campuses pitched their business ideas before a panel of judges as part of the GNVC, with a top prize on offer of US$70,000.  

Waverly Deutsch, clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Booth, and director of Chicago Global Entrepreneurs Network at the Polsky Centre, also teaches the GNVC course to EMBA students and she explained how the competition has grown over time. 

She said: “The GNVC started 14 years ago as an outgrowth of the New Venture Challenge process begun at Chicago Booth 25 years ago. 

“At first the GNVC was an extracurricular activity but was later added as a for-credit class. In the last seven years, the prize money was converted into founder friendly investments – rather than simply cash prizes. 

“It’s our hope that supporting these companies will make the GNVC process self-sustaining as companies exit and our investments generate returns. 

“These returns are already being seen in the NVC as when GrubHub had its IPO. That funding goes back into programmes that support entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth and the Polsky Centre for Entrepreneurship.” 

The GNVC process begins as early as January each year, with applications submitted whereby 18 teams are selected from Booth’s three campuses – Chicago, London, and Hong Kong. 

Deutsche said: “This year the first-place team, HeartScreen, won US$70,000 and each finalist team was awarded at least $5,000 in prize money as a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) investment.” 

From the 14 years of the GNVC’s existence, Deutsche says the largest GNVC company to date is Taiger, currently headquartered in Singapore. 

She said: “It is a leading AI technology firm and will likely become a unicorn with over a billion-dollar valuation in its next funding round. I expect TAINA (GNVC winner 2017) will be the next really big GNVC company after Taiger.” 

TopMBA caught up with members from a few finalist teams to find out what a case competition like the GNVC is really like.