Montreal Canada – January 6-13, 2008 and January 4-10, 2009

The Maine Business School has sponsored teams of MBA students participating in the John Molson International MBA Case Competition in Montreal, Canada. Held since 1981, the Molson competition is the largest, oldest and one of the most respected MBA case competitions in the world.

The competition format is a round-robin tournament involving 36 teams, each consisting of 4 MBA students, representing universities from around the world.  With three hours to prepare, the teams analyze and evaluate unpublished business cases using the skills, knowledge and experience they have acquired from their respective MBA curriculums. Students rely on their own abilities as they are without the aid of tools such as PowerPoint and the Internet. The final product is a hand written presentation that demonstrates student abilities to dig into the problem and develop a feasible solution. Once preparation is complete, they present their strategic solutions and a detailed plan of action to a panel of senior business executives.  Teams are judged on creativity, insight, substance and plausibility of implementation.

I was honored to be asked to serve as the “Assistant Coach”  for the Maine Business School’s team of MBA students competing in the 2008 Molson International Case Competition.  It was a great experience and I am grateful to “Coach” Dr. Harold Daniel and the students – Christine Clark, Cristen O’Brien, Tom Miller and Kevin Paul – for their friendship and support.

For the 2009 competition, I served as coach with the assistance of my colleague, Dr. Jason Harkins.  Due to my holiday trip to Japan, Jason went to Montreal with the team and I was scheduled to join them on my return.  A significant travel delay in Japan and a snow storm on returning to Maine led me to cancel the trip to Montreal.  A special thanks to Jason and the team – Rachel Ferrigan, Tomas Grucza, Gary Jordan, Nicholas Nadeau and Pam Patterson – for the many hours they spent preparing and capably representing UMaine in the competition.

At the end of a very intense week, everyone has an opportunity to relax.  In 2008, there was an “Arabian Nights” theme party.  Enjoy!