top of page
_edited.jpg

CASE COMPETITION OVERVIEW

General Comments for Case Competition - Oscar Truong

Oscar is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He received his Bachelors of Science in Public Health Infectious Diseases from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of the Consulting Club at the Texas Medical Center. In his free time he enjoys walking his dog, trying foods from different cultures, and watching Netflix. 

 

Oscar has prior experience in case competitions. His team won 2nd place in the  UT Southwestern and UT Austin - 2021 Texas Case Competition with the theme of the competition being agricultural technology. Here are some tips he gave for winning a case competition:

 

  • In the first few days:

    • Meet with your team before the case release, get to know each other, your time constraints, and expectations. Case Competitions are a lot of work and producing a high-quality product that will take a great deal of effort and time - make sure your teammates know what it takes to win.

    • Once the case is released, have a meeting right after to debrief and share information. Maybe someone missed something, or maybe something needs be clarified. Everyone needs to have a clear, shared understanding of the problem.

    • Have each person make an issue-tree or structure the problem at hand, just like you’re solving a case. Have the team leader review it and make a comprehensive issue tree.

    • Think about your final presentation, how long will it be? How many slides do you want to present? Divide up the slides and create a draft of the title for each slide. Divide up the issue tree questions into each slide and assign the slides to each team member. This will be what they are responsible for researching and presenting.

    • In the first few days of research, try and find a broad and concise industry primer so everyone's information base is at the same level.

 

  • In the last few days:

    • As the days progress, make sure the team leader clearly communicates deliverables to all of the members. When are things due? What will make it to the PowerPoint? One of the greatest challenges of a case competition is not lack of data, but too much. You will find a huge amount of data and it is up to you to sort through and piece together the most important information to build your case, your story, and your recommendation.

    • Make sure that your recommendations are actionable and address the question directly. Make recommendations based on the short, medium, and long term.

    • Discuss what future directions will be, and the risks in the investment.

    • Once the presentation is together, practice! Be prepared to answer questions from the judges about your methods and data.

    • Have fun and good luck! This is supposed to be a fun learning opportunity where you work with interesting people and solve a case!

TargetMarket.PNG

  • Target Market

    • Understand the target market. Who, where and how does the client want to sell?

    • Find trends in size of the target market

    • Provide a current overview of where the market stands

    • What is the major share of customers who buy and what do they buy?

market.png

  • Market Segmentation

    • Market segmentation involves dividing your target market into groups. 

    • Market segmentation creates subsets of a market based on some criteria.

    • You could subset on demographics, needs, priorities, common interests, and other psychographic or behavioral criteria  

    • Understand how purchasing behavior is different in different groups

porter.PNG

  • Porter's Five Forces is a model that identifies and analyzes five competitive forces that shape every industry and helps determine an industry's weaknesses and strengths. Five Forces analysis is frequently used to identify an industry's structure to determine corporate strategy. 

  • We have provided a brief overview of some factors that go into some of these forces and how you can show which forces dominate in a market

comp.PNG

  • Competitive Landscape

    • Divide competitors based on characteristics

    • Position the client on this matrix

    • How do you position yourself amongst competitors?

simone-hutsch-_wpce-AsLxk-unsplashcrop.j

References

  • The presentation is based on the slides of the winners of prior case competition. You can access the whole presentations from the resources available to CCTMC members on the website.

  • The definitions are based on Wikipedia and Investopedia.

CONSULTING AT TMC

The Consulting Club at the Texas Medical Center is non-profit organization for advanced degree candidates (MD, PhD, and Postdoctoral Fellows) that are interested in management consulting. We aim to train the brightest minds in the biomedical sciences to transition from academia to careers in management consulting. 

 

Our team expertly curates a collection of programs designed to hone the business acumen of our members. We also host an array of networking sessions, panel discussions, and training sessions to rigorously prepare our members for the management consulting recruitment process.

​

​

bottom of page