Business Administration students Spencer Pray and Jillian Student proudly represented Trent in the 2009 Intercollegiate Business Competition (ICBC) finals held at Queen’s University in January. The talented students received third place for their analysis of a business ethics case study, beating out teams from across Canada, the United States and Asia.

“We were ecstatic,” Jillian Student said about the third place finish. “Spencer and I put a lot of effort into preparing for ICBC and it felt really great to have our work recognized.”

“It was nice to see what we learned in the classroom prove to be valuable at the competition,” Spencer Pray added. “Jillian and I were happy and proud to represent Trent.”

The ICBC is regarded as Canada’s oldest and largest undergraduate business case competition. Every year the Intercollegiate Business Competition executive accepts applications from students around the world who are eager to compete in the competition, which is divided into two parts. The preliminary round consists of a ten page analysis and solution to a case study distributed by ICBC, and the final round involves a presentation and question and answer forum.

“Jillian and I put many hours of work, in a short time span, into the preliminary round,” Mr. Pray said. “I was very happy to find out we made the finals – it meant we were one of the top six schools that entered.” Twenty-eight different universities world-wide submitted to compete at the finals in the same category as Mr. Pray and Ms. Student.

In each part of the competition, students can choose to focus on one of eight different categories: Accounting, Labour Arbitration, Business Policy, Finance, Ethics, Debate, Marketing and Management Information Systems.

“Jillian and I were given a case that dealt with occupational health and safety in the energy industry,” Mr. Pray explained about the preliminary round, which started in October 2008. “We entered the Ethics case competition and focused our solution on identifying numerous ethical issues, applying ethical theories and demonstrating how they had a practical application in the case at hand.”

“In the final we were given an Ethics case and five and a half hours to solve it and prepare a 15 minute power point presentation,” Ms. Student explained. “We presented our solution in front of a panel of six judges and then answered their questions. It was quite an intense process. The exposure to different case studies we have had in our business ethics courses definitely prepared us for this competition.”

The final was held over three days, with numerous events happening every day.

“The whole weekend was a great experience,” Mr. Pray said. “It was great to meet new people, students and corporate executives from across Canada.”

“We made a lot of contacts throughout the competition,” said Ms. Student. “Even though we were the only people at the competition representing Trent, much of the audience rallied behind us, shouting ‘Go Trent!’ ICBC is an excellent networking opportunity. Judges and sponsors see ICBC as an excellent recruiting pool.”

“I would definitely recommend this competition to other students,” Mr. Pray said. “It was a great learning experience that I will take with me from my time at Trent.”

Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2009.