NAIT business students earned third place in a case competition aimed at tackling issues with the Fort McMurray Airport. The Alberta Deans of Business Case Competition was held between March 13 and March 15 at Keyano College. The competition included 11 teams from Albertan post-secondary institutions, asked present solutions to real-life business case problems provided by the Fort McMurray International Airport. Teams were asked: “How can Fort McMurray International Airport increase its passenger volumes and reduce the number of passengers driving to other airports to board flights?”
NAIT’s team of Bianca Melanie Hamtig, Christian Joseph Reyes, Emma Joy Shentaler and William Aubrey James Smith earned third position in the competition. In an interview with the Nugget, Reyes described his experience to be “liberating.”
“You get to work with a completely different set of individuals [and] experts. I gained some really good insights and learnings…they opened my eyes to new realizations in terms of how we do business,” he explained.
The team came to be when all four of the members decided to participate by submitting a two-minute video application for the competition. They were selected from dozens of applicants. Their team approached the problem with collaborative brainstorming to present a marketing-focused solution to the airport problem.
“Getting people in the region of Fort McMurray more confidence in flying out of Fort McMurray Airport, debunking some of the myths, with some actual statistics [and] getting people excited about starting their journeys in Fort McMurray,” Smith said of their proposed solution.
The team said that preparation for the competition was key to their success. They came in prepared even before arriving for the competition, Hamtig said. “We made sure that we had frequent practices…then, before the competition itself, we made sure that our template for our PowerPoint is already created.”
Coaches also played a significant part in the preparation, Shentaler shared. Before the competition, the team practiced various case problems where they would receive feedback from the coaches on how they can improve.
“On the day of the competition, they [coaches] helped us figure out what we were going to say and how we were going to present in a way that would make the judges like us rather than us just saying facts.”
Each participant said they gained something different from the competition. For Hamtig, it was an opportunity to apply what she learned in the classroom. “My recent lectures from my entrepreneurship classes really helped, especially the marketing plan, design thinking, risk analysis and stuff like that.”
Smith learnt to trust his team. “During the competition, there was a point where I wasn’t keeping up with the thought process…I wasn’t following. I got a little frustrated, but I learned that just putting the trust into my team, it all worked out in the end.”
For Shentaler, the competition improved her critical thinking and public speaking skills. “I learned that I need to work on that a lot, but it definitely gave me a lot of tools I can use to improve in those areas, and it’s going to help me for the rest of my school career and even beyond that.”
Students from the JR Shaw School of Business have competed in multiple case competitions, including the Alberta Not-for-Profit Association Case Competition and the Rotman International Trading Competition.
As this year’s ADBCC team shared, not only do these provide an opportunity to develop critical skills that are transferable to various industries, but you may also gain some friends beyond the competition that you can count on.
