April 15 , 2009

 

On Friday, March 27th, Capital University hosted the annual Tau Pi Phi Case Competition.  The two-day competition was held at the Ramada Inn East in Columbus, Ohio.  The competition comprised of six schools: Capital University, Juniata College, Marietta College, Mount Union College, Ohio Northern, and Wittenberg.  

The case competition consisted of two parallel competitions- one with two-person teams and one with three-person teams.  Wittenberg sent one of each team.  Michelle Costello ‘09 and Matt Wigton ’09 were on a two-person team and Mai Trinh ‘09, Rose Spiker ‘09, and Ben Adams ‘09 were on a three-person team.  During the competition, students prepared analyses and recommendations to two Harvard Business School cases     and presented their work to a panel of managers selected

from the community who served as judges.  All of the teams were given the same case, same amount of time to deliberate, and the same amount of time to present their findings to the judges.

"I had a great time.  Having only three hours to write up a case and prepare a presentation really helped me think fast and use the skills I've obtained through the business department,” stated Rose Spiker.

For the two-person teams, Rodney Strata and Andrew Clutter from Mount Union took first place.  The Ohio Dominican team of Jacquie Crooke and David Cook tied for second place with Rich Miller and Khadijah Islam from Capital University.

For the three-person teams, Mai Trinh ‘09, Rose Spiker ‘09, and Ben Adams ’09 of Wittenberg University tied for first place with Chris Jones, Justin Fox, and Stephanie Aubill of Capital University.  The second place winners were Toka Akiyama, Lauren Yoder, and Emily Sheets from Marietta College. 

Matt Wigton shared, “The Tau Pi Phi competition was a fantastic opportunity to work with and be surrounded by great business minds.  It allowed me to really step in the shoes of an executive and attempt to solve and deal with actual business issues.”

The first case, Windhorse Farm's Eco-Woodshop Guitar Top Decision, centered on a “green” company. The owner of the farm, Jim Drescher, was nearing retirement age. With no heir apparent to run the business, Drescher needed to make two key business decisions. First, whether he wanted to continue in the sustainable forest industry or retire and become a raw material supplier. Second, whether or not to enter the guitar top tonewood market. Windhorse, located in the Acadian forest in Nova Scotia, practices environmentally conscious harvesting techniques and is accredited by multiple associations sponsoring environmentally sound business practices. Windhorse further applies its own environmentally sound standards. Each business decision is made after considering economic, social, and environmental impacts.

The second case, Facebook, traced the origin and growth of the social-networking site from its inception in 2003 through the publication date of the case, 2006. The subject of this case focused mainly on competition in the social-networking market. Issues facing the company at the end of the case were centered on technology, security, and competition.

Michelle Costello observed, “Neither case required financial analysis.  Instead, the cases forced participants to focus on generating ideas rather than crunching numbers.”

The Tau Pi Phi Case Competition, held since 1978, is celebrating its 21st year.  Wittenberg University founded Tau Pi Phi as a business and economics honorary in 1931.  The university’s Tau Pi Phi chapter is advised by Professor Ron Luchessi.

                                                                                                                              By: Katie Barsan