Zagreb (Croatia), 16 February 2012
Seven teams representing some of the leading Croatian companies participated in a two-day IEDC Case Study Competition (CSC), organized by IEDC Alumni Club Croatia. After all the teams presented their final solutions of the business case, the Prof. Randy Kudar, Professor Emeritus at Richard Ivey School of Business and at IEDC-Bled School of Management, who led the CSC, announced that the winning team is the one from IBM Croatia (Tihomir Cirkvenčić, Adrian Gjergizi, Ivana Janković, Ema Logue, Zrinko Mikić).
The topic of this year's case study competition, organized by the Croatian IEDC Alumni Club for the fifth consecutive year, was “developing a marketing plan for a company whose market share has been dropping”; the case study was selected by the IEDC Alumni Club Croatia in cooperation with IEDC-Bled School of Management. Seven teams from some of the leading Croatian companies: CEMEX, FRANCK, HRVATSKA POŠTA, IBM, ISKON, KONČAR and PODRAVKA presented their final solutions to Prof. Kudar and the jury consisting of IEDC Alumni Club Croatia members, who decided that the team from IBM Croatia developed the best solution to the case study.
“The winning team structured three target market segments extremely well and defined a development program for each of them, as well as cost structure and benefits for the company. In their well-prepared presentations they communicated market share growth based on innovative cost management of marketing activities“, stressed Prof. Randy Kudar.
„The major aim of the competition was to enlarge capacities of analytical thinking and team work of young high potential managers by solving a real business case“, added Tomislav Čorak, Goranka Padavić and Bojan Mati, members of organizing board from IEDC Alumni Club Croatia.
„This was an exceptionally educational two-day experience. Constructive feedback by members of the jury was of a great help to reaching the final result. Our joint victory confirms that our efforts in the last 24 hours led to the right approach to the case analysis and strategy development. The whole team is happy and proud of this accomplishment!” pointed out the members of the IBM team.
IEDC Alumni Club Croatia gathers graduates of IEDC-Bled School of Management from Croatia in order to promote business education and life-long learning among young managers and company leaders. The Club launched the Case Study Competition in 2008 in order to demonstrate teaching methodology and benefits in developing young managers, and based on its success and substantial interest among the participants, the CSC became a traditional event in Croatia. „IEDC is an international business school with alumni clubs in 14 European countries, currently we are setting up the 15. Club in Africa, therefore we have decided to extend the Case Study Competition from Croatia also to other countries this year and to organize a Global IEDC Case Study Competition on 18-19 September in Bled”, set out Prof. Danica Purg, Dean and President of IEDC-Bled School of Management.
The CSC Croatia winning team was awarded with a three days’ participation in the “MBA elective course” in September 2012, while in October it will try its strengths against the winning teams from other countries in the Global IEDC Case Study Competition; the international winner will be awarded with a two-day customized program for the company that sent the team.