November 4, 2003
McCombs Business Students Win International Case Competition
Texas team also voted Most Sociable at Hong Kong event
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Hong Kong—Four University of Texas at Austin students from the McCombs School of Business had 32 hours to establish a business strategy for the expansion of Circle K convenience stores in China, as part of the first Citigroup International Case Competition. The event, which was hosted by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, was the first international case competition in Asia. The McCombs team won first place, beating out 16 teams competing from all over the world.
The three runners-up were Carnegie Mellon University, University of Singapore and University of Washington.
The case involved Circle K’s plans to expand in China due to China’s recent inclusion in the World Trade Organization. Hong Kong companies, such as Convenience Retail Asia, Circle K’s parent company, have a three-year window of opportunity to grow in China before foreign investors are allowed to move in.
The McCombs team developed a business strategy that involved aggressive expansion throughout the country and technological innovations to improve Circle K’s service. The team was presented with the case and given 26 hours to prepare their strategy and turn in presentation slides, with another few hours to write a 10-page paper and work on their presentation.
“We didn’t sleep much,” said Janak Goyani, a finance major and team member. “We had never practiced our presentation before we actually had to give it, because we didn’t have time.”
The team attributed its success to the Business Honors Program classes, which are often case-based and involve teamwork.
“It’s a McCombs thing, for sure,” said Rushi Patel, a finance major and team member. “We didn’t have time to do a first run-through. That’s where our McCombs preparation came through. It was clear we had a lot more experience doing this than some of the other schools.”
A question-and-answer session following the presentation was a highlight of the competition, Patel said. “We fielded a question from the CEO of Circle K, and we nailed it. We didn’t talk around the answer, we just said it. We all handled part of it and we demonstrated teamwork.”
The team also did extra research to find out more information, including finding an obscure fact about the case that showed how rapidly the convenience store chain would need to expand. They believe this gave them an edge on the competition.
“We accessed analyst reports that really gave us a good grounding to know what the Chinese market was like and what were realistic expectations,” Patel said. “We had to make sure the recommendations we were making were financially feasible to justify them.”
This focus on the bottom line impressed the judges and other teams.
“When we were presenting to these high-level executives, we would make a recommendation and their eyes would light up,” said Goyani. “They told us to keep an eye on Circle K to see what it does in the next year. We may see some of our ideas, which is awesome.”
Leah Miller, a McCombs School advisor who accompanied the team to the competition, cited their professionalism and “incredible poise” as two factors that set the UT team apart from the rest.
“They were the only ones that had a workable financial analysis,” Miller said. “It was more geared toward what a business would actually want to see, not a class project.”
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
