Here's the official press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Winners of $47,500 International Tech Case Competition Just Announced

MBA Students from Sloan School of Management Won

11 Top Business Schools Sent Teams


BOSTON, MA, March 31, 2007 – The Second International Tech Strategy Business Case Competition, hosted by Boston University School of Management and sponsored by the Motorola Foundation, has just announced the winners.

First place went to the students from Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who were awarded the top prize of $25,000. The team captain was Ryan Hudson, and the team members were Garrett Dodge, Damian Fernandez and Bala Venkatrao.

Placing second with a $15,000 award was the student team from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. The third place finishers were from Stanford School of Business, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, and they shared a $5,000 prize. The students from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, placed fourth and won $2,500.

This is the only international tech strategy business case competition featuring MBA students from the world’s top business schools. On some campuses, 22 and even 27 teams competed to represent the business school during the March 29-3l event.

Each team had 24 hours to address the subject, “What is the best way for Motorola to win in seamless delivery of media and entertainment?”

The captain of the MIT team, Ryan Hudson, said, "We presented ideas that would enable seamless mobility to extend to new content. For example, we see the consumer turning the cell phone and TV cable box into My Channel by becoming the creator and distributor of content, and spreading that content through Motorola products."

The Motorola Foundation sponsored this event for the second year. Navin Mehta, Motorola Vice President, Network & Enterprise Services, announced the decisions of the judges. He said, "This is the second year that Motorola has sponsored this event, and it continues to be an exciting and impressive experience. The depth and quality of the presentations made it a challenging task to pick the winning teams, and we look forward to exploring some of their ideas in more detail."

Louis E. Lataif, Dean, Boston University School of Management, the host school, said, "This unique international competition focused on the critical role of technology in contemporary business at all levels. These students gave additional proof that future business leaders must be adept in employing technology for both operating and strategic advantage. The competition also exposed the students to 14 highly-placed technology and telecom executives."

The event was organized by MBA and MS-MBA students from Boston University School of Management. The 11 teams that took part in the competition were:

Boston University School of Management (KRZR)
Eller College of Management – University of Arizona (SLVR)
Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University (CANOPY)
Kenan-Flagler Business School – University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (MotoMing)
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (V3BLUE)
London Business School, U.K. (RAZR)
McCombs School of Business – University of Texas at Austin (MotoFone)
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (PEBL)
Seoul National University, Korea (Motorola Q)
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (ROKR)
Stanford School of Business, Palo Alto, CA (SURFBoard)

About Boston University School of Management
Founded as the College of Business Administration in 1913, Boston University School of Management develops builders and leaders for the networked-era, emphasizing the fusion of the art, science, and technology of business. The School’s holistic approach prepares the next generation of business leaders for a world that values management as a system of interdependent functions, decisions, people, and technologies. It is the worldwide leader in offering a unique MS-MBA program, a rigorous dual degree and next-generation MBA fusing a traditional management education with expertise in the information technologies that are transforming all businesses. The School also offers a full range of graduate and undergraduate management degree programs and executive education.

Boston University School of Management is located at 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. For more information, visit http://management.bu.edu.

Media Contact:
Pete Arnold
Peter Arnold Associates
cell: 781-248-3600
office: 781-239-1030
parnold@parnold.com

And the winners are...

After the four presentations, we all gravitated towards the cocktail reception in the Atrium. The teams looked relieved and I'm sure the alcohol helped to unwind a little bit. A lot of BU students made an appearance at the reception along with a few more professors - Prof. Brunel and Prof. Carlisle among others.

About an hour of hobnobbing and we were ready for dinner. Mary Sforza and her wonderful staff had laid out a lovely three course meal event for us and the excitement was palpable as we seated ourselves. Check out Flickr for lots of pictures of the cocktail reception and the dinner/awards ceremony. There was lots of animated chatter in the room.

Josh Cleveland, Dean Chalykoff, Dean Lataif and Navin Mehta spoke at the ceremony (podcast and/or transcript to follow) and after dinner the prizes were announced.

Fourth place - $2,500 - PEBL - Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Third place - $5,000 - SURFBoard - Stanford School of Business, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Second place - $15,000 - CANOPY - Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

First place - $25,000 - ROKR - Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Congratulations to all the teams. I hope you had an enjoyable experience.

Team SURFBoard brings it home

Team SURFBoard (Teresa Lee, Ryan Sandoval, Jeff Piper, Tatiana Bernhard) concluded the final round with their software content management application. This was the only team to have speaker notes which indicated that they weren't as well-versed with their material as the other teams. They had a fairly traditional method of analysis - starting out with Porter's 5 Forces Model to analyze the industry, presenting the content delivery value chain to build up to their plan, doing a SWOT analysis. Some of the judges questions were -

What happens when the carrier says that they don't want to be locked into Motorola's software application?

Will we be directly competing with Apple?

Do you see us partnering with Microsoft?

What are your assumptions around what it would take to market this?

Who takes the lead on this - the set top box side or the mobile side?

Teresa seemed a little nervous as she fielded the judges' questions and the team looked very relieved when the proceedings ended.

Final Four

SpE was a timer in one of the rooms awaiting the judges final decision after the first round of presentations. The judges deliberated for almost a half hour - all the teams had strong presentations and they were struggling to select a winner. Dean Chalykoff was called in for clarification at one point and they were told to "show us the money!" Dean C. advised them to use the given criteria but that they should also go with their gut instinct - in other words, make a decision based on the presentation who really delivered the goods.

Forty minutes later, the judges were close to making a decision. Dean Chalykoff ran back into the room to spur them on with another "show me the money!" The decision was finally made.

If this is the deliberation that went on in one room, I'm sure the other judges in the other rooms had a tough time deciding on the best.

The teams that will be proceeding to the final round are - CANOPY, PEBL, SURFBoard and ROKR.

Team SURFBoard in high spirits

Team SURFBoard left here at about 3 am this morning. They said they worked well together and given that the team members are so different, they challenged each other a lot. They had already done most of their research on the company and the industry prior to the competition and it didn't take them long to sort out their plan. They wanted to get everyone on the same page, qualify their assumptions and really hash out their plan. Their methodology for working was basically to paper most available spaces with charts and brainstorm ideas, iterate, rehash, discuss, rinse and repeat. They did discuss their core idea about 10 times to get it clear in everybody's head and all on the same page. Staying late for them was not a problem because they knew they were driving towards a solution.

They did one dry run this morning to make sure it goes smoothly. Teresa Lee said that she liked the experience of thinking through the solution and brainstorming with her team. Considering that most b-schoolers don't get to advise on and receive executive validation and feedback on corporate strategy, she feels good about being here for the experience. Ryan Sandoval won the team bet on what the topic of the case would be but unfortunately he wasn't far-sighted enough to negotiate a prize for his bet. There is one veteran on the team - Jeff Piper participated in the presentations in the prior year (ok, so alliteration is not my strong suite, but I do a mean NPV) and they seem confident of the outcome. He did say that while the topic of seamless mobility and the commercialization thereof was an exciting topic, the challenges associated with with trying to make it happen are very real. This would be a great value proposition for the company and it is well-positioned and ready to capitalize on it.

The team is in their last week of Spring Break so they're very well refreshed and relaxed which would attribute to the high energy levels (they're remarkably peppy) and some did confess to being naturally hyper-active. Whatever the reason, it's good to see energetic and bubbly participants this morning.

Good luck, Team SURFBoard. Keep the spirits high!