A Pup-tastic Business Case Competition

Greenwood hosts two business case competitions each school year. Each business case competition challenges our business students to apply their learning and presentation skills to create proposals for a case study. This spring, 80 students, ranging from Grades 10 to 12, participated. The students selected their own teams for this case competition, creating a total of 20 teams.

 

For this business case competition, every group was presented with a unique case study about Puppy Gang Fresh Foods, a local company that creates healthy, whole foods for dogs. This competition featured a bespoke case study written by our very own Ryan Vachon, Subject Team Leader, Business. The goal of this case study was to make the competition as experiential for the students as possible in order to engage with real feedback and consider their business plan’s implications. 

 

In the morning, the students took time to read carefully over the case study and begin their business proposals. Teams also had the opportunity to receive coaching feedback from an alumnus, Connor Sinclair ‘19, over Google Meet. Connor gave feedback on the solutions brought forth by each group. 

 

By the afternoon, the groups presented their business plan proposals to judges. Our judges comprised both Greenwood staff, business professionals, Greenwood parents and alumni. They were: 

Finally, our finalist groups presented to Marisa Hoskins, Founder and Co-President of Puppy Gang Fresh Foods.

 

Finalists:

Winners: 

The winning team comprised Grade 12s who were some of our most experienced business students, and three students who had long pursued a case competition victory after many near wins. Curtis Li ‘23 ties a Greenwood record with his third case competition win (Charlie Baillie ‘22, one of Curtis's predecessors as Head of Student Leadership, being the first to win three case competitions). Curtis also becomes the second student at Greenwood to win a case competition twice in one year with different teammates. 

The judges determined that the winning team demonstrated a strong understanding of the business's challenges, subtle creativity, realistic solutions, excellent presentation skills, consumer profiling and relevant financial analysis. Thank you to all the teams who participated and also a special thanks to our IT team, Maintenance team, staff and judges for making this case competition a reality!