The MBA team, winner of the HEC's International Competition

Sandra Rosello, Kristina Kolomo, Paola Castro and Juan López Aguilera, all studying for a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) at ICADE Business School, won the HEC Montréal International Graduate Competition (IGC), an international academic competition that brings together students from leading business schools around the world to work on and provide solutions to real business problems.

For the winners, this victory brings with it great satisfaction in their efforts as well as “pride at being able to put the name of ICADE Business School at the forefront of a high level international competition”.

The competition pitted eight international teams against each other in their efforts to solve cases concerning, on the one hand, the risk management strategy in the supply chain of the leading electricity company in Canada, and on the other hand, the sustainable internationalisation process of a biocosmetics brand. “We had two cases, one longer than the other, to solve in five days, and a short one which we had to respond to within 24 hours”, said the students.

The students admit that the most difficult part was to find a common starting point. “As a multidisciplinary team, it was complicated to manage and bring together different points of view and establish the starting point in order to reach the resolution. With regard to the cases, the first one was much more difficult for us, both due to the industry it belonged to and also because of what the solution entailed”, they noted.

The triumph of the Comillas team would not have been possible without the participation and support of another Master’s Degree student, Pablo Salguero, who began the competition with the group but later had to drop out due to external circumstances, and also the invaluable help of Professor María Luisa Blázquez. Throughout the MBA, the approach she uitiized with us in her subjects allowed us to have a very critical frame of thought which was extremely useful to face this type of challenge. It also helped us to see the best point of view from which to tackle the cases. We would also like to thank Marcelo Leporati for his help, which was key for us to resolve the supply chain case”, they concluded.