University of Otago business school students Rory Sutherland, Tessa Aitken, Emma Taggart and Jess Marvin, all aged 20, have been selected as the Universities of New Zealand team to compete in the Central European International Case Competition being hosted by Corvinus University next month.
While it was intended the New Zealand team represented a number of universities, putting forward a strong team was always a priority, chef de mission Dr John Guthrie, of Dunedin, said.
"I had watched and worked with these four students as they competed as an Otago team in the 2019 National League case competition series and was impressed with their performances," he said.
Otago and other universities had competed internationally in undergraduate and postgraduate case competitions for many years, but this was only the fourth time a national team had been invited to an international competition.
Case competitions involved teams of students being given a business situation and a time frame in which to come up with a solution to be presented to a judging panel, Dr Guthrie, who started the programme at the University of Otago and also ran the national one, said.
He enjoyed watching the students grow in confidence, while he said employers were starting to use the cases as a recruitment techniques.
Ms Aitken, a third year student majoring in economics and Chinese, said teams gained "really good" skills from being involved which she believed made them more employable in the future, while Ms Taggart said it was a great way to improve public speaking skills as well as experiencing real life business cases.
Mr Sutherland said they learned proper analytical skills that they did not necessarily learn at university, while Ms Marvin said the higher level thinking and problem solving were skills that were vital when working in real life environments.
The group recently completed a training weekend in Wanaka and Dr Guthrie said they were a well-organised, tight unit.
The strong bonds clearly came from all being on the same floor during their first year at Selwyn College, he said.
The students were fundraising for the trip as, because they were representing New Zealand and not the University of Otago, they were not eligible for assistance from the university. About 12 teams would be taking part from around the world.
