Sprott Competes kicks off season with big wins

Sprott students take first place in Vermont and second in Kingston

Group photo of Sprott students Lena ElChamaa, Laura O'Reilly, and Richard Coffin. — The team of Lena ElChamaa, Laura O’Reilly and Richard Coffin placed first in the University of Vermont Global Family Enterprise Case Competition.

A team of Sprott students has won the University of Vermont Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (FECC).

Bachelor of Commerce students Richard Coffin, Lena ElChamaa and Laura O’Reilly rose to the top of 16 teams from around the globe and took on Dalhousie University, Wilfrid Laurier University and Universidad del Dessarrollo in the final round for the gold.

“The majority of businesses are family-owned,” says team member Richard Coffin. “They really are different from other businesses so it’s important to understand how they work and the common conflicts that can arise.”

FECC enables students to understand the critical issues that are unique to family enterprise by applying the knowledge gained in the classroom to solving complex family enterprise cases. Students from 24 universities in 13 countries competed in FECC 2015; 16 teams in the undergraduate competition and eight teams in the MBA competition.

According to Richard, what differentiates family enterprises from other business the most are the emotional ties management has to the company.

“A common theme we found were family members being too close to the business and a lack of proper governance,” says Richard.

Richard says the team benefited greatly from the expertise of coaches Danielle Walsh and Nicholas Charron.

Sprott students bring home second place from I.C.B.C.

Sprott students Arya Abawi and Karen Tran won second place in the Management of Information Systems case at Queen’s Inter-Collegiate Business Competition.

BCom students Arya Abawi and Karen Tran competed in the finals of Queen’s Inter-Collegiate Business Competition in Kingston from Jan. 14 to 17. Coached by Professor Mike Hine, the team took second place in the Management of Information Systems category.

I.C.B.C. is Canada’s oldest business case competition, which started in 1978. This year, over 140 students from 30 Canadian and international universities took part in eight academic case events. In the preliminary round, teams submitted a written case analysis. The top six teams in each category were invited to the finals, where they received a new case and had five and a half hours to analyze and prepare their presentation.

Looking ahead

Next up for Team Sprott is JDC Central, which takes place Jan. 29 to Feb. 1 in Toronto. More than 700 delegates from universities in Ontario and Eastern Canada will compete in academic cases, debate, sport and social events.