First-year students impress with bold solutions in BU111 Live Case Competition

Jan. 8, 2025

Experiential, hands-on learning is a cornerstone of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) curriculum at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. This learning was brought to life in the BU111 Live Case Competition and is woven through each year of the program.

A hallmark of the first-year BBA experience, the BU111 Live Case Competition engaged more than 1700 students in 250 teams. From early rounds of the competition, 50 semi-finalist teams emerged, competing for six finalist spots. The teams all approached the case with unparalleled enthusiasm and creativity, offering unique recommendations to the case company: George Weston Ltd: PC Health App.

“The BU111 Case Competition is a unique opportunity for students in the first term of their program. Each year, a new company brings a real, current and important business challenge to our students.  This year, George Weston Ltd. asked students to identify features, functions and content that would enable the PC Health app to help Canadians ‘live life well’,” says course coordinator and associate professor Sofy Carayannopoulos.

NextGen Consulting earned the top spot for this year’s case. Congratulations to team members Stephanie Cabral, Nicholas Diab, Keiyon Hsu, Demir Mucevic, and Raina Shabnam!

We interviewed each of the finalist teams to hear about their experience in the competition.

Rising to the Challenge: First-Year Competitors

For many participants, the BU111 Live Case Competition marks their first foray into the competitive world of business problem-solving. The competition cultivates leadership, innovation, and critical thinking, the nature of the challenge was not lost on the students. Winning team member Raina Shabnam reflected on the intensity of the experience.

“It was definitely daunting at first,” she admitted. “It’s crazy to think about how much I’ve learned in this term alone, to be able to create a recommendation that could help a real company with a real problem.”

Teammate Demir Mucevic echoed this sentiment.

“When jumping into the Live Case competition in my first semester of BBA, I won’t lie—I was scared,” he shared. “But the creativity, late nights, and team effort made it an enjoyable experience that I would 100 per cent do all over again.”

The Role of BU111 and Academic Preparation

The competition provides a unique opportunity for students to apply their classroom knowledge to practical scenarios. BU111, a foundational course, plays a pivotal role in preparing the students for success.

“The knowledge I gained from BU111 allowed me to thrive in this competition and taught me the fundamentals of how to tackle key issues a business may face,” NextGen Consulting team member Nicholas Diab said. “I learned how to analyze a company and its environment to determine solutions to their challenges.”

Stephanie Cabral highlighted how the course offered real-world applications.

“The competition gave me real-world applications for how to research, develop and execute a recommendation, and insight into the professionalism of how to approach and convey our ideas in a business setting,” she explained. “It will help me succeed not only in the rest of my BBA but also when I enter the job market.”

The guidance of instructional assistants (IAs) and instructors also proved invaluable. Diab credited the team’s success to the support they received.

“Our IA, Jake De Melo, motivated and guided us the whole way through,” he noted. “We would not have been able to achieve this without him.”

Tackling the Case: Innovative Solutions for the PC Health App

This year’s case challenged students to propose strategies to enhance user engagement for the PC Health app. NextGen Consulting’s innovative solution centered around “Preston the PC Health Coach,” an AI-powered chatbot designed to provide hyper-personalized health and wellness experiences.

“Our solution helps Canadians live life well, leverages synergies between George Weston establishments, and aligns with industry regulations and opportunities,” explained Hsu.

The solution not only demonstrated the team’s creativity but also their ability to align technological innovation with business objectives. Their presentation was well researched and thoughtfully delivered, earning praise from the judges.

Lazaridis Dean, Kyle Murray, a judge in this year’s competition, said he was incredibly impressed by the strength of presentations and ideas presented by the finalist teams. “Our first-year business students showed a thorough understanding of the case problem, the foundational business concepts from the BU111 course, and a level of teamwork and professionalism that I’m confident will serve them throughout their BBA and into their careers,” he said.  “Congratulations to all first-year students on completing their first case competition as part of their Lazaridis BBA experience.”  

Presenting to Industry Leaders

While NextGen Consulting claimed the top spot, six finalist teams earned the opportunity to present their innovative ideas and polished presentations to a panel of professional judges. Thank you to the following executives from George Weston Ltd. and the Lazaridis School community, for supporting this major accomplishment:

• Kyle Murray, Dean, Lazaridis School
• Pavan Konanur (BBA ’06), CEO and Co-Founder, Hoja.ai,  Chair of the London UK Dean’s Advisory Council
• Aaron Cheng, Vice President Digital Health, Shoppers Drug Mart
• Andrew Segal, Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development, George Weston Ltd.
• Hassan Farooq, Senior Director, Strategy and Corporate Development, George Weston Ltd.
• Kate Merikle (BBA/BA Double Degree ’21), Senior Analyst, Strategy and Corporate Development, George Weston Ltd.

Thank you as well to course coordinator, associate professor Sofy Carayannopoulos, for guiding the IAs and students through the BU111 foundational curriculum.

For our students, the importance and impact of presenting to these business leaders adds to the learning experience and exemplifies the way their business solutions come to life for real companies.

“It was surreal to be presenting an idea my team and I worked so hard on to the board of a real company,” Shabnam said. “Being on that stage made the reality of how far my team had come sink in.”

Hsu described the experience as an “honour,” while Diab added, “It felt powerful to pitch our solution after all our hard work and dedication, and have it recognized by the company executives.”

On presenting to the judging panel, Mucevic added, “I became more aware that this opportunity was once in a lifetime,” he said. “It’s a privilege I’ll cherish for a long time.”

Congratulations to all Finalist Teams

Second Place: Connect Consulting

Team Members: McKenna Guy, Abbey Jean, Ben Shore, Andrew Vair and Abby Wright

Connect Consulting impressed judges with a solution that targeted the needs of a unique demographic. Their proposal aimed to transform the PC Health App into a comprehensive healthcare tool for newcomers, focusing on multilingual support, family health tracking, and barcode scanning technology. This approach tackled engagement issues while adhering to Canadian healthcare regulations, building trust with newcomers and fostering loyalty toward George Weston Limited companies.

Reflecting on their success, the team shared:
"It was a great feeling applying our learning to a real-world problem. Collaborating as a group and seeing our work pay off was incredibly rewarding."

Third Place: DB Consulting

Team Members: Brinley Brule, Ethan Byrne, Anna Freeman, Owen McNaughton, and Simon Middlemore.

DB Consulting focused their efforts on targeting baby boomers, a growing demographic within healthcare. Their solution integrated chronic illness management APIs, PC Express grocery delivery tailored for mobility challenges, and weekly digital health newsletters to cater to routine-oriented users. This strategic approach offered a seamless user experience to increase app engagement.

The team shared their excitement:
"This opportunity was the highlight of our BBA experience so far. Presenting to PC executives was nerve-wracking but incredibly rewarding."

Finalist Teams

ConnectWell Consulting

Team Members: Andrew George, Isla Holmes, Lilli Karabela, Lev Shkolnikov, and Annie Tran.

This team designed a solution centered on social elements of the app through the implementation of a digital human software from UneeQ. Their solution enables users to quickly access health information and supporting content such as lifestyle recommendations, and recipes.  

The team emphasized:
"Collaboration and teamwork, combining our many strengths, were key to crafting a well-structured final solution. The learning we received through BU111 assignments and presentations gave us the tools to think critically about the feasibility and effectiveness of our ideas and recommendation.”

HEAT Consulting

Team Members: Ashley Domingues, Tanya Khan, Ethan Levy and Hutton Patterson.

HEAT Consulting proposed a social and gamified approach to drive app engagement, allowing users to connect with their own network within the app. They suggested incorporating health-related competitions between users, blending intrinsic motivation with meaningful extrinsic rewards related to the PC Optimum loyalty program.

"The competition taught us skills we’ll carry forward, from presenting confidently to collaborating under pressure," they shared.

One Consulting Group

Team Members: MacKenzie Botosan, Abdullah Dadoun, Eden Floh, and Prathmesh Mistry.

This team introduced "daily missions" to engage users meaningfully, focusing on improving mental and physical health. Their solution ensured compliance with case criteria while driving significant user impact.

The team reflected:
“Through this experience, we learned how to think critically, pay attention to details, collaborate well under pressure and present our ideas with confidence. This competition was a whirlwind of emotions, but the confidence we built and support we had made it both exciting and rewarding."

Moments of Camaraderie and Joy

Beyond the rigorous preparation and high-stakes presentations, the competition was filled with moments of community-building, friendship and fun.

Diab and Mucevic fondly remembered their first group meeting, where they dared to dream big.

“We looked at a LinkedIn post from the 2023 Live Case winners and said, ‘Imagine if that was us,’” Diab shared. “To actually live that experience and win was something I’ll never forget.”

Other teams reflected on moments of surprise, playing Just Dance to let out nerves, or, in the case of DB consulting, hosting a ‘distraction practice’, “We played music from two different phones on either side of the room and attempted to distract the person presenting in every way possible. This was a fun and helpful way to prepare for the stress of presenting. Working all together through this amazing experience brought us close together and made connections that will last through our time at university.”

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Congratulations to all participants and especially to NextGen Consulting for their outstanding achievement. The future of business is undoubtedly bright with leaders like these paving the way.

Learn more about case competitions at the Lazaridis School, and previous BU111 Live Case solutions.