Business Case Competition 2017

FNF Case Brief

How can we do business and protect human rights? What products, services, and corporate strategies can you imagine that will see market success while protecting human rights? 

Join our exciting challenge that will prove that the next generation can create successful business ideas that respect human rights and go beyond corporate social responsibility.

Students, innovators and change makers - show us your vision of tomorrow’s business world that no longer cares for profit only!

Here is your chance to join this global debate that could take you across the world!

 

Examples of potential fields
(non-exclusive list)  

  • Production/ Supply Chains 

    How to create transparent supply and production chains?

    How can Small and Medium-sized Enterprises [SME] (with limited resources) create transparent supply and production chains?

    What are innovative solutions to provide companies (particularly SME) with information on products and resources used in their supply chains?

    How to set up an early warning system for a company on negative human rights effects of its activities?

  • Products/Consumers

    What everyday product can you design ‘human rights violation free’?
    (Example: ‘FairPhone’)

    Can you design an innovative ‘human rights friendly’ product? 

    Can you design an attractive investment model that protects human rights?

    How can we raise consumer awareness and influence consumer behavior?

  • Corporate Strategy

    How to successfully include human rights in the overall strategy of a company (and not only in the CSR-strategy)?

    What are innovative models for awareness raising for human rights among employees?

    How can more businesses be encouraged to implement voluntary business & human rights guidelines?

  • Regulatory

    What international and regional systems do we need for this transnational phenomenon?

    How can we promote a universal understanding of what 'business and human rights' means? 

 

Background 

Globalized business and international trade today affect almost every one of us. While creating jobs, goods, and services we all profit from, negative effects of business activities occur still far too often. Large industrial projects still too often destroy our environment and livelihoods. The food we eat or the clothes we wear are still too often produced using slave or child labor. Even our beloved smart phones are being fabricated under poor conditions or by using minerals that directly finance armed conflict someplace else. These negative effects translate into human rights violations we have to prevent! But what’s the way? Laws and regulations can be a piece to the puzzle. But how effective can they be if our laws still think nationally, while business and trade operate truly international? The United Nations, on the international level, agreed that there is a “human rights responsibility of business” in 2011 (see the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”). But how exactly do we define this responsibility? One of the keys in answering this great challenge of globalization lies in harmonizing business and human rights rationale through intelligent goods, services, and business strategies. Which one can you think of?

 

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PMAL Case Brief

How would you describe your future work life? How long will you work per day? Will OTs (over time) still be necessary? Come join the Work-Life Balance Challenge and demonstrate your talent to help improve work agility in big companies! You could have a unique opportunity to demonstrate your innovative ideas. The challenge is open to all students and entrepreneurs with innovation potential and disruptive thinking!
 

Examples of potential fields
(Field 1 is mandatory, fields 2 & 3 can be used or not)  

Leave Policy/ Working Hours 

Working Arrangements/ Organisation Setup Career Development/ Internal Rotation
How to revolutionize the leave
(e.g. maternity leave, sick, move, emergency leaves ) policy to increase employee engagement & address personal needs?
 
How to simplify organizational structures and make operational
processes smoother?
 
How to leverage technology to
facilitate flexibility?
 
How to promote cross-functional collaboration and create synergies between
different departments in a
company with a hierarchical
organization through innovative workplace arrangement/setup?
 
How to manage internal talent
rotation to
help employees with
their career plan and improve
their personal growth?

 

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Teams

 

Each team should consist of 2 - 3 members.

Undergraduate students/Recent Graduates (full-time or exchange) from all disciplines and years of study.

Each team should assign 1 member as the team leader.

A student cannot be a member of more than one team.

First & Second rounds

First Round

The first round of the competition consists of a choice between two business case studies, i.e participants can either choose the case study provided by PMI or the one by FNF. Competing teams are required to submit an executive summary to address the problem presented in the case. The proposal should be in powerpoint format and be no more than 5 slides. The participants can, however, use the comments section to supplement the information in their presentation.

The judging panel will review the proposal submissions and the top 10 teams from each case will advance to the second round of the competition.

The deadline for Round 1 submission is October 8th, 2017 23:59 pm.

The announcement will be made on October 11th, 2017. Team members would receive an email regarding the result.

 

Second Round

After receiving the selection notification from both companies' juries, selected participant will enter the second round (October 11th, 2017).

From this point until the end of the second round (November 5th, 2017 23:59 pm), up to 10 selected teams for each case will be mentored by experts from both companies. At the end of this round, each team should submit a 10 to 15 slides presentation deepening their ideas submitted in the first round. Will be selected 3 teams for each case which will pitch their idea during the Grand Final (November 20th, 2017).

Final round

Proposal Pitch

The presentation time allowed for each team would be 15 minutes, including:
10 minutes presentation
5 minutes Q&A
Teams can use any means for presentation (e.g. powerpoint, drama, video, storyboard etc.). The presentation must be made in English.

All members of the team must be present for the final round presentations unless due to medical or other approved reasons. The absence of any member without prior notice might risk disqualification. In case of absence due to non-medical reasons, the team must inform ECG Case Competition at least 48 hours before the end of the registration period. Supporting document(s) should be sent to ecgcasecomp@gmail.com

 

Grand Finale Venue

 

This year's edition of the Business Case Competition will be held in the blueprint Incubator in Quarry Bay.

Rules

Detailed rules and regulations of this challenge.

Download here.