Relying on only one hour of sleep from the night before, a team of UW business students put on their best faces, hiding the weariness and fatigue that plagued them. Facing the panel of judges, the team began to deliver their presentation, which they had painstakingly developed in a mere 48 hours.

The competitors: 16 top-rated teams from around the world.

The challenge: Find a way for Starbucks’ entertainment and music division to leverage its way into the international market.

“Going back to core competency with a focus on coffee” was how junior Jenny DeWhitt summarized her team’s strategy in Saturday’s 10th annual Global Business Case Competition (GBCC), hosted by the UW’s Michael G. Foster School of Business.

Teams were presented with the Starbucks case Wednesday of last week and were given two days to develop a strategy and prepare a presentation for a panel of judges. Teams were free to develop their strategies as they saw fit.

“We felt that any attempt by Starbucks to market music should focus on and enhance the overall experience of what Starbucks is really about: coffee,” DeWhitt said. “By creating a personal ‘music haven’ for the customer within the shop, Starbucks would allow customers to discover music in a less intrusive way.”

The team from the UW used this strategy to develop a plan for Starbucks that utilized directional speakers to create a personalized listening experience for individual patrons within the coffee shop, while at the same time highlighting specific music that the patron could purchase within the store.

It was a strategy that won UW business students DeWhitt, Gib Lopez, Kyle Floyd and David Wang the People’s Choice Award during Saturday’s case competition presentations. Although the UW team wasn’t the judges’ favorite, this award named them the best according to their fellow competitors. Walking away with the first place prize as judges’ choice was the National University of Singapore, but there was no bitterness from the decision.

“I loved that Singapore won,” DeWhitt said. “They did a good job and they really deserved it.”

The GBCC has become the flagship international event for the UW business school, and a variety of teams around the world participate.

“It’s really a phenomenal event,” said Andrea Gomes, assistant director for the business school’s Global Business Center and coordinator for the GBCC. “Each year we strive to achieve geographic diversity in our teams, and overall it’s a competition that has hosted 87 different universities from 45 different countries.”

Case competitions have grown in scope and relevance during the past 10 years as the UW business program has strived to reach its stated goal of becoming the best public business school in the country.

“The process is tremendous,” said senior team member Kyle Floyd, a finance major graduating in June. He will go on to work for Roth Capital Partners, which is an investment banking and consulting firm in Newport Beach, Calif. Floyd sees this competition as offering valuable work experience as he heads into the corporate world.

“It forces you to apply the concepts of what you learn in the classroom,” Floyd said. “The case we solved for this competition is something that you would get hired as a consultant for in the real world, so it’s a great experience to be a part of this.”

Though the UW has hosted the GBCC for 10 years, focus on the case competitions system didn’t start until 2004. It was a change that originated within the MBA program at the business school.

“We used to get feedback that while our students’ technical skills were very high, they were lacking in effective communication skills,” said Judith Kalitzki, director of leadership development at the business school.

These comments inspired the school to restructure parts of its teaching strategy in 2004. The new program that emerged involved an emphasis in real world case competitions and leadership skills. Kalitzki now teaches a required leadership and communication class to all first year MBA students.

While the initial changes may have occurred within the MBA programs, many of those changes have now trickled down to the undergraduate level.

“It’s really grown, to be perfectly honest,” Gomes said. “It’s something that’s really happened within the last two years, and we even have a coach specifically for case competitions. More and more students are getting excited about competing.”

This year, 36 teams signed up to compete in the business school’s internal case competition. Many students see these events as a way to differentiate themselves on a résumé and to gain experience.

“I really want to do consulting for multicultural marketing, so it really is perfect practice for me,” senior Queenie Man said.

Man competed on the global team in this year’s competition, where she worked with students from South Korea, Ireland and New Zealand.

“The experience I have gained from these competitions is so valuable, not just because of what I’ll be able to put on my résumé, but also because of the people I’ve met,” Man said. “I highly recommend it to anyone.”

The experience that students gain from competing in these competitions is one of a kind, and is proving to be a great supplement to the knowledge they gain in the classroom.

“You’re really getting down to the gritty business education with these competitions,” DeWhitt said. “Think about it. Often times you’ll spend six or eight hours cramming for a final, but with a case competition you spend 48 hours cramming everything you’ve learned into one single presentation, so for me its like the equivalent of taking six classes in two days.”

Floyd shares a similar sentiment.

“It really forces you to recognize which parts of your education are most important, and it allows you to focus and develop those skills the most,” he said.

Faculty and staff have noticed dramatic results as well, mostly in students’ drive, commitment and enthusiasm.

Kevin Kirn, an MBA student whose team won first place at a Wake Forest University case competition in February, recalled that judges at the event said their team looked more like faculty than students.

“Other teams wanted to know what kind of special training we were getting at UW that they weren’t,” Kirn said.

With so many teams from the UW doing well in competitions all over the world, the UW business school has become a force to be reckoned with.

“I think the fact that our students are performing so well shows that we’ve really raised the bar, and it really does a lot for the school’s reputation as well,” Kalitzki said.

Dan Poston, assistant dean for MBA Programs, said the UW has won more case competitions since 2004 than it participated in during the previous four years it competed.

“One of the reasons we support our students competing in these competitions so much is because we very much want them to be good at the communication factor involved in business, and the fact that we’ve been winning says that we’re doing something right,” Poston said.

[Reach reporter Casey Smith at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]