9th anual International Case Competition
Ivey Business School, IESE and MIT Winners in Case Competition

This year's winner of IESE's longstanding event, the International Case Competition, was recently announced.

The MBA team from Ivey School of Business took the top prize, followed by teams from IESE Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management.

The competition, sponsored by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, showcases the skills of MBA students in preparing a case study in real time. This year, nine teams from Europe and North America participated. Other schools were Bocconi, Columbia, INSEAD, London Business School, Rotterdam, Yale, and Kellogg.

The case to resolve  centered  on Netflix's 2002 public share offer.  Set against difficult market conditions, the case covered the process for selecting the underwriters, working with the stock exchange commission, the road show, decisions on pricing, lock-up period and directed shares, and issues relating to the SEC-mandated quiet period and material disclosures.   
"All the presentations were excellent and it was really difficult to choose a winner," said  Prof. Alicia Steiger of Stanford  University , a member of the jury and author of the case.  "But Ivey stood out because of their outstanding analysis of the problem and detailed recommendations. Moreover, they had excellent presentation skills and worked well as a team."

The other members of the jury  -  Joao Pena, Jerome Koelewijn and Christoph Besel of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants  - also said they were impressed by the depth of analysis and the quality of presentations of each team.

IESE  Business School has pioneered the use of the case study method in Europe. Today, it is the largest publisher of business cases in Europe, available in both Spanish and English.

Doing Good and Doing Well
CSR and Sustainability Come of Age

"People are happier and healthier when they work within a socially responsible business model," affirmed Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish at the recent corporate social responsibility (CSR) conference, "Doing Good and Doing Well," held at IESE Business School.

Abouleish, founder and chairman of the award-winning Sekem initiative, was one of several experts to speak at the event, organized by the school's Responsible Business Club.

Other CSR gurus and business leaders from diverse sectors included Mark Albion, author of the book "Making a Life, Making a Living," Jan Oosterveld (MBA ‘71) of Royal Philips Electronics and IESE professor, Joppe Cramwinckel, Shell Sustainable Development Advisor and David Grayson, director of Business in the Community.

In his presentation "Establishing the Blue Print for the Healthy Corporation for the 21st Century," Dr. Abouleish stressed that executives and managers have an obligation to society to incorporate values into their business models. 

"Leaders," he said, "must have the courage to speak about real values."

Recognized as one of the world's outstanding social entrepreneurs by the Schwab Foundation, Abouleish provided an overview of the Sekem model. For more than  25 years, he said, Sekem's unique approach has helped bring about positive social change and human development in the deserts of Egypt, one of the world's poorest regions. The key to Sekem, which in heiroglyphics means "vitality from the sun," is its holistic philosophy. The initiative incorporates a number of creative sustainability approaches, such as biodynamic methods of agriculture to produce large varieties of high quality (primarily organic) consumer products, and sponsors training in the arts and sciences, as well as health care for employees and their families.

In his presentation, "From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Opportunity," David Grayson said that incorporating CSR into business practices is a "no-brainer," from a risk management point of view. This is not because institutional investors have suddenly become "tree-huggers," he said, but because they see risks in businesses that do not embrace CSR principles.

Grayson pointed to several trends on the horizon that should prompt more companies to implement CSR strategies.

IESE’s MBA Student Clubs Organize International Forum
Strategies for Latin America

A dramatic increase in investment from Europe – particularly Spain – to Latin America has spurred important changes in the finance sector over the past decade.

For Francisco Gómez Roldan, CFO of Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH), these new opportunities present new challenges. "We need to face growth by focusing on the area of commercial banks. We were successful in carrying out our work in terms of efficiency; now we need to increase revenue and promote more regional projects," he said.

Gómez Roldan was one of several financial experts and business leaders to speak at the Latin American Finance Forum, organized by IESE Business School's Latin American Business Club and the IESE Finance Club. Other speakers included: Luis Enrique Yarur (MBA’75), president of Chile's Banco de Credito e Inversiones (BCI); Lionel Olavarría (MBA’75), managing director of BCI; and Fernando Abril-Martorell, former managing director of the Spanish firm Telefónica.

A number of issues were discussed throughout the forum, including: strategies for expansion in Latin America; diverse business models among financial institutions in the region; new opportunities, products and markets for banks and other financial entities; and the future of the region itself.

BCI President Yarur shed light on the Latin American perspective, detailing the strategy BCI used when it was faced with an invasion of foreign banks with bigger and deeper pockets in the late 1990s. "We were told that Latin American banks would not be able to resist [the invasion]. Nevertheless, we thought we could get it done if we implemented a sound strategy."

According to Yarur, the BCI strategy was based on satisfying three groups: investors, thus ensuring profitability; clients, through offering the best products possible; and bank employees, by always acting in a socially responsible manner. "BCI has improved its efficiency in recent years without having to resort to massive layoffs," he said, "and at the same time it has continued to provide benefits."

BCI Managing Director Olavarría highlighted the differences that exist among Latin American countries. He noted that Chile, for example, has achieved an average growth rate of 7 percent in recent years, a figure that stands out in strong contrast to the serious problems afflicting other economies in the region. "Latin America," he said, "cannot be treated as one single market, despite the fact that analysts continually consider it in a global way."

MBA Keynote Speaker Series
Leadership is Tougher than Ever,
Says Editor of The Economist

Corporate governance is in the spotlight these days. The recent corporate scandals, the spread of shareholding among more people, widening pay differentials between CEOs and employees, and the boom and bust of the dot coms are four factors that have sparked interest in the topic.

Frances Cairncross, Management Editor of The Economist, outlined these factors when she addressed "Corporate Governance or Good Leadership: Which Do Companies Need Most?" as part of IESE's MBA Student Affairs Keynote Speaker Series.

This year’s Speaker Series also recently included a presentation by Bill Emmot, editor of The Economist, who addressed the world economy. Emmot, author of “20:21 Vision: Twentieth-Century Lessons for the Twenty-First Century,” presented his vision on the current political scenario in the wake of the Madrid bombing.

During her presentation, Cairncross said that the debate surrounding corporate governance has focused largely on three principle areas: accounting and transparency, appropriate governance structures, and rewards (monetary and otherwise) for performance.
Leadership is a different but parallel issue to corporate governance, she added. "Being a good business leader today is a tougher job than ever. Executives must be able to speak to and convince a larger number of audiences at once. They must be able to make difficult decisions at lightening speed, and because they have to travel so much, they must be able to make them from anywhere in the world."

For Cairncross, every good business leader should have: a sound ethical compass; the ability to make unpleasant decisions; clarity and focus; ambition; effective communication skills; the ability to judge people; a knack for developing talent; emotional self-confidence; adaptability; and charm.

Cairncross concluded that good leadership and good corporate governance usually go hand in hand. "A good leader will have good attention to detail, and make good decisions. And he or she will make sure good mechanisms are in place."