Last week, Lang business students had the opportunity to pitch creative business solutions to executives from Labatt Brewing Company during a live virtual case competition. The competition is part of a fourth-year capstone course that challenges students to apply lessons learned in the classroom to real-world challenges facing companies.

This year, the Lang School partnered with Labatt to propose a variety of challenges the company may face, ranging from sustainability initiatives and engaging new consumer markets, to strong e-commerce strategies during a pandemic.

“These are problems our industry partners are actually thinking about, and they are genuinely interested in hearing the solutions students have developed,” said professor Nadège Levallet, course instructor for the strategic management course. “The competition is an ideal way for students to meet with industry leaders and develop skills they can leverage on their resumes.”

Students spent the semester studying the company, the industry, and strategic management principles before working in teams to develop strategic action plans for one of the identified challenges facing Labatt. In the case competition, the teams pitched their final solutions to a panel of judges that included Labatt executives.

Congratulations to the winning teams:

• Problem 1: Hugo Alves, Timothy Garside, Michelle Kozdras, Kendra Patkos, Simerjyot Randhawa, Brayden Ross
• Problem 2: Dhurshini Appaya, James Balardo, Joshua Carrafiello, Kassandra Deoliveira, Kirthan Punniyamoorthy, Elaine Rodricks,
• Problem 3: Sarah Hendriks, Darian Hirst, Marissa Ruppert, Mercedes Weber, Emily Winick
• Problem 4: Jordan Barkley, Christopher Dixon-Pirzas, Jonathan Lay, Andrew Leenders, Mitchel Livingston, Zachary Moore
• Problem 5: Ana Burlacu Smarandache, MacKenzie Carroll, Michelle Hudson, Hannah Kellway, Monika Keric, Jacqueline Preza Paule
• Problem 6: Emma Evenden, Elaine Li, Olivia Medeiros, Timothy Schutten, Adam Willinsky, Toygar Yildirim
• Problem 7: Tianqi Chen, Connor Drager, Ryan Havens, Scott Millar, Jordan Taylor
• Problem 8: Michelle Dong, Alissandra Elia, Jordan Hepp, Nicholas Stephen, Derek Tai

A special thanks to Labatt for making this experiential learning opportunity possible.

“Thanks to our partnership with Labatt, students were able to work together on real challenges facing their company,” said Levallet. “These industry partnerships allow students to apply core business knowledge acquired throughout their program and develop unique real-world solutions.”

The capstone course, Strategic Management (MGMT*4000), is an upper-year course that challenges Lang BComm students to draw on analytical tools from previous courses in order to comprehensively analyze business problems and establish viable strategies to implement.

In previous years, industry partners included Canadian Tire Corporation, RBC, Magna International, Loblaw Companies Limited, General Motors, and PepsiCo.