ATENEO STUDENT delegates won the silver in the final round of this year’s International Institute for Business Development (IIBD) Case Competition held on November 8 at the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU).
The winning team was composed of the following: Applied mathematics and finance senior Allan Cabrera, management engineering senior Jennifer Conlu, management-honors senior Billie Dumaliang and management engineering senior Nico Reyes. Their mentors were Johnny Filart, Assistant Vice President for University Development Hector Guballa and Jay Cruz of the Leadership and Strategy Department.
The IIBD Case Competition, according to its official website, “highlights the strategic challenges and managerial dilemmas faced by global business leaders.”
The participating teams had six hours in the final round to solve a real world business problem using simulated business conditions to formulate workable, action-oriented recommendations.
The other schools that qualified for the final round were Bowling Green State University, host institution HKBU, Simon Fraser University (SFU) and The University of Westminster. The HKBU and the SFU teams won bronze and gold, respectively.
FAB
This year’s cases were based on the theme “The Sustainability of Social Enterprises: Managing the Double Bottom Line.” For team member Dumaliang, sustaining a social enterprise would mean looking at long-term solutions for balancing the social and financial bottom lines of an enterprise.
The Ateneo team was given the Green Ladies case for the final round.
Green Ladies, a fashion social enterprise in HK selling used clothes under an innovative consignment model, aimed to lessen textile wastage in HK as well as enhance the capabilities of middle-aged women by employing them in Green Ladies stores.
According to Dumaliang, the key issues of the case were the market’s negative perception of purchasing used clothes, the enterprise’s operational efficiency and the lack of measurement tools for the enterprise’s social impact.
To address these, the team came up with the FAB Strategy: Fortify foundations, Appeal to customers, and Blaze the trail of a lifestyle change.
In fortifying foundations, they recommended enhancements to the consignment model where donors of clothes could choose to reduce their percentage from the sale of their piece.
The team also made a marketing campaign on how to make “eco-chic” clothes fashionable in HK—primarily by partnering with key influencers—to make it more appealing to customers.
For blazing a trail of lifestyle change, they recommended adding a new revenue stream where middle-aged women not only act as salespeople but as co-creators of eco-chic products.
Lastly, they introduced a social enterprise balanced scorecard, a strategy measurement tool, for Green Ladies.
