Guidelines & Rules

General Rules & Guidelines

Team Composition

• Each team will be composed of four currently enrolled students working on their first university degree (undergraduates).

• No alternates will be permitted once UW GBCC week commences.

Resources

• Internet: Teams will have wireless access in their guest rooms as well as wireless access in certain public areas of the hotel and on UW campus.

• Computers: Laptops will not be provided during UW GBCC week. Teams will need to bring their own laptops. Due to technical differences, we may not be able to provide technical support for those laptops. 

• Databases: Participants can utilize any database for research they normally have access to, with or without a login provided by their university.

• Study Rooms: Teams will each get a small study room to work on their case, that has a monitor and outlets. 

• Supplies: Each team will receive a USB and have other supplies like pens, notepads and other items available! 

Applicable to BOTH Cases

• Teams may not consult with non-team members during preparation of the case analysis or on the day of competition. This includes faculty, advisers, staff, ambassadors, and fellow students. Teams are expected to produce original work.

• Teams will be provided a preparation room on the day of the Challenge. 

  • Teams should bring their own laptops to the preparation rooms. 

  • Teams will not be allowed to use personal laptops or other mobile devices during the presentation.

• Teams are required to present their comprehensive case analysis utilizing either Microsoft PowerPoint or in Adobe PDF format.

• Bring your slide on a provided USB drive for your presentation to load onto the provided computer. You should save a copy of slides to be access online just in case. 

  • Please do not bring printed handouts. 

  • Do NOT label your usb or file names with your university or school name, as it would violate the anonymity rule if judges see it. Instead, use your assigned team codename, like Team #4, or Team A1, for example.

• To prevent bias, judges will not know which teams they are judging. 

• Dress code is business professional. 

  • Do not include any graphics or words in the presentation or wear any clothing with school or country logos that would identify your school, state, or country, to keep it anonymous for the judges.

• Teams are allowed to introduce themselves and shake hands with the judges when they enter the room.

• We highly recommend that all team members participate in all parts of the oral presentation.

• Be prepared for questions from the judges. The judges may be playing roles as well (for example, firm executives or board members).

• After the presentation and Q & A session, teams will have 5-minute feedback session where they will receive immediate feedback from the panel of judges. 

  • Teams are to listen to the feedback and take notes. Teams are not allowed to further explain the presentation or use the feedback session as an extension of the Q & A session.

• Recording and pictures are not permitted other than official GBC sources like our photographers and video recording system.

Applicable ONLY to Short Case

Short Case Competition

• The Short Case Challenge will take place on Wednesday of UW GBCC week. Case Teams will be announced during the welcome dinner on Tuesday, April 16th. Participants will be placed on global teams representing their university and country. Each team will be composed of four different universities and each team member from the same university will be placed in a different time slot.

• Teams will have five hours to analyze the case and come up with a solution. Teams will pitch their idea to the judges in a boardroom style setting. 

Short Case Presentations

• The format of the Short Case Challenge is a short pitch to executives of a company, i.e. ‘coffee with the leadership team’. Oral presentations will be conducted.

• Teams will have 3 minutes to pitch their idea, followed by a 7 minute Q&A discussion with the judges. There will be a 5 minute feedback session following the presentation.

• Teams will be allowed to create one PowerPoint slide to present to judges during the Short Case Challenge.

  • Do NOT label your usb or file names with your university or school name, as it would violate the anonymity rule if judges see it. Instead, use your assigned team codename, like Team #4, or Team A1, for example.

• No appendix slides are allowed. No clickers are given as this is a one-slide presentation.

• The short case presentations will not be recorded. 

• No guests are allowed to watch your presentation other than your advisor. 

Short Case Judging

• Each presentation will be judged by a panel of three to four corporate judges.

• Each global team will be scored, to find one winning team made of four university representatives across all rooms.

Applicable ONLY to 24-Hour Case

Long Case Analysis

• Each team will be given 24 hours to devise a solution for an international business case. The time spent analyzing the case will be very intense and focused.

• The case will be similar in length to Harvard Business School cases. It may address multiple geographical regions and multiple functional areas (for example, accounting, finance, marketing, and so forth). Teams may be asked to play roles in their case analysis (for example, to take the roles of firm managers or consultants).

• To prepare for the competition, teams may want to practice analyzing past UW GBCC cases. Teams are expected to produce original work. 

Long Case Presentations

• The presentations will be 15 minutes, followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session with a panel of judges. If a team finishes its presentation early, it will go right ahead into the 10-minute question-and-answer session.

  • Preliminary and Finals rounds will be recorded on our classroom equipment and sent/posted later.

  • Finals will not include a feedback period.

  • Guests are allowed to be in the audience for preliminary rounds such as your advisors, ambassadors etc; however, they must come and go with the team to keep presentations closed in case a team advances to Finals. Final Rounds are open to the public and the audience can come and go between any presentation.

Long Case Judging

• Each preliminary round will be judged by a panel of four to six corporate judges.

• Judges will will pick one winning team per room, so four teams will advance to Finals

• The final round will be judged by a panel of four to seven corporate judges. The preliminary round and final round judges are different. These judges will pick one first place, one second place, and two finalists. 

Case & Rule Questions 

• To ask a question about the rules, please contact Caro Zeiher at czeiher@uw.edu 

• Caro will email back to confirm the answer and add both the question and answer to the GBCC 2024 website FAQ section.