TAU Hosts Second Annual Sofaer International MBA Case Competition

For the second year in a row Tel Aviv University's Sofaer International MBA Program at TAU's Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration invited teams from the universities of nine different countries to compete in the program's case competition, held on May 23.

Designed to strengthen the bonds between academia and the real world of business, the competition embodies a core value of the Sofaer International MBA program, which encourages its students to learn from experience, both in and out of the classroom, and to think globally in an increasingly international business arena.

A Babylon problem

Once a competition exclusively for Israeli universities, the event was expanded to include teams from foreign countries last year. This year, teams from TAU, Ben Gurion University, the Technion, and Hebrew University competed with teams from the University of Toronto, UCLA, Copenhagen Business School, Fudan University, Hitotsubashi University, Indian Institute of Management–Ahmedabad, London Business School, National University of Singapore, and the Stockholm School of Economics participated in the competition.

Each year, the competing teams are presented with a challenge facing an Israeli company operating in the global market. This year, the students were asked to present a plan for the future growth of Babylon, one of the world's leading providers of translation services, with 45 million daily users. Teams were asked to address the firm's strategic expansion into mobile platforms and social networks.

Udi Aharoni, the CEO of the Recanati School's LAHAV Executive Education program and the moderator of the event, noted that presentations would be assessed based on their analysis of the industry and the creativity and innovativeness of their solutions.

Fostering creative teamwork

The competition, and the Sofaer International MBA, have gone a long way towards putting TAU's MBA programming on the map, said TAU President Prof. Joseph Klafter in remarks he made at the final round of the competition, calling "brain power" Israel's most valuable resource. He encouraged participants to always be creative in their business ventures: "It's out-of-the-box thinking that helps to develop new ideas."

Members of TAU's team said that the high spirit of competition was an inspiring addition to their educational experience. "Everyone was involved in all aspects of the case," said Nikki Avershal, calling the competition "an element that puts Sofaer on the international stage" and provides students with networking opportunities as well as a platform to showcase their skills.