SMU’s Team Cognitare comprising Jonathan Goh Jun Yang (4^th year, accountancy), Colin Chng Min Kiat (3^rd year, business and economics), Nigel Koh Rui Qian (3^rd year, accountancy) and Jazelle Tan Hui Yi (2^nd year, business), has brought back the top honours from the Thammasat Undergraduate Business Challenge 2015!

The prestigious competition organised by Thammasat University was held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 11 to 15 August.  Already into its 18^th year, this established global business case competition aims to provide participants with the opportunity to showcase their analytical skills and abilities to solve real-world business problems.

In an intense competition that comprised 16 universities from nine countries, including University of California, Berkeley, Maastricht University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, teams were to analyse and develop, within a stipulated duration of 30 hours, a set of recommendations for the case company – Garena, a leading online game and social platform provider.  The competition required participating teams to formulate strategies to accelerate the recognition of eSports as a professional sport in Southeast Asia, and present their proposals to esteemed judges from the business community, which included senior management of Garena and partners of top consulting firms.

SMU Team Cognitare stood out from the rest – they not only recommended ideas to improve the perception towards gaming, but also went a step further to suggest how the company could grow their revenue with the increasing acceptance of eSports.  Aside from their insightful recommendations and engaging presentation, the quartet also displayed strong teamwork to overcome the competitive international field and eventually took home the championship.

Jonathan was delighted that his team’s hard work had paid off.  “The case this year was a challenging one for us as we had to understand the company’s business model well in order to provide feasible recommendations that would ultimately allow the company to maintain its market leadership.  Our training has definitely prepared us well to develop rigour in our ideas and analysis, and to present a convincing case,” he said.

“This achievement would not have been possible without all the guidance and support we received from the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business, our professors and alumni of the club,” he added.

Congratulations to Team Cognitare!

[Featured photo: SMU’s Team Cognitare emerged as Champions at the Thammasat Undergraduate Business Challenge 2015.  (L-R) Colin Chng Min Kiat, Jonathan Goh Jun Yang, Faculty Advisor Senior Lecturer Ma Kheng Min, Jazelle Tan Hui Yi and Nigel Koh Rui Qian.]