“CASEKEY” CASE COMPETITION ’21

CaseKey Business Case Competition 2021 is an entrepreneurial contest for excellent students and young working professionals regardless of expertise or background, with an aspiration of uplifting Armenian businesses on the local and global playgrounds. To compete, participants break into teams of 3-5 people. The teams then pass coaching and training sessions, read a business case and provide a solution for the problem or situation presented in the case. This solution is presented to judges in the form of verbal analysis and presentation. The team with the best solution wins the competition.

The event is carried out in the framework of the “Future Today. Empowering women, youth, and children for deepening democracy in Armenia” UNDP Kolba Lab project funded by the European Union.


Objective

  • Engage Armenian businesses and young talents in an active platform that fosters the exchange of resources, ideas, and expertise
  • Enable and empower young talents to challenge themselves and sharpen their business acumen while contributing their parts to the economic development of Armenia
  • Give participants an opportunity to meet new people, get in touch with influencers from the business sector, and get an opportunity to be hired by the top company
  • Provide an opportunity to network with executives and other people in your field as well as the chance to earn bookbragging rights and prize winnings
  • Provide businesses with quality business consultancy from high-caliber students and working professionals
  • Create a social impact and foster the sustainable development of the Armenian Economy. Enhance Armenian business competitiveness in local and international markets, through leveraging a diverse pool of talents

Organizers

Title
Nation 2.0 NGO

A non-formal educational, entrepreneurship and professional development platform for the youth aimed to support its stakeholders and become a change agent on the national and local economic levels

Title
Aurora Baréalisse

BOUTIQUE MARKETING & BRANDING AGENCY
We amplify our clients’ brands, businesses, and reputations by fusing strategic thinking and creative solutions with efficient doing

EV Consulting
EV Consulting

A management advisory firm that serves companies and industries aspiring to move to the next level of competitiveness and innovativeness. EV Consulting partners with senior executives and business leaders


Who can apply

Individuals
Individuals
Teams with coaches
Teams with coaches

TIMELINE

Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Call for applications
-May-June 2021-

Call for individuals, coaches and mentors are opened.

Participants

Application: 05/May – 10/Jul-2021
Pre-Selection: 10/Jul – 17/Jul-2021
Interviews: 17/Jun – 25/Jul-2021
Final selection / notification: by 30/Jul

Coaches

Application: 05/May – 10/Jul-2021
Pre-Selection: 10/Jul – 17/Jul-2021
Interviews: 17/Jun – 25/Jul-2021
Final selection / notification: by 30/Jul

Call for applications are closed

Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Introductory session
-July 2021-

Participants will learn about case competition and will get to know selected coaches

All the selected participants will be invited to an introductory session. During the session, you will learn about all the technical details of the Case Competition 2021 and will get to know our coaches.


Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Matching & Teaming
-August 2021-

Individuals and coaches will be matched

What makes the team good and what preparations lie behind it? It is coaching. Coaches put students together in teams with the purpose of training them in international business strategy analysis, presentation skills, and reasoning.


Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Coaching and Training
-August-October 2021-

Teams will be coached by individual coaches and will get access to professional trainers

Training and coaching will help you to improve the effectiveness of the team. During that process, you can develop specific skills or behavior. The training program is determined by the audience, the purpose, the content, and the duration of the program.

Need a space for a team meeting?

CaseKey partners are eager to share their co-working spaces with you. Here you can find the list of co-working spaces, that are open for CaseKey participants.

While the main part of the learning process will be covered by the coaches, organizers will provide some additional training sessions for the participants. 3 to 4 workshops per month will be conducted. The workshops will be open mainly to the participants and ONLY 10 seats will be opened for the general audience (prior registration will be required).

Rafi Baghdjian

Rafi Baghdjian

– Ex-Executive at Shell –

“Do Not Fly Blind”

Ara Chalabyan

Ara Chalabyan

– COO at CBA –

“Financial tools for case analysis”

Sergey Manukyan

Sergey Manukyan

– Head of Market Research and Customer Experience Department at Flutter Entertainment Group –

“Market research fundamentals”

Tips and techniques for Case Solving

Dr. Limon, one of the best case competition coaches in the world, conducted 3-day training about Coaching Best Practices and provide Tips and techniques for Case Solving to our participants.

“This training was funded through a Department of State Public Affairs Section grant, and the opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of State.”

Artashes Vardanyan

Artashes Vardanyan

– Product Manager at ScholarshipOwl –

“How not to fall into “Illusion of progress” trap: Measuring the real outcomes”

Arthur Azizyan

Arthur Azizyan

– Founding CEO of Aurora Barealisse marketing and branding agency –

“Marketing stages and their importance for the consumer decision-making process”

Martin Galstyan

Martin Galstyan

– Governor at Central Bank of Armenia –

“Introduction to Business Strategy”


Our Teams

Brusov SMART
Brusov SMART
Change Lab
Change Lab
COAF
COAF
Creative creators
Creative creators
MBA Academy
MBA Academy
MBA Armenia
MBA Armenia
Orion
Orion
Zen
Zen
Karma
Karma
Agleam
Agleam
Taskmasters
Taskmasters
Blacklight
Blacklight
D`Makers
D`Makers
Blacksnakes
Blacksnakes
Galahs
Galahs
CBA astronauts
CBA astronauts

Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Case Announcement
-October 2021-

The business cases will be provided to the teams

The case

One month prior to the case competition event you will get the case


Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Submission of the Solution
-October 2021-

Teams will have 72 hours to work on the solution

You will have 72 hours to prepare your solution for the case. During that period you will have unlimited access to the case owner. The solutions must be submitted in PDF format in accordance with the guidelines.


Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Review of the solutions
-October 2021-

Solutions will be reviewed by a professional jury

Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Notification & Invitation
-October 2021-

Top teams will be notified and invited to the competition


Call for applicationJune - July 2021
Case Competition
-November 2021-

The results of 6 months of hard work will be demonstrated at the competition

Teams will be invited to participate in a full-day event. Out of 7 finalists, one team will be announced as a winner.
You are encouraged to relax and socialize. Teams—including their coaches—should have fun!

Panel Discussion

Topic: Are formal degrees things of the past? Time to re-connect the dots.

The panel discussion will have an Initial Remarks Style. A three-minute introduction of the topic with each panelist taking three minutes to introduce themselves and their perspectives on the topic. Then 15 minutes of curated questions from the moderator, 10 minutes of Q&A with the audience ending with a summary and thanks.

Aram Pakhchanyan

Aram Pakhchanyan

– VP at ABBYY –

Moderator

Panelists

 Ara Chalabyan

Ara Chalabyan

– COO at CBA –

Armen Nurbekyan

Armen Nurbekyan

– Head of Macroeconomic Directorate at Central Bank of Armenia –

Artavazd Mehrabyan

Artavazd Mehrabyan

– Co-Founder & CTO at PicsArt Inc. –

Artur Alaverdyan

Artur Alaverdyan

– Founder at Solaron –

Gor Vardanyan

Gor Vardanyan

– Rector of the NPUA –

Maga Markosyan

Maga Markosyan

– Co-Founder at MAROG Creative Agency –

Jury

This year the Teams will try to solve a business case provided by SEF International. 

Direct mechanisms for the competition will be used. There will be only one preliminary pool of 6-8 teams. The top 2 teams from the preliminary round will advance to the final round. During the final round battle will be conducted between the 2 finalists. Each team will have an opportunity to ask 3 questions to the opponent. So, it is essential, that each team carefully listen to others and take notes during the preliminary round.

Each team will have 15 minutes for the formal oral presentation. Normally, teams use the entire 15 minutes; presentations that exceed this period will be stopped. Each member of the team must participate in the oral presentation.

Following the presentation, there will be a 10-minute period for questions from the panel of judges. Teams may show new slides during this Q & A session if they are relevant to questions asked but may not continue the presentation..

Alexandr Yesayan

Alexandr Yesayan

– Co-Founder at Team.Telecom Armenia –

ASHOT HOVANESIAN

ASHOT HOVANESIAN

– , CEO at Synergy International Systems –

Garegin Gevorgyan

Garegin Gevorgyan

– CEO at SEF International UCO –

Manuk Hergnyan

Manuk Hergnyan

– Co-Founder at Granatus Ventures –

Raffi Kassarjian

Raffi Kassarjian

– Executive Director at UATE –

Shushan Harutyunyan

Shushan Harutyunyan

– CCO at Galaxy Group of Companies –

Sponsors and supporters

eco-system partners
Technological partners
Media partners

The event is carried out in the framework of the “Future Today. Empowering women, youth, and children for deepening democracy in Armenia” UNDP Kolba Lab project funded by the European Union.