The second annual Hack the Case competition gave MSc Business Analytics students the opportunity to dive head first into a real-life business dilemma.
Held by Ivey, Deloitte, SAS, Scotiabank, and the Centre for Advanced Computing, Hack the Case challenged students to analyze and provide a solution for an intricate, real-world business problem in just 11 days.
This year’s task was to help Scotiabank improve customer engagement with its SCENE Program. Students were tasked with analyzing real data, drawing insights and forming recommendations, and finally presenting those to the client, Scotiabank, which is currently working on the problem in the real world.
The competition at a glance
The students were armed with intensive SAS training in the first few days to develop their analytical skills before the competition began. Next, they broke into teams and worked through their solutions, while bouncing ideas off and talking through solutions with mentors from Deloitte and SAS.
To wrap up, the teams prepared presentations and copy decks for a panel of judges from Ivey, SAS, Deloitte, Scotiabank, and SCENE. But the winter weather lingering in April posed another surprise challenge for the students.
A twist, courtesy of Mother Nature
A mid-April ice storm kept the MSc students from travelling to Toronto for the final day of Hack the Case, scheduled to take place at the Deloitte office downtown. But nothing could stop them from impressing the judges with their hard work and remarkable presentations.
Two finalist teams were selected from a preliminary round of presentations, and advanced to the last round.
The winning team “Saloitte.bank” consisted of Ashley Tannis, Xuanyi Wang, Will Biderman, Daniel (Wei) Chen, Jeremy (Mingqian) Xu, and Sukhman Dulay.
The runner-up team “Brogrammers” consisted of Lorinda (Sihui) Ai, Shirley (Xue) Han, Xue Tan, Vaibhav Hans, Robert Li, and Evan Aiello.
The members of Saloitte.bank received $1,000, and tickets to attend a Toronto Raptors game this fall, where they will be seated in the SAS box with the opportunity to network with industry experts. The runner-up received $1,000.
Winning thoughts
Two students from the winning team Saloitte.bank shared their thoughts on the one-of-a-kind competition.
“Hack the Case was unlike anything I had experienced before. Being our first program-affiliated case competition, many of us had not experienced this volume of data and analysis under such heavy time constraints. The challenge was immense, which made finishing on time that much more rewarding.” – Ashley Tannis
“One of the major reasons I chose Ivey was the Case Method. This competition took that to the next level. Not only were we able to apply the lessons we’ve learned so far, but the interaction with a real client and consulting team was a great way to learn on the job. The competition challenged all of us to think outside of the box while utilizing the modeling techniques we developed.” – Sukhman Dulay
