Georgetown Students Compete in Business Competition

Four Georgetown University in Qatar students recently tested their business skills in marketing, finance, and human resources as part of the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar’s Al Ruwad Business Case Competition.

GU-Q international economics students Afif Haitsam (SFS ’18), Alisha Kamran (SFS ’18), Halak Sheth (SFS ’18), and Wessam Kanes (SFS ’18) formed one of 10 teams taking part in this year’s event. The teams competed against each other in three rounds of case analysis, with the top four teams with the highest scores competing for the top prize of QR 30,000 in the final round.

In each round of the competition, team members analyzed a business case study and presented their findings to a panel of judges.

“The team ranked ninth on the first round, but swiftly identified areas for improvement and improved their score in the second round,” said Toka Mohamed, economics specialist at GU-Q, who coached the participating team. “By the third round, the team had improved so much that they received the highest score, not only among the third round scores, but also the highest score achieved by any team in all the rounds of competition.”

While the team narrowly missed out on competing in the final round, Mohamed explained that they learnt a lot during the competition. “It allowed them to cooperate as a team under stress and work collectively on analyzing a business case to come up with a number of solutions to the case, evaluate each one of them, and develop a solid implementation plan for the chosen strategy, all within a restricted time frame,” she said. “It was also a great opportunity for the students to develop their speaking and presentation skills as they prepared and delivered a presentation of their business plan to judges from the industry during each round. As they progressed through the competition, they continuously reflected on their performance and worked hard to improve.”

The annual competition, which is supported by Doha Bank, is one of the premier inter-college business preparation activities in Qatar. This is the first year that GU-Q students have participated in the event.