What if the only thing you had to do to make Bilkent an even better place was enter a competition? Well, for 12 years something very much like that has been happening through the Operational Research Club’s case study competition, CaseBilkent. The final presentations for this year’s competition took place on Saturday, April 15.
CaseBilkent is unique because not only do students solve the case; students also determine each year’s topic by conducting and responding to on- and offline surveys. Moreover, this is a real-life case study; the case always concerns something that could be done to improve the campus, either by changing an existing practice or initiating an entirely new project. The Operational Research Club and the university administration cooperate to prepare the case, conduct the competition and follow up on the recommendations of the winning project.
The students in charge of organizing this year’s competition were Merve Serra Şen, the project leader, and Rozerin Alp, the club’s vice president and Career Subgroup coordinator. “Think, Apply, Change” was the slogan for the event.
CaseBilkent ’17 looked at the issue of land use on campus, specifically in the parking areas. Teams of three members submitted their solutions for consideration; on April 8, the field was narrowed to six finalist teams in a process conducted with the sponsorship of PwC. The teams had a week to prepare their final presentation; a case analysis lecture by Jacques Couvas, adjunct senior lecturer in the Faculty of Business Administration, helped the competitors focus on what they needed to do to complete their task.
After the final presentations were made on April 15, the jury selected SPARK Consultancy, with members Deniz Uğuz, Merve Özer and Özgecan Gümüşbaş, as the winner. The second-place team was Ecomania, with Bilkent Capital coming in third. Prizes were SpringBreak, an iPad and a one-year subscription to the Harvard Business Review
The administration has already started work on implementing the improvements the SPARK team suggested.