The Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Property Case Competition
About: A Case Competition is a business simulation for teams of four undergraduate students. Teams are provided with information about a company and given five hours to analyse the case, develop a solution and prepare a presentation. They then present their solution to a panel of business practitioners and defend it against questions.
Benefits for Students:
The (PRESS) Competition provides students with an opportunity to:
- apply theory to property business
- understand property as an integration of all business disciplines
- be profiled before industry practitioners and case programme alumni
- network with other talented students
- develop an awareness of personal working style
- understand how personal working style can affect team mates and how to apply that understanding to improve team performance
- be benchmarked with the best talent from the university, the country and around the world
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Study Property at UniSA & Experience. The Difference
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UniSA
Property Team: In January 2009 a number of property discipline staff
attended the Pacific Rim Real Estate Society
(PRRES) conference in Sydney where a group of four
UniSA Bachelor
of Business (Property) Program students took part in the Case
Competition.
The competition was open to undergraduate property students from the Pacific Rim region and included teams from Australia, New Zealand, USA and HK.
What our students say:
UniSA Property Team Student 1
"The case competition was an invaluable experience in measuring where we are at as students and as an institution. It’s interesting to see how other students approach complex problem solving and what focus their respective institutions place on parts of the problem. In that I think that we had a strong analytical base with strong problem solving skills, we provided an in-depth analysis but were weak in creative ideas and marketing! I guess its important to know where we are at – after all we will be competing against these people in the broader employment market globally."
UniSA Property Team Student 2
"In January I was on a team of four current graduates to represent the UniSA Property Program at the inaugural PRESS (Pacific Real Estate Society) Conference International Case Study Competition. We competed against teams from Hong Kong, California, New Zealand, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney. The competition was very challenging, but we had a great time participating in it. And as a bonus we got to attend the conference and spent some time sightseeing in Sydney.
We arrived on Sunday afternoon and the competition was held on the Monday. On Monday night we had dinner together with all the students and on Tuesday we attended the conference. There were some terrific speakers providing good insights into the current economic situation and the difficulties faced by the property sector. We stayed in a pretty nice hotel and the Uni even picked up the tab for most meals. The conference included a four-hour harbour dinner-cruise, which was terrific fun. We spent Wednesday sightseeing before flying home that evening.
In terms of the competition, we had four hours to prepare a ten minute presentation on a Harvard Business School property case study. Our particular case-study dealt with the re-development of an office building into apartments in inner Mexico City. It drew on broad knowledge from the programme in terms of finance, market fit, product development criteria and especially risk assessment. Different teams appeared to focus on different aspects and this showed that the different universities have varying priorities in their programs. The eventual winning team from California focused more on marketing whereas we focused more on questioning the financial viability and market fit of the project and on the identification of the major risks.
The teams got drawn into two groups. We were in the group of three, but unfortunately drew the much more experienced Kiwis and Americans against us. The winning teams in each division re-presented their case to a new judging panel in the final. The Americans beat the Sydney-siders fair and square with a much better presentation, and their much greater experience at this kind of work clearly showed.
Regarding the performance of team UniSA, the feedback from the judges indicated that, though our presentation skills were lacking, the substance of our case was quite sound and this showed that the technical and analytical content of our program is very good. But we had only practiced two cases before we went to Sydney and were a little unsure what the judges would actually be looking for. Overall though, it was a great learning experience and great fun."
UniSA Property Team Student 3
"I believe we all found case studies a challenge from the beginning simply because case studies had not been incorporated into our university courses and we were inexperienced with them. However I believe our practices, although there were only two, brought us a long way, and I would really like to stress the importance of practicing for future groups. Such things as dominant personalities, team dynamics, more efficient ways to do things and presentation skills can be uncovered and developed. In fact superior presentation skills are another aspect I would like to stress.
The teams we were competing against at the competition had presentation skills far superior to ours. We referred to written notes in our presentation, but the other teams were able to present with no notes at all, with the ability to recall all key facts of the case. This gave their presentations a much more professional, polished look.
When it came to the day of the competition we were all quite nervous but excited. The case we received was longer than expected, but we worked through it together very well and in good time. We were happy with how we were able to pull together in a time of high stress and produce an answer and presentation which we believed was at a quality produced by the best of our abilities. After the finalists were announced all the teams were able to watch the final presentations and speak to each other about the case study. This was very interesting as it was clear there were vast differences in the answers the various teams had produced, making us realise that there is not one straightforward answer to a case study.
The case study competition was really great as it taught us to work together very well, and to get a result very quickly. My reading, analytical, and communication skills are also more advanced now. It was also a superb experience to meet a number of the academics which authored multiple papers on our course reading lists. Additionally the industry day provided a great deal of information to us on the current state of the economy and various markets, as well as other topical property issues. Trekking Sydney doing tourist-like activities was also fantastic as I had never been to Sydney.
The recommendation I would make for future teams competing in case study competitions would be to practice lengthy case studies many times before the competition, including the presentations to develop strong presentation skills and ensure good preparation. Additionally, I would recommend to students not to hesitate about doing a case study competition – all the effort is really worth it and it really is an amazing experience!"
UniSA Property Team Student 4
"This experience was fantastic in taking the next step from academia to the real world. I think that learning via case studies has great merit. It allows you to take your theory and put it into practice. It would make a great addition to the curriculum if you were able to fit it in. It also forces you to become more disciplined in time management and keeping focused on the big picture. I think that this tends to get lost in uni where the focus can shift to completion of the next assignment and not looking at what you are learning as a whole and how it can be applied to the real world.
As far as the case competitions go, if you were able to have at least two teams from different years then they could practice with/against each other and then would be able to pass on tips and hints to the next years teams. this way you would always have upcoming members with internal experience as well as advice from previous students.
A case competition is not something that I (and I believe the rest of the team) would have entered externally, however none of us were very "campus orientated" I think that incorporating the case studies into the curriculum would provide the most benefit, however speaking to the lecturers at the conference, they felt that a "club" would be successful. As the skills required to undertake a case study competition are not specifically property related it could be a whole school club if required although the mix of disciplines could tax peoples negotiation skills. though this is not a bad thing. Thank you to attending property staff and PRESS for allowing us this unique opportunity. I learnt a lot not only from the case competition, but also from attending the conference."