Our team’s experience participating in this year’s Battle on Bay case competition
In the first week of January 2021, we, Michael K., Roberto B., and Isaac D. competed at the 14th annual Battle on Bay (BoB) case competition organized by the Ryerson University Finance Society (RUFS). The BoB is a three-day event where students from more than 10 schools across Canada work in teams of three to four members and compete by developing a stock pitch and completing a crisis case.
One of our tasks was to prepare a 15-minute stock pitch presentation to a panel of judges, which were made up of professionals in the finance and software industries. We were provided with requirements for the presentation seven days prior and delivered our pitch to the judges on the second day of the event. On the third and final day, all students were given 90 minutes to prepare for a crisis case presentation that related to a real-life financial issue. All teams competed to be one of the top three winners, with prizes up to $3,000!
After our team took an applied finance course together in our second year in the University of Waterloo’s Accounting and Financial Management (AFM) program, we were all interested in further developing our problem solving, communication, and financial skills. BoB seemed like the perfect place to do that! Beyond developing these skills, we also heard a lot about the conference’s unique workshops facilitated by accomplished professionals, and its networking panel where students have the opportunity to learn about various career opportunities.
Since we were all previously involved with the School of Accounting and Finance’s (SAF) investment and venture funds, we learned a lot of transferable skills in the past. As the days passed by, we learned how to structure a good presentation and how to evaluate a business. We think the valuation and due-diligence skills will be useful in any career path in finance whether that be investment banking, private equity, venture capital, asset management, you name it! Lastly, regardless of whatever career path you end up pursuing, the soft skills we gained from this case competition will help any student succeed in any workplace they find themselves in.
For our team, we were really lucky because everyone knew each other before this case competition, and this made navigating team dynamics simple since we already had an understanding of each other’s work styles. As a result, it was an amazing bonding experience that allowed us to have closer relationships than before. A tip we have for anyone thinking of competing in this competition is to communicate schedules and availability with your team early on so that you can easily coordinate times to work together.