BU Tech Strategy Presentation

I'm finally getting around to posting some of my work to Slideshare. Below is my team's winning presentation from the 2007 Boston University Tech Strategy Case Competition. Each team had 24 hours to address the subject, “What is the best way for Motorola to win in seamless delivery of media and entertainment?” We recommended that Motorola leverage their position in the set-top box market to enable a P2P media delivery system. Check out the presentation. I'd love to hear your comments.

Motorola's Strategy for Media Distribution

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: box set-top)

The Future of Mobile

The BU Tech Strategy Case competition is now a few weeks past but I haven't been able to stop thinking about my team's proposal. We proposed a new platform based business model for Vodafone with Ericsson (competition sponsor) as a strategic partner. Unfortunately, we didn't make it beyond the first round (more details later).

I sat in on the presentations of the four finalists. For the most part these presentations were high level type consulting reports that advocated moving to a mobile broadband world. It was disappointing to realize that the competition sponsors just weren't ready for an innovative idea like ours. On the upside I'm starting to realize that I'm not alone in feeling this way. Check out this great blog post and discussion from one of my favorite blogs, Telco 2.o. To quote from that post:

Then you have to ask: “Don’t we need a new business model here, in parallel with the 4G technical developments?” The answer is of course, yes, and we explained why to NGMN.org in detail over a year ago on this blog. But, of course, we’ve had a deafening silence from the tecchies about this (“Not
our problem!”).

Sloan First Round Presentation

Dehli's Presentation
Originally uploaded by Boston University Tech Strategy Case Competition.

After an hour of sleep we were the first team of the day to present to the judges. We got off to a slow start but warmed up as we went through the presentation.

BU Tech Strategy Case Competition

It is just about time for Boston University's annual tech strategy case competition. This year 16 teams from around the world will be competing for the top prize of $25,000 sponsored by Ericsson. Last year I participated in the competition and was fortunate enough to be on the winning MIT Sloan team. As the only first-year student on that team I had the opportunity to put this year's team together. We've got a great team and will hopefully come home with enough money to hold me over until I find a job.

The competition goes from March 27 - 29th and you follow the action on the official competition blog. Check back here to see if Sloan was able to pull off a repeat victory.

MIT Sloan Places 3rd in Red Hat Challenge

I have to give a plug to my fellow Sloanies who recently placed 3rd in the first Red Hat Challenge. Teams had the opportunity to compete for $20,000 by tacking a real-world business challenge for Red Hat. There was a great turnout for the competition with over 343 teams from 143 schools. Congrats to the Sloan team, Jon Krafcik, Glenn Wilson, Donna Pitteri, and Eric Cheung. The four of them are also competing in the McKinsey Business Technology Challenge which kicks off tonight.

Costa Rica to Boston

Pardon my recent lack of posts. The last two weeks were Sloan SIP/spring break. I went down to Costa Rica with a group of students and had a great time. I highly recommend visiting. The Arenal region was especially beautiful.

The day after retuning I started the Boston University Tech Strategy Case Competition sponsored by Motorola. This is the second year of the competition. 11 teams of MBA students from around the world took part. They included IIM, Kellogg, Stanford, LBS, Seoul, and others. We were given 24 hours to put together a strategy for Motorola's entry into the digital contnet space. Our proposal focused on using internet enabled set-top boxes as a P2P network. With a bit of luck and a lot of hard work we came in first place earning the $25K prize. Check out the contest blog to learn all the gory details.

http://smgcasecomp.blogspot.com/

McKinsey Business Technology Case Competition

Today McKinsey announced their first business technology case competition. For a chance at $10K you can bet I'll be signing up. This past fall I competed in the Darden Innovation Challenge which was a great chance to evaluate Web 2.0 trends for financial services. My team didn't end up in the top 3 but two other Sloan teams competed in the finals. Hopefully, this will be another good learning experience.

The McKinsey Business Technology Challenge invites teams of 3-5 MBAs from Berkeley Haas, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, University of Chicago GSB, and Wharton to show how a breakthrough technology could transform one of the world's leading
companies. On Friday, April 13th, we'll reveal the technologies and companies.
Your team will then have 48 hours to develop a plan for how one or more of the technologies can create extraordinary value. The incentive? $10,000 for the Campus Winners and an additional $20,000 for the team that wins the National Competition, to be judged in New York on April 20. Plus, the winning team will receive the first-ever McKinsey Business Technology Prize. Interested? Save the date: April 13. We'll be sending you further competition details, including registration information, on March 1.