For the first time this year, BYU’s Business Language Case Competition was opened to undergraduate French speakers. In competition with three other universities, BYU’s French-speaking team was awarded first place, which included $2,000 in prize money.
PROVO, Utah (November 8–9, 2018)—
For BYU students Aaron Beck, Julia Hansen, and Aaron Oborn, participating in BYU’s Business Language Case Competition was a bit unexpected.
“We heard about the competition when we were in our Business French class,” Hansen said. “We had no idea what we were signing ourselves up for,” she laughed, “but we soon realized [the competition] was a bigger deal than we thought it was.”
Although BYU’s Business Language Case Competition has existed for a number of years, this year marked the first time the competition was opened to French and Arabic speakers. The competition gives students a chance to present an international business case in either Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, or Arabic. Participating teams only compete with other teams presenting in the same language. This year, BYU, UNLV, Indiana University, and Weber State competed in the French-speaking segment of the competition.
Competition participants must be undergraduate, non-native speakers of the language of their presentation, and each competing team must be comprised of three people. In assessing presentations, the competition’s judges give each team a score for “content and delivery,” which counts for two-thirds of the team’s overall score, as well as a score for “language usage and grammar” which counts for the remaining third.
This year, participating teams were asked to create presentations responding to the international expansion needs of TAFT Clothing, a Utah-based company founded in 2013 by two BYU graduates, Kory and Mallory Stevens. Since its founding, TAFT Clothing has consistently risen in popularity and profitability. The company—which specializes in high-quality men’s shoes—invited all of the competition’s participants to meet with TAFT head executives at its distribution center the day before the presentations.
“[For our presentation] we had to come up with different ways for TAFT to expand its market, specifically into Europe,” Beck explained. TAFT’s shoes are made in Europe, he continued, “So we decided that rather than deal with shipping the shoes back to the United States before shipping them to customers overseas, it would be best to find another location for a distribution center in Europe.”
“In brainstorming our plan for TAFT,” Hansen said, “we looked at the company’s manufacturers, which are based in Portugal and Spain, and decided that Rotterdam, Netherlands would be the best place to put a distribution center. Basically, our presentation attempted to explain why this would be the best solution for the company.”
When their professor, Assistant Dean of Humanities Corry Cropper, initially told them about the competition, Beck, Hansen, and Oborn decided to compete but figured they would put in minimal time. After all, the case was confidential until two weeks prior to the competition, so competing would involve a considerable time crunch. Nevertheless, as they prepared they realized they loved the case, and ultimately put in the hours to present their best work.
Even considering the team’s efforts, it was a “nice surprise,” said Beck, to take home the competition’s first place prize for French speakers. The $2,000 in prize money was also a nice bonus. For Hansen, participating in the competition was an eye-opener: “It was so exciting for me, personally—it helped me realize that maybe I do want to get an MBA, maybe I want to do something else with business,” she said.
Elizabeth Barton (English and French Studies ’18)