In what may have been the first of its kind, the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, Mitel and Export Development Canada (EDC) have given their support to the student organization Managers Without Borders to launch the unique VoIP enabled Mitel Virtual International Case Competition (Mitel VICC). 

The virtual global case competition took place from November 13 to 16, 2008 and included students from North America, Europe and Asia that worked together on intercultural teams. The competition aimed to simulate collaboration between international management students based on real world business cases.  The students used a virtual collaboration environment to work together across time zones to conduct their research, collaborate and reach consensus within a limited timeframe.

The participating universities were: University College Cork (Cork, Ireland), Singapore Management University (Singapore), Euromed École de management (Marseille, France), SMOT Management Academy (Chennai, India), Baylor University (Texas, USA) and the Telfer School of Management (Ottawa, Canada).

Congratulations to Team T4 (Lake Superior) who won first place overall at the competition:

• Jamie Clery (CORK - Ireland)
• Lan Lan (SMU - Singapore)
• Zhang Peng (Marseille - France)
• Vignesh Vancheeswar (SMOT - India)
• Jakob Von Fircks (Marseille - France)
• Hongji Wu (Telfer - Ottawa)

“Learning to collaborate internationally and using technology to do it is a key component of contemporary business” said Micheál J. Kelly, Dean of the Telfer School. “We wanted to put a project in place that would emphasize this and that’s given rise to the international case competition. We think it will be an instant hit with management students.”

Mitel has generously provided the telecommunications network and unified communications software required to run the global virtual competition. Students used the Mitel Unified Communicator® unified communications client that provided them with integrated presence and availability, secure Instant Messaging, audio conferencing, and video and data collaboration with the call control capabilities of the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP).

EDC has donated $25,000 to support the competition.

“Mitel is pleased to contribute to this innovative case study initiative that in many ways simulates the real world challenges of today’s global business environment,” said Mitel CEO Don Smith. “Whether small or large, businesses need solutions that offer a seamless way to communicate with employees, suppliers and customers regardless of geography as though everyone is in the same location. Mitel unified communications provide a set of flexible web-enabled applications that can be configured in various ways placing all the intelligence of the phone system onto the network and creating a single virtual system for the entire organization.”

"Export Development Canada (EDC) is pleased to support the Telfer School's Mitel Virtual International Case Competition as part of our Education and Youth Employment (EYE) Strategy.  Our program seeks to foster the development of international business education, so we are pleased with the selection of this example as the case study. It provides students with a very real and difficult business transaction in an emerging market that needed an expert solution," says Liz MacMurdo, the Senior Underwriter at the time. "In a case such as this where there were so many hurdles to overcome, one's gut reaction might have been just to decline and move on to the next transaction. We rolled up our sleeves and through our combined knowledge, determination and cooperation, were able to design an innovative solution that addressed the risks and led to a very successful business relationship."

Click here for the Official VICC Website