My Experience with Participating in JDC West

by Emily McNair, Business Analyst

McNair has been a proud sponsor of the Hill School of Business JDC West team for the past three years. JDC West (Jeux du Commerce West) is a business competition that brings together eleven Western-Canadian business schools each January.  The competition consists of ten academic case teams that compete in different business specialties, a parliamentary style debate, a social challenge, a sport challenge and a charity challenge.  Each business school competes to win first place in Western-Canada.

The Paul J. Hill School of Business from Regina has placed second overall for the past three years, and is looking to claim first place at the 2011 competition that is being held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan the weekend of January 14 to 17, 2011.

I am privileged to be a part of the Entrepreneurship Team for the 2011 competition.  Since September, we have been working each week to perfect the art of deconstructing a case and preparing a twenty-minute presentation within a three-hour time limit.  We are also required to give case presentations to peers, faculty and members of the business community on a weekly basis, which has undoubtedly allowed me to hone my presentation and public speaking skills.

McNair Business Development Inc. has been very supportive with this program; supplying both sponsorship money toward the Entrepreneurship team and constructive feedback to allow us to continually improve from week to week for the 2011 season.  McNair has also sponsored the 2009 and 2010 Business Strategy teams.

The culture of JDC West is very prominant at McNair.  Tricia Gilliss, Business Consultant with McNair, is a former team co-captain; and Business Analyst, Joel Graham's Entrepreneurship team finished 2nd in 2009.  McNair believes that the skills acquired through participating in this competition are extremely valuable.

Overall, my involvement with JDC West has been the best experience that I have had throughout my university career.  I look forward to the competition itself and working toward claiming first place.  Most importantly, I am excited to be able to apply these new abilities and knowledge to the projects I work on at McNair in the future.