The winners of the 2013 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) case competition: Marc Diaz, Boris Mizrahi, Adrian Cabrera, Martin Falconi and Jerome Lynch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cTo have one of our FIU Business teams win this demanding national competition is a great accomplishment and I congratulate them, in addition to all the students who participated at FIU,\u201d said David R. Klock, dean of the college. \u201cThanks also to the coaches and judges for providing guidance and inspiration—helping us fulfill our pledge to encourage excellence—and to Johnson & Johnson for providing this important educational opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Case preparation requires strong analytical and presentation skills.<\/em><\/p>\nThe case required teams to select an option for J&J to follow in acquiring a new prostate cancer drug: license, buy or continue to develop internally. The winning team built the business case around licensing the drug, then buying it in year five.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very confident in our strategy,\u201d said Cabrera, who along with Falconi developed the business plan, while Diaz and Mizrahi zeroed in on the financial analysis and Lynch focused on the presentation. The students spent about 20 hours working together, in addition to the efforts made by the three sub-teams, before presenting at FIU.<\/p>\n
The judges at the university—Robert Hacker, an FIU adjunct professor, and two representatives from area J&J companies—agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students were exceptional presenters and dealt with the case in a comprehensive way,\u201d Hacker said. \u201cThe content showcased the kinds of decisions J&J faces all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realism adds to value of case.<\/em><\/p>\nIt was precisely that realism that Cabrera found most valuable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the whole real-world experience, and the chance to apply academic theories to a real situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To hone the presentation, the team—one of five from FIU—sought input from Helen Simon, a faculty member in the Finance Department. She praised how well they had understood the financial aspects of the case, and offered techniques to maximize their use of their PowerPoint slides.<\/p>\n
Red proves lucky.<\/em><\/p>\nRecognizing that subtle decisions can make a difference, Simon also suggested team members wear red ties. Co-incidentally, this is the color associated with the J&J brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did they win the competition at FIU and New Brunswick, but also one student lent another his red tie for a job interview, and that student was hired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Melvin Brizuela (BBA \u201912), a finance analyst with Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson Company, who had attended several case competitions while an undergraduate, coordinated the FIU event.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Five members of the executive board of ALPFA FIU, a student organization in the College of Business at Florida International University (FIU), won the 2013 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) case competition, outperforming nine other teams at the national competition. Adrian Cabrera, Marc Diaz, Martin Falconi, Jerome Lynch and Boris Mizrahi were selected by three judges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":21557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2925,2928,4202,2927,1686,2926,2924,2268],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21549"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21791,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21549\/revisions\/21791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}