Competition resources

BlueShift case resources

With these resources, you’ll be able to start work on your business case submission.

Business Case - Compare the Market

BlueShift workbook

Information pack

Written Submission Criteria Sheet

Written Submission Cover Sheet

Terms and Conditions

How to analyse a business case

Step 1: Understand the business and the industry

When you're researching a business and its industry, these tools and frameworks can help you consolidate information and analyse it properly:

  • the 5Cs (context, competition, company, consumers, collaborators)
  • PEST analysis
  • Porter's Five Forces
  • SWOT analysis
  • financial and internal analysis
  • the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion).

Step 2: Understand the business issues

Summarise the current position and critical factors facing the organisation. List the most important issues that the business needs to address. Issues fall into three broad types:

  • industry issues - challenges that face the whole industry, not just the organisation you're researching
  • organisational issues - particular challenges facing the organisation
  • functional area issues - specific challenges facing one part of the organisation, such as marketing, finance, policy, communication or human resources.

Once you've identified the issues, sort them into categories then find out what connects them. From there, match up how your solution addresses critical factors and solves the issues you've identified.

Step 3: Explore options and solutions

Business case competitions are fun and challenging because there's never just one answer. It's your job to consider a number of different solutions.

You should list all reasonable solutions, based on your:

  • research and analysis
  • knowledge of other organisations
  • approaches to business.

In your team, you then need to justify the strongest solution, which will become the focus of your recommendation.

Step 4: Make a recommendation

In making your recommendation you should:

  • clearly and concisely state your solution
  • provide justification for your solution
  • make it clear that your solution addresses one or more issues
  • explain how your solution will be implemented (timeline and budget)
  • outline the impacts of your solution.

How to present your case

PowerPoint presentation

Your team should prepare and submit a deck of four (4) PowerPoint slides in response to the case challenge.

The response must include:

  • team details: team name and slogan/tagline, names and roles of all team members
  • research and insights to inform your team’s recommendations
  • recommended strategy and tactics
  • how your team’s recommended strategy and tactics can be tracked and
    evaluated to demonstrate impact
  • indication of budget and timeline for development and implementation of your team’s recommendation.

Presentation

When presenting at the finals:

  • tell a story and identify the key points you want the audience to remember
  • use pauses and pace yourself so the audience has time to take the story in
  • don't use palm cards - know your content and use PowerPoint to support you
  • smile and engage the audience, even when you're not presenting
  • work to the strengths of each team member.

Advice from our BlueShift judges

The finals

Finalists will be invited to compete at QUT at our Gardens Point campus in Brisbane.

As a finalist team, you'll present your business case solution in person to a panel of judges including QUT Business School academics and alumni, students from our international case competition team, and industry professionals.

Dress code

You should wear a school uniform or business attire to the finals.

Getting here

Gardens Point is our inner-city Brisbane campus, located next to the Brisbane River, the Botanic Gardens and Parliament House.

Getting here

Contact us

If you are interested in participating in the QUT BlueShift business case competition, or partnering with us, please get in touch.