KPMG International Case Competition: Team Ignite Advances to the Nationals, with a Chance to Compete Internationally in Brazil

Entering a competition while at university was something that each of us had on our bucket lists, so when we heard about the annual KPMG International Case Competition (KICC), we knew we had to give it a shot.

KICC is a global competition run by KPMG that replicates the work that KPMG consultants do, calling for teams of four students to analyse a case study, develop solutions and pitch it to their consultants - all within three hours. This year, the winning team of both the state and national heats has the opportunity to represent their country in Brazil for four days of competition and networking.

As great friends, and having worked as a group for the Business School’s management consulting capstone unit, we formed Team Ignite. Our team consists of Jeremy Dean (Accounting & Finance) as our IT expert, Matt Juchau (Finance (Hons.) & Accounting) as our finance guru, Charles De Souza (Marketing & International Business) as our budding management consultant, and myself, Katie Russett (Accounting & Law) bringing the accounting focus. 

In our application, we were able to convince the judges that we had the necessary skills and experience to potentially be the top team for Australia, and were invited to the state heats.

To kick off the competition, we had a day of training at the Sydney KPMG office, consisting of an intensive workshop on how to analyse case studies and solve business problems. The next day, we faced our first case study: a 20 page case asking us to advise TripAdvisor on how best to ensure their success amidst a rapidly changing environment in each of their lines of operation. Despite seeming reasonably achievable at first glance, after taking half an hour to simply read through the case and the details of the appendices, we realised that this was really going to test our business knowledge and whether we could put what we had learned from university into practice. To complicate things further, we were not allowed any internet access or notes. Despite our best efforts to budget our time, it was definitely a rush to the finish, and at the three hour mark, we had to face the judges, hoping to convince them that we had the best solutions for TripAdvisor.

To our delight and amazement, we won the state heat! And now, a few months later, we will face the national finals this Friday, with the prize being the chance to represent Australia in São Paolo, Brazil.

It was such a great experience working under intense pressure and seeing how we were able to perform, so we were happy to have just participated in the competition, let alone be announced as the winner for NSW.  Credit also goes to Team Monopoly, another University of Sydney team, who were announced as the runners up.  Now, with a chance to represent Australia on the line, it is back to the study notes and practice case studies for us, and fingers crossed for Team Ignite from NSW!

Katie Russett
Current student at The University of Sydney Business School.

A bittersweet irony: What does the ‘boundaryless’ career mean for Gen Y employees?

The notion of career offers a vantage point from which to understand the relationship between individuals and their organisations.  But from which vantage point should we be looking? Let’s look at the pre-existing career; the one that hasn’t started for most of us Gen Y university students, yet the one that looks to be the most seductive in its ‘limitless’ form - the ‘boundaryless’ career.

‘Boundaryless’ has become a fashionable concept in organisational literature, but what does this really mean for us Gen Y employees?  Does it give us greater choice, empower us, or perhaps a right to more flexibility at work?  Some may argue yes.  Others may shake their head.  It brews instability, insecurity and an excuse for organisations to not commit to us in return.  Nevertheless, the trend for Gen Y seems to be swaying towards option A, and it’s no wonder.  After all, we are the generation who ‘wants it all’ but wants to do it differently to how it’s been done before.

The boundaryless career tells us we must embrace our careers as our ‘personal property.’  No longer should the organisation dictate the structure of our career.  If we are to flourish in this new environment, we must become self-reliant, rid our dependence on the organisation, and most importantly develop our own competencies to become the architects of our own careers.  And while we’re busy doing all this, gone are the boundaries that once constrained us from doing so!

While this initially alludes to greater career empowerment, charactertised by greater flexibility and autonomy, in reality it confronts us with a bittersweet irony.  Physical mobility has almost become a given; we’re expected to move freely between jobs in search for ‘the best’, and we believe we are entitled to do so.  But while we admit to this ‘free agent’ attitude whose loyalties are spread, we also want the support we’ve been so accustomed to receiving from our parents mirrored by the organisation.  We want the best of both worlds.

We [Gen Y] have been perceived as embracing overinflated egos, a given ‘sense of entitlement’, and an expectation that employers should share our enthusiasm for a work/life balance.  But the greatest revelation is that our greater work experience and level of education has led us to become more mobile.  With our qualifications, it’s become simple for us to move between employers if we are unhappy (and why shouldn’t we?).  It’s no wonder the concept of the boundaryless career has emerged.

But here’s the catch, here’s that bittersweet irony - we want to break free from traditional constraints, while all the more wanting to follow a yellow brick road that’s been paved before us, leading us to our ideal career.  We still need (and want) that given sense of direction.  So we must ask the question, while we expose ourselves as job-hoppers with greater demands than generations before us, are we revolutionising the concept of career (as we like to think we are), or are we making it more difficult for ourselves in the long run?

In reality, while we jump between jobs in pursuit of our ideal career, we are cementing the view of us Gen Y employees having short attention spans and lacking in focus. For employers, who wants to interview (or better yet hire) someone who is the ripe old age of 30 and has an exhaustive list of different workplaces on their CV?  Surely the employees’ commitment comes into question, and instability comes to the fore.  And now the Gen Y hopper is stumped.  As we pursue the opportunities this boundaryless horizon seems to offer, we must caution ourselves of its effects in the long run.

Evelyn Chronis and Sylvia Chronis: Current students of the University of Sydney Business School.