Programs

Careers · Facilitator-led

Case Competition

The case worked in the order it's judged, from sourced research to a defended recommendation.

A five-week program for business school case teams, assigned by a coach, built on Renatus. Two research reports, two guided documents and one rehearsal · Five weeks, one room a week · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

5 weeks · 5 rooms · Total time 2 hours

Who it's for: Business school teams of three to five preparing for an internal or external case competition, or a consulting-project module with a client recommendation due.
Cadence: 5 weeks
Format: Facilitator-led
Program sessions: 5

Who it's for

Business school teams of three to five preparing for an internal or external case competition, or a consulting-project module with a client recommendation due.

Output

Sourced reports on the industry and the competitive field, each with a confidence rating on every finding
A problem analysis and a set of ranked priorities, each built from the team's own case evidence
A scored rehearsal in front of a sceptical audience, with the moment that earned each score and a trajectory across every attempt
Scored against published frameworks: the Minto Pyramid Principle and Jay Heinrichs' Aristotelian rhetoric

Program contents

Industry command — Industry Intelligence
Competitive positioning — Competitive Landscape
Problem definition — Problem Analysis
Priority setting — Strategic Priorities
Defence under questioning — Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

The rooms

Industry Intelligence

Research

Calibration: the industry, the sub-sector, the region and the specific countries.

Competitive Landscape

Research

Calibration: the industry, the sub-sector, the region and the team's role in the market.

Problem Analysis

Framework

The team is the source, one member typing.

Strategic Priorities

Framework

The team is the source.

Presentation Under Pressure

Simulation

Calibration: role title, the audience (a single senior stakeholder, a board, an executive committee or a hostile external audience), industry, working context, the type of scenario and the decisions made in it.

Why this program exists

Case teams lose to a predictable sequence of questions: the industry the judges already know and the team hasn't researched, the competitor named once in the case pack and never explored, the problem stated as a symptom instead of a cause, a recommendation with no priority order, and a presenter who gets defensive on the third follow-up question. This program prepares the team through the same order the judges use to test them: the industry, the competitors, the problem, the priorities, then the defence. Ren builds each room from the case: it researches the industry and the competitive field from named sources, guides the team through the real problem and the ranked priorities from what they already know, and plays a sceptical senior audience for the presenter to answer before the real one.

What you'll achieve

Sourced reports on the industry and the competitive field, each with a confidence rating on every finding, ready to cite under questioning
A problem analysis and a set of ranked priorities, each built from the team's own case evidence
A scored rehearsal in front of a sceptical audience, with the moment that earned each score, retaken as often as the team wants before competition day

At a glance

Who it's for: Business school teams of three to five preparing for an internal or external case competition, with a case pack and a competition date. It also works for a consulting-project module where the deliverable is a recommendation to a client. It assumes the team already has a case in hand; the program builds the argument, not the case.
Cadence: 5 weeks
1: Industry command · Industry Intelligence · Read the confidence ratings; note anything marked low confidence
2: Competitive positioning · Competitive Landscape · Read the battlegrounds and the most exploitable weakness
3: Problem definition · Problem Analysis · Read the recommended path and the options considered
4: Priority setting · Strategic Priorities · Read the committed priorities and the blockers
5: Defence under questioning · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Question Response and Evidence Handling; read the cohort report

Session by session

Week 1: Industry command

Know the sector the case sits in better than the judges expect.

Industry Intelligence

Week 2: Competitive positioning

Know who the case company is fighting, how, and where the fight is going.

Competitive Landscape

Week 3: Problem definition

Find the real problem behind the case, not the one stated on the first page.

Problem Analysis

Week 4: Priority setting

Choose three priorities and say what the recommendation should stop doing.

Strategic Priorities

Week 5: Defence under questioning

Deliver the lead argument, handle the evidence under challenge, and answer the question that was asked.

Presentation Under Pressure

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability