Business Jayhawks work with Breakout Lawrence for case study

The Business School Experience program at KU and Breakout Lawrence partnered this semester to provide a case study competition for first-year students. Students from the Business School Experience program, the Business Leadership Program and the Self Engineering Leadership Fellows program participated in the case study.

This is the seventh year this class has been taught, but each time, the assignment has evolved. The one constant in the class is that students partner with a real-life company and the finalists get to present to company representatives.

“I think that’s one of the strengths of the assignment, that first-year students get facetime with members of the business community,” said Julie Hartness, director of the Business School Experience program.

Hartness said this semester they wanted a local client, a company that served the Lawrence area. Breakout Lawrence wants to double its customer numbers and needed the students’ help deciding if changing out room themes every so often would be worth the investment.

The teams were all assigned the same problem, goals and three possible solutions, and each team was tasked with deciding which solution would most benefit Breakout Lawrence. Throughout the semester, the teams conducted research to help them argue their case in the classroom. The top team from each individual class was then given the opportunity to present to the general manager of Breakout Lawrence, Zach Koehn.

This year, the winning team had members from the SELF and Business Leadership Program. They received a free game at Breakout Lawrence as well as a Breakout Lawrence T-shirt.