A blog entry from Team UCLA Anderson School of Management at the Sofaer International Case Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel:
"We arrived together as a team in Israel Saturday, May 14th at noon. We were greeted kindly at the airport and brought to our hotel, located on Dizengoff Street directly in the center of Tel Aviv. It was Shabbat at the time – the day of rest. Shops were mainly closed, save for certain coffee shops and restaurants.
Sunday morning we as a team were brought to Tel Aviv University for orientation and introduction to the case. We joined a set of 13 international teams (with Colombia Business School being the sole other United States representative). China, Korea, Turkey, Colombia, England, Canada and Israel were also represented. After a morning work session in which the teams were given breakout rooms within the business school to begin case preparation, we were taken to lunch at the local cafeteria, followed by a visit and open Q&A session with the company that was the subject of the case, IncrediMail.
IncrediMail is an internet content and media company that designs and markets a suite of downloadable consumer products that are simple, safe and useful and bring a new level of fun, personality and convenience to email, desktop and screen saver applications. The office was covered in crazy cartoon animations, all that are specifically identifiable with the company and its motto of “fun and easy”. The Q&A was intense! Students were firing questions left and right, with the company’s COO sparring back with answers, or shooting down questions that delved a little too far beyond the privacy boundaries of the company.
After the visit, we returned to the hotel to follow up with some work on the case, and then a open bar/dinner at restaurant called Gordo outdoors on the beach. Plate after plate of meat and other dishes came out (and tower after tower of beer was drunk by all!) It was a lovely evening – we were joined by another group of students who had traveled to Tel Aviv for an Entrepreneurs rotation and company multi-week meet and greet. The best part was the opportunity to network with the students and faculty of all these international universities while surrounded by the beauty of the Mediterranean.
On the second day of the competition, we were picked up early in a bus to do a cultural tour of parts of Israel. We traveled to Haifa first, the 3rd largest city in Israel after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and learned much about the Baha’i religion which originated there. We then traveled to the city of Akko, a town that was important during the time of the Crusades and showcased a peaceful mix of both Arabs and Israelis living together. We tasted some of the best Hummus any of us team members had here at the open market! We were able to also view such things as the fortified walls of the city, which held back an onslaught by Napolean Bonaparte back in the 1700’s, and the port of Akko, an important Mediterranean trading port.
Through these travels, we were able to get a good sense of Israel outside of just Tel Aviv. It is an amazing country and we have had an incredible experience. Even in a land of limited natural resources, the Israelis have exhibited an amazing entrepreneurial and creative spirit to do such things as irrigate land, turning parts of the dessert into viable farmland, and making significant strides in Green efficiency. Technology companies abound here, as we passed offices of Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Sisqo, to name a small handful. And of course, we have been eating non-stop – the food alone is worth the travel!
We look forward to the subsequent days of the case competition and are working diligently towards winning one for UCLA..."
