A team from AGSM@UNSW Business School has won the Australian leg of the Global Management Challenge.
Team Pinnacle will now represent Australia in Lisbon in early 2020 to compete against the winners of over 30 countries to decide on the world-wide winner.
The Global Management Challenge (GMC) is the world’s largest Strategy and Management Competition. Started in Portugal 40 years ago, it simulates running a major fictitious corporation with teams having to manage the business over five quarters.
Julian Day, CEO of Consensus that runs the GMC in Australia and New Zealand congratulated Team Pinnacle on their win.
“The GMC simulates every aspect of managing a large business with the teams collectively making 185 business decisions over a five week period,” he said.
GMC Project Manager Len Norman added, “The GMC challenges teams to build the value of the corporation in terms of turnover, market share and share value. In a safe environment they can take risks and see the outcome of their decisions. Each Quarter they can then modify their approach to generate greater value. Most importantly they can try different management methods as a learning experience which relies upon excellent communication and teamwork between team members”.
AGSM Director Professor Nick Wailes said the GMC provided a fantastic opportunity for MBA students to apply what they are learning in the classroom into a complex business environment and tests their ability to adapt and rethink their strategies.
“I’m delighted that a team of AGSM students, Team Pinnacle, won this year’s Australian leg of the GMC and will go on to represent Australia in Lisbon next year.”
AGSM students Milan Bawa and Celia Tan said: “Competing in GMC has been a great learning experience for our team. The competition challenged us to develop a strategy that we truly believed in. We were able to understand the intricate connections between internal (marketing, finance, operations, HR) and external factors (economy, exchange rates, competitors) impacting our organisation’s success, and refine our decisions quarter by quarter to complement our corporate strategy. We are so excited to have won the GMC Australia 2019 and we feel so privileged to be able to represent Australia in Portugal next year”.
