Members of the MSc Business and Management (MBM) class faced the double challenge of presenting and defending their work to their lecturer - and also to representatives of management consultancy Accenture.
The latest instalment of the students' Professional Management Practice class casts students in the role of a junior staff member asked to analyse a particular situation and recommend an improvement proposal by the managing director.
Unlike standard case studies, the class then interacts with other managers in the organisation through emails sent to and from their tutor and also receives news of different events and developments in the company, which they have to react to.
Together, these emails shift and change the underlying context of the business. It is this dynamism that first attracted Accenture, but it was the level of analytical and presentational skills amongst the class which really impressed them.
Class tutor, Dr Peter McInnes, said "Class members, who had already admitted learning an enormous amount about the complexities of managerial environments, were delighted to discover the parallels between their work and that of a top consultancy. The prize donated by Accenture, and the insights they gave into how to shape and deliver arguments put the final gloss on a fantastic day."