First year SBS students win global business competition
Two first year SBS students have been announced as part of the winning team of the global business competition, the Global Enterprise Experience, which sees groups of students working as a virtual team with competing teams across the globe. Each year, the contest involves hundreds of participants from every corner of the globe, with some participants making dire sacrifices to be involved - going days without food to afford internet access, walking for hours for an internet connection and in 2010 an Iranian student was jailed for five years because of their involvement.
This year the contest ran from May 1- 22 and brought together 764 students from 50 countries, working in 95 international teams. Eleonore Herrmann and Johanna Lim, first year students in International Business, were two of the 8 members of the overall winning team, taking the ANZ Champion Team Award.
The SBS students' team comprised participants from New Zealand, Bangladesh, Colombia, Nepal, Nigeria and, of course, Scotland. The team communicated across multiple time zones for three weeks to produce their business concept proposal, writing a six-page business concept proposal for 'a profitable product or service that addresses a millennium goal of the UN Development Programme'.
Eleonore was keen from the start to take part, explaining, "The contest is organised in New Zealand but people from all over the world get involved in it. It's promoted in lots of universities and the diversity of nationalities truly attracted me. The fact it was a business competition that tackles environmental and social issues made it even more interesting.
"Everything is done through the internet - via Facebook, Skype, whatsapp, Google drive and Dropbox - we never had any direct contact. This is one of the major difficulties of the contest; as we were all from different parts of the world, it was complicated to organise group meetings - we were never all connected at the same time and there was always some people missing. Being only virtual, it was hard to truly argue our opinions and we all had different points of view coming from different cultural backgrounds. However, our leader from New Zealand, Jake McInteer, really motivated every member to contribute.
"With fast technological improvements and globalisation, companies are more eager to use social networks and media to promote their business and facilitate communication between different agents of the same organisation. This type of process was very interesting - it gave us a first hand overview of how challenging it is to collaborate and to realise concrete projects via the internet."
Eleonore added, "We divided the tasks into different parts and every member chose a section which suited their expertise, whether it was finance, marketing or whatever it might be. Our leader, Jake, paired us up and gave each pair a section of the proposal to work on - this was a good way to help each other and to motivate everyone."
Their winning proposal is for a scheme to support entrepreneurs in villages in developing countries, creating a Student-Entrepreneur Finance Network, a microfinance institution offering small loans - and was developed from an original idea of Johanna's.
Johanna said, "I'm very proud to have come up with this idea which the team took on. The concept came from my own research - during high school I had learned about womens' microfinancing and I thought it would be a great idea to apply it to students and entrepreneurs in developing countries. There were four other ideas put forward and the team voted with the microfinance project receiving the highest score. As soon as the project got elected, ideas were added and the project became more concrete."
Eleonore explained, "Our business proposal develops relationships between developed and developing nations through the provision of microfinance and support to kickstart businesses in the developing world. We are ultimately a facilitator, allowing rich social and economic exchange to take place and part of this facilitation will involve the provision of loans on which interest will be charged in order to produce profit and allow the business to be a sustainable venture. Students from developed countries will invest small sums of money as microloans for entrepreneurs in developing countries. The entrepreneur will work to create a profitable business with the support and expertise of the student(s) guiding them, while interest is charged on the loan. At the end of the loan period, the loans will have been repaid with interest. The entrepreneur will have grown to the point where he or she can afford traditional bank finance, the student will have gained great experience that contributes to their degree and they will also receive a return on their investment. As an organisation we will be facilitating this process and leveraging the synergies while extracting a portion of the interest to cover our costs and generate a small profit which will be reinvested into further development of our business across the developing world. Consequently, this proposal corresponds to the UN's millennium goals to "eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" by generating growth and helping to the creation of new jobs, but also to establishing a "global partnership for development"."
Both agreed that taking part in a competition like this shows the difficulties you may have to face in a future career such as working in teams across international boundaries. "You learn a lot about everything," said Eleonore. "This was also an enriching experience from a personal aspect. You take responsibilities, learn about foreign cultures, deal with sociological issues...it was a real success not only in terms of the work we produced but also for what we learned. I think students should be more involved in this kind of project as it is really beneficial for your professional career but more importantly, for your individual experience."
Team leader Jake McInteer, said, "The GEE is a very intense experience which demands commitment and hard work over the three short weeks of the contest. We learn a huge amount with regard to inter-cultural communication and cultural understanding as we worked with such a wide variety of people all over the world, most importantly it gives us as participants a glimpse of what is involved in international business and what we can expect in our future careers. The GEE is a great opportunity for students to get an opportunity to apply their business based studies in a practical manner while also working across countries and cultures through the internet - in terms of a learning experience, in my opinion, it really is second to none.
"On behalf of our team, I attended the Global Enterprise Experience Award Ceremony on June 13 at New Zealand's Parliament when I was most honoured to accept the Champion Team award on behalf of our team, Team 42. Eleonore and Johanna made an unparalleled contribution to the team and its success. They always went above and beyond what was asked of them, were eternally positive, and worked hard, day and night."
You can read some of the press regarding the Global Enterprise Experience here: