A team from Strathclyde have made it to the UK final of the CIMA Global Business Challenge. The students, from across the business school, are second year students Jasmin Droege, Jan Jindra, Ioana Lupu and Antoaneta Bilyanska.
CIMA Global Business Challenge is an international business competition for undergraduates around the world. It is organised by CIMA – Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. It has 3 stages – report writing; UK final of the teams with highest marks from the report; and global final, with one team representing each participating country.
The team were given a case study of an oil and gas exploration and production company YJ, together with background information about the oil and gas market sector. Jan Jindra explained, "Acting as a consultancy company, we analysed the case study, advised YJ on the issues that the company is facing, and we summarized our recommendations in the form of a group report for the client. We were challenged by a wide range of aspects and issues regarding financial and managerial analysis, societal and legal issues and strategy plan for the company's sustainable future."
They outperformed around 60 teams and reached the top 4 in the UK, and will now take part in the UK final in London on June 19. For the next stage they will have to prepare a 20 minute presentation, a two page synopsis of their findings and create a video promoting the benefits of studying CIMA. One team will then be chosen to represent the UK in the global final which takes place in Poland.
Jan said, "The main challenge for our team was not the case study itself, but the fact that we have to prepare for the competition while we are still studying for our exams. This puts lots of pressure on everyone and causes additional difficulties for organising group meetings, but we all do our best and support each other as much as possible, and probably that is the key factor for our success.
"We have learned much while preparing for the competition, we gained some insight about the complexity of the real world business problems, what working in a real company might be and put in practice what we have learned at university. We also improved our self-confidence and now we know that we are capable of competing with the best business students in the UK, and we will be more motivated to do more, learn more and achieve more.
"We gained great support from our mentor Dr Nikolaos Danias who contributed valuable insights and recommendations.
"We are all looking forward to the UK final as it gives us great opportunity to network with the business professionals, gain new experience and develop those skills that make us more employable."
Dr Nikolaos Danias said, "This is great news for Jan, Jasmin, Ioana and Antoaneta. They were proactive in taking part in this challenge and we have been delighted to support them. They have worked so hard throughout this challenge and it would be fantastic to see their hard work rewarded by getting through to the global final."
Diane Dickson from CIMA said, "The CIMA Global Business Challenge is an international business competition for undergraduates around the world, designed to bring out the best in the young business leaders of tomorrow. Forming a team of four undergraduates, they work together to present a business case study. The teams with the highest report marks are shortlisted to attend the UK final in June. The winning team from the UK final will win a trip to Warsaw, Poland to represent their university and the UK at the 2015 global final in August. Congratulations to team Elite Insights from the University of Strathclyde for reaching the UK final."
The UK competition is organised in partnership with Barclays, sponsored by Sky and Diageo and supported by Milkround.