HSE Team Wins!
On October 30th as part of the elimination round of the Global Management Challenge competition, the Business Administration Cup for Engineering Students and Competition in Company Management for corporate managers took place.
The HSE Faculty of Business Informatics team, competing in the full version of the game defeated a team of professional managers and took first place.
The entrants were divided into two groups, student and industrial. The industrial group consisted of companies like Sukhoi (JSC) and SIBUR Holding JSC. The HSE Faculty of Business Informatics team called 'MarketRock&Roll'(Mikhail Repnikov, Kristina Vatutina, Alexei Barabanov), was allowed to enter the industrial competition and took first place. Apart from the ‘rock'n'rollers', the HSE was represented by new members of Optimum Club (created by the Faculty of Business Informatics Students in 2008;this is a club where students from previous years organize business games and simulations for younger students), as well as the ‘Mr.Freeman'and ‘Monkey Business'teams, who took 5th and 6th places in the student group. The overall winners of the student group were students from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, with their returning ‘Quants'team.
The participants had to manage virtual industrial companies and compete directly with each otherduring the day. During 8 hours of intensive work the teams had to develop and realize a strategy for company development in specific operational solutions. During the day the participants lived a virtual year and made more that 250 management decisions. Despite varying, often contradictoary approaches, all the teams managed to increase their companies'profitability and the average profit of the companies more than doubled in the virtual year.
The victors won the right to participate in the largest international contest in strategic company management for mid-level and top managers and the best students of business schools and universities - the Global Management Challenge. This year it will bring together about 30,000 participants from 32 countries and will determine the most effective management team of the planet. The teams will gain have virtual companies under their control and will compete with each other for leadership in global markets in a near-real environment. The contest was first held in Portugal in 1980, and by 2007 the idea had spread to over 30 countries. During the 30 years of its existence, more than 330,000 mid-level and top managers have participated in it. Every year more than 15,000 participants worldwide compete for the title of best management team. Among the contest participants and partners are leading national and international corporations, along with financial and state institutions. In Russia the competition is supported by the Ministry of Economic Development, the organizers are the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation and the Laboratory of Informational Management Systems, and among the game sponsors are Microsoft, Alcatel, Delloite, SAP, PWC, Metro and Ernst &Young.
One of the Master's students in the Faculty of Business Informatics, Maxim Khivintsev, who is also the president of the Optimum Club, is already a member of the Russian combined team, last year's GMC world champion. So, HSE participation in the championship is becoming rather a rule than an exception.
Irina Lesovskaya, Kristina Vatutina