The Global Management Challenge - A Practical Opportunity for Aspiring Managers

The Global Management Challenge (GMC) has its origins in Europe , and for more than twenty years has been at the heart of a major international competition aimed at those who want to become top managers.

The Challenge is based on a sophisticated computer model of a competitive business system, developed by five academics in the Operational Research Department of Strathclyde University in Britain , who came together in the early 1970s as EDIT 515 Ltd. The underlying model is essentially quantitative, but because the participants take part in teams which compete against each other, its practical application is behavioral. The model works out what is happening and displays the outcome, while the teams decide what to do. The simulation covers the five basic functions of management in detail and sets the business scene against a realistic economic background.

The model is reviewed periodically by Edit 515 Ltd. and the International Committee of GMC so that the simulation is kept up-to-date and reflects current real-life business issues. The performance of teams is analysed from year to year so that GMC remains a challenge relevant to the business management of the time. The software is designed on the basis of genuine business management statistics and case studies. As a result the system is a crystallization of collective wisdom of a large number of management experts and hundreds of thousands of contestants over twenty years.

GMC is the only authoritative business management simulation recommended by the European Union. It was first used for a business management competition in Europe in 1977, then became popular in America , Africa, Australia and Asia and developed into a major annual international competitive event. The annual competition has been held successfully for twenty three years. Hundreds of thousands of contestants have taken part in the competitions. The EDIT515 model is also a well-known teaching aid, widely used on MBA courses in business schools and management colleges around the world. Many internationally famous enterprises have used the simulation for training, research and assessment of their management personnel.

As economic and technological globalization progresses, profound changes have been taking place in the external and internal environment of various business operations. The development of this situation cries out for a large number of qualified people in business management and underlines the need for experienced managers. Academic management courses and especially MBA programs tend to be based on the teaching of basic theory, by instructors using traditional teaching methods. Unlike the study of natural science and applied sciences which can carry out laboratory experiments to verify and better understand the theory, it is impossible to take MBA students to a laboratory to verify their business studies. However the advance of computer technology has helped to solve this problem with the development of simulation techniques and the decision-making platform provided by GMC clearly demonstrates how far things have moved in this direction.

The Global Management Challenge

Used as the central element of the Global Management Challenge the simulation creates a series of virtual companies. Teams of five people are expected manage these companies by making a set of competitive business decisions for each virtual quarter of the simulation. Decisions to be made cover production, marketing, human resource management, investment and finance. Some of the decisions are made to improve internal efficiency, but others are taken competitively against the rival companies in Domestic, North American and Internet markets. GMC involves 68 management decisions per quarter, which must be submitted against a fixed time limit.. The decisions made by the companies are processed by the simulation system and the outcome for each company prepared in the form of a Management Report. This shows how the company has performed in the period just completed and the overall efficiency of the business is measured by a virtual company stock market price. The teams continue to make sets of decisions across a fixed number of ‘quarters' as set by the competition rules and at the end of the fifth quarter the company which has the highest stock market price is the winner.

GMC is different from ordinary knowledge testing, IQ tests, or examinations. There are no questions expecting standard answers. Instead competitors make management decisions based on the situation relevant to the simulated company and the economic environment against which it is presented. Teams are able to assess the situation by analyzing historical data given to them before they take over the management of their company. GMC is not won by making the ‘correct' decisions, it is won by teams who are able to understand the situation and jointly make a ‘good' set of decisions. At the same time they are trying to beat other competing teams who are trying to do a better job of managing their own company.

GMC aims to show the interaction of the various functions of business operations at different levels such as strategic management, marketing management, production and operation management, human resource management, and financial management. It emphasizes the need to for different functions to be organized, to work well and accept responsibility for what they do.

GMC and Professor Ouyang Jie

To mark the successful hosting of the twenty-third Global Management Challenge, Professor Ouyang Jie from the School of Business Management , Sun Yat-sen University prepared a series of specialized works based on her research into the competitive aspects of the simulation. Professor Ouyang Jie is a well-known specialist in the field of scientific decision-making and management science and in the past she the coached the twenty-first GMC world champion team—‘the Blizzard'. She has wide experience and a renowned reputation for her research into GMC theory and programmed training. Professor Ouyang Jie is hailed as a master of China 's GMC industry. Her books ‘ Decision-making—Theory, Method, Technique and Application' , ‘ Must Read before Global Management Challenge Competition ' , and ‘ Market Prediction and Decision-making Analyzing Method' are a world-first series of works on GMC and a set of complete, systematic and practical GMC training textbooks. The Chinese editions were designated as training textbooks for China 's entries to GMC 2004 and textbooks for the Asian entries in the year 2005. These served as an excellent guide for many GMC participants. Now Professor Ouyang Jie is going to dedicate her three works in English as a generous tribute to the elite of business management who have participated and shown great interest in GMC. We believe it will serve as a driving force to keep GMC in the future in line with academic research and further the promotion and publicity of GMC across the world.

We are very glad to recommend the three works of Professor Ouyang Jie in their English editions as an introduction to GMC, and as a useful set of training materials for those who do not have the benefit of personal coaching from Professor Ouyang Jie

Support and Sponsorship and Entry

The GMC international organizing committee wishes to take this opportunity to express its heartfelt gratitude to all the MBA academies and schools, enterprises and contestants. GMC is only flourishing rapidly and vigorously due to their share of dedication and care. Finally, we hope that GMC, the advanced decision-making simulation teaching system, can assist in further promotion of qualified managers and be well received, accepted and utilized by more business schools, commercial colleges and enterprises throughout the world.

Special thanks should also be extended to the sponsors of GMC. They are Daimler Chrysler Corporation, Accenture, Motorola, Siemens , Portugal Telecom, ICEP Portugal, Fundacao Oriente , Macao Airlines, Carrefour and Microsoft. Their strong support has helped lay a solid foundation for the global success of GMC.

You are welcome to take part in GMC—an international competition with enduring challenge and a long history. It is an international training ground to test the strength of elites in the world's business schools and major businesses in the process of internationalization. More importantly, the actual simulation, development of thinking ability and mastering of international rules in GMC helps contestants, especially MBA students who have little direct access to the global business field, to learn how to analyze the economic situations in a comprehensive way and how to open up new prospects and exploit the market. GMC has an instant impact on building up one's ‘rational decision-making' and ‘scientific decision-making' ability. Our slogan is ‘today's competitors, tomorrow's winners'. We believe that with the popularization and widespread of GMC, more and more elite of business management will march to the international business management field from GMC's training ground.

GMC International Organizing Committee | MARCH 1, 2006

IMPORTANT
Edit 515 Ltd., the designers of the model which forms the basis of GMC, wish to stress that in writing the three books mentioned above Professor Ouyang Jie has had no direct access to the authors, or to the model. Her interpretation is based entirely on her own observation and the analysis of data generated by many of the teams who have taken part. While the books may be useful, they are by no means necessary for those taking part. Nothing in the contents of the books can be taken to supercede the jurisdiction and interpretation of the judges appointed by GMC.

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