Articles:
- Victory for Macao
- Illustrious personalities who attended the International Final
- Comments from the Winning Team
- Testimonial: International Sponsor of the Year, PPR
- Photos


Victory for Macao

Bucharest, hosted for the first time the International Final of the Global Management Challenge 2007 edition, held on the 16th of April 2008. Macao beat the other 24 teams competing and was declared the international winner of this competition of strategy and management for the first time.

The final of the Global Management Challenge was organised over 2 days. On the first day, 15th of April, 25 teams competed and were divided into four groups competing to be the top two teams of each group. The two teams with the highest company share price in each group were the eight teams that qualified for the final in the second day, 16th of April.
The 8 teams that qualified on the final day for the title of world champion were Germany, Hong Kong, Macau, P.R.China, Poland, Portugal, Russia and the United Kingdom.
The remaining teams who reached the semi-finals were Angola, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine.

During the Gala Dinner, which was held in the People Palace, Huangfu Chun, member of the Macao team and after knowing the results, revealed that “we are very happy with this victory. The secret to our success was due to the preparation we did to be here and also a little luck.” This was a post-competition expression, as on the first day of the competition all the team members were worried about their performance and all had some doubts about their ability to qualify for the Final. Tommy Lau, Council Chairman of the Macau Management Association – an organisation in the territory that organises the Global Management Challenge – was clearly very satisfied with this result. “We have been waiting for this victory for a long time. It is a great honour for us”, he said after the announcement of the winners. He took the opportunity to thank the international organisation for the hospitality received.

In this final, each of the three Asian teams was a powerful force. Besides the victory of Macau, the Chinese team were placed 2nd and Hong Kong finished 3rd. Poland, which in the last two years were in second place, came 4th, Russia in 5th and Portugal in 6th. The three young managers of PricewaterhouseCoopers that represented Portugal stated that they felt they could have achieved more. The competition was tough and the other teams “very competitive” they said. After Portugal, came Germany in 7th and the United Kingdom in 8th. The margins were very close between Macau - the winning team, and all the other teams down to the UK in eighth place

During the gala dinner the International Organising Committee distinguished one of the companies that sponsor the Global Management Challenge, as “International Sponsor of the Year”. For this edition of 2007, PPR was awarded for its contribution to the international development of the competition.

Next year will be Lisbon’s turn to host this competition which originated in Portugal almost 30 years ago. In Romania there were 25 countries present and with the addition of more recent countries that have entered, including Belarus and Latvia, there will be 28 teams competing in Lisbon. This number could increase as Luis Alves Costa, President of the International Organising Committee, stated that negotiations are currently under way with Finland, Ireland and the United States of America.

Alexandre Vassalo, Ambassador of Portugal in Romania and António Castro Guerra, Secretary of State Assistant to the Minister for Industry and Innovation, were two of the many illustrious personalities who were present at the International Final of the Global Management Challenge in Romania.

Alexandre Vassalo, “It is an honour to receive this initiative in Romania. It’s a good opportunity for any country to become recognised throughout Europe and the world, to project a good image and be associated with positive things”. Stated the Portuguese Ambassador during the gala dinner.

António Castro Guerra is a Global Management Challenge enthusiast. As he was travelling near Romania at the time, he decided to attend the gala dinner: where he said: “SDG created an initiative of great reach which at the moment is active in 26 countries and mobilizes many thousands of young persons. It is an example of great wisdom in spreading internationalization from a small-medium company” stated the Secretary of State about the organisation and the international expansion of the Portuguese competition.

It was amazing when we were announced as champions. We were expecting the team from mainland China to take first place and our expectancy of winning we estimated at less than 30%. But finally we won.

At this time, we would like to declare our respect for the team from China because throughout the competition they were a really strong team. In addition we would like to acknowledge all the other competing teams from the other countries because we learnt a great deal from studying their performances throughout the competition. We were able to experience the effects of competing with teams normally operating in different cultures and environments, observing the different views in reacting to the decisions made and the outcomes. The introduction to a wide range of management practice will greatly benefit us all in the future.

This year will regretfully be our last opportunity to participate in the Global Management Challenge. We have indeed been extremely lucky to end our participation with a win. Our team has spent a lot of time involved with this competition and the cost involved with entry must be high. It has occupied a prime time of our lives and we have been rewarded with earning the glory associated with a success which will add sparkle in our lives. We feel so good and hope the future of this competition will also twinkle like a star in the sky of management. We wish the competition continued success for the future.

Global Management Challenge is a very good opportunity for students to discover the complex business world.
The success of the challenge is also due to the diversity and the plurality of the competences necessary to be efficient through the competition. Students have to use their knowledge in Finance, Accountancy, Production, Management, Human Resources, Marketing…
Furthermore, it enables them to work as a team and not as an individual; they have to deal with the difficulties of managing people to reach their objective.
Moreover, the competition is opened to people from different countries and areas (Engineers, Management,…), and allows students to compare their performance more intensively.

Virginie Lanier, HR Sourcing Manager of PPR (Sponsor in France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece)