In Expresso, 25 October 2014
Article published: https://www.sdg.pt/docs/GMC_2014/25_Outubro_2014.pdf
Text: Maribela Freitas
Photo: José Caria/Expresso
In 2015, this African country will advance with its first edition of the Global Management Challenge. Local organizers are aiming at 100 to 200 participating teams at the start.
Kenya has just joined the network of countries running the Global Management Challenge. The first edition of the competition in this African country will begin during the first half of 2015 and the local organizers aim to reach 200 registered teams. Present in over 30 countries, this Portuguese event, organized by Expresso and SDG, has been growing internationally in recent years, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. After this new entry, more African countries are expected to join.
Ravi and Asim Shah are responsible for organizing the competition in Kenya. “Asim came into contact with the Global Management Challenge when he was studying in the UK, and last year when I returned to Kenya and was looking for different business ideas, he discussed it and decided to move forward with this initiative in our country” Ravi Shah explains. For now, and as a first step, the local organizers are looking for sponsors. They will be approaching industries, consulting firms and multinationals present in Kenya.
They will also be promoting this event in universities. “We have 67 universities and a population of 44 million. Therefore, we want the first edition to reach between 100 and 200 registered teams, formed by students and professionals”, says Ravi Shah.
The Learning aspect “Kenya is rapidly becoming a developing country with many multinationals setting up shop, and so we felt that local skills should correspond to what companies are looking for. That’s why we want to promote the Global Management Challenge as training, and something that shows how multinationals look at the business environment”, says Asim Shah.
He adds that taking part in this competition taught him to be a manager. “I could see all aspects of a business and realized how a decision in one area can impact another. I learned a lot”, he says.
As for Ravi Shah, in this challenge “you learn by doing“. Pedro Alves Costa, CEO of SDG, reveals that after Kenya, they expect to extend the competition to countries like Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. “We have felt a great appetite and ease in launching the challenge in African countries and the Middle East. These are developing countries that are attracted by the training component of the simulator”, he says. After the expansion to Eastern Europe in 2000, the international growth of the challenge in is now centred on other geographies.
