The competition will cease to be an internal event of a federation and become an open event for the whole country.
In recent years, the Global Management Challenge has been organized in India as an internal training exercise that the All India Management Association (AIMA), a federation of management associations, organizes for its members, and the winning team has represented the country in the international final. From next year, and under the aegis of the Sanskar Educational Group this Portuguese competition created 37 years ago by Expresso and SDG, will now be open to students and businesses across the country. “In 2017 we will have a new partner who will be responsible for organizing this initiative and AIMA will be a customer. Until now the competition was limited to this federation and, despite representing many associations, was somewhat restricted”, said João Matoso Henriques, CEO of SDG. He added, “Now we are operating with our business model, in both the academic and the business worlds, we will be able to follow other ambitions and goals, which is a very important step for us”.
The new partner, Sanskar Educational Group, is a private university that offers courses in pharmacy, engineering, management and architecture. The Global Management Challenge India will be run by Lav Agarwal who participated in an edition of the competition in the United Arab Emirates. In his view “management courses are very much based on theory and case studies, so they lack practice, and this challenge is a very good solution for this problem”. He went on to mention that it is also an exercise that companies can benefit from through their employees.
200 teams
Lav Agarwal is expecting to launch the first edition already at the beginning of next year between January and March, with 200 teams.
For the CEO of SDG, this is a large market that presents some challenges. However he is optimistic that within two or three years India will be on a par with countries like China and Russia, who currently enter around two thousand teams in the competition.
As for the Indian market, Lav Agarwal says, “there are more than 75,000 companies and 500,000 management students hired annually. In addition to the training it offers, this initiative will serve as a way for companies and students to meet during the recruitment process”. From his own experience, the Indian organizer believes that both participating students and executives will develop leadership skills, learn to work in a group, communicate their ideas and make decisions better, as well as improving their knowledge of business and becoming familiar with the processes associated with running a business.
In addition to expanding in India, SDG is in talks with potential partners in South Africa, Indonesia and Serbia. The idea is that the race develops here and becomes part of the community of more than 30 countries currently vying for the Global Management Challenge.
Journalist: Maribela Freitas
In Expresso, 26 October 2016
