Seven CGD teams from Mozambique, Cape Verde and Angola will represent the group in the 2018 edition of the competition in these countries.
Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) sees the Global Management Challenge as a training opportunity for its management staff. Every year it supports teams taking part in this initiative in Portugal and together with SDG, organizes an internal test for employees in countries where the bank is present.
In all, 23 teams from the CGD group outside Portugal took part in an internal competition that simulates the Global Management Challenge, using an older version of the simulator. At the end of January, eight of these teams from Mozambique, Cape Verde, Belgium and Angola were in Lisbon to play in the final. The winning team was BCA_São Vicente from Cape Verde.
For Dirceu do Rosário, team leader, receiving this award was the culmination of hours of dedication and work. “This challenge gave us the opportunity to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and understand what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis with a constant need to make decisions, and this gives us another vision of business and what companies need to do to survive”, he commented at the final. In addition to this distinction, his team will participate in the national competition in Cape Verde. Dirceu do Rosário explained that “we were not expecting this prize and so this will be a new challenge. To face it we will have to resort to our knowledge and skills”.
The challenge encourages teamwork
But it’s not only the Cape Verdean team that will return to their country to take part in the national challenge. All the teams who played this final in Lisbon will have this opportunity, except Belgium of course, since the Global Management Challenge has not arrive their yet. During the final, the teams stressed the importance of competing in Portugal at CGD’s head office. Most of the participants mentioned that this training opportunity reinforced and expanded their managerial knowledge and at the same time, allowed them to meet colleagues from other latitudes, exchange experiences and expand their network of contacts.
Paulo Macedo, CEO of CGD, was present at the awards ceremony. In his view, being available to compete with other colleagues and face the competition is something very positive that CGD staff can take away from this initiative. He added that they had the opportunity to experience “a competition spread across the whole world and that they were forced to have clear goals and work as a team”. An opinion backed up by José João Guilherme, CGD’s director in the international business area. He stressed that “bank executives have gone from their daily routine to engage in an intellectually stimulating challenge and that in itself is also management training”.
