Case study: Four elements of a student team that will compete with seven more the 2018 national final of Panama in February next year
In 2017 a pilot edition of the competition was held in Panama, in which there were approximately 60 participants, a number that increased to 250 this year.
Brazil, Mexico and most recently Panama are currently the countries in Latin American where the Global Management Challenge is already a fixture. After a pilot edition held in 2017, with 13 teams, this year 250 students from eight universities participated in the competition in Panama, divided into 60 teams.
According to Leonardo Gonzalez, organizer of the event in this country, the competition attracted the attention of university professors and students, and the number of teams is expected to increase in 2019. “Participants sustain that this is an excellent experience to test management knowledge, to work as a team, to discuss points of view, and adjust positions to reach consensus in decision making”, he says. Although in 2017 there was a pilot edition, Panama also put a student team in the international final, but didn’t get through to the semifinal stage. The 2018 edition is underway and the eight teams that will compete in the national final will be known in February.
Parallel to the national competition, Panama has two associated projects in partnership with the multinational Procter & Gamble. In one of them, the P&G CEO Challenge, the company uses a simpler version of the simulator in an in-house event involving internal participants. The second, the P&G Business Simulator, says Leonardo Gonzalez, uses an earlier version of the simulator in an academic context at the Panama Technology University, sponsored by the multinational. He added that this project made it possible to get to know the test better, and that this was the teaching institution where the greatest number of teams registered this year.
HOLDING ON TO THEIR LEAD
The 63 teams that are competing in the second round of the 2018 Global Management Challenge took their third decision this week. In relation to last week, the same teams remain at the top of the groups, which proves that the participants are committed to maintaining their position and to guaranteeing their passage to the national final. However, they still have to make two more decisions, namely on the 17th and 19th of this month, and only then will they know who the eight finalists are. This week ITSector continues to be the company with the most teams at the head of the groups. CTT, CGD, Millennium bcp, EDP, Fidelidade and CA Seguros, each have a team at the top of groups.
