The Global Management Challenge, created by Expresso and SDG, has been committed to internationalization for 38 years and, with the entry of Cape Verde, there are now 32 countries, including Portugal, where this initiative is taking place.
In this new geography students and managers have subscribed to the competition that is seen as excellent training in the area of management.
The first Cape Verdean edition started on the 3rd of this month and will finish on the 17th with the selection of the winner. The event will be shorter than usual, with just one round, so it is possible for the winning team to represent the country in the international final in Doha, capital of Qatar. 15 teams of students and managers are currently fighting it out in the competition.
“In Cape Verde we have a lot of managers who have graduated from good universities, but few really know the reality of company life, since a practical internship is only required in the last year of the course”, explained Anastácio Silva, who along with Carlos Correia da Fonseca is organising the event in the Cape Verde archipelago. In their view, there is a lack of practical knowledge in management and strategy and when college students start working they realize that there is a difference between what they have learned and what is asked of them.
“Basic training is very important, but real life requires skills that are not taught in schools”, he says.
And it is precisely in these real life scenarios that the Global Management Challenge works, making it, in the eyes of Anastácio Silva “an apprenticeship, for those who already work, and for finalist students who are about to enter the job market”. It is also a way to bring universities closer to companies.
The first edition held in Cape Verde is sponsored by national companies such as Banco Comercial do Atlântico (BCA), Garantia Seguros and Unitel T +. Further to this, students from the University of Cape Verde, the Higher Institute of Economics and Business Sciences and the Jean Piaget University didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be part of this event.
After this timid start, with only 15 teams, the local organization wants to attract more participants to the second edition, which will start later this year.
João Matoso Henriques, CEO of SDG, says that for some time now Cape Verde has been a geography where the competition had wanted to enter, but only now has the opportunity arisen. “Although we are talking about a small country with a small business dimension, I am convinced that this initiative will be a success”, he says.
For now it has aroused the enthusiasm of the local business and university community.
From what he knows about Cape Verde, the SDG CEO believes that there is a commitment on the part of young people to improve their skills to be able to take their professional lives, and the competition contributes to that.
With Cape Verde joining the challenge, we now have one more Portuguese-speaking country, alongside Portugal, Angola and Brazil to integrate this challenge. However, if you look at the universe of nationalities that the competition covers, there are many different languages present, and in fact, the simulator is translated into 18 languages. To date, more than half a million people have already participated in this initiative.
