For the second time I was part of the organising team of the UAE Inter-School Business Challenge at Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus. On this edition the interest was even greater than the last year, with over 200 students, 40 teams and some of the most prominent schools of the UAE present at this event. This year we wanted to make things a bit different, and unlike our 2015 edition that was about presenting business ideas to a panel of experts; this year we innovated by using a simulation software. The task students were faced to this year was to take control of a company that had been running for 2 years, and make all the strategic choices in terms of marketing mix, supply chain management and branding over a period of five years. The students needed to take into account the financial statements that gave them information of the status of the company and profitability of their product lines, but also they were given information of how their different markets were fairing in terms of competition and demand.
Our own students provided wonderful support during the event.
The feedback received was good from part of the students, they showed a good level of engagement with the simulation and were very competitive. As I mentioned earlier, the interest was so high that we decided to run another session on April 2016 to meet the demand for this event. So here we are planning the next edition of this event. If you’re a high school students in year 11-13 and you would like to participate in this event, please keep an eye on the dedicated website for this challenge, as soon we’ll be taking registration for our next event on the 2nd of April.