Virtual companies to train future leaders

Some 150 participants from 25 countries and regions participated in the 33rd Global Management Challenge (GCM) held in Macau over the past three days. Macau didn’t make it to yesterday’s Global Management Challenge (GCM) final as the local team failed to pass the semi-final.
‘Strong Fighter’, a team comprising students from the Macau University of Science and Technology, was up against China, Latvia, Kenya, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Russia and Brazil in the last event held at Sofitel Hotel.
“The other teams are very powerful and strong in their last decisions; there are a lot of details to control and strategy implied and you need to make decisions really quickly. The traditional strong teams – China and Russia – are probably the best contenders to go and win it,” Charles Tang, a member of the Macau team, told Business Daily.
Nevertheless, ‘Strong Fighter’ won the GMC Macau qualification round in January in a pool of 100 local participants, gaining the right to represent Macau in the world’s biggest Strategy and Management Competition.
The GMC tournament was created in 1980 by Portuguese simulator and model company SDG, in partnership with the weekly Portuguese newspaper Expresso, and organised in Macau by the Macau Management Association (MMA).
Honing management skills
Participants in the GMC have to take charge of a simulated company and manage different aspects of a simulated business environment, making management decisions based upon a simulated company history and the world financial situation in the preceding five years.
By mimicking real world trading situations and business risks, the simulator provides realistic challenges and problems for the participants.
“We believe the competition can help participants with their career, since the certificate works as a certificate of their management ability, so it will make it easier, specially for students, to find a job in the future,” Sasa Choi, MMA Senior Executive, told Business Daily.
“It’s a shame the Macau and Hong Kong teams didn’t go through to the final but China went through and we hope they can get a good result,” Ms. Choi added.
Although the Macau team hailed from a student background, participating teams can also include professionals from the management world, who consider the challenge a great experience to improve their management skills.
Such participants include Russian team members Alexey Chuvaev, an investment management teacher, and Vladislav Zarianin, a manager and financial director.
“The simulator is really efficient and we found that in this competition it can make a result subjectively, not too objectively, and you can get a response very quickly, and then understand yours and the competitors’ mistakes and best decisions,” Chuvaev told Business Daily.
Macau won the GCM in 2007 and placed second in last year’s edition in Prague after losing to Russia, eight time competition winners and favourites to win this year.
“Management competitions in Russia are really big and there are a lot of teams from different regions, so we have a really competitive environment in our country, therefore we get good results. But in the finals China, Brazil, Latvia and the Czech Republic are always strong opponents,” added Zarianin. “The competition provides a great amount of knowledge for us who work in different spheres of the management world about finance, investments, providing tools that can help you understand financial and investment management. Macau is a very interesting city, a Las Vegas of Asia, but we haven’t had a chance to go to the casinos – but maybe today to the MGM Gala!”. In the end, the Russian team brought home the title of International Winner.