China wins again at GMC International final

Porto, Portugal-- On the evening of March 22, a five-member team from Beijing, cheer when named world champion at the international final of the 18th Global Management Challenge (GMC), in Porto.

It's the second time that Chinese team has won GMC final. Last year it won the GMC final held at Lisbon.

All five team members are postgraduates at the School of International Business Management of University of International Business and Economics (UIBE).

"It's the first time that we attend GMC final. We came for No 1 and we make it," said Xu Jinglong, CEO of UIBE-Spring team.

Spring is sponsor of Chinese team.

Xu's job is to set up development strategies, build teams and assign work to his four other team members who serve as managers for finance, marketing, human sources and production.

A contest on business management expertise, the GMC has been a worldwide competition for 20 years.

The contest is based on a computerized business management simulation system created by five European economists 20 years ago.

All participating teams, regarded as separate companies, are offered the same company background. They start with the production of a product. They decide development strategies and compete with other companies in market shares, materials and human resources.

The computer model analyses the competing policies and gives a quarterly company report, showing the company's performance in the market.

Finally all the teams compete for a market share in a common business environment. The team with the highest share price at the end of the game wins. UIBE Spring team ended at US$13,00.

Chinese teams have been participating in this contest for five years and have become a major competitor for championship.

"The contest sets up a simulated business environment in which people exercise their management skills, judgement on market, decision-making abilities and coordination," said Zhang Jianping, Associate Dean of UIBE's School of International Business Management. "Only a team with a good combination of those qualities can win."
Zhang contributed UIBE Spring team's success to team coordination and the school's teaching methods.
"We don't designate the contests of GMC China. Students are asked to write down who they'd like to work with and we pick the most appeared names to form a team. Such a team is very cooperative," said Zhang.
As to teaching methods, Zhang said his school has been using books of Western countries since 1980s. "Teachers stress putting theories into practice and solving problems appearing in corporate operation instead of cramming way of teaching," he said.

Systems similar to the one used in GMC have been widely used in MBA courses in the Western universities.

Northern Jiaotong University in Beijing is the first and only university to open a course last year for students in their third year in university to practice on the GMC simulation system.

"The system is a good base where students can combine their knowledge on marketing, accounting, strategic management which are divided into separate courses," said Zhao Jian, Vice Dean of the School of Economics & Management of Northern Jiaotong University.

"Besides cultivating their teamwork and enterpreneurship, the course helps complement students real practice in companies. The simulation system can be useful for managerial training at Chinese companies," Zhao added.

Ten teams attended this year's GMC final. They were China, the host Portugal, France, Germany, Morocco, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Macao SAR and Poland, which came for the first time.