Ghana gets winner for Global Management Challenge

The maiden edition of the Global Management Challenge (GMC) was held in Accra over the weekend. GH consult, one of the eight teams that made it to the finals emerged winners with a share price of 2.131, they beat strong contenders Olive Team and Fabho Incorporated to second and third place respectively.

The Global Management Challenge is the world's biggest competition on strategy and management. It revolves around a business simulator which mimics the global business environment and simulates how businesses operate and compete in the global market place.

To participate, individuals have to form a team and register. A virtual company is then created for the team to manage. In order to measure performance, the virtual companies managed by the teams are listed on a simulated stock exchange which awards share prices to the companies based on their financial and operational performance.

The Ghana edition of the competition was launched in October last year and 43 teams registered to compete.

After three weeks, 18 teams qualified for the next stage which lasted five weeks.

Eight teams then qualified for final event. The final event lasted over five hours as each team took 330 management decisions to direct the affairs of their companies. In the end the team that emerged with the highest share price for their company was GH Consult.

The GH Consult team comprises Richard Leigh, AliuMikashini of Procredit, Mary Anna Coleman of Global Media Alliance, Clement Osei-Wusu of PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Michael Kwade of Maersk Lines.

For their prize GH Consult will be representing Ghana at the International Finals to be held in Russia later this year where they are expected to compete with winners from 29 other countries.

The Global Management Challenge holds a lot of promise for Ghana as its simulator can be used as a tool for managerial development training for Ghanaian companies. Companies across Europe and Asia use the GMC simulator for management training whilst Universities in China and France have adopted the simulator into their academic curricula to make business education more practical.

For the Ghana competition, the ECOWAS market has been programmed into the simulator and participants also had a chance to use the “ECO” currency for their operations. It is hoped that as this competition gains root in Ghana, many Ghanaians will now be equipped with the skills required managing large corporate competing on the global stage.