The second round of the Global Management Challenge 2024 is scheduled for December, and student teams such as MBA ISEG/Cheeky Grinders are already preparing intensely for the competition. Vasco Franco, the team leader, stresses that the main goal is to win the international competition, which requires organisation and a well-defined strategy from the outset.
‘When we set up the team, we defined a very clear objective: to win the international competition. We know that to do this we have to be very well organised and define a strategy and a way of working from day one,’ explains Vasco Franco, leader of the MBA ISEG/Cheeky Grinders team.
This team, made up of five ISEG MBA students aged between 30 and 40, is already guaranteed a place in the competition. The aim of the teams still in the competition is to win the national final in the second round. To reach this stage, says the leader, they worked to understand how the competition and the simulator work, studied and analysed the company's history and defined their strategy. ‘We ended up performing well. We know that the next stage will be more difficult because the competition is fiercer. We'll have to overcome ourselves to win and get through to the national final,’ he emphasises.
As far as the lessons learnt are concerned, Vasco Franco says, they realised that ‘strategic and prospective planning and having a multidisciplinary group with good communication skills’ are fundamental when leading a company. He adds that his team is now more aware of ‘the positive impact of multidisciplinarity, as well as knowing how to listen to and receive contributions from people with different backgrounds.
Thanks to the simulation of how an organisation works in a competitive market that they encountered in the Global Management Challenge, each member focused on a department of the company where they would like to work in the future, which means that, more than a management challenge, this initiative is also a test for their future professional life.
