UNSW Business School and AGSM win at the ANZ leg of the Global Management Challenge

Sydney, NSW: Teams from UNSW Business School and AGSM @ UNSW Business School have won first and second place respectively in the 2021 ANZ leg of the Global Management Challenge (GMC).  
 
‘Team Boomerang’ from UNSW Business School won overall honours, while the Australian Graduate School of Management’s Team ‘Wedge-tailed Eagles’ placed second. This success follows AGSM’s past two consecutive wins for the 2020 and 2019 challenges. 
 
The UNSW Business School winning team will now progress to the worldwide global challenge and compete against GMC winners from 35 countries. 
 
Shubham Baid, who is currently completing his Master of Commerce with a double major in international business and management accounting at UNSW Business School, was the Team Leader of Team Boomerang. He said part of the motivation for taking part in GMC was the chance to work and compete with the “amazing minds” of participants from AGSM, as well as UNSW Business School.
 
“When you compete with these great minds, you automatically start pushing yourself to greater heights,” said Baid. “And that's something that really motivated me to push forward and lead this challenge.” 
 
According to Baid, he puts the team’s success down to their commitment to long-term planning.  
 
“GMC's an online simulation game,” explained Baid. “It's like running a huge multinational company. You have to make your decisions regarding what to produce from the inception of your product to the delivery and getting the price out there. As and when you change these decisions, the results also change.” 
 
“Our strategy was basically to make sure that we didn’t just think about one round of decisions [but] thought about the long run,” said Baid. “We saw that, okay, this is the first decision that we have to make. What is it that we want to achieve by round six?” 
 
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Team Boomerang. Baid said that in the first two rounds of the five-week competition, their team experienced low sales when other competitors were turning a profit. But when the team figured out the reasons behind their initial lack of success, they quickly bounced back to win – a learning curve that he believes will be incredibly helpful to his and the team’s future career. 
 
“You might have the best plan in the world,” he said. “Yet, when it comes to the actual results, it might be completely different from what you expected. [But] we investigated the intricate details that were causing the issue, which is how we turned everything around and started making a profit.” 
 
What is the Global Management Challenge? 
 
Starting in Portugal over 40 years ago, the GMC is today the world’s largest strategy and management competition and runs in 36 countries.   
 
The GMC simulates running a multi-national fictitious corporation in an online competition format over five quarters, with each team starting with the same business conditions. The teams must then collectively make 185 virtual business decisions over the five weeks. The GMC teams aim to finish with the highest share price out of the competing companies. 
 
Len Norman, Program Manager of the GMC (which is run by Consensus in Australia and New Zealand), thanked the teams for their enthusiastic participation in the challenging simulation. 
 
"I know that all have taken significant benefit by applying themselves to the task,” Norman said. “The reputation of the GMC is long and proud, and the learning benefits speak volumes. We congratulate both UNSW Business School and AGSM teams, especially Team Boomerang.”    
 
Should I sign up for the Global Management Challenge? 
 
“Absolutely,” said Baid. "If [students] get the opportunity, they should grab it. Taking part really helps you a lot. You start to look at problems from all different perspectives, which you hadn't even thought about." 
 
While trying out different management methods at the GMC is an invaluable learning experience, it’s also an opportunity to make friends and have fun while doing so. 
 
“My teammates are people now I'm regularly in touch with and like," shared Baid. “We are looking forward to the next challenge as well.” 
 
For further details on the GMC visit their website and keep your eye out for updates on how to apply to start in 2022. 
 
UNSW Business School and AGSM winners at the GMC 
 
Congratulations again to the teams on their hard work and excellent placements. 
 
Team Boomerang  
Shubham Baid, Ilma Eprianto, Elizabeth Kurniawan, and Sheng Ye. 
 
Team Wedge-tailed Eagles  
Jiremy Tucker, Diana Faddoul, Ahmed Hegazi, Gitanjali Hiranandani, and James Merabi. 
 
For more information on the GMC, please contact: 
Julian Day, CONSENSUS Pty Ltd: Tel: +61413309056 
Email: julian.day@consensus.com.au 
 
For more information on the student participants, please contact:
Anna Schubert, Senior Program Officer (Extra-Curricular) 
Career Accelerator (AGSM & UNSW Business School) 
E:  a.schubert@unsw.edu.au