Global Management Challenge


Global Management Challenge is a strategic management competition for managers and university students. Participants form teams of 3-5 members, and each team is placed in a group of 5-8 teams, depending the competition. The teams are then given a virtual company, initially identical to every other company in the competition. Each team then develops their company by making a series of decisions relating to every aspect of the business, such as how many machines to buy, or how much to spend on advertising. In each round, five sets of decisions are taken, corresponding to five quarters. A quarter is a period said to span three months.
These decisions - made on the Decision Sheet - are run through sophisticated business simulation software, which generates in-depth Management Reports, showing the consequences of the decisions. The aim is to finish the game with the highest share-price on the virtual stock exchange.
The competition is divided into rounds with usually 3 or 4 rounds on national level and 2 rounds on international level. The number of national rounds can vary in each country and depends on number of participants. Some countries use slightly different approach and combine Global Management Challenge with other competitions. In India teams compete in another competition which is more sector related and the last 8 teams join GMC national final. Also in Germany the participants play GMC only in their final round. As it might seem interesting it brings disadvantage to those teams because they are not so familiar with the simulation compared to other teams on the international level.

History

The concept of the competition emerged in 1980 in Portugal by SDG – Simuladores e Modelos de Gestão – in partnership with Expresso, a weekly newspaper. The GMC computer model was designed by , registered in Scotland, U.K. It is updated frequently to reflect real world trading conditions and business risks, the aim being to present competitors with very realistic and complex business scenarios, with varied challenges and problems.
The Global Management Challenge is now the world's biggest strategic management competition - 20000 participants annually. More than 400,000 university students and company managers around the world participated since 1980.
Over 30 countries currently participate in the contest, some of which are: Angola, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Macau SAR, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, People's Republic of China, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Venezuela.
For the 2010-2011 session, two new African countries are entering the contest: Ivory Coast, Benin, in partnership with Educarriere.net, a leading website in Ivory Coast which have been famous because it used to publish the result of many exams.
Each country organizes its own National competition, the model producing all material in the language of that country. The winners of the National competition meet to contest the International Semi-Finals and, if successful, go on to compete in the International Final.

World Champions

In 1980—the first year of the competition—only Portuguese teams competed. For the next two years, the GMC winner was decided by a Luso-Brazilian final, between Portugal and Brazil. Brazil won in 1981 and Portugal won in 1982. Since 1983, the winner has been decided at an International Final, hosted by one of the competing countries. The winners of each year's competition are listed below:
YearWinnerNumber of participating countriesHost country
1980 Portugal1 Portugal
1981 Brazil2 Portugal
1982 Portugal2 Brazil
1983 Portugal3 Portugal
1984 Portugal5 Portugal
1985 Portugal6 Portugal
1986 Spain5 Portugal
1987 United Kingdom8 Portugal
1988 Spain7 Portugal
1989 Portugal7 Portugal
1990 United Kingdom7 Portugal
1991 Portugal5 Portugal
1992 Spain4 Portugal
1993 Portugal5 Portugal
1994 Portugal5 Portugal
1995 Spain7 Portugal
1996 France8 Portugal
1997 Brazil7 France
1998 Portugal9 Macau SAR
1999 P.R. China9 Portugal
2000 P.R. China10 Portugal
2001 Czech Republic11 France
2002 P.R. China11 Macau SAR
2003 P.R. China15 Portugal
2004 Poland16 Portugal
2005 P.R. China19 Poland
2006 Czech Republic24 Macau SAR
2007 Macau SAR25 Romania
2008 Russia30 Portugal
2009 Ukraine25 Russia
2010 Slovakia25 Macau SAR
2011 Russia25 Ukraine
2012 Ukraine24 Romania
2013 Russia22 Russia
2014 Russia22Czech Republic
2015 Russia25 Macau SAR
2016 Macau SAR26 Qatar
2017 Czech Republic26 UAE

RankCountryNumber of wins
1 Portugal8
2 P.R. China5
3 Russia5
4 Spain4
5 United Kingdom2
5 Czech Republic2
5 Ukraine2
8 Brazil1
8 France1
8 Poland1
8 Macau SAR1
8 Slovakia1