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9 de May

IE team achieves 4th place at L'óreal E-Strat 2008

"When I look back, I am surprised by our persistence during these 6 months. All of us ever felt depressed and stressed, but never gave up.¨ --- Ruiwei (Vera) Xiong

"YOYA? A flower or fruit?" "That was my reaction when my teammate proposed the team name to me. I wouldn't have made the fun, if I knew that this name will bring honor to me." --- Nishant Mittal

"Those were amazing 6 months of my life. It was most hectic months of MBA period but I enjoyed. The most important outcome for me was the learning from it." --- Vishalkumar Vithlani

L'Oréal E-Strat is one of largest business competition covering over 120 countries, and has attracted tens of thousands of students from both undergraduate and MBA programs to participate every year since 2001. This is the first year for IE's students to enter into the Semi-final, and they have achieved the honor of 4th place worldwide.

To share their experiences and leanings, the Student Office took an interview with them as following:

1. How did you set up your L'Oréal group?

Nishant:

To be a part of YOYA team was by chance. I was not sure to participate or not, but fortunately I met them, who were looking for the third partner. To be a part of YOYA was a mere serendipity, which I believe was one of the best decisions of my life.

Vishal:

I wanted to join a diverse group in terms of work experience, but it happened to us by chance.

RuiWei (Vera):

I was pretty sure about my interests in this competition, but couldn´t find the other 2 team mates until the last day of registration. Sometimes coincidence changes your life (smile).

2.  It says that 17,000 teams participated in L'Oréal E-Strat this year. Could you briefly introduce the stations/process of this competition?

L'Oréal E-Strat is a highly structured Business Competition with 4 major sections:

1)     The 1^st round, which only allows 10% of the teams to enter into the next rounds. Teams are ranked in terms of the Stock Price Index (SPI) they've achieved. This year, 1700 teams passed the 1^st round.

2)     The 2^nd to 5^th rounds, after which only 300 teams can be eligible to enter into the Semi-final. SPI determines the results as well.

3)     The Semi-final, which requires the rest teams to achieve the 1^st position in their zone. Business Plan is required for this round, except for the SPI. Finally we found that we have achieved the highest score in terms of Business Plan Worldwide, which made us the 1^st position in the South Europe (zone 2).

4)     International Final, which is hold in Paris, requires those 8 teams from each zone worldwide present their company to the jury and convince them to acquire the company.

3.   What do you think are the major success factors that make you the 4th position worldwide?

Ruiwei(Vera):

Teamwork. We supported and helped each other to go out of the "downside motion spiral", which has been experienced by each of us.

Nishant:

Teamwork. Besides what Vera said, we also kept sharing our work experience and arguments to make sound solutions.

Vishal:

Teamwork, undoubtedly.

4. How do you think of the result?

Ruiwei(Vera):

I´m happy with this result, but still a bit disappointed and surprised (smile), we could have done even better. And according to the jury, our performance ranked the 2nd in terms of our presentation.

Nishant:

I am quite satisfied with my performance and happy to see that our effort has made us reach the 4th position, out of 17000 teams.

Vishal:

Being on the 4th position in final round was a bit disappointment, as we were aiming the 1st position and we have made an impressive business presentation. But, the praise we received from the jury members was a great experience.

5. How do you think of the process?

Nishant:

Well, the process was a mixture of hard work, commitment, passion, arguments, and of course late night coffees and IE sandwiches.

Ruiwei (Vera):

It's tough, but fun.

Vishal:

The best thing of the competition was undoubtedly the whole process we went through. It has proved our best efforts.

6. What do you think of L'Oreal, after you took a closer look at it?

Ruiwei (Vera):

According to the stuff of L'Oréal, it is a typical French company, which demands passion and flexibility. And for me it's also an absolute fashion company, which implants the concept of fashion in every element of their culture, such as the design of office building, the dressing of stuffs, the way they present themselves, etc.

Nishant:

I honestly miss the time I spent in L'Oréal. People there are passionate, outgoing, and vigorous.

Vishal:

It's an interesting environment to work in, but if one is looking to work at L'Oréal, he/she needs to understand culture first and need to adept to it.

7. What do you think would have done better, given one more chance?

Nishant:

If we got a chance, we could have kept our SPI as high as possible right from the beginning.

Ruiwei (Vera):

For me we still have big room to improve to an even higher stage. For instance:

1) Contact local L'Oréal or ever participant for concrete guidelines.

We got misleading by the guideline on E-Strat website, which says that we should sell our company to "investors". But in fact we were expected to sell to "L'Oréal", which makes crucial difference in the aiming of the presentation. Other teams have had this information since they got contact with their local L'Oréal.

2) Focus more on the market campaign & products positioning.

All in all, this is a market-oriented business game, without the products portfolio, relative positioning, and the future practices, the presentation would hardly reach the "perfect".

3) Leave less space for finance.

What do figures and forecast mean to the investors? How much they will believe in these? Even been cut half of the finance content, our presentation was still regarded as "financial", which is not favorable for most the case.

4) The earlier practice, the better.

We made a "crap" rehearsal the day before we left to Paris, and worked until 4:00am the other day to modify our presentation and finalize it. Although we finally have made a wonderful performance, we should have done even better if with constant improvement on cooperation and time management.

Vishal:

More emphasis on Share Price Index would have given us better chance. Besides, more alignments to the principles of L'Oréal are necessary. Balanced mix of finance and creativity of the presentation could help us achieve better output as well.

8. What has this competition brought to you? / What does this competition mean to you?

Nishant:

For me participating in L'Oréal was a ride of immense learning. I was able to imply my understanding of management principals and could see the result on grounds. Moreover, delivering our final draft in front of management board was again a confidence builder.

Ruiwei (Vera):

For me, it means the opportunities to practice our past experience and learning, and to have contacts of the chief executives from L'Oréal so that have better look at this leading company.

Vishal:

For me, it was one of the best experiences of my IMBA life.

9. Do you have further comments on this competition?

Yes, we'd like to thank those people who ever helped us, and the best wishes to the other mates. In spite of being busy they took out their time for us and boosted our moral. Without the immense supports from them we couldn't have made such a performance.

Good luck for the teams next year!

Published, May 09 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

3 de July

Alumnos del Instituto de Empresa ganan el certamen financiero CFA – Banco Santander

Rok, Leonardo, Borja y Borislav

Un equipo de alumnos del Master in Financial Management del Instituto de Empresa ha ganado el 1er premio en la competición CFA-Banco Santander que han organizado CFA Spain y Bolsa de Madrid, con la colaboración de Banco Santander y el diario El Economista. El equipo ganador estuvo integrado por el alumno búlgaro Borislav Koev; el español Borja Alba Celemín; el brasileño Leonardo Camozzato, y el esloveno Rok Ster, que desarrollaron análisis bursátil del Grupo Santander y realizaron una recomendación de inversión, ante un jurado integrado por directivos de CFA, Banco Santander y el diario El Economista.

La valoración incluyó los métodos más habituales relativos a entidades financiera: suma de las partes y múltiplos, así como descuento de dividendos. Pero este año fue especialmente complicado porque cuando estábamos desarrollando este trabajo surgió la noticia de la oferta de compra de ABN Amro por parte del consorcio Santander-Fortis-RBS, en respuesta a la oferta original planteada por Barclays. Este hecho implicó un esfuerzo adicional en la valoración, al tener que valorar los efectos de dicha propuesta”, señala Borja Alba, uno de los miembros del equipo ganador.

El Master in Financial Management (MFM) del Instituto de Empresa está orientado a jóvenes que quieran desarrollar su carrera profesional en empresas relacionadas con el capital de riesgo, mercados financieros, gestión de inversiones, consultoría financiera y auditoria, así como las finanzas públicas, el mundo de las finanzas corporativas o la asesoría financiera independiente. Se trata de un master de 10 meses de duración, que se imparte en inglés y proporciona conocimientos profundos de gestión en el área financiera. El programa consta de un periodo de formación en management seguido de una etapa de especialización en Corporate Finance, Mercados Financieros, Banca y Seguros, Investment Management y Habilidades Directivas. Los participantes deben presentar, además, un trabajo de investigación y un trabajo práctico sobre valoración de empresas. Y, de manera opcional, pueden preparar el primer examen para el Chartered Financial Advisor (CFA®).

Published, July 03 on the CASE COMPETITIONS, IE Finance Club,

26 de March

IE students reach the final of the HKUST International Business Plan Competition

Tobias Wegenast, Patti Chong and Frank Uffen, the 3-member team that will travel to Hong Kong.

ENCABEZADOHKUST Business Plan Competition.jpg

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Published, March 26 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

13 de March

IE Team: finalist at Thunderbird´s "Sustainable Innovation Summit"

The four-member IE Team. From left to right: Blagoja Hamamdziev,Tobias Schirmer, Philipp Pausder and Guillermo Ortega Rancé

The IE Team is supported by the Direction of the IMBA, the Centre for Corporate Responsibility and the Student Office

Thunderbird ChallengeImageENCABEZADO.jpg

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Published, March 13 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

31 de October

The Cerebration is coming up!!!

Almost one year ago, 4 members of our school traveled over 10,000 km to compete against potent adversaries from every part of the world in a contest of strategic skills, business acumen and raw intellect. They returned to IE, victorious, proud and wealthy. They were the deserving winners of Cerebration 2006.

Cerebration is the annual case competition organised and hosted by the National University of Singapore Business School. Last time, there were 641 teams from 100 universities across 30 countries who vied for the title and the opportunity to present their case to an elite panel of the most influential business people of the region. This time NUS Business School is pulling out all stops to further globalise this event and confirm it as an annual beacon of international business school talent.

The website www.nus.edu.sg/cerebration has detailed instructions; you first have to form 4 member teams and register yourself by the 17th of November at the latest.

There are 4 rounds in the process, the first of which you are required to submit a short Executive Summary. Only 6 teams will remain by the 3rd round and NUS Business School will fly them over to the paradise city of Singapore and host them till the end of the competition.

Primary Deadlines:
First Registration Deadline: 3rd November, 2006 (1800 Singapore Time)
Final Registration Deadline: 17th November, 2006 (1800 Singapore Time)
Deadline for Submission of Executive: 8th December, 2006 (1800 Singapore Time)
Check out www.nus.edu.sg/cerebration for further details.

NUS Business School is looking forward to receiving as many entries from IE as possible. It’s time for you to defend your title.

Published, October 31 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

27 de April

IE team wins 3rd prize at The Global Citizenship Challenge

On 1 April, a team of Instituto de Empresa (IE) students -composed of Van Culver, Russ Browder, Imke Buttkus, Alberto Ordiales, and Alex Corrie, all IMBA 2006- joined five U.S. business school teams for the finals of The Global Citizenship Challenge, held on the campus of Thunderbird’s Garvin School of International Management in Phoenix, Arizona. The team, sponsored by PwC & IE Corporate Responsibility Center and IE, outperformed 50 teams from other top business schools such as IESE, Columbia, and Harvard to earn the right to attend the finals, where they represented the only non-U.S. business school. IE’s team will donate half of their 3rd place prize to the Madrid chapter of Ashoka, an organization that identifies and invests in outstanding social entrepreneurs.

Instituto de Empresa Global Citizenship Challenge Team: Van Culver, Russ Browder, Imke Buttkus, Alberto Ordiales, and Alex Corrie (left to right).

The Challenge, sponsored by Merck, The X-Prize Foundation, and Net Impact, is the largest global case competition in the world focusing on corporate citizenship, sustainability and international development. The final round question challenged teams to devise a way to facilitate cooperation amongst the private and public sectors in order to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The IE team proposed an entrepreneurial approach, whereby a social enterprise would match complementary organizations with opportunities in developing countries and provide services to help maintain the partnerships.

Published, April 27 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

27 de April

IE Business School wins international business plan competition “Cerebration 2006” in Singapore

Read this article in EXPANSIÓN (in Spanish) http://www.presstracking.com/archivos/00007YWT.pdf

Madrid, April 2006. Students from the IE Business School International MBA programme have won first prize in “Cerebration 2006”, the international business plan competition organised by NUS National University of Singapore. The winning team comprised Michael Cole from the US, Mohammed Al-Menifi from Kuwait, and Deepanjan Mukerjee and Kapil Jhindal from India, all currently studying the IE International MBA. Cerebration is an annual business plan competition, designed to promote the internationalisation of companies in Singapore.

This international success comes on top of last year’s achievements in Singapore, when a team of MBA students from IE were awarded second prize in “Cerebration 2005”, and IE students obtained the first and second prizes in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the “Innovation Challenge” organised by Thunderbird. “These international prizes evidence the high level of our MBA students as they compete against teams from the world’s leading business schools,” says Gonzalo Garland, Director of External Relations at IE.

“Cerebration 2006” attracted 641 teams of MBA students from 117 business schools and universities in 31 countries. The six finalists were from IE (Spain), Kellogg School of Management (US), HEC Montreal (Canada), RSM Rotterdam (Netherlands), S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (India), IUJ Business School (Japan) and Sailesh J. Mehta School of Management (India).

International Expansion

The main objective of this international business plan competition is to foster the internationalisation of companies in Singapore. In order to achieve this, participants are required to resolve cases of Singaporean companies who are interested in expanding their business on an international scale. IE’s winning team developed a case study for Informatics, a supplier of online information and training programmes interested in penetrating the Kuwaiti market.

"We worked together in Madrid for three months to prepare the report and our proposal for international expansion, and the mere fact that we reached the final and got to travel to Singapore was reward enough for us", say the winners. "Then, when we reached the final, it was amazing to see how the firm’s vice president got involved in the project, giving us feed-back on how to fine-tune our proposal to meet the company’s needs. Presenting our proposal to the senior management of Informatics was extremely gratifying". They also recall how the judging panel congratulated them on presenting a proposal that was strategic rather than operational, for transmitting the right message in accordance with the profiles of the top directors present, and for taking maximum advantage of market synergies.

Mohammed, Deepanjan, Kapil and Michael, from left to right

The judging panel comprised eminent industry leaders, CEOs of case sponsors, NUS Faculty and senior IE Singapore and Temasek Holdings representatives. Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister of State for Education and Manpower, gave away the prizes. Such event is subject of a major coverage by the media in the form of press releases, media events for Cerebration, in the region and overseas.

Click here to see our team in T.V. news Download file

“Cerebration” offers an opportunity to build on and strengthen a worldwide MBA student network, and permits participants to put the knowledge and skills acquired during the program into practice. In the case of the IE team "All four of us have different backgrounds and experiences which brought out the best in each other. It’s a source of great pride to know that the directors at Informatics have begun to implement the measures we proposed", said team member Michael Cole.

Focus on Entrepreneurship

This international success confirms IE’s strength in the field of entrepreneurship. Other IE initiatives include platforms like Iceved (International Center for Entrepreneurship and Ventures Development), a virtual portal that serves as an interface for 24 international schools and acts as an intermediary among entrepreneurs and investment funds. IE also coordinates the NETI Project in collaboration with Spanish telecom operator Amena, the Project’s mission being to promote the creation of innovative technology businesses. In recent years, these companies have created 900 direct and indirect jobs and have received over 3 million Euros from private investors. The NETI Project also runs a Business Angels School, where private investors offer specific training on funding start-ups and business plan analysis.

All MBA students at IE design business plans as part of the core program under the supervision of a team of over 200 external tutors. 25% of these plans go on to become businesses and more than 15% of graduates of the MBA programme set up their own firms. The IE Venture Lab, a platform that provides support for students’ business projects and the implementation process is another example of the school’s focus on entrepreneurship. Furthermore, IE is the Spanish arm of the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) report, an international observatory that assesses the levels and effects of entrepreneurship around the world.

More information on Cerebration 2006 at (http://www.nus.edu.sg/cerebration).

Published, April 27 on the CASE COMPETITIONS,

Nishant:	To be a part of YOYA team was by chance. I was not sure to participate or not, but fortunately I met them, who were looking for the third partner. To be a part of YOYA was a mere serendipity, which I believe was one of the best decisions of my life.
Vishal:	I wanted to join a diverse group in terms of work experience, but it happened to us by chance.
RuiWei (Vera):	I was pretty sure about my interests in this competition, but couldn´t find the other 2 team mates until the last day of registration. Sometimes coincidence changes your life (smile).

Ruiwei(Vera):	Teamwork. We supported and helped each other to go out of the "downside motion spiral", which has been experienced by each of us.
Nishant:	Teamwork. Besides what Vera said, we also kept sharing our work experience and arguments to make sound solutions.
Vishal:	Teamwork, undoubtedly.

Ruiwei(Vera):	I´m happy with this result, but still a bit disappointed and surprised (smile), we could have done even better. And according to the jury, our performance ranked the 2nd in terms of our presentation.
Nishant:	I am quite satisfied with my performance and happy to see that our effort has made us reach the 4th position, out of 17000 teams.
Vishal:	Being on the 4th position in final round was a bit disappointment, as we were aiming the 1st position and we have made an impressive business presentation. But, the praise we received from the jury members was a great experience.

Nishant:	Well, the process was a mixture of hard work, commitment, passion, arguments, and of course late night coffees and IE sandwiches.
Ruiwei (Vera):	It's tough, but fun.
Vishal:	The best thing of the competition was undoubtedly the whole process we went through. It has proved our best efforts.

Ruiwei (Vera):	According to the stuff of L'Oréal, it is a typical French company, which demands passion and flexibility. And for me it's also an absolute fashion company, which implants the concept of fashion in every element of their culture, such as the design of office building, the dressing of stuffs, the way they present themselves, etc.
Nishant:	I honestly miss the time I spent in L'Oréal. People there are passionate, outgoing, and vigorous.
Vishal:	It's an interesting environment to work in, but if one is looking to work at L'Oréal, he/she needs to understand culture first and need to adept to it.