The University of Queensland Business School postgraduate team has won the prestigious Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Business Strategy Competition in Sydney this week.
From a possible 100 points, only four points separated the top four postgraduate teams in the national competition.
UQ Business School’s undergraduate team placed third, just behind teams from the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Western Australia.
UQ academic Dr John Steen mentored the teams through the competition and both teams had expert presentation coaching by leadership coach Barry O’Sullivan of Sustainable Change.
Of the regional finals, Dr Steen said both teams looked as if they had three weeks preparation rather than three hours.
“The teams get a pile of documents from e-mails and press clippings to company data, and had three hours to make sense of it all, analyse the company’s current situation, and recommend an appropriate strategy,” Dr Steen said.
UQ Business School spectator Phil Bamber said the panel of judges asked tough questions and the team’s answers were impressive.
“The questioning was intense and the quality of the answers from our students was exceptional,” Mr Bamber said.
The winning postgraduate team was Jeremy Joubert (MBA) from Eatons Hill, Sidney Chu (MBA) from Everton Park, Grant Wong (Master of Commerce) from St Lucia, Lex Sonnenberg (MBA) from Jamboree Heights, and Sarah Davidson (MBA) from Mt Ommaney.
The undergraduate team members were Zhen She (Commerce/Economics) from Westlake, Tristan Fitzgerald (Commerce/Law) from Sunnybank Hills, Julian Ensbey (Business Management/Law) and Lauren Zanetti (Arts/Law) both from St Lucia, and Amanda Buhman (Business Management/Arts) from Ormiston.
Now in its 16th year, the BCG Strategy Competition is the biggest event of its kind in Australasia. In 2004, UQ Business School’s undergraduate team won the national competition and our postgraduate team came second.
Media: Fiona Sutton, f.sutton@business.uq.edu.au or 0423 637 699
