The University Business Challenge 2019
The University Business Challenge (UBC) is a UK competition where students working as a group are set business and finance real life workplace scenarios and have to provide solutions that puts their degree into practice.
I had the pleasure of mentoring and working with students from a variety of courses and the team included Chris, Bhavesh, Logan, Patricia and Sachin who all worked fantastically well together.
2019 proved to be a successful year with our team reaching the semi-finals in London at Regent’s University and on the day receiving the award for the best presentation. After a day of competition against 10 other universities from across the UK with only one team progressing to the final, unfortunately the team didn’t make the cut but gained valuable experience and skills from the process as you can read from their testimonials below.
I would like to thank all of the students for their hard efforts around their usual university commitments and Judy and Natalie from careers for organising the event through LIBS.
I look forward to working with the careers team and mentoring the next group for the 19/20 academic year. If you are a LIBS student and would like to participate in the next UBC challenge, please feel free to get in contact to register your interest.
James Wright ACCA, MSc, BA (Hons), HEA
Programme Leader for CertHE Accountancy and Finance
Student Testimonials –
“Being the team leader of the UBC was an experience that I will be able to use in my future endeavours. Firstly, it gave me an experience of working with a team of very capable people, each with their own specialities. Also having the opportunity to have a test run of running a business has helped to cement the knowledge I learnt during my time in education and gave me skills that I believe cannot be taught in a lecture hall or seminar room. These skills include: leadership, problem-solving and developing an entrepreneurial mindset. Although I was unable to attend the semi-final I still took a lot from the process. The main difficulty that we encountered during the process was finding a time slot where everyone was available each week, as we all studied different courses so ensuring that everyone could attend the meetings every week was often impossible to do during the time limit. Overall I am incredibly glad that I chose to enter the competition and would advise anyone else to do the same.” – Chris
“The IBM University Business Challenge is a fantastic opportunity for any budding entrepreneur and aspiring business leader. The business simulations were a fantastic tool in understanding the difficulties which SMEs and LEs encounter, only building upon the theoretical knowledge one accumulates during their university career. The competition day consisted of numerous tasks, each of which tested our skills in regard to a plethora of key business areas, including marketing, presentation, quantitative understanding and more. I would highly recommend the University Business Challenge to any student who is eager to build upon their professional profile, add to their repertoire of experience and dive into the world of business head first. Furthermore, the UBC is an internationally recognised business competition, and makes a fantastic addition to any CV!” – Sachin
The overall experience of the University business challenge was exhilarating. To start with you are greeted by this queen to building in the setting of Regents Park in London. The first half of the event was a meet and greet where we had tea and coffee accompanied by Danish pastries and got to network with various individuals from different establishments across the UK. This was then followed by the main challenge which was an interesting journey. Firstly the main simulation was a small coffee shop which we were allowed to choose the venue and the various prices and costs for the business. In between this, there was a networking event in which we had to gain six different networks and see who was the best at networking which allowed every individual in the room to communicate effectively and build upon their own networking qualities. Overall the experience was amazing and I would 100% recommend it to any student at the University. The challenge has taught me many skills. To start with it taught me how to execute perfect networking amongst various individuals who may be reluctant to talk to you in a business situation. During the process, you will learn a skill set which can be utilised in the corporate environment such as being responsible and being able to keep time, being able to organise various individuals and control your leadership skills. The event overall taught me that the skills that I have are enough to make myself present in the workspace environment. There were many challenges to the event. For example, it was hard to adapt to body language to speak to various walks of life in addition to being able to conduct yourself in a business environment, especially at a university that is not native to your own. Some challenges you had to overcome with being able to cope under pressure and in a time sensitive situation amongst other individuals who are competing for the same ultimate prize” – Bhavesh Bhagwanji
“The University Business Challenge was a great experience. The first round was challenging for me as I am a marketing student and it was more focused around finance and accounting. However, because of it I gained analytical skills. I am so grateful that we got to the semi-finals. It was an incredible experience to take part in the workshops and activities. In addition, I felt very comfortable with the challenges as it involved branding and advertising, where we got a prize for the best advertising presentation. Overall, I am very happy with the experience and with the incredible team, and so glad we got that far.” – Patricia de la Coba
