Business sense: FC College teams win int’l competition

Students prepared business plans on software they used for the first time.

LAHORE:

Two teams of business students from the Forman Christian College (FCC) won an international honour by winning the first and the second position in the Glo-bus Best-In-Strategy Invitational Championship.

Glo-Bus is an online exercise where the user runs a digital camera company in head-to-head competition with companies run by other class members.

This computer based strategy development game is used by hundreds of universities worldwide. It was developed by a team led by Prof Arthur Strickland, the University of Alabama emeritus professor of strategy.

Students from various business schools around the world participated in the competition where 139 teams were divided into 15 groups.

The groups had to design a 15-year business model keeping in mind competitive dynamics in the global digital camera industry.

Students were judged for financial and practical dimensions of their projects. They were instructed to use complex business variables such as research and development, workforce compensation, production, outsourcing, product line performance, pricing, and finance in the simulated competitive space.

Faisal Pervez, Syeda Ataat Zehra and Hassan Saqlain of the winning team beat teams from the National University of Singapore, which is famous for its Glo-Bus expertise. The runner-up team members were Ali Imran, Sohaibul Haq and Azhar Moazzam. This was the first time students of the FC College used the Glo-Bus programme.

Prof Wasif M Khan from the FC College School of Management was selected for the Faculty Hall of Fame where he now joins a select group of 67 FC College faculty members among 2,400 registered faculty members from universities around the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2011.