RBSL Masters’ students awarded Top Honours
43rd International Collegiate Business Strategy
Competition Final, San Diego, California, USA
London – Our team of MA students from Regents Business School
London literally timed out their competitors in the 43rd
International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition (ICBSC)
Final. The team captured 1st placing in both the Overall Business
Performances and Best Reports for their success in running World
Times Inc. (WTi), a manufacturer of high-end innovative watches in
the competition in San Diego, California from April 12th to 14th
2007. Hosted by the University of San Diego's School of
Business Administration, the competition attracted top business
student teams from various US and international Universities.
The competition was divided into “worlds” with teams going
head-to-head. Students dealt with the same challenges, pressures
and rapid pace strategic thinking that executives faced in today’s
highly competitive global business environment. WTI ran their
company since mid February 2007 before traveling to San Diego for
the final intensive phase of the competition.
Confronted by the full-range of corporate issues, including
their competitors, teams had to make weekly decisions involving
growth, productivity, asset and financial management, new product
development, plant openings, production line scheduling,
compensation policies, marketing and sales, and multinational
strategies. They also need to prepare and develop comprehensive
corporate strategic plan, business plan, annual reports, goals
attainment reports and forecast their business operations. Along
the way the teams learned key lessons in strategic planning,
teamwork, cross-functional integration, new product introductions,
economies of scale in manufacturing, competitive intelligence
/ pricing and forecasting.
Senior distinguished corporate executives from US business
communities served as their Board of Directors and judged the
team’s quantitative and qualitative performances.
WTi edged out their rival MBA teams to captured 1st Placing in
Overall Business Performances and Best Reports (which consists of
Best Business plan, Annual Reports and Goal Attainment Reports) in
the graduates category. The prestigious ICBSC event which was once
widely dominated by US universities in the past has for the first
time produced a new European winner, a graduate (MA) team from
Regents Business School London, Regents College, England.
It was an impressive result by an international team. Senior
Judge Dr Stephen Achtenhagen was one of the first to congratulate
the London team after the award ceremony and commented that the
team winning edge came from the team’s impressive strategic
PowerPoint presentation, Q & A session as well as their
submitted reports. Administrative Director / Organiser Ms Robin
Murphy from the University of San Diego, School of Business
Administration was equally impressed and said it was indeed an
exceptional performance of high quality for any teams to be awarded
not one but two top awards in the same competition. She added that
“RBSL WTi is indeed a high quality and outstanding global
team”.
Among quantitative measures are the team relative position in
total assets, total equity, dollar sales revenue, net income, net
income / equity, net income / sales, stock price, Earnings per
share, market share and investors ROI.
Among the qualitative performance measures are realization of
written goals / objectives in the strategic business plan,
effective marketing strategy / implementation, effective financial
strategy / implementation, effective production strategy /
implementation, effective system of data analysis, control of
operations, effective forecasting method, effective industry
tracking and situation analysis, style and professionalism of
Strategic Business Plan, Annual Report and Goal Attainment Report,
effective organisation / teamwork in the management team and poise
/ professionalism during presentation to the Judges.
The RBSL WTi global team consists of CEO – Marcel Raschle
(Switzerland), VP of Sales – Tobias Diebold (Germany), Co-VP of
Finance – Guillaume Klotz (France). Co-VP of Finance – Vashty
Soegomo (Indonesia), VP of Production – Hervé Jamár and VP of
Marketing – Ali Al-Sayed (Bahrain) and Team Coach/Faculty Advisor –
Eric Chan (Malaysia).
CEO Marcel Raschle commented that he was extremely delighted
with the final outcome of the competition for the team as it was a
very close run final. Co – VP of Finance – Guillaume Klotz added,
“Our team had shown tremendous team synergy. The pace of the
competition was fast, both technically and intellectually
challenging and stressful from the very beginning. I am so happy
that it all came together in the end. On behalf of the team, I
would like to dedicate our win to our VP of Marketing, Ali Al-Sayed
who missed the intensive phase here in San Diego”.
Team coach and faculty advisor Eric Chan said, “Along with the
demands for different measures, quarterly decision makings, the
team also had to weather the unexpected hurricane that disrupted
the team’s production capability as well as the team requirement to
comply with the US SEC law which penalised corporations on improper
input of financial statements in reports. This team has shown great
team spirit, enthusiasm, poise, adaptability, maturity, commitment,
and beliefs. They have also shown sound technical and presentation
skills and represented the school with dignity and integrity. They
dug deep and restrategised against their MBA rivals when our VP of
Marketing, Ali Al-Sayed had to miss the ‘live’ final phase. It has
been a great privilege to work with this talented group of young
global individuals. I am very proud of the team." He added that,
“I’m so excited that the team has such a good positive experience,
it’s another validation of the quality of the RBSL programmes and
the students it attracts.”
There were a total of nine graduate and fifteen undergraduate
teams in this year (2007) International Collegiate Business
Strategy Competition ‘live’ Final.
Graduate teams include Regents Business School London,
California State University - Fresno, Mount Vernon Nazarene
University, University of San Diego, California Polytechnic State
University, California State University - Sacramento, San Jose
State University, University of the Pacific and Willamette
University - Oregon.
Undergraduate teams include Al Ain Women's College, UAE - Team
1, Loyola Marymount University, Team 1, Mount Vernon Nazarene
University, Willamette University, Arcadia University, Al Ain
Women's College, UAE - Team 2, Dubai Women’s College, Loyola
Marymount University, Team 2, Okanagan University College,
University of Portland, California State University, Sacramento,
California State University - Fresno, San Diego State University,
University of San Diego and University of Wisconsin.
Past international teams included teams from Canada, Poland,
Germany, Mexico, France, United Arab Emirates and Australia.
Eric Chan – RBS London, MA Global
Management Leader