A group of students in TSE’s Management of Information Technology (IMMIT) master’s programme was placed second in international L'Oréal EStrat competition. The finals were held in April in Paris, preceded by a three-month online business simulation.
In the competition, members of the IMMIT -team, TSE’s information systems science students Zhang Nu, Florian Schmid and Yi Chin Lew managed a virtual cosmetics company. The task of competitors was to lead their own virtual company to become the international market leader in competition against four virtual companies. The students made decisions in marketing, production and pricing among others, so that they followed the strategy they had created.
The success of business was measured by share price index (SPI) calculated by the simulation. SPI was influenced by market share, profitability, growth and ethical indices among other factors. After the first round 1700 teams were chosen to continue the competition, and after the fifth trial round 300 teams were selected for the semi-finals.
IMMIT is a two-year master’s programme joined by Turku School of Economics, Tilburg University in The Netherlands and University of Paul Cezanne in France. Program educates experts to operate in the interface of information technology and business processes in international level tasks.
The best ones in Paris
Altogether 16 teams, the best ones from undergraduate and MBA levels from 8 geographical areas, were invited for the finals held in Paris. The IMMIT -team competed in the undergraduate level representing the geographical area formed by Northern and Eastern Europe and Russia. The last challenge for the finalists was to present their business plan in 20 minutes and this way convince the jury that their virtual company and its strategy were the most successful. The jury comprised of business managers.
L'Oréal EStrat is one of the biggest online business simulations in the world. The competition is open to undergraduate and MBA students worldwide. This year the competition was held ninth time, and participated by over 40 000 students. In its first eight editions, the L'Oréal EStrat has brought together over 221 000 students from 2200 schools representing 128 countries.
>> More information about the competition
>> More information about the IMMIT-programme