Global Management Challenge (GMC) is a strategic management competition for managers and university students. Participants form teams of 3–5 members, and each team is placed in a group of 5–8 teams, depending the competition. The teams are then given a virtual company, initially identical to every other company in the competition. Each team then develops their company by making a series of decisions relating to every aspect of the business, such as how many machines to buy, or how much to spend on advertising. In each round, five sets of decisions are taken, corresponding to five quarters. A quarter is a period said to span three months.

These decisions - made on the Decision Sheet - are run through business simulation software, which generates Management Reports, showing the consequences of the decisions. The aim is to finish the game with the highest share-price on the virtual stock exchange.

The competition is divided into rounds with usually 3 or 4 rounds on national level and 2 rounds on international level. The number of national rounds can vary in each country and depends on number of participants. Some countries use slightly different approach and combine Global Management Challenge with other competitions. In India teams compete in another competition which is more sector related (e.g. they run a car manufacturing company) and the last 8 teams join GMC national final. Also in Germany the participants play GMC only in their final round. As it might seem interesting it brings disadvantage to those teams because they are not so familiar with the simulation compared to other teams on the international level.

History

The concept of the competition emerged in 1980 in Portugal by SDG – Simuladores e Modelos de Gestão – in partnership with Expresso, a weekly newspaper. The GMC computer model was designed by Edit 515 Limited, registered in Scotland, U.K. It is updated frequently to reflect real world trading conditions and business risks, the aim being to present competitors with very realistic and complex business scenarios, with varied challenges and problems.

The Global Management Challenge is now the world's biggest strategic management competition - 20000 participants annually. More than 400,000 university students and company managers around the world participated since 1980.

Over 30 countries currently participate in the contest, some of which are: Angola, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong SAR (China), Hungary, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Macau SAR (China), Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, People's Republic of China, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

For the 2010-2011 session, two new African countries are entering the contest: Ivory Coast, Benin, in partnership with Educarriere.net, a leading website in Ivory Coast which have been famous because it used to publish the result of many exams.

Each country organizes its own National competition, the model producing all material in the language of that country. The winners of the National competition meet to contest the International Semi-Finals and, if successful, go on to compete in the International Final (with results still in each of the countries' native language).

World Champions In 1980—the first year of the competition—only Portuguese teams competed. For the next two years, the GMC winner was decided by a Luso-Brazilian final, between Portugal and Brazil. Brazil won in 1981 and Portugal won in 1982. Since 1983, the winner has been decided at an International Final, hosted by one of the competing countries. The winners of each year's competition are listed below:

YearWinnerNumber of participating countriesHost country1980 Portugal1 Portugal1981 Brazil2 Portugal 1982 Portugal2 Brazil1983 Portugal3 Portugal 1984 Portugal5 Portugal 1985 Portugal6 Portugal 1986 Spain5 Portugal1987 United Kingdom8 Portugal1988 Spain7 Portugal1989 Portugal7 Portugal1990 United Kingdom7 Portugal1991 Portugal5 Portugal1992 Spain4 Portugal1993 Portugal5 Portugal1994 Portugal5 Portugal1995 Spain7 Portugal1996 France8 Portugal1997 Brazil7 France1998 Portugal9 Macau SAR1999 P.R. China9 Portugal2000 P.R. China10 Portugal2001 Czech Republic11 France2002 P.R. China11 Macau SAR2003 P.R. China15 Portugal2004 Poland16 Portugal2005 P.R. China19 Poland2006 Czech Republic24 Macau SAR2007 Macau SAR25 Romania2008 Russia30 Portugal2009 Ukraine25 Russia2010 Slovakia25 Macau SAR2011 Russia25 Ukraine2012 Ukraine24 Romania2013 Russia22 Russia2014 Russia22Czech Republic2015 Russia25 Macau SAR2016 Macau SAR26 Qatar2017 Czech Republic26 UAE2018 Russia26 Russia2019 Macau SAR16Online2020 Portugal20 Russia2021 Georgia15 Spain2022 China14 Angola2023 China14 India2024 Macau SAR

+International Final wins per country since 1983RankCountryNumber of wins1 Portugal92 P.R. China73 Russia64 Spain45 United Kingdom25 Czech Republic25 Ukraine28 Brazil18 France18 Poland18 Macau SAR18 Slovakia18 Georgia1

External links Official Website Fansite with tools, reports, tips and other stuff for Global Management Challenge Fansite with reports and GMC software developed by 2010/2011 3rd world champions for other players Fansite of Global Management Challenge

Notes