LUMS students jet to South Africa for business competition

Three Lancaster University Management School students used their business skills to fly them all the way to South Africa as part of an international competition.

Yang Du, Pui Ling Christy Tse and team leader Fu Kit ‘Derrick’ Yeung made up Team Ace in LAN and reached the final of The CFO Global Case Study Competition 2019, organised by the CharterQuest Institute in Johannesburg.

They finished among the top six teams from across the world, competing against students from Canada, Finland, Germany, Nigeria and South Africa in the final.

The trio reached Johannesburg after coming through several rounds of the competition, which asked teams of students to take on a business case study, analyse problems a company faces and draw up plans to deal with those issues.

The Lancaster team, who were helped by student mentor Akhil Saxena, were tasked with compiling a 15-page report on Volkswagen, given five scenarios to deal with, and they impressed the judges with their responses to reach top 20 globally.

They succeeded again at the second stage, with a 10-minute presentation video, which expanded upon the work in the report and presented in it language suitable for a general audience, gaining them a place on the plane to South Africa.

Funding from the competition sponsor ACCA and LUMS – who helped bring BBA Management student Christy to London from Hong Kong, where she is taking part in a work placement year – made sure the students were able to travel to Johannesburg, where they made a 10-minute presentation and faced a 10-minute question-and-answer session from a team of four judges.

Accounting and Finance student Derrick said: “We were presented with a real-life situation where we could apply what we have learned from our courses. You have the chance to talk with the experts who serve as the judges and it’s a huge chance to learn and develop.

“As team-mates, we all brought different skill-sets and strengths to the team, and we were able to work well together, both on our areas of individual specialisation and together as a group.

“The team comes under pressure as is in a difficult situation – and some of the stages of the competition came during the exam period, so we had to balance everything to make sure that our studies did not suffer.

“It was a great experience all around, and I would recommend that other students take the opportunity to participate in the future where they have the chance.”

Lancaster University Management School’s head of careers, Rory Daly, added: “LUMS was delighted to be able to support the students and they have proved to be excellent ambassadors for the School. They worked very hard to get through the initial rounds and performed very well in the final. The skills they have developed and exhibited will give them a very strong basis for a successful career.”