|
|
 |
| |
| press release, 16 April 2007 |
Swiss business school beats off European competition to win coveted title
Top schools' impressive performance, say judges
After an intense hard-fought two days, IMD of Switzerland has emerged top of the Euro-MBA league. The five-strong team triumphed in a level-playing field competition between fourteen of the top European business schools. The successful team won the prestigious David Hall Trophy that confirms their school's top position in one of the premier events in the business education calendar. Closely challenging for top position were the teams from UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business, Ireland in second place and WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany in third.
Seventy MBA students from 24 countries descended on INSEAD's Europe campus in Fontainebleau, France on Thursday evening for this gruelling challenge. Early on the Friday morning all teams were given a previously unpublished case study, based on a real company facing real and complex issues. This was the OSCar project, initiated by Hugo Spowers, to develop zero environmental-impact cars using advanced hydrogen fuel cell and other novel technologies; the project also featured new approaches to company structure and financing, ownership, investment, vehicle life and ownership plus non-patented technology development so that other companies could produce the vehicles without royalties. Each team had to analyse these diverse issues and the business options, producing their recommendations in a 2,500 word report. To ensure an even playing field for all teams, each worked under a code name, one of fourteen celebrated French writers, with the identity of the schools unknown to the judges.
These submissions were reviewed by the judges late into the Friday evening (13 April). On the Saturday morning, Dr John Constable, chairman of the judges and author of the case, led a participatory review of the key factors in a case teaching session. At midday, he announced the five teams that would go into the second stage: Helsinki School of Economics; IMD, Switzerland; Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK; UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business, Ireland and WHU ' Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany.
In the afternoon, each of the finalist teams was given an announcement of a major new issue directly relating to the case. This was a fictitious proposal by the EU to introduce demanding targets for a percentage of cars sold in Europe to be zero emission vehicles; the target started at 2% in 2011 rising to 20% by 2020. The requirement would be backed by fines for every vehicle below the defined percentages that did not meet these criteria. In 2011 this would be EUR5,000, rising by 2020 to EUR14,000. Each team had one hour to plan their reaction, on behalf of OSCar, to this EU plan. The teams each had just fifteen minutes for their presentations, plus up to fifteen minutes for questions from the judges and other participants. The top three teams were announced by the judges at a gala celebratory dinner.
Dr John Constable said, "This case study was very demanding. The teams produced a wide range of solutions, all with merit. The top schools really impressed and confirm this is an event of great value and importance in business education."
Note to editors: please see key executive quotes, photos and additional details that follow.
For further information, contact Roger Haywood, 00 44 7802 874584 or check the results page www.ecch.com/casechallenge
The participants The participating students, all at European business schools, came from every continent, with around half from outside Europe, suggesting the global strength of European business schools in providing a top alternative to the US schools for ambitious MBA students. Just under a quarter of the participants were women. Fuller details available on request.
Quotes for media use
Dr John Constable, chairman of the judges: "The challenge presents real problems and opportunities under the intense pressure that MBAs face in business. This case study produced a wide range of creative solutions and impressive recommendations."
Mr Jeffrey Gray, director of ecch: "We created and run this event to demonstrate the benefits of the case study approach to business education. The energy, drive and enthusiasm of the participants confirmed just how well this concept works."
Mr Nicolas Harlé, vice president of the Paris office of The Boston Consulting Group: "The challenge was the opportunity to test major qualities that are the pillars of business leadership: sound logic and business sense when approaching an issue, combined with excellence in communication."
Mr Hugo Spowers, originator of the OSCar project: "Some very experienced
professionals have helped us get where we are, yet the insights of these business leaders of tomorrow was an amazing experience and will help us in the future."
Professor David Hall, co-founder of ecch and judge: "It is an honour to be part of an event that looks at the very best of business thinking amongst young professionals. I was impressed by the talent of the winning teams."
Professor Soumitra Dutta, dean of external relations, INSEAD: "The case challenge is a premier event in the business education calendar and at INSEAD, as winners of the last event, we were honoured to be able to host this stimulating event."
The competition The European Business Schools Case Challenge is a biennial initiative that brings a prestigious and demanding international student competition into the business education calendar. The case challenge invites participation by teams of MBA students from the top European business schools.
The schools The top business schools in Europe were invited to take part in the case challenge 2007. They were required to select a team of five of their MBA students to take part. The participating schools were all from The Financial Times Top 50 European Business Schools, published in December 2005. They were Cass Business School, City University (UK), Cranfield School of Management (UK), Groupe HEC Paris (France), Helsinki School of Economics (Finland), IESE Business School (Spain), IMD (Switzerland), INSEAD (France), Judge Business School, University of Cambridge (UK), London Business School (UK), Manchester Business School (UK), Said Business School, University of Oxford (UK), Solvay Business School (Belgium), UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business (Ireland) and WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany).
The event organiser ecch is the world's largest single source of management case studies; it is run by academics for academics. ecch publishes case studies by authors at leading business schools and independents. It also supports the development of case writing and teaching with workshops at institutions worldwide.
Set up in 1973 as a joint initiative of 22 UK higher education institutions. Now international, ecch is an independent non-profit membership body with charity status. It has offices at Cranfield University in the UK and Babson College in the USA.
The event partner Since its founding in 1963, The Boston Consulting Group has focused on helping clients achieve competitive advantage. The firm believes that positive change requires new insight into economics, markets and organisational capabilities to deliver on winning strategies. BCG has 63 offices in 37 countries and serves companies in all industries and markets. www.bcg.com
The case study summary
The case describes the development of two hydrogen fuel-cell (HFC) powered car projects, LIFEcar and Hyrban created by Hugo Spowers. The former is a modified Morgan Aero 8 sports car. The latter is a new design for a two-seat city-car.
Hugo has considerable experience of managing projects in the classic car and car racing industry but his dream is to transform the mainstream automobile industry by shifting it from the technology that has driven it for a hundred years. It took six years from conceiving the concept to raising money to get the projects underway. The UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is supporting the initiative with participating companies bearing some of the cost in the LIFEcar project and BOC (now Linde) and a private investor have produced the bulk of the funds to design and build the prototype Hyrban car.
The two projects are inter-linked in that the technology developments for the electric motors and control software and the hydrogen storage system, initially created for the LIFEcar, are also applicable, in modified form, to the Hyrban. The Morgan car company, responsible for building the LIFEcar, is central to that project but has no involvement in separate OSCar development of the Hyrban city-car.
He believes the Hyrban city-car has the potential to transform the industry. He has several revolutionary ideas about how a future automobile industry should operate. He believes in Open-Source design (OS) to attract the widest possible intellectual contributions to the project. The design should be freely available to any organisation wishing to build the city-car so long as it is prepared to accept the license terms.
Cars should be leased and not sold, proposes Hugo Spowers. The ownership of the car would remain with the assembler and the producers of the component parts. This would create incentives for all parties to optimise the use of resources and to build products that had the longest possible life and the highest possible reliability. The current 'economic model' of the auto industry, namely to sell as many cars as possible, to persuade people to change their cars as frequently as possible and to make very high margins on the sale of spare parts, would be totally transformed.
Finally he wishes to establish a company to build Hyrbans that gives all participants, capital providers, employees, component suppliers and customers a share in the success of the company. Most significantly this would remove the rights of shareholders to sell the company regardless of the interests of other stakeholders.
The case study was written by Dr John Constable, the chairman of the judges, and was based on the concepts summarised above.
Photos
To request high resolution, print quality files of any of the following photos, please contact:
Philip Rowe e prowe@issuesmanagers.com
Photography (c) broad daylight, www.broaddaylightltd.co.uk
 |
 |
The winning team from IMD
|
The second place team from UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business
|
 |
 |
The third place team from WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
|
Dr John Constable leading a discussion of the case
|
 |
 |
| The case focused on the OSCar project to develop, using Open-Source design, cars powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology
|
|
|
introduction