Imperial students victorious in enterprise competition
Maximo Sanz Hernandez and Alexandru Podgurschi, from Imperial’s Entrepreneurs Society, report on winning this year’s London Apprentice Challenge
On Monday February 21st, three teams representing Imperial College London, King’s College London and UCL competed in the London Apprentice 2011 in the first year of the event. Proudly organized by Imperial Entrepreneurs, the KCL Business Club and the UCL Entrepreneurs Society, the competition was a major success, attracting high-profile judges such as Margaret Mountford (from ‘The Apprentice’), Pier Paolo Mucelli (founder and CEO of eOffice) and a representative from Oliver Wyman.
The competition consisted of three challenges which took place over the weekend and were presented before the public the following Monday at King’s College London. The first task was designing the ideal office for the future and radical high-tech ideas were in no shortage.
The projects presented by the teams varied widely. UCL proposed an office with a highly specific conference room which was designed to stimulate the five senses and included touchscreen walls amongst other technical innovations. The King’s College team suggested a more traditional approach with a clear distinction between the administrative staff and the creative department. Our representatives focused on flexibility and utilitarianism, introducing the idea of an ever-changing office layout featuring remote controls attached to individual desks. The audience was sure to be impressed by the amalgamation of fresh ideas, but Mr. Mucelli was quick at pointing out flaws in their plans. Just like in the BBC Apprentice.
The second task tested the teams’ communication and bargaining skills. The mission: go around London with a paper clip and exchange it for something more valuable, a step repeated as many times as possible in order to obtain the greatest profit.
Time was just one of the many constraints added to the task, as was the rule that prohibited donations. Every item or amount of money had to be traded for something else. Team work and having a clear strategic approach to the task were crucial in this challenge. Teams’ strategies ranged from visiting individual homes to travelling to touristic areas, where they could easily “rip off” people. Imperial chose the former and knocked on the doors of South Kensington houses and in the end managed to eke out over £100 (from a paper clip!), after several remarkable feats such as trading a pen for £10.
Even though [UCL's] project had no start-up cost, it also produced zero income, an aspect that was immediately noted
The third challenge tested the teams’ market analysis aptitudes and their ability to come up with a feasible long term business plan. The teams had to design a new range of Tesco products or services. The UCL team developed a social branch of the company, featuring products that would give away a percentage of the revenue to charity. Even though this project had no start-up cost, it also produced zero income, an aspect that was immediately noted by Margaret. The King’s team put forward a network of Tesco affiliated gyms, whose major selling point was the price of the membership. However, the team underestimated the costs of running a national-scale gym service. Lastly, Imperial presented ‘Tesco Learn’, an educational platform that provided basic literacy and numeracy training. Although it was a noble idea, the judges were not completely sold on it.
After the presentation of these three tasks, the judges took some time to discuss the performance of each team and announced the winner of each challenge, followed by the presentation of the overall winner. As you would all expect, Imperial dominated the competition winning two out of three tasks, and won the title of London Apprentice of 2011. Zhen Lim was also awarded ‘Best Performer’ for the entire competition. Massive congratulations to the winning team. Nitin Nihalani, Sohasini Sudtharalingam, Mohammed Shaath and Lim Zhen Xiong brought the title to Imperial and made their first of many appearances on the business scene.
For videos from the event, visit stoic tv’s profile on YouTube, whose coverage of the event was greatly appreciated and central to making the event a major success.
Make sure to drop by the Business School on Tuesday 15th for the ‘Ideas Empowered’ competition, Imperial Entrepreneurs’ next big event where teams will have to pitch their business ideas and try to convince the judges that their plan is worthy of the £5000 prize.
