Apprentice Challenge 2012

Whilst many students were having a lie-in on Saturday 21 January, the 16 students selected to participate in the 2012 Imperial Apprentice Challenge arrived at the Business School, complete with suits, laptops, and determination, ready to conquer the challenges organised by the Imperial Entrepreneurs society.

The four teams, Zeus, Ipsum, Collateral, and Tornado, battled for the privilege of representing Imperial in the London University Apprentice Challenge against LSE, Kings, UCL and Royal Holloway. In addition to entry into the London competition, the winning team received cash and prizes from sponsors Proctor and Gamble. The weekend consisted of four challenges based on Strategy, Marketing, Sales, and Product Development, followed by a live final. The judging panel consisted of guests from Ernst and Young, E-Synergy and the Imperial College Business School. Adding to the pressure was the fact the team members’ every move was captured on film and selected scenes included in a film showing highlights of the event (search for ‘Imperial Apprentice Challenge 2012’ on YouTube).

The first task, the Strategy challenge, required the teams to “Create value from nothing.” First, they had to obtain an item for free, then proceed to trade the item up until they obtained items of higher value. The value created in just two hours was astounding. The winners of this demanding but fun task were Collateral (Andre, Alex, Max and Hari) who secured a gift bag containing a £110 chauffeur driven cooperate car voucher, an expensive bottle of wine and various other treats from a hotel. The total value was estimated to be over £160!

The second challenge, the Marketing Challenge, provided participants with the opportunity to rest their legs. Each team were assigned one of four companies – Snog frozen yoghurts, Gatorade energy drinks, Talk mobile and Vitaminwater – and had to decide upon a second company which they propose could carry our joint marketing. They had to plan a three minute elevator pitch, as if representing the first company and persuading the second to come on board, to be presented to the judges in the live final. The teams had to identify the target market, specify how they intend to advertise and justify why it would be mutually beneficial to both companies. This joint marketing approach has proven popular recently with, for example, companies such as McDonalds and Weight Watchers forming a marketing partnership; McDonalds benefit from an improved reputation regarding the nutritional quality of their food and Weight Watchers reaches a target audience far larger than it could achieve alone. A second example: the cooperation between Spotify and Lucozade. All teams were innovative in their approach to this task and pitched their ideas successfully to the judging panel. Following the pitches, the judges scrutinized each team’s efforts and presented them with thought provoking questions.

Given a short while to recover from Saturday’s challenges the teams met early on Sunday morning to commence the second day of the Imperial Apprentice Challenge. For the Sales Challenge the teams, once again, had to muster up the energy to run around the local area interacting with strangers. Given £20, each team were told to invest some or all of their money in stock from local shops or supermarkets and sell their purchases in whichever location they felt appropriate. The team which made the largest profit would win. Performance was impressive with the most successful team, Tornado, creating a net profit of £64 in just two hours. In the Entrepreneurial spirit team Tornado acquired copies of the Financial Times (which are distributed for free in the business school) and managed to sell many copies by knocking at peoples doors and selling to strangers in the street. Other interesting approaches were seen: for example, team Ipsum sold water to runners in Hyde Park and Collateral made hot chocolate in free cups from Pret a Manger using a kettle borrowed from halls and sold the warm drinks with cookies to cold Londoners.

The final, most demanding task, at least in terms of time management, was the Product Development Challenge, which saw each team design a new service or product to be launched by either Playboy or Ferrari. The teams were required to create a presentation outlining their innovative idea, target market, marketing strategy, financial outlook and 5 year projections. The outcome was to be presented to the audience and judging panel in the live final. Due to the nature of the companies some interesting ideas appeared on the whiteboard! Ipsum boldly pursued the idea of Playboy ‘adult toys’ whilst collateral opted for a luxurious and professional Playboy spa. Team Tornado saw great potential in exclusive Ferrari Yachts whilst Zeus envisaged Luxury Ferrari hotels.

The results of each team were an amalgamation of the outcome of the two active tasks and the judge’s opinions of the pitches and presentations. Team Tornado triumphed, meaning the team members, Effie Kyrtata, Ignacio Doval, Sabrina Ghiddi, and Isobel Qian will represent Imperial in the London Apprentice in late February. The Judges from Ernst and Young, E-Synergy and the Imperial Business School commented on the impressive ideas and high quality presentations made by all teams. They noted that the marking was not easy as the standard of all teams was very high. Team Collateral finished in a close second place followed by Ipsum and then Zeus.