UQ Business School students blitz Queensland round of strategy competition

Two University of Queensland Business School teams are through to the final of the prestigious Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Business Strategy Competition in September.

Both the undergraduate and postgraduate teams came first in the Queensland round hosted by UQ Business School.

Teams were anonymous for the first time this year making it a surprise for all when the host university turned out to have swept the field.

The undergraduate team came in for particular praise with a presentation described as ‘flawless’ by judge BCG’s John Moller.

UQ academic Dr John Steen said the teams’ presentation skills had benefited from expert coaching by leadership coach Barry O’Sullivan of Sustainable Change.

“Both teams looked as if they’d had three weeks to prepare rather than three hours,” he said.

“The teams get a pile of documents from e-mails and press clippings to company data and have three hours to make sense of it all, analyse the company’s current situation, and recommend an appropriate strategy.”

Now in its 16th year, the BCG Strategy Competition is the biggest event of its kind in Australasia. This year’s competition attracted a record field of teams from around Australia and New Zealand.

The winning undergraduate team members were Zhen She (Commerce/Economics) from Westlake, Tristan Fitzgerald (Commerce/Law) from Sunnybank Hills, Julian Ensbey (Business Management/Law) and Lauren Zanetti (Arts/Law) both from St Lucia, and Amanda Buhman (Business Management/Arts) from Ormiston.

The postgraduate team was Jeremy Joubert (MBA) from Eatons Hill, Sidney Chu (MBA) from Everton Park, Grant Wong (Master of Commerce) from St Lucia, Jane Felton (MBA) from Chapel Hill, and Sarah Davidson (MBA) from Mt Ommaney.

Both teams will fly to Sydney in September for the final.

“In 2004 our undergraduate team won the national competition and our postgraduate team came a very close second.”

“Last year’s undergraduate team made it to the final.”

For more information contact Cathy Stacey on (07) 3365 6179 or 0434 074 372.