It is like a dream coming true. GMC is definitely the experience any entrepreneur or passionate business students would seek.
From the very first day when I recognised GMC poster in my uni campus, I was immediately hooked in: a management competition, a global challenge, a business experience... all that I had been tirelessly looking forwards to sharpen my entrepreneur skills were in front of my eyes. I believe that all business students yearn to seek the experience of sitting in the corporate leader chair, overseering what it means to be managing production line, what it means to employ marketing strategies, what it means to winning over competitors...
Such things are far from being able to be taught in any uni around the world. But here it is, even though still distant from being perfectly realistic, GMC certainly has painted the picture.
Before GMC 09
Without any hesitance, I kept the registration deadline in mind as there were not many days left before the event commenced.
A good organisation needs brilliant men.
First of all was to find a great
team. Given a short period of time, it seemed there would be no way the effort
of posting advertisements around uni would bring any response to join my team.
Not to mention that choosing among the responses would take another
considerable amount of time. I decided that I would ask among my great friends.
Asked 5, but only 2 responded. Eventually only Bach accepted to be my right hand. My other friends were all busy with their thesis and involvements in university life.
Nevertheless, I and Bach decided to merge with another team that was also in need of people. Unimaginably, much by God's grace, the final team then proved to be fantastic because of the new team mates Jee and Simon.
Still, there was one more problem: we needed the university's grant to take part in this competition.
I did not even know whose hands my proposal should reach. "Who is the person in charge?" "How do I contact him?" "Would I waste my time and effort onto this?"
It was definitely a tiring search, like a treasure hunt: checking staff sites, asking departments, calling contacts… just to find out who the program coordinator was.
As a saying goes “search and you will find”: that was the most respectable Dean of Students that I needed to contact. Immediately I sent my proposal for time was shouting at me.
The proposal was not granted until 3 days before the first decision; Macquarie University certainly had been kind to its own students.
After all the trials, we made it through at last.
But it was just the beginning.
During
the competition
3 days were left before the 1st round and we had not even gotten acquainted with all the information in the manual. The manual was huge and it was also the time we started a new semester. With no choice, bearing the responsibility of managing the whole group, I rushed through the manual as if there would be no tomorrow!
And the first decision came. Our first group meeting was absolutely terrific... except only one thing: the timing. It went on straight for more than 4 hours.
Nevertheless, we made super bold moves and strategies in the end.
And that was also the reason our company terribly suffered. Immediately after that devastating loss, we took heart of the very familiar economics concept: supply and demand.
The first decision did not yield much fruit. However the team spirit was unimaginably solid: it was unshakable.
We moved on and kept heart the saying “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going”. The few decisions afterwards were so much better. There were much more careful consideration in our meetings, with much more fun too (and also more disputes). I still remembered that there was one meeting when we argued with one another almost for an hour over just one little issue: closing stock value.
Yet it was all about the first round. The loss was too great to be even recovered. However, as the saying goes “he who loses much learns much”, the experience that we all have learned was invaluable.
The Epilogue
After all we had acquired great experience in running business. We definitely had fun and much of learning from one another. We have also realised how little we know and how little we can make use of what we have learned. Although we did not make it to Lisbon, we had taken a valuable glimpse of what it means to be a business leader.
And most importantly, we have fully prepared well for the next GMC challenge.
Soon the time will come for Macquarie to reach the top.
The best is yet to be,
Long Vh
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Bachelor of Business Admin/Economics
Macquarie University Australia
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