Enterprising students competed in National Apprentice Challenge, one of The UK’s largest inter-university enterprise competitions.

This March, the Warwick Enterprise Partnership supported 4 students to represent the University during National Apprentice Challenge. The National Apprentice Challenge, ran by Centre for Applied Learning, is one o

f the largest inter-university enterprise competitions in The UK. Every year 80-100 of the brightest and most ambitious students nation-wide compete in teams as they complete practical business tasks. This year the prize was £1,000 cash, business mentorship and fast track to paid internship opportunities.

The participants, Shachi Banthia, Shalini Hadpawat, Sakshi Sanghvi and Priyanshi Shah are four undergraduates reading Business and Management and Economics and International Studies. They used their strategic thinking, presentation skills and worked very well as a team in order to compete against 20 other teams across The UK.

All students went through an intense yet rewarding residential weekend hosted by Aston University in Birmingham, packed with reality-based business tasks, networking opportunities and fun surprises. This was an opportunity for them to experience the key stages of running a business and put into practice the theory they learned in their courses.

As part of the first task the students ran a virtual airline company within a market-based online simulation software. For this, the teams had to develop and implement business strategies, create marketing plans and decide the routes, amenities and schedules for their airplanes. All the companies started with selling internal flights within the UK, and had the option to expand with routes into Spain and China based on their strategies.

Their main goal was to make as much profit as possible within 7 virtual trading rounds and they had the support of four virtual advisers. The market was dynamic so every round the teams had to adapt their strategies based on the results of their competitors, exactly as it would happen when running a business in real life.

The second task required students to create an innovative business concept for The Next Social Media Platform and pitch it in front of experienced judges and serial entrepreneurs. Before the start of this task, all the participants received a training from Otearners.org on how to deliver effective and memorable presentations. As they only had few hours to prepare, the students had to rely on each other’s strengths, work as a team and communicate effectively.

The overall winners was a team of master students from University of Cranfield who won £1,000 cash and business mentorship. All the participants also received automatic fast-track to an assessment centre with companies from “Sunday Times100 Companies to work for”.