Days ago, Happy Women, a team made up of Chen Qiuyi, Ren Hongyu, Zhang Kaixian, and Zhang Yunfei on behalf of the School of Management and Economics (SME), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), championed the CGMA Global Business Challenge 2023 (China Final), marking a third national championship by the team on behalf of the University in such Challenges.

Secrets to the Championship - Unity, Efficiency, Detail-orientation, and Presentation

The Happy Women attributes their outstanding performance in the fierce competition to three highlighted aspects: first, the success is attributable to their excellent teamwork. The team members come from three different majors, namely, accounting, finance, and marketing, contributing to diversified opinions from different perspectives during the discussion on case questions and further perfecting their final answers. Second, they give credit to the emphasis on realities and details. The team members and instructors paid great attention to specific details and feasibility of the proposals through continuous discussions and revisions, including the considerations of characteristics in slack seasons and peak seasons of the tourism industry when designing contract terms and key performance indicators, and the interests of the other party, in addition to their own demands, for a win-win outcome when suggesting the cooperation with a third party. Third, speech presentation is really the icing on the cake. The team members rehearsed many times before the competition and adopted advice from instructors on Q&A sessions in their presentation. They added a small theatre performance to show the cooperation between HappyWell and the airport more contextually and attractively.

Instructors’ Comments

Li Mei

Assistant Professor (Teaching), SME, CUHK-Shenzhen

The cases in the CGMA Global Business Challenge are all long and detailed simulations highly closer to the realities that require contestants to have a sense of business and basic judgments based on common sense while integrating the knowledge they have learned to provide practical solutions for enterprises caught in business dilemmas from financial statement analysis, human resources management, quality management, big data application, product profitability analysis and other core aspects of management and accounting. In addition, it also involves the analysis of corresponding markets, marketing strategies, and competitions and challenges the overall quality of the contestants in business in all respects.

The outstanding performance of our team in such a short time of preparation can be attributed to the following factors:

First, a solid business expertise foundation. The team members are often quick to understand without too much explanation and are able to yield detailed analyses of the cases during the discussion. The three sophomores in the team have keen and professional business insights, which have laid a solid foundation for our championship.

Second, strength in PowerPoint presentation. Personally, I think that our team made the most impressive PowerPoint presentation, and the team members were very efficient in the preparations.

Third, a solid English language foundation. The judges highly recognized our team members’ English speaking speed and fluency.

Fourth, strong support from the professors. After the semi-finals, the judges pointed out that our answers to one question were less satisfactory. We immediately contacted Professor Wilburn Tsang and Professor Lu Yifei, who both responded and supported us in a timely manner to help us make up for the shortcomings before the final.

Fifth, well-cooperated teammates. Our team members are equally matched in strength and well-cooperated in talent shows, Q&A sessions, and all-in performances. 

On June 10th, the championship team will go to Macau for the North Asian Final. Despite the quite fierce challenge, I have great confidence in these SMEers and hope they will keep up the good work and strive for better results.