[19 April 2005]
SMU Is Champion At Trust-Danone International Competition

The Singapore Management University (SMU) has emerged overall champion at the Trust-Danone competition held in Paris on 6 and 7 April 2005, beating many other participating teams from leading international universities.

The five-member SMU team from the Lee Kong Chian School of Business called ‘Zenith', comprises:

• Mr Zhang Kaixiang (3 rd year business management)
• Mr David Ashvin Naidu (4 th year business management)
• Mr Jeremy Loy Kaixun (3 rd year business management)
• Mr Tee Yock Siong (3 rd year business management)
• Mr Joel Teng Wenzhong (3 rd year business management)

After winning the Singapore leg of the Trust-Danone business competition earlier in February this year, they flew to Paris in early April to compete against strong contenders who are final-year university teams from eleven countries: Belgium, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The team from SMU eventually emerged the world champion. Coming in second place was China and third place, Germany. The SMU team has triumphed over teams from established universities, such as the London School of Economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong Da Xue, Italy's Universita Bocconi and Spain's Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Participating teams had to play a seven-hour online strategy simulation game on a multimedia software on the competition day, which is called Trust Day. Called “‘Trust' the Danone Way of Doing Business”, the game was created by an international management professor from ESCP-EAP European School of Management (a leading business school in France) together with directors from Groupe Danone. All the teams are required to take on the role of a management committee of a newly-acquired Group BU in Latin America with the task of developing a 3-year strategic plan for profitable growth, sustainable development and building the trust of company stakeholders.

“We are very proud of our students who have once again proven their mettle and held their ground against leading overseas universities in a cutting-edge business competition. I have full confidence in the SMU team for coming up with sound and novel business solutions for Groupe Danone which provide fresh insights and challenge conventional perspectives. This is the hallmark of SMU students who are schooled in our unique pedagogy that encourages out-of-the-box thinking, constant questioning of assumptions and a hierarchy-free interaction with the faculty,” said Professor Howard Hunter, President, Singapore Management University.