Santosa Team Wins Hong Kong Championship 5/7/2002
A team code-named Santosa from the CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd emerged as the Champion of the Hongkong Management Game by outperforming five other finalist teams on Saturday, 29 June.
The Management Game is a simulation exercise making use of the computer programme SINEW 4.3 to simulate a competitive business environment. In the Hongkong Final, each of the six teams became a company managing their T-shirt factories. Their business objective was to outperform all other competitors and return the highest profit. However, like in the real world, they faced a number of difficult situations and had to try their best to formulate strategies to get around them. For example, in earlier periods, they had to choose whether to lower the wage for their workers so as to reduce their production cost, although this may cause labour unrest. If they keep the wage at a high level, they would lose their competitiveness in the market place. You have to think about using your limited resources to your best advantage, remembering that you are competing against other companies, not the computer, Mr Russell Morris, Software Designer and Developer of this SINEW simulation software. The programme is also used as an inhouse training exercise, both for management, financial understanding and team building, Morris adds. Morris has led a number of successful programmes in Europe, Australia, America and Asia for a wide range of companies. The software has been under continuous development to reflect the ever-changing business environment. At present, Morris is working on developing a multi-language platform for the programme so that it can be used in non-English speaking countries. For example, China is a big market and the demand for management training there is just huge. The performance of the winning team has been steady throughout the six trading periods and remained at the top all the time. At the end of the six periods, Santosa reaped a total of $7.5 million profit and won the honour of Hong Kong champion. The team called Falcon became the first runner-up, and the team Great Wall came third. Santosa was awarded a cash prize of HK$25,000 donated by Arthur Andersen & Co, four airtickets to Singapore sponsored by Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and the SCMP Morning Post Perpetual Trophy sponsored by the South China Morning Post. Falcon received a cash prize of HK$10,000. Great Wall, the second runner-up, was awarded a cash prize of HK$5,000. All cash prizes were donated by Arthur Andersen & Co. The Prize Presentation Ceremony was held immediately after the competition. It was officiated by Mr Patrick Fitzgerald, Partner, Arthur Andersen & Co; Mr William Chau, Director, Personnel, Cathay Pacific Airways Limited; Mr Colin Kerr, Managing Editor, South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd; and Mr Timothy Fong, Assistant Director, The Hong Kong Management Association. The Hongkong Champion team will represent Hong Kong to compete in the Regional Final against winners from Australia, India, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore. Each area takes turn to play host to the Regional Final and this year it will be held in Singapore in October. Organized by The Hong Kong Management Association, the Game is sponsored by Arthur Andersen & Co, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and the South China Morning Post. * * * * * Issued by The Hong Kong Management Association on 5 July 2002. For press enquiries, please contact Ms Titania Woo on 2826 0535/7383 5116 or Ms Sunnie Ma on 2826 0532. |