Canada places 2nd in L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge 6th edition

L'Oréal's innovative recruitment tool, L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge, acknowledged the outstanding achievement of Canada's McGill University at the International Final held yesterday in Paris. Gathering at the Eiffel Tower, teammates Jackin Ngan Kwong, Wang Leung and Pamela Ly-Peng placed second at the undergraduate level by demonstrating their business savvy before an executive panel of some of the L'Oréal Group's most senior management as well as international figures from business consulting and media circles. The 48 international finalist students competing successfully emerged as finalists from among almost 40,000 students from 125 countries.

First prize of the Undergraduate category for the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge 6 international finals went to Turkey's Marmara University, while second prize was awarded to Canada's McGill University. This year two teams won third prize: Tambov State Technical University from Russia and Indonesia's Universitas Indonesia. For the MBA category, first prize was awarded to Italy's Publitalia 80, second prize went to Mexico's Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico-ITAM, and the third prize winners were from Hong Kong's Chinese University of Hong Kong.

At the same time, it was announced that the competition has been accredited by the renowned international organization EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development). The accreditation Technology–Enhanced Learning (CEL) certifies the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge business competition as an outstanding management education program. CEL is an affirmation that the Challenge subscribes to a high pedagogical assessment, audited and approved by a specialized educational institution. For the students the accreditation is a guarantee that the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge is an educational as well as a professional benchmark in their careers.

In response to the accreditation, Geoff Skingsley, L'Oréal's Executive Vice President of Human Resources, said, "For today's generation of students, for whom seeing is believing, the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge 6 is a true catalyst to bridge the gap between academic theory and business reality. We are delighted to receive the CEL accreditation as it affirms our position as a key player in the industry in business management training. Judging from the number of students that register and the quality of the competition each year, it goes to show the continuing added value of our initiative."

The L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge is one of the most popular virtual business strategy competitions for undergraduate and MBA students. Drawing from the dynamic realities of the beauty market, the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge creates an unprecedented realistic situation whereby students in teams of three manage a virtual international cosmetics company. The teams present at the final came from Germany, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Argentina, Canada, China, Indonesia, UK, Italy, Greece, Israel, Hong Kong, Mexico and USA. They demonstrated acute analytic skills and the ability to make complex decisions under pressure to qualify for the finals. Creativity, astuteness and communication skills were the final determining factors.

Commenting on the future of the Challenge, Jean-Claude Le Grand, International Recruitment Director for the L'Oréal Group, said, "The DNA of the L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge has been building for six years and it gives us today a solid basis for the future. What began as a L'Oréal innovative recruitment tool is today one of the world's leading, renowned strategic business simulation games."