USM, PENANG, April 2017 – One of the two Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) teams participated in the Dell Business Challenge 2017 has won the first prize.

The team comprised of five students from the USM School of Management, namely Ng Yi Xiang, Shukri Muda, Tan Ke Xin, Sunisa Ai Som Chok and Izz Iyazi Razali, emerged as the champion in the challenge organised by Dell Malaysia recently, while the other team which comprised of Ng Boon Poh, Goh Suat Ting, Lee Cheng Sui, Moo Yi Zhi and Samantha Lim Siu Shi managed to secure second runner-up at the challenge.

The Dell Business Challenge consisted of two stages, which were separated into the business financial planning category and an oral presentation to the judges.

In the first stage, participants need to go through four business scenarios to carry out their business production and financial planning strategy. They were provided with graphic pictures of raw materials for them to assemble into Dell products. Each scenario lasted 30 minutes and participants have to wrap up their final financial statement and presentation material in the fourth scenario.

Moving to the final round, teams would compete in an oral presentation to convince their ideas to the judges. The judges are the Finance Director and a key person from the Accounting Division in Dell. The competing teams were given 10 minutes for presentation and another five minutes were allocated for the Q&A session. The final stage was evaluated based on a few criteria such as profit earned by the teams, financial statement and the relevance of the recommendations in the future.

According to one of the judges, the USM teams managed to be the top three winners because they were able to present well and demonstrated their abilities to relate the situations with current issues and apart from that, they were well-equipped to tackle the questions from the judges with the knowledge about the mission of Dell.

The champion team, USM2 brought back the championship trophy and Dell’s laptop bags together with certificates, while the second runner-up was awarded with certificates and Dell products in the form of a wireless mouse.

Teams from USM have proven their ability with a great achievement by winning two places in the challenge. The challenge saw 14 teams from the higher learning institutions around Penang competing against one another. Team INTI College grabbed the first runner-up spot in the challenge.

Text: Hafiz Meah Ghouse Meah