COMPETITION
JMEC 19 Winners Announced
By Julian Ryall Photos : Antony Tran
• Business plan contest for aspiring managers
• British Airways gold sponsor in annual event
• Judge : BCCJ President Emeritus Phil Gibb
• JMEC 20 seminars start in August
The 19th Japan Market Expansion Competition ( JMEC ) has produced a new crop of 62 talented and capable businesspeople , with Team Aurora emerging as the overall winner .
This year , the contest again was fiercely fought and attracted 11 teams , up from the eight that had participated 12 months earlier . They were feted at the annual awards ceremony at the Tokyo American Club on 5 June .
Founded by the Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan in 1993 , the competition is today supported by 17 foreign chambers of commerce in Japan . The idea of the competition is to have entrants work in teams to sharpen their skills as up-and-coming managers , while at the same time helping each client firm develop a high-quality business plan tailored for the Japanese market .
Announcing the winners of this year ’ s competition , BCCJ President Emeritus Philip T Gibb OBE emphasised that the JMEC contest is challenging and time consuming , but that those who have been put through its paces will have learned a great deal about themselves and their ability to work in a team .
“ JMEC , in my opinion , is the best practical business training and learning experience that there is ”, Gibb said . “ And what makes it even more remarkable is that all those taking part had to do [ the work for the JMEC competition ] in addition to their regular jobs ”.
The reports submitted by the teams were equally impressive .
“ The quality of some of these plans was far superior to some that have been put together by professional marketing companies , and that for a measly ¥ 1.2mn ”, he said .
The victorious group was Team Aurora , comprising of Adolfo Gomez , Yusuke Shimada , Shunpei Utsumi , Izumi Yamamoto , Isa Rondon Ichikawa and Ai Nakagawa . Darren McConkey , managing director of Eye on Asia KK , served as a consultant to the team , while Mitch Murata , executive advisor with Bellrock Media KK , was the team ’ s mentor .
“ Team Aurora ’ s presentation and thinking was as good as anything I have seen from marketing agencies in ‘ real life ’”, said Dominic Carter , CEO of The Carter Group and project client of the winning team .
“ They took my concept forward in such a clear and convincing way that I intend to use the JMEC plan to launch the Wa Group business starting pretty much immediately ”.
Second place went to Team Bonfire , with Team Glass Half Full in third place .
Dr Mikiya Mori , director of Temple University ’ s Fox School Executive MBA programme in Japan , was equally impressed by the report submitted by the second-place team .
“ The JMEC team did a tremendous amount of research on the value that
( Left ) Team Aurora won JMEC 19 . ( Below ) Second-place winners , Team Bonfire , received return tickets to London from Vishal Sinha , ( second from right ) BA manager for Japan and Korea . students and companies put on an MBA , their motivation in committing to an MBA course , and an analysis of the competitive set for our EMBA market ”, Mori said .
“ The team ’ s recommendations were well laid out and gave us reasons to expect that following their business plan will lead to the outcomes they project .
“ JMEC exceeded our expectations ”, he added . “ Temple is very pleased with the JMEC business plan and our long history as a JMEC sponsor organisation ”.
The prizes include tablet computers from Hewlett-Packard ( for the first-place team ) a well as British Airways return air tickets to London , and domestic air tickets from Jetstar Japan — JMEC ’ s newest sponsor .
To date , there have been 954 graduates of the competition from more than 54 countries . There have been 178 business plans written for JMEC project clients , including some firms that are household names around the world , such as Dyson , Bang & Olufsen , The Financial Times , Lloyds TSB Bank plc and Waterford Wedgewood plc .
The JMEC 20 programme is scheduled to begin in August , with information seminars held to enable potential participants to find out more about the programme .
As happened this year , the schedule for the coming year has been broken down into four phases , the first period of training and development to run from November to December .
The lectures and workshops will focus on entry and expansion into the Japanese market and business planning , and will be followed by preparation of the business plan for five months from January .
With guidance from a mentor and a business consultant , each of the teams will be required to develop an effective plan for a firm operating in the Japanese market . The plan will cover the areas of business strategy , marketing , distribution , finance , organisation , human resources and legal issues .
The plans will be judged in May , on the basis of written and oral presentations , before the winners are announced next June .
www . jmec . gr . jp /
JUNE 2013 | BCCJ ACUMEN | 19