Online Competition on CEE Competitiveness for Students

As citizens and organizations living and acting in Central and Eastern Europe, we are all facing the question in the global economy.

At the moment, CEE companies rely heavily on cost leadership or on local control as large diversified, resource-based conglomerates. However, both strategies can be easily beaten by Western companies with higher productivity, Asian emerging countries with lower labor and energy cost and by international specialized companies.

What can companies from CEE do to escape the bind between the more productive West and more cost-efficient East? What should they focus on to develop a sustainable advantage in international competition?

Innovative and sustainable responses to these questions will have an impact on the future of the world and employment opportunities, including for the youth. The voice of the youth, as well as their creative involvement, is therefore very important.

To address this important issue, CEEMAN joined forces with AT Kearney and Challenge: Future to launch the student competition “The Future of Work: Competitiveness of Eastern Europe” (http://www.challengefuture.org/challenges/29). The competition is open for student/youth teams of 1-3 members, who can be supported by a mentor.

You are kindly invited to spread the information about this competition to students and faculty in your institution and your contacts network to encourage participation.

Competition awards:

• the best ideas will be presented and discussed with managers at the Challenge:Future Business Forum in Ljubljana, Slovenia on September 24, and at 2013 PRME Summit and 21^st CEEMAN Annual Conference on 25-27 September in Bled, Slovenia, with covered participation scholarships for the finalist teams
• the winning team will be awarded with paid three-months internship at the A.T. Kearney Ljubljana, Slovenia office or at A.T. Kearney Warsaw, Poland office
• mentors of the finalist teams will receive waived tuition for the 2013 PRME Summit and 21st CEEMAN Annual Conference.

Additional materials related to the topic of the competition, which you are also welcome to use in your lectures, are available at: http://bit.ly/GlobalMegatrends and http://bit.ly/EEMacroeconomic.

We look forward to active participation of your students in the competition!

For more information on the competition, or to receive additional promotional materials, please contact Dan Croitoru: [email protected]

BEROC