Students get recruited at FLUX

Companies recruit at FLUX. Where else to find the UK’s most enterprising and innovative students?

Peter Bailey, a FLUX 2009 team member from Surrey University, got in touch with us this week to let us know what a difference FLUX has made to him. He was really buzzing so we thought we would share his story with you…

“Taking part in FLUX 2009 was a fantastic experience for me, without it I wouldn’t be in the position I am today.

I particularly liked the fact that it involved students from all over the country and that everyone taking part was so keen to get involved and learn more about the business world. The experts’ input was invaluable too, I found the ‘elevator pitch’ session especially inspiring. Also the Focus Group sessions, with a designated expert, were incredibly useful too.”

Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Challenge 2009

The Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Challenge 2009 is taking place on the 24^th November 2009 at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and will be building on the success of last years inaugural competition. With more University teams invited to take part in the challenge the competition will be a true challenge of the business acumen of the undergraduates taking part.

As well, as the original nine Universities who took part in last years challenge who were; Scottish Agricultural College, Hartpury College, Nottingham University, Harper Adams University, Duchy College, Reading University, Royal Agricultural College, Aberystwyth University and Exeter University, three more top University teams will be invited to join the competition.

FLUX 2010 – REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

FLUX is back! Now in its 5^th successful year we are delighted to announce we are now inviting entries for next year’s competition, delivered in partnership with Experian.

FLUX – the annual inter-university competition – is a proven way for your students to boost their employability and enterprise skills, meet top-class recruiters, enhance their CVs, improve interview skills and meet new people. Oh, and have a lot of fun too!
Over 30,000 students from more than 100 UK universities have taken part in FLUX, and it continues to go from strength to strength.

How does FLUX work? In a nutshell, teams of six spend 36 hours solving real business problems with experts from some of the UK’s most dynamic companies, judging them in Apprentice meets Dragon’s Den-style pitches and challenges. More than 60% of the students who have taken part were from non-business related subjects. FLUX is open to all who would like to challenge themselves and boost their employability skills.

What do they win? The title of FLUX National Champions 2010 and £500 cash each.

FLUX 2010 takes place on 29^th – 31^st March 2010 in the vibrant city of Nottingham.

If your University would like to take part then please let us know by 23^rd November 2009. You do not have to register your specific team members until two weeks before the event (12^th March 2010).

To find out more or to register your interest email us on FLUX@twkg.net

Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Challenge 2008

Nine teams took part in The Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Competition 2008. Exeter University were crowned the winners after a tough battle with Reading University in the semi-final. A panel of experts from the industry where present all day to advise the students and judge the pitches at the end of the day. The 2008 experts included individuals from; The Crown Estate, HSBC Bank, Asda Wal-Mart, Warburtons, Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust, Smith & Williamson, The Grocer, English Food & Farming Partnership and Ginsters of Cornwall.

Will Merton Jones from the winning University of Exeter team commented;

“I think there was a strong sentiment in our camp that the Grassroutes Business Challenge was as realistic as challenges get. I personally felt that the combination of engaging case studies, the role of industry experts and the structure and fluidity of the competition made it a top-class experience for everyone who took part. There were times where it was necessary to play up the strengths of our business opportunity to the experts but I think more importantly defending the weaknesses of the business opportunity and attempting to find positives in the limitations of our proposition made the difference. I am wholly grateful for the experience.”

University Of Plymouth win FLUX 2008

The Grand Final for Flux was held at the University of Plymouth and the hosts were eventually Crowned Flux Champions for the second year in a row!

Six students from the University of Plymouth are celebrating, having been crowned national champions of FLUX 2008, the largest student enterprise and employability competition in the UK. Close to 8,500 students signed up to take part in FLUX this year, and over the last two months, 100 universities have been battling to secure one of ten places in this week’s two-day Grand Final.

All the challenges (scenarios) for the Grand Final were based on established businesses that have identified a specific growth agenda that is current and real for them and would benefit from some fresh eyes. All of the businesses operate on an ethical basis or have a strong ethical stance. The University of Plymouth team worked on the Frank Water Challenge. (www.frankwater.com)

Congratulations to the runners-up team from the University of the West of England who worked on the Better Food Company Challenge (www.betterfood.co.uk). The two teams went head to head in a ‘Press Conference’ where each team needed to make a public statement about a potential health risk to customers from product contamination.

Having also won last year’s competition, University of Plymouth hosted the Grand Final and Vice Chancellor Wendy Purcell presented the winning team with their £3,000 cash prize. At the presentation, Wendy said: “We’re delighted to be hosting this year’s final, particularly in the Roland Levinsky Building, which has come to be a symbol of our links with the city of Plymouth and the region’s businesses.  It also houses our brand new Formation Zone which supports graduates when starting their own business.”

“Naturally I’m thrilled that Plymouth has retained the title of FLUX national champions, but all the teams deserve to be congratulated for the way they approached this challenge.  Their intellectual effort, outstanding team-working and presentation skills made this a great final and I’m convinced that the 60 students that took part in the final represent the cream of our next generation of business leaders.”

The judges had an incredibly difficult task, with each team developing and presenting a compelling case for their business.  But the team from Plymouth had the edge, as one of the business experts, Andy Martin from Trimedia, said: “We were particularly impressed by the team’s professional approach and the clear conviction that they demonstrated to achieve their business goals.  The quality of the students’ work over the two days has been incredibly high, but the real value for me is that I have seen people today that I wouldn’t hesitate to employ.”

FLUX is now in its fourth year and at its heart is one of the company’s core business tools, Xing, developed in partnership with Cambridge University, and designed to help businesses identify and achieve their key business goals.

James Lott, from Working Knowledge, said: “FLUX has grown over the last three years to be a great competition for students and business experts and this year has been the biggest and best yet.  With FLUX, we aim to help bridge the gap between academia and business and to enable students to learn and demonstrate key skills which will help not only improve their employability, but also give them the ability and confidence to embark on a successful business career”.

Fittingly the last word was given to the winning Plymouth team. Team leader Katrina Gibson said: “This has been an absolutely amazing experience and I feel privileged to have taken part and represented my university.  I’ve certainly improved my understanding of business and developed some key skills that I know will be invaluable throughout my career.  It was a fabulous opportunity not only to network with some inspirational people, but also to make a lot of new contacts and friends”.

The pressure is now on next year’s Plymouth team to make it a hat-trick of victories!

UWE students march on to Plymouth

The University of the West of England’s Flux2008 team has just won the South West regional heat held at Bath University.

Flux is the UK’s largest Student Enterprise and Employability competition and UWE’s student team comprising Ady Harold, Alan Spence, Mohsin Khan, Nanda Kumar, Julian Henry and David Hayhurst did extremely well to win this stage. They beat off challenges from the region’s other universities to win first prize of £500 and are now through to the national finals at Plymouth on March 17/18 with the chance of winning a further £3,000.

The regional competition brought together students from a wide range of disciplines with science, humanities, arts, languages and social science faculties all well represented. Many of the team members had little or no business experience and some were meeting their new business colleagues for the first time.

Vice-Chancellor Steve West said, “This is an excellent result and is testimony to the creative and enterprising spirit of the University and in particular of these students. I hope they are going on to greater things and wish them luck.”

Each team was given a business brief based on a real case study and had to develop a detailed strategic business plan for the company. A range of business experts were on hand to provide guidance and support covering topics such as finance and marketing to help simulate a real commercial operation. The day culminated with each team presenting their plan to a panel of judges, who take into account teamwork, listening and learning skills and how well they present themselves under intense pressure.

David Hayhurst from the winning team said: “This has been a fantastic day – and not just because we won! We’ve learnt so much about business, about our own set of commercial skills and about working together as a team – all of which I’m sure will stand us in good stead when we graduate. Now, we are just completely determined to go on and win the final!”

The winning team now progress to the Grand Final at Plymouth University where they will compete with the nine other regional winners for a cash prize of £3,000 and the prestigious 2008 National FLUX title.

MMU Flux team march on to UK final

ENTERPRISING MMU students have won the North West final of Flux 2008.

MMU’s teams finished first and second in the contest between North West universities including Lancaster, Uclan, Salford, Liverpool and MBS.

Just as in TV’s ‘The Apprentice’ the teams are presented with a business idea and must sell it to the maximum before a watching panel of expert judges.

The day-long competition on February 12, saw the MMU students edge ahead in such abilities as business development and planning, financial management, sales and marketing, and communication.

The winning team, who shared a £500 prize, comprised:

Daniya Iqbal (Accounting and Finance), Jonathan Williams (Environmental Science), Jessica Glapa (Masters Marketing Management, Cheshire), Liz Greenfield (English and Creative Writing), Sam Reece (Advertising and Brand Management) and Natalie Sidwell (International Business and German).

They will now go through to the Flux Grand Final at Plymouth University on March 17/18 where they will compete with nine other regional winners for a cash prize of £3,000 and the prestigious 2008, National Flux title.

Sam Reece, from MMU’s winning team said: “This has been a fantastic day – and not just because we won! We’ve learnt so much about business, about our own set of commercial skills and about working together as a team – all of which will stand us in good stead when we graduate.

“Now we are just determined to go on and win the final!”

Jan Moore, head of MMU Careers, who facilitated the event with David Taylor, a senior lecturer in enterprise at MMUBS, said: “We’re very proud of the both MMU teams. They come from a mix of course areas – arts and sciences, as well as business subjects – and I’m convinced that makes them a stronger unit.”

Flux is launched

Previously known as Yomping the Nations this national competition is now clearly focused on employability skills and represents the amalgamation of knowledge and skills learnt at University with an understanding of how to apply them in the workplace. Past participants have commented on how they gained softer-skills that they had not previously recognized in themselves and also realized that how these could be of value to future employers.

The 2008 competition runs from the end of January 2008 until the Grand Final takes place on Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th March 2008 at the University of Plymouth, last years Grand Final winners.

For more information go to http://www.flux500.com.

Working Knowledge to develop and run a new student competition called Grassroutes.

Smith & Williamson Grassroutes in association with the Royal Agricultural College have commissioned Working Knowledge to develop and run a new student competition called Grassroutes.

The Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Challenge is an exciting competition in which some of the UK’s top food and agricultural Universities are challenged to an intensive one day business competition.

The participating Universities are given a business challenge in the form of a case study, each team then have six hours to find a solution to their industry related problem before pitching it to a panel of industry experts.

The aim of the Smith & Williamson Grassroutes Challenge is to encourage a wider understanding of the business challenges now facing different sectors of the food chain – from field to table and exploring new ways to work together. The competition also aims to build practical relationships between businesses operating in food and agriculture and Universities in this sector, creating a strong alignment of long term interest. In addition to these aims, Grassroutes also helps to identify a pool of future management talent for this fast changing industry by engaging students with senior figures from the industry to solve real-life business problems.

YTN annual committee

Working Knowledge hosted its annual YTN (Yomping the Nations) committee meeting in London. A great turn out and discussion about how the competition went in its second year and how to take it forward into its third year. Actions from this meeting are being implemented by the competition team and details will be sent out in the autumn for the next competition which will run from January till March 2008.

The hosts for the Grand Final are the University of Plymouth as reigning champions from 2007.