Each week teams of students from SA’s top business schools go head to head in attempting to crack a real business challenge. Executive producer Ben Cashdan says “previous reality shows took contestants off the streets and focused mostly on entertainment value. What is unique about SA Management Challenge is that it features some of the sharpest young minds in the country cracking real problems for our top companies and public institutions”.
Teams have just four days to work on each challenge before presenting to the CEO. The high pressure produces some out of the box thinking; the Kulula.com board game designed by UCT students, the Moyo department store with live entertainment proposed by Stellenbosch and GIBS proposal that SA Tourism give all departing tourists a CD containing their ‘digital memories’.
Each week the teams are rated by a panel of experts drawn from the SA business sector. Amongst them is the infamous Randall Abrahams who by day is a senior manager at SABC and surprises viewers with his versatility in moving from music to management.
At the end of the series the best proposals are rewarded with over half a million rands in prizes. Commissioned by SABC Education, the series aims to bring management ideas out of the classroom and onto our TV screens. The business schools participating in the series are Wits Business School, the Wits Graduate School of Public and Development Management, the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria, the University of Stellenbosch Business School, the School of Public Management and Planning at the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.
Companies setting the weekly challenges include Kulula.com, Old Mutual, Avis Rent-a-Car, SARS, Chris Hani Baragwaneth Hospital, SA Tourism, SARS, Moyo, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, the SA Post Office and Cell C. Prizes were donated by Old Mutual, Cell C, the SA Post Office and the IQ Business Group.
