No, I am not referring to the crisis that by now most of you will be ever so familiar with. That is the global financial crisis (GFC)! The GBC - to stick with acronyms, is CIMA's global business challenge for university students across a number of countries that has been running over the last several months. The grand finals of this event will take place in Singapore on August 21st when eight teams from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United Kingdom battle it out to be crowned the inaugural champions of the CIMA GBC. Put very simply the top business management team.

Preliminary national contests have been on-going over the last few months when thousands of university students in teams of 4 competed in their respective countries to vie for the top spot. On Friday August 21st, 32 excited - or nervous, young men and women will do their best to impress an even more impressive panel of judges demonstrating their business management prowess.

What is their challenge? Well, CIMA was the first professional accounting body to introduce a real life case study based examination of its final level students to produce the highest quality of professional accountant. CIMA recognised that mere text book study and traditional testing methodology did not translate to on-the-job competence. Thus TOPCIMA - the Test of Practical Competence in Management Accounting came into existence in 2000. When CIMA was born 90 years ago its founding fathers wanted to differentiate business accountants from mere book-keepers and number-crunchers. They envisioned a finance professional who added value across the entire business spectrum from the shop floor to the bottom line.

The contestants at the GBC will be required to demonstrate these simialr competencies when they are posed the exact TOPCIMA case study that final level CIMA students are required to undertake. The difference is that while the CIMA final level student is required to agonise over the issues by himself or herself in the lonely space of an exam hall and restricted by the hands of a clock, the GBC contestants do it in teams of 4 and in addition have the assistance of a mentor. In tomorrow's blog I will cover the context of the case study as well as the outstanding and innovative solutions thatt the teams are surely to come up with. If the preliminary rounds are anything to go by, then the finals are definite to be world-class.

This innovative event was the brainchild of the Malaysia Division where it was run only at a national level. It's popularity and significant value proposition was recognised by CIMA's London Marketing team who saw an opportunity to take it across the CIMA World. Next year four more teams will join the fray. It may some time in the future take on Olympic proportions!!

This CIMA initiative is multi-faceted. It demonstrates CIMA's definitive intent to nurture the highest level of business talent, to offer prospective business leaders a platform to demonstrate their latent skills and competencies, to demonstrate CIMA's social responsibility to communities and business and finally to lift CIMA's own already high profile to even greater heights.

It is an extreme personal satisfaction to me that this inaugural CIMA Global Business Challenge is taking place during my presidential year. I am winging my way to Singapore to be a judge, congratulate the winning team and present the awards.I am flying from Sydney, Australia and compiling this blog at about 36,000 feet. As I look out of the window the Australian continent is covered in a blanket of cloud, but above it and to the western horizon is the most gorgeous sunset. Can we all expect the sunshine of prosperity to wipe out the gloom of the GFC? Let's hope so. Meanwhile I cannot wait for the GBC contest to begin.