Three Saudi female engineers ranked first in the competition to challenge the CEO of an international company in the Republic of Panama, and outperformed more than 23,000 applicants (male and female) from 40 countries representing different parts of the world.
The annual challenge gives participants the opportunity to create a high-level strategy for a billion dollar brand, and conduct an in-depth study to test their skills in marketing, general management, human resources, strategy development and budgeting.
And each of the students of the Industrial Engineering Department at King Abdulaziz University, Malak Al-Mawsili, Rawan Beik, Lina Hussein, participated in the challenge, which includes three stages to win it. The first stage was held in the Kingdom with the participation of Saudi universities, while the second stage was held in India with the participation of the host country, Bahrain and Egypt. Saudi Arabia and South Africa, during which a brochure was presented to all teams containing information and statistics of the company specialized in hair care product to achieve a specific goal, which is to raise sales by 10% during the next five years, with an increase of 20% of the budget only, and each team had to develop a solid plan in less From 24 hours and presented to department managers.
The winner was chosen in the second stage by the referees committee, based on the best strategic plan that has been developed, as it must be comprehensive and address all sections and achieve the required goal, and there was a convergence in the results between the Kingdom and Egypt, and the victory was for Saudi Arabia.
As for the third stage, it was represented by Canada (North America), Mexico (South America), France (Europe), Thailand (Asia), and the Middle East, represented by Saudi Arabia. It consists of five stages, where each team is considered a company that exists in reality and competes with others in the market, and each stage has a specific time and it gradually decreases in each stage until it reaches 45 minutes per stage.
The organizing agency treated all the teams on the basis that each one of them is an independent company, and each of them has more than 40 decisions that must be taken at each stage, and accordingly they are entered into an electronic program that simulates reality that shows the results, and the decisions required of each public and large company and reach accurate decisions. And very detailed, such as preparing products to be manufactured, product prices, quantities of raw materials, staff preparation, machinery working hours, quality, storage quantities in warehouses, amounts to be paid in marketing and other decisions that can radically change the course of results, and the winner is the one who owns the largest (price share) than other competing companies in the market.
It is noteworthy that the competition was strong between countries, but it intensified between Saudi Arabia and France, as their results were close to several stages, but the last stage, which is decisive, so the students of King Abdulaziz University ranked first.
The winning students stated that they were able to change the stereotype about the Kingdom in general, and about Saudi female engineers in particular, and send a direct message that “they can do anything,” in addition to that they acquired business skills.
"It was an opportunity to work in an international environment and an educational experience through which we represented the Kingdom and showed the world the presence of Saudi female engineers, as is the case in other countries," Mosly said.
As for Rawan Beik, who is proud of being the first female engineer in her family, she looks forward to gaining more experience by working in multinational companies, and believes that the steps taken by the Kingdom are an encouraging case for increasing the workforce of women, according to the Kingdom's Vision 2030.
Lina Hussein, who was enthusiastic about breaking things and putting them together, motivated her to study engineering. She believes that the well-known stereotype of the engineer in the Arab world in general and the Kingdom in particular, represented in the man, is gradually disappearing, saying: “There are some stereotypes in our culture that women cannot handle a difficult job.” For the engineer, or it is very fragile, because it is not an easy environment where the average working hours are 9 to 10 hours per day.
Okaz (Jeddah)