Fifth annual Future Business Elite Summit

University of Edinburgh team reach semi-finals of the fifth national business negotiation competition

On Saturday November 25, six universities, St Andrews, Dundee, Lancaster, York, Durham, and our very own team from the University of Edinburgh, took part in the northern leg of the fifth annual model business negotiation competition, hosted in the capital by The Future Business Elite Summit.

The Summit is an organisation of 16 top universities from around the UK (including Oxford, Imperial, LSE), which come together to provide a simulation of a business negotiation to test students on their training case analysis skills, negotiation skills, and their specific business knowledge.

Negotiation teams normally consist of five members; chief negotiator, financial manager, legal counsel, marketing manager, and a third party, with each position changing according to the given scenario. Students first analyse the cases of both parties, then conduct research on the industry and the company (investigating financial reports, legal specifications, prices) then come together to discuss the negotiation strategy and to generate a plan.

The case provided for the preliminary round concerned a dispute between a property developer and its owner. The property developer had delayed the handover of both the property certificate and the property itself, and in response the owner was set to launch an appeal. During the day, the students from each team conducted themselves in a manner akin to a legitimate business, upholding a deep understanding of the legal articles and executing excellent case analysis.

Of the six teams involved, the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews scored the highest points, thus advancing to the semi-final round, and will be joined by the semi-finalists from the southern leg, Oxford and King’s College London.

Congratulations to the team from Edinburgh, and we wish them all the best in their bid to reach the final.