Unilever Hosts Business Simulation Challenge at UKZN

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Thirty top performing final year and postgrad Supply Chain Management students participated in the Unilever Business Challenge on UKZN’s Westville campus.

Unilever partnered with the Discipline of Supply Chain and Marketing in the School of Management, IT and Governance to recruit final and postgrad Supply Chain students. The business simulation challenge tested the students’ knowledge of supply chain principles and their problem-solving skills.

Supply Chain Academy Manager at Unilever, Mr Sipho Sibanda, said the graduate programme, part of Unilever’s Future Leaders’ Programme, allowed them to identify the ‘cream of the crop’ who would then go on to a psychometric evaluation and the final interview process.

Sibanda said there was a ‘high pressure, competitive environment’ at Unilever and the organisation relied on UKZN to provide high quality graduates it could selected from. ‘Uniliver has always enjoyed a very good relationship with UKZN – why go outside of the province when you have strong talent in your backyard?’

‘Today companies are keen to recruit students who are involved in extra mural activities such as sports, choir, and community building projects and who are able to multi-task. Unilever won the Top Graduate Employer for 2015 in Africa and South Africa,’ said Sibanda, who emphasised the company’s focus was on attracting dynamic, unique individuals.

Academic in the School’s Discipline of Supply Chain and Marketing, Ms Lizo Dyili, said the University enabled Supply Chain students to have a ‘high level of critical thinking in making supply chain decisions’.

She urged students to work hard and apply themselves, and said the Unilever Business Challenge had motivated some of her students to improve their academic results. 

Raylene Captain-Hasthibeer