Background
The European Business Plan of the Year Competition was jointly created by INSEAD and London Business School in 1993 to encourage the teaching of entrepreneurship and the creation of new ventures. After ten editions, it became an independent foundation jointly owned by the participating schools. The foundation is run by a board, consisting of last year’s organizer, the present organizer and next year’s organizer.
In 2009 the 17th competition will be organized by The Lisbon MBA program (www.thelisbonmba.com). The event will take place at our campuses in Lisbon, Portugal.
Each participating school selects for the competition one business plan for a new business, prepared by current MBA or undergraduate students. ‘Current’ students include those enrolled during the 2008/2009 academic year either on a full or part-time basis. The size of a team is limited to a maximum of 4/5 students.
Each team submits a written business plan, an executive summary of the plan, a brief abstract and a one line descriptor of the plan ahead of the competition. During the ‘elevator pitches’, each team has a 3 minute slot in which to present their business plan to the jury members and the other participants. The pitch should not take more than three minutes. After the pitches, each team has a 35 minute slot in which to present their plan (15 minutes) to a panel of judges composed of representatives of the sponsors and supporters of the competition and to receive questions on their plan (15 minutes).
Before dinner, the jury will give individual feedback to each of the teams. At the end of the first day, 4 finalists will be nominated who will present their plan a second time before a panel of judges. After those presentations, the winners will be announced.