The MBA team representing Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School at the European Business Plan of the Year Competition 2009 (EBPYC) has won the third prize. Rotterdam School of Management won the competition and Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship was second. This third position shows that Vlerick can compete with Europe’s leading business schools. By participating to this competition Vlerick also supports and stimulates the entrepreneurial spirit amongst its students.

EBPYC is Europe’s longest running business plan competition. Carefully selected student teams from 11 leading European business schools each presented their business plan in a competition for the best idea. A professional jury decided which team had the most creative and feasible plan for a new business. This 17th edition of the event took place on 29 and 30 May at the Catolica | Nova campuses in Lisbon, Portugal.

The list of competing business schools: ALBA Graduate Business School, Catolica/Nova, Cranfield School of Management,  EM Lyon Business School, IESE, London Business School, Rotterdam School of Management, SDA Bocconi, Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.

BioCAP business plan

The Vlerick team consists of 6 current full-time MBA students: Corinne Centonze, Jean-François Coleille, Maksim Gorbachev, Bernadette Kolbe, Gregoire Mastrangelo and Jaroslaw Miklosik. They wrote a business plan for BioCAP, a high-end solution provider addressing the increasing demand by consumers for food containing supplementary health additives delivered in the body in a natural and safe manner. This Swiss manufacturing company produces glucan, a natural encapsulating agent derived from brewer’s yeast which protects and delivers an ingredient more effectively than other encapsulating agents.

About the competition

The European Business Plan of the Year Competition was jointly created by INSEAD and London Business School in 1993 to encourage entrepreneurship and the creation of new business ventures. After ten editions, it became an independent foundation jointly owned by the participating schools. Each participating school selects one business plan for a new business, prepared by its students. Each team submits a written business plan, an executive summary of the plan, a brief abstract and a one line description of the plan ahead of the competition.