Business challenge success raises over £15,500 for Teenage Cancer Trust

On 15 December the final of this year’s Synergy Business Challenge took place at the London campus. The ‘Showdown’ event saw three teams of students present a summary of how their businesses progressed over the challenge.

Now in its Seventh year, Synergy aims to strengthen and develop student’s entrepreneurial business skills whilst raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust.

Team Cogitality, the A Team, and team Desha were scored by the judges and mentors on various entrepreneurial aspects such as originality of events, co-ordination and marketing of their businesses, as well as networking. As with any business, teams faced a variety of challenges whilst raising money. One of the biggest challenges students faced was time management and business feasibility, which saw some teams counter-acting this by adapting their business plans. Teams had to work around their different classes and schedules to balance time and commitments effectively. Some of the ideas put forward included a lottery, dance classes and bake sales.

Having faced many challenges, the students were able to take away important lessons for any future business plans. Team Cogitality said that by taking part in the Synergy challenge, they learnt to not give up too early when things didn't always go to plan. Team Desha learnt to think more thoroughly about business plans and ideas. They also mentioned that some great benefits from taking part in the challenge included raising money for charity, increasing confidence and team building skills, and most importantly having fun taking part. The A team said that they learnt to communicate and negotiate better, and to think thoroughly about business positioning and pricing.

Just under £550 was raised by students this term for Teenage Cancer Trust, bringing the grand total for money raised by Synergy Business Challenge to £15,547.92  which students will personally deliver to Teenage Cancer Trust headquarters.

Congratulation to team Desha who won the challenge with their ‘ChariTea’ business idea.