Olivia Osmond, a 3rd year Bournemouth University BA (Hons) International Business Studies student, talks about her success in the Peter Drucker Challenge.

Since starting at BU I have always tried to make the most of the opportunities available to me. Going into my third year, I had a break between my studies and the start of my placement so wanted to focus and challenge myself on something productive, amongst doing other things.

I came across the Peter Drucker Challenge online and immediately became interested in submitting an essay to the competition. The 2014 student challenge required participants to write three thousand words on this year’s topic: “Lost in Digital Wonderland – Finding a Path in the Global Knowledge Society”. The theme allowed me to consider how businesses and management techniques, as we know them today, will develop and alter as a result of technological developments, and the pros and cons of this movement. This was a great opportunity for me to put my teachings from lectures and seminars into action independently. Whilst my knowledge developed as I read literature by Peter Drucker himself, adapting, employing and using these as a basis for my future predictions. The competition is renowned by management professionals and thinkers and as a result is open to students globally, making it both competitive and aspirational.

With this in mind, I was extremely happy and honored to discover that I had been placed 8^th in this year’s Peter Drucker Challenge. As a result, I have been invited to The Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna this November, a conference that brings together some of the world’s most respected business executives and management scholars; which this year includes Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen and Executive Vice President of Givenchy Michèle Amiel, to name a few. The two day conference will revolve around discussions and talks on this year’s theme “The Great Transformation: Managing Our Way To Prosperity”, whilst I will also have access to the speakers cocktail reception and gala event held at the historic and opulent Vienna City Hall.

I am extremely excited to be attending such a prestigious event, where I will have the opportunity to both network and learn up to date and, in many ways, pioneering concepts and ideas about the future of management. Academically, being a competition finalist will be great for my CV in moving forward with my career.  Moreover, the personal development I have gained has been tremendous, experiencing applying academic techniques and teachings to new perspectives, seeing positive results; reinforcing the importance of being self motivated and dedicated to my future goals and aspirations.

To any students reading this I would say, take the time and apply, or enter, something you are passionate about, as certainly, in my case, the result has been fantastic and opened up numerous future opportunities!

I look forward to sharing my trip to Vienna with you in a future post, in the meantime if you are interested in reading my essay or finding out more about the Peter Drucker Challenge please follow this link.

This is an article from The Business School blog. View the original post.