Students on the Programme for Academic Excellence (PEA) at UIC Barcelona recently participated in a new Consulting Competition. The mission for this year’s competition was to transform a real company into one that complies with Corporate Social Responsibility. 

In order to do this, vice-president of Sifu Group, Albert Campabadal, opened the session by describing the fictitious company’s business model and underlining the importance of being competitive at a financial level, but also a social level.  Grup Sifu has a staff of more than 3.000 people of which 90% have some type of disability.  

“The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility has to be cross-cutting.  It needs to be found in the DNA of every company”, said Campabadal, who believes that a socially responsible company is one that demonstrates this during its daily operations and in every decision taken in every area.  For example, he explained that in the company he works for they use hybrid or electric cars, and their advertising campaigns are created by agencies who also employ staff with disabilities.  

The introduction given by the vice-president of Sifu Group was used as the basis of the proposals put forward by the six teams, which were divided into different sectors: automotive, culture, energy, food, sports and finance.  After more than an hour of work, the jury, consisting of Campabadal and lecturers Luis Jover, Noelia Jiménez Asenjo and Cristina Tresserres assessed the proposals and finally chose one: the transformation of the Nostrum home meal replacement company. 

Students from the winning team include five business studies (ADE) students:  Carlos Colomer, Carla Munté, Jaume Torras, Jaime Asens and Natalia Costa, and also a sixth student taking a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, Natalia Caballero.