Law and Management

October 2006
La Trobe Business students hone their negotiation skills in the Shell Solar Challenge

On Wednesday 27 October ten students from the School of Business participated in the Shell Solar Case Study Day.

The Shell Solar Challenge is a new initiative from Shell, giving their staff the opportunity to volunteer their time as a campus ambassador and work with students in a University. It also provided students with the opportunity to hone their practical skills, and network with industry members.

The students were broken up into two teams (one acting for the seller and the other for the bidder) and participated in planning and strategy sessions and two rounds of negotiation, broken up with a period of evaluation and reconsideration of their strategies. The students are given feedback and insights into their performance and participation from experienced Shell professionals and they also have the opportunity to promote themselves to Shell as a potential employee.

The negotiation sessions were a lot of fun and even though, in the end, no final arrangement was successfully negotiated, this was not necessarily an undesirable outcome!

Participating students were all completing the case study as part of the Mergers and Acquisitions unit, offered by the School of Business. Students spanned a range of degrees, including business, commerce and finance.