The 1st Business Plan Competition Winners Announced

On December 8th, 2021, the final round of the Business Plan Competition took place at our Nisshin/Nagakute Campus.

Mr. Kazuro Mizuno (Chairman of Seto Shinkin Bank), Mr. Hiroki Kondo (Mayor of Nisshin City), Mr. Takashi Okutani (Chief Omnichannel Officer of Oisix-La-Daichi) and Professor Yasutomi Kitahara (Dean of NUCB Business School) formed the panel, bringing in experience from various backgrounds.

A total of eight teams, including two Global BBA teams, presented their business plans with passion and determination, with the panel members and students from the audience questions to scrutinize the validity of those business plans.

The following four teams emerged victoriously to receive their respective awards along with encouragement to pursue their business plans further. We hope that the participants will use this experience to build on their ideas so that one day, we can see their business plans becoming a concrete reality!

Final Results

• Grand Prize (Faculty of Commerce’s Dean): "La Meule Qui Roule" (Global BBA, Double Degree students from NEOMA Business School)
• Excellence Prize (Alumni Association’s President): "コラル (CoRaLu)" (Global BBA, Double Degree students from Taiwan Tech)
• Idea Prize (Supporters’ Association’s President): "Sprayer Leasing Business to Generate Income for the Disabled" (Faculty of Management, Nisshin/Nagakute Campus)
• Seto Shinkin Bank Chairman’s Award: "The Unique Shoes in the World" (Faculty of Management, Nagoya Campus)

Grand Prize "La Meule Qui Roule" - Merging French cuisine with Japanese Technology and Service Quality

We caught up with the grand prize winners behind the idea of "La Meule Qui Roule" to learn more about their project and their hopes for the future. Kevin (Spanish, raised in France), Eva (French/Spanish), and Thomas (French) are Double Degree students from Neoma Business School on the Global BBA Program, spending two years at NUCB to gain their second Business Administration Degree.

First, why did you choose Japan and NUCB for your Double Degree?

Kevin: I have a contract with a company in Japan that offers me an opportunity to work where I want after my graduation and an opportunity in Japan is not something I could lose. And of course, I love sushi!
Eva: Actually I have Family from Japan and I have been interested in the culture since a young age.
Thomas: I really loved Japanese anime and manga when I was younger and I got interested in the culture, food, and people. It has been a dream since I was a child to visit Japan.

How did you hear of the Business Plan Competition? Can you tell us more about the project?

We first heard about the contest from Professor Ricardo Lim who invited us to apply. Once we got the result of the document screening step and knew we were one of the 8 finalist groups, we had to prepare a presentation.

We were able to use the vast experience of Professors Uchikoga, Ray, and Frendy as mentors to prepare an engaging presentation that we wanted to be like a true fundraising presentation and less academic.

After a year in Japan as the French people we are, we were all craving Cheese. One of our favorite restaurants in Japan is Kura Sushi (Kaitenzushi) and that was the beginning of our brainstorm to create "La Meule Qui Roule" - Conveyor Belt Cheese! the perks of cheese matching surprisingly well with the convenience of conveyor belt technology.

We were also inspired from the Global BBA Classes New Business Development that gave us the important points to present to investors, and Business Model Design for our Business Model construction, and Stakeholder Management which taught us how to think about the impact outside of our customer base.

How will you spend the money?

We won 50,000 JPY that will be used to plan a trip to Universal Studios Japan, as a reward for the work done on the competition and a break before the next competition and the launch of the company.

What does the future hold for your Business Plan?

We are looking for investors so if interested people read this article, they can send us an email us. We recently applied to a national competition in France and are working even more on the project to launch it officially by the end of next year. We would like to build the first restaurant in the Viaduc des Arts in Paris that provides a lot of benefits for a project like ours.