Press release -
Manchester crowned king of North West entrepreneurs
Student entrepreneurs from across the North West have been given a valuable opportunity to pitch to top marketing executives and agencies, thanks to Virgin Trains.
As part of the National Student Apprentice challenge, five teams of students from the universities of Liverpool, Lancaster, Chester, Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan were tasked with creating a commercial strategy to be considered by Virgin Trains.
The day started early as the young entrepreneurs gathered at the TechHub in Manchester where they were presented with a brief: to develop a commercial strategy aimed at attracting students over the next three years.
With a Pendolino First Class carriage specially branded at their disposal, the teams started working on the pitches they had to present to the London based agencies. Some of them managed to use the quick 2 hours 9 minutes journey from Manchester to London to design an app and a TV advert!
After much deliberation, Manchester University’s team were announced as winners: Rose Winter, Karan Farmah, Teory Briscoe and James Neuburger blew away the judges with their innovative pitch that is now being considered for implementation by Virgin Trains.
The winning team was awarded a prize of £1,000 from Manchester Entrepreneurs to develop business ideas, and a pair of First Class return tickets each from Virgin Trains.
Tom McCann, President of Manchester Entrepreneurs said: “The Virgin Trains Student Challenge was a fantastic event to showcase the nature of Manchester Entrepreneurs and enterprising students from around the North West. It provided students with an invaluable insight into a real business challenge, and a great immersion into the Virgin Trains operations by hosting it on board one of their famous Pendolinos.”
Lizzie Maber, Marketing Executive at Virgin Trains said: “The Virgin Trains Student Challenge was an excellent opportunity for us to invest in the young people who are an intrinsic part of our communities. It was a chance for them to prepare for their future as young professionals and they were all excited about the opportunity to add this experience to their CVs.”
She adds: “This scheme is right up our street: after all our founder was a young entrepreneur himself, and it will be interesting to see how these students develop over the next few years. We were really impressed with the standards of presentation the students displayed. Their enthusiasm combined with their natural abilities was exceptional.”
Watch the video of the Virgin Trains Student Challenge here .
Related links
Topics
- University, University College
Regions
- Cheshire
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Virgin Trains has
revolutionised rail travel by creating a high speed, high frequency service
that has cut journey times and made rail journeys more comfortable. It has
operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997, serving key UK
cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and
Glasgow.
Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group (VRG), which is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach. The Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded VRG a franchise contract, which started on 9 December 2012 and was initially due to run for up to 23 months. The Transport Secretary announced on 26 March 2013 that it will be extended until April 2017, when a new long-term West Coast franchise is expected to start.
Virgin Trains has been recognised in numerous awards. In October 2013 Business Traveller magazine readers voted the company the Best UK Domestic Rail Operator for the seventh year running. In 2011 the company was named Best Rail Operator in the Group Leisure Awards (which it also won in 2009 and 2010). In 2011 Virgin Trains won the British Quality Foundation's Achievement Award for Customer Satisfaction.
Customers consistently rate the company the top long-distance rail franchise operator, as measured by the National Passenger Survey (NPS) run by industry watchdog Passenger Focus. In the most recent NPS (Autumn 2013) overall satisfaction was 91%, meaning the company has remained unbeaten over nine successive surveys in the long-distance franchise category.
Virgin Trains was awarded certification to the internationally recognised ISO 14001 Environmental Management System standard in January 2014.
Virgin Trains first achieved Investors In People accreditation in 2007 and this was renewed in 2010; the IIP Gold award was achieved in 2011 and again in October 2013. In May 2013 Virgin Trains renewed its accreditation against the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management's (EFQM) Excellence Model, which it originally achieved in May 2011. The company’s Learning and Development team won a National Training Awards 2011 West Midlands award for its Coaching Culture programme.
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