The 2018 batch of students of the Accounting study program (Undergraduate) of the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia (FEB UI) won two awards in the Aspiring Professional Accountants (APA) Champ 2021 event organized by the Indonesian Accountants Association (IAI). Two teams from FEB UI, namely, Team Wallstreet won 1st place (National Champions) and Team Bull won the 1st Runner-Up.
APA Champ 2021 is one of the competitions from a series of national APA FEST competitions which aims to provide an opportunity for accounting students throughout Indonesia to develop problem solving skills, critical thinking, hone creativity, and the ability to compete. The activity is also expected to better prepare all participants in preparing for the future.
The requirements that must be met to take part in the APA Champ 2021 event are accounting students in their fourth semester with a minimum GPA of 3.00, consisting of five people per team, making a maximum three-minute video about Chartered Accountants. APA Champ participants came from various universities in Indonesia, such as Gadjah Mada University, Unika Soegijapranata, Trisakti School of Management (TSM), and others with a total of 38 teams. The winners were announced live on IAI’s Youtube channel, on Wednesday (10/11/2021).
The Wallstreet team consisting of Belinda Azzahra, Gabrielle Christie, Linda Ariyani, Michelle Candra, and Mohamad Arsy Fajar presented financial and non-financial strategies for the Baby Freedom company against the agreement with Wallmart supported by data from various scientific sources that support the proposed solutions / strategies such as journals, course books, especially those related to financial analysis. The preparation and presentation time was short in each round. In addition to being tested on analysis and presentation, they are also challenged to work together in a team and have good time management so that they can complete the presentation on time in a short time.
“The most supportive lessons in APA Champ are global business, financial management, financial modeling and business simulation, as well as business valuation analysis in solving cases. We are very grateful for this victory, which was actually unexpected. However, this victory is a trigger for the Wallstreet Team to be able to make other achievements in the future, “said Belinda Azzahra.Another Wallstreet Team member, Michelle Candra said that, “The biggest challenge during the competition was the timing. We were only given less than 1 hour to read the case, understand and make presentation slides. However, prior to the competition, we had a discussion to determine the distribution and time management so that it could be finished on time. Of course, I am very happy and proud of the achievement of the team together to be able to win 1st place.”
Meanwhile, Team Bull consists of Bennedict Elbert, Brian Senopati, Brigitta Aurelia Vadstena, Chessa Selena, and Yohana Olivia Halim won the 1st Runner-Up for presenting a business case about the company Baby Freedom. “In short, we were asked to help the company to choose one of the two decisions that must be chosen by the company by considering the financial and non-financial factors of the company and equipped with other supporting data from the internet, innovation and creativity of team members based on their respective experiences and insights. We had to solve the case within 40 minutes and present it within 8 minutes,” Bennedict explained.
Brian Senopati, said “The cases in the Grand Final have a quite different format from the cases in the previous stage. This prompted our team to think more flexibly in adapting to the new format. From the team discussion at the Grand Final stage, we evaluate the decision selection by considering the factors that influence decision making. From this process, the analysis with the objective-based framework is quite helpful for our team in formulating the answers for the cases. The Bull team is very proud to be the runner-up champion and make FEB UI proud on the national stage. Even so, this year is our last year studying at FEB UI and we feel grateful to be able to compete with a brilliant team and end the year with small achievements.”
