L'Oréal e-Strat Challenge is one of the world's biggest online business simulations. This international competition is open to undergraduate and MBA students in their final two years of university or business school.
In its first six editions, the L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge has brought together over 132 000 students from 2190 schools representing 125 countries.

You and your team, consisting of three people, will manage a portfolio of beauty brands and compete for worldwide leadership against 4 other virtual companies during six rounds throughout a period of approximately two months.

You will take the role of the General Manager. At the head of a cosmetics firm, you will face new market situations and challenges during each of the six rounds. You will translate your strategy into critical decisions about all aspects of the company: pricing, production volume and capacity, research and development, marketing, advertising and brand positioning. In each round, you will have more than 30 charts and graphs to analyze. You will be asked to make over 150 decisions!

Each round corresponds to a six month real time period. The four other virtual companies, run automatically by the simulation, will not only challenge you with innovative decisions but will also respond to your moves!

Every registered team will have the opportunity to participate in the first round, and then, according to their Share Price Index, 1500 of these teams will be selected to continue the “adventure” (rounds 2 – 5). All the teams participating in the L’Oréal e-Strat Challenge will manage PRIMA, but in a parallel, simulated world, separate from yours.

Your objective is to achieve the highest SHARE PRICE INDEX (SPI) at the end of the simulation.
To learn more about SPI, click here.
You will be able to follow week to week evolution of the international, regional and national rankings.

e-Strat makes everything possible, around the world and in real time, through a highly realistic and custom-created simulation run on internet.

To get an inside view... Look at the demo

After the 5th round another selection will take place. Only the 300 best teams (* for more details of the selection please consult the Official Rules) will be chosen for the semi-finals. During the semi-finals, in addition to the 6th round, the teams will draw up a Business Plan. They will place all of their decisions into a global strategic context and explain how and why they made their strategic choices.

The International Finalist teams, the top undergraduate and MBA team of each zone (* for more details of the selection please consult the Official Rules) will win an all expenses trip to Paris to compete for the first place!
During the International Finals, the 16 finalist teams will present their Business Plan, defend their strategy and try to “sell” their virtual company to a jury formed by L’Oréal executives.

The two most strategic, professional and convincing teams will win a trip to the destination of their choice worth 10.000 € !

e-Strat was launched in 2001 and since then it has known growing success :

• - The simulation has been updated every year in order to reflect new developments in the Beauty Industry.
• - The number of registered students has increased with each edition.
• - New business Partners have joined us: Business Week for e-Strat 3, Euronews for e-Start 5 and Microsoft and MSN for e-Strat 6.
• - e-Strat can now be played in courses at universities and is therefore a recognized learning tool.
• - Last year the L'Oréal e-Strat challenge has received the CEL accreditation from the EFMD