Many of us hoped that in 2021 life and business would at least partially become like it was before. That was not the case. All of us dealt, and still deal with the realities of working from home, (partial) lockdowns and supply chain disruptions. The going got tougher, however, we kept on going, hoping that in 2022 life and business will at least partially become like it was before.
As a result, given the circumstances, our partners and Inchainge itself arranged that the Global PRO Challenge (GPC) and its flagship event the Global PRO Final (GPF) took place 100% online. Luckily, we had already invented these wheels in the year(s) before. Typically, Challenge rounds had been online since the start in 2011. Last year, the preceding public training workshops had moved online mostly as well, as did the Final of 2020. For the Global PRO Final of 2021 we returned to the digital 3D surroundings of VirBELA.
All in all, more than 500 teams registered for the training workshops of this eleventh edition of The Fresh Connection Global PRO Challenge. In the Challenge rounds themselves we saw around 100 teams proceeding in Spring and another 50 in Fall. These professional teams represented hundreds of companies and tens of countries. A record number of 29 teams made it to the Final. They gathered in VirBELA to be put to the ultimate test. The best team won a grand prize and took home eternal glory.
Spread across 4 days, four rounds were played. Teams had to deal with capacity constraints and pay attention to sustainability, whilst at the same time delivering customer satisfaction and a healthy profit.
In time blocks of 2 hours in CEST afternoons – so APAC teams could join in the early evening and Americas in the early morning – the 29 finalist teams gave it all they got. Eventually the winner of The Fresh Connection Global Final 2020 was a team from the China Communications Construction Company, from their First Highway Engineering Group. The team proved to be the best overall and earned the title of TFC Global PRO Final Champion 2021.
The CCCC – FHEG team members
Runner-up was Chr. Hansen from Denmark. And 2nd runner-up was a team from SC Johnson, made up of individual professionals from 4 different continents. The complete ranking can be found in the table below.
COUNTRY/REGION |
TEAM |
Weighted ROI |
|
1 |
China |
CCCC – FHEG |
41.55% |
2 |
Denmark |
Chr. Hansen |
30.13% |
3 |
Global |
SC Johnson |
29.60% |
4 |
Poland |
Oriflame |
|
5 |
Bolivia – Peru |
South America PROs |
|
6 |
China |
CCCC – SHEC |
|
7 |
India |
Apollo Tyres |
|
8 |
The Netherlands |
MSD Animal Health |
|
19 |
Vietnam |
Suntory Pepsico |
|
10 |
Japan |
Glico |
|
11 |
France – Italy |
LVMH |
|
12 |
South Africa |
Aerosud |
|
13 |
Turkey |
Arzum |
|
14 |
USA |
C.H. Robinson |
|
15 |
Germany |
Doka |
|
16 |
Poland |
Avon |
|
17 |
Turkey |
Efes |
|
18 |
Singapore |
Barry Callebaut |
|
19 |
USA |
Digi-Key |
|
20 |
Italy |
McCormick |
|
21 |
Singapore |
InfoSys |
|
22 |
Ireland |
Irish PROs |
|
23 |
Japan |
Hitachi Ltd |
|
24 |
Russia |
NLMK |
|
25 |
Saudi Arabia |
Al Jammaz Group |
|
26 |
The Netherlands |
SlimStock |
|
27 |
India |
Becton Dickinson |
|
28 |
Germany |
Boehringer Ingelheim |
|
29 |
USA |
United States Air Force |
|