A Maltese student at Manchester Business School and his team have clinched a contract to provide all university apparel to the school next year after winning the Business Champions Award.

Apparel which is made by students for students

David Zammit, 20, of Mosta, and fellow undergraduates Justin Colver, Jack Boland and Marcus Rodert beat six other teams in the UK competition organised by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bright Futures, the graduate recruitment consultancy, with their idea to sell university-branded clothing.

Thanks to the contract, they opted out of the original prize for business support and funding for a year, and will instead shadow a senior PWC manager at the firm’s London headquarters in the summer.

The competition gave student teams a chance to turn an idea into a profitable business with proceeds going to the School for Social Entrepreneurs charity.

Uni and Co Clothing, Mr Zammit’s team, caught the judges’ attention with its business plan, presentation, and innovative product. Judges were also impressed by the team’s professionalism, the ability to build a network of contacts, and the clearly defined roles within the team.

“Students love to be fashionable and are extremely proud of belonging to a well-known institution like the University of Manchester. We felt we could combine these two aspects of student life. To some extent, university apparel was, and still is, being sold at the University of Manchester and all across the UK,” Mr Zammit told The Sunday Times. “However, what is currently on the market is really a souvenir for visitors or for students who are leaving. This is mainly down to the lack of innovation and creativity being put into a market which we feel has massive potential if approached in the right way. No institutions provide apparel which is made by students for students.”

Uni and Co Clothing’s original idea was to supply apparel to the entire institution. But the University of Manchester is the UK’s largest and the admittedly “small and inexperienced” start-up was daunted by the challenge of supplying 50,000 students.

Instead, the team decided to focus on the business school’s students as a way of targeting a smaller market effectively. The new strategy also gave the team the opportunity to gain professional advice from mentors and professors they were in contact with in lecture halls every day.

The team’s T-shirts had to be fashionable, of reputable quality and ethically made. The team sent its business plan to leading US-based basics brand American Apparel, which was immediately keen to collaborate.

Mr Zammit explained that with American Apparel on board, the team was able to meet all its criteria, and with clothing made for students by students, Uni and Co Clothing would enjoy a competitive edge. Being part of its own target market enabled the team to know exactly what customers wanted and what type of strategy would be necessary in order to have an effective selling and marketing campaign, he said.

The team was well-organised: with clearly defined roles, each member was able to apply personal skills to specific tasks and combining them with those of the other members as necessary. With members hailing from different countries and backgrounds, a healthy diversification played in the team’s favour.

Uni and Co Clothing’s product beat other short-listed ideas which included a free student magazine, a social networking website for businesspeople in China, a consumer offers website, a university app for smartphones, an advertising and promotions company, and the launch of a Nigerian snack in the UK.

After increasing its success at the business school, the team’s long-term aim is to gradually build a reputation as a company and target other faculties like Law and Maths, both of which Uni and Co Clothing is already in contact with. The opportunity to shadow a senior PWC manager in the summer break will give team members added knowledge as they seek to grow their business.

“It will provide us with an opportunity to gain valuable work experience and we will then be able to apply those skills to the company. We are extremely excited and proud to be working alongside the University of Manchester’s most prestigious institution as it provides us with a solid platform for future expansion.”

Mr Zammit is in the second year of the MSc in International Business Economics and is due to graduate in June 2014. After his studies he would like to apply his academic and entrepreneurial skills to a profession in the finance, commerce, entrepreneurship or accountancy spheres.