MUM Students Place in Top 10 in National Business Simulation
In April 2010 Accounting MBA students participated in a national business simulation competition against other MBA teams from universities around the USA. Four teams from MUM participated in the competition. MUM’s Andrews Team consisting of Patricia Barreto-Larez (Venezuela), Thao Tran (Vietnam), and Ying Liu (China) placed 9th best of 93 MBA teams competing.
The simulation creator, Capsim Management Simulations, Inc. of Northfield, Illinois, is the largest business game provider in the USA. The simulation was part of Dr. Andrew Bargerstock’s class in “Lean Accounting Transformation.”
The game scenario takes place in the sensor products industry when it is assumed that the Securities Exchange Commission has broken a monopoly into smaller companies. Each team assumes the role of a company and begins with an equal market share and financial resources. Each round of decision-making represents a year of business activity.
Decisions require that students analyze and assess a variety of reports about the industry, competitors, and its own past performance results. Students must decide on research and development strategies, marketing tactics, sales and production forecasts, financing requirements, human resource management tactics, and total quality management (TQM) initiatives.
Teams are evaluated on their abilities to maximize growth across five metrics: return on assets, return on equity, stock price, asset turnover, and market capitalization. After four practice rounds, the simulation is reset and, over the course of three weeks, the team’s submitted decisions for eight competitive rounds.
After each round, the teams could view the results of their decisions as seen in financial statements and a variety of reports. All teams can view the results of all other teams at their school. Both strong analytical skills and informed intuition are valuable for simulation decision-making.
The Andrews Team reports its success came from a combination of good decisions about product pricing, building customer awareness, product innovation, automation of production facilities, controlled expansion of capacity, cost control, training and development of personnel, and sound financing strategies. All students who participated in the simulation expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn about executive decision-making and small group dynamics.