University of Evansville

UE Business Team Places in Top 20 in Worldwide Business Strategy Game

Monday, October 31, 2005

A team of students in the School of Business Administration's Senior Seminar Management 497 course have placed in the top 20 in the world in "The Business Strategy Game" an online simulation where students run an athletic footwear company in head-to-head competition against other student "companies."

The simulation, overseen in the class by faculty member Susan Michie -- now in her first year as assistant professor of management at UE -- is designed to put the student in the position of being a member of the management team for a global business. "Every week the students must make decisions reflecting those a company would make during a year of business," Michie said. "Those decisions are uploaded and compared against decisions made by other students around the world."

One of Michie's 12 teams of students participating placed 19th out of the 9,204 teams in the world based on last week's performance criteria which includes the team's overall score for this year, its earnings per share, return on average equity and stock price. This team is comprised of seniors Gergley Arki, Marc Hildwein, and Whitni Jones.

According to a website for The Business Strategy Game, "company operations parallel those of actual athletic footwear companies. Just as in the real world, companies compete in a global market arena, selling branded and private-label athletic footwear in four geographic regions – Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

"Company co-managers must make decisions relating to plant operations, distribution and warehouse operations, work force compensation, online sales at the company's website, sales and marketing and finance."

Michie said this simulation has been taking place for several years and is considered to be one of the best business simulations around.She said the students learn a lot from it for a variety of reasons including "it’s a product they know something about and it's something they can grasp relatively easily."

She explained that this course comes during their senior year and is a "culmination of everything they’ve learned thus far." The simulation allows students to think rationally and logically in deciding what to do; and to get valuable practice in making a variety of different business decisions under circumstances that mirror real-world competitive conditions. With this top 20 placing, UE's team is automatically eligible to compete in the 2005 Season II Best-Strategy Invitational in December.