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Maharishi University of Management MBA Students Place First in National Business Simulation Competition

Also see: Students Place 1st in National Business Simulation and MBA Students Win National Business Competition and this video: CAPSIM winners: MBA teams at Maharishi University of Management

Competing against 137 other MBA teams from universities nationwide, a team of four MBA students from Maharishi University of Management recently placed first in a business simulation competition.

Taking place over a six-month period, the simulation had students guide a fictitious company through eight rounds of decision-making, with each round representing a year of business activity.

According to professor Andy Bargerstock, who teaches the simulation in his course titled “U.S. and International Accounting Practices,” the students had to analyze and assess a variety of reports about the industry, competitors, and its own past performance results.

For their simulated company to perform well, the students must decide on research and development strategies, marketing tactics, sales and production forecasts, financing requirements, human resource management tactics, and total quality management initiatives.

The simulation, created by the CAPSIM Foundation, evaluates students on the growth of their company, based on financial results, customer perspectives, internal business development, and learning and growth initiatives.

“Strong analytical skills and informed intuition are valuable for simulation decision-making,” Dr. Bargerstock said. “When our MBA students perform so well against some of the best business schools in the U.S., it validates the quality of their decision-making skills and builds confidence that they can compete in the international business environment.”

The four-member winning MUM team consisted of students from around the world: Nepal, Pakistan, India, and China. In addition, a second team from MUM finished among the top 20%, comprising students from Iran, Cameroon, and Barbados.

Universities who participate regularly in this simulation include Harvard, Cornell, UC-Berkeley, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, the University of North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Boston College, the University of Iowa, and Iowa State, among others.

The game scenario took place in the sensor products industry and began with the premise that the Securities Exchange Commission had broken a monopoly into smaller companies. Each team assumed the role of a company and began with an equal market share and financial resources.

Bargerstock said that the winning team attributed their success to 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.

The simulation creator, Capsim Management Simulations, Inc. of Northfield, Illinois, is the largest business game provider in the U.S.

Also listen to the Sept 8 KMCD MUM Spotlight Show as MUM Professor Andy Bargerstock and MBA student Ganesh Baniya discuss the Accounting MBA program at MUM and their team’s recent win, placing first in the nation, in a national business simulation competition created by the CAPSIM Foundation.

For more information on MUM’s Accounting MBA program visit: http://www.mum.edu/accountingmba

Also see Iowa and Nepal Rotary Clubs Provide Well for City in Nepal, and Maharishi University’s Rao and Bargerstock published in Management Accounting Quarterly.

Tags: automation of production facilities, building customer awareness, CAPSIM Foundation, controlled expansion of capacity, cost control, decision-making skills, financing requirements, human resource management tactics, marketing tactics, product innovation, product pricing, research and development strategies, sales and production forecasts, sound financing strategies, total quality management initiatives, training and development of personnel, U.S. and International Accounting Practices

This entry was posted on August 19, 2011 at 10:53 am and is filed under Articles, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.