Building Business competence for tomorrow:

18:57, June 3, 2020

Innovative Business Simuation united 221 students from 12 Universities in a search for best industry solutions

Students of International Economics and Business, Graduate School of Economics and Management, take part in the truly international project developed under leadership of Zuyd University (Maastricht, The Netherlands) and in cooperation with 12 other universities. 31 nationalities from Russia to Brazil joined business-, analytical-, cultural- and entrepreneurial forces to practice real businesses in four markets with changing economic, social and ecological market outlook. Next to this, they have to work on supporting group assignments and reflections to make the learning outcomes more explicit.

Teams are built in such a way that students met online for the first time and they represent different cultures, universities and countries. All of them are students of economics and management, but now they are into the real challenge-not only to compete with the others, but also check their intercultural abilities to cooperate within different time zones, different scope and understanding. Just like in real business.

This project shows how important good, personal relations and staff exchange between partner universities are.

Ed Overes, professor from Zuyd University, shares how he came up with such an idea:

«I have been able to energize my contacts at the business universities, I have recently been teaching, into this game. Without their enthusiasm and commitment for this project, it would not have been possible. Although Covid-19 has shown us that many things can be done online, this project also shows that good personal relations between staff of universities is at least as important then the formal agreements.  

Many business educational programmes depend on interaction with business for guest lectures, real life case, company visits etc. During the many restrictions due to Covid-19 a lot of educational work is done online, but how to replace this business setting? Near to real life simulation in the form of management games is one of the answers. Another good reason why playing our game is important in these days is that we need to find ways to having students interact more with each other online, replacing the social interaction of education. In many cases of online education it means that students work by themselves and ‘only’ go online for attending lectures or sharing their output. The management game we play is different in that respect, as students go online to discuss and interact and reflect with their team members. Playing the game well involves a lot of interaction, as interaction is the core of the assignments and the game. We facilitate this interaction by giving students a dashboard in which they can see their peer reviews and team differences, so teams correct each other during the process.»

Philip Shell-Hammer (German student, Zuyd University) discovered new frontiers of business communications: 

«I was surprised by the knowledge of other countries regarding business. One guy from Ghana was not really active. At first I thought due to language barriers or lack of motivation. I was under the impression that it would be difficult working with people from other countries. However than he showed a very good analysis of the market. I soon realized just how extensive their business knowledge was . This changed my views completely».

Ariane Lapiano Figueiredo (Brazilian student, Zuyd University): 

«Playing the CESIM game gives one the first true impression of what it is like to deal with people from around the world and how to engage with different ways of thinking. Moreover, it teaches just how many different aspects are linked to managing a company».

Zhanna Belyaeva, GSEM, Ural Federal University, confirms the urgency of such a combination of hard and soft skills training:

«Students are often thinking that playing business simulation is just a game and you can always find a way to come to your result fast, but when you are playing in various markets and you actually start seeing different approach to business economics and you have to apply your theoretical knowledge to multidisciplinary decision making: seeing how your cashflow is vanishing following your poor calculations, or seeing unhappy shareholders due to wrongly shaped strategy».

Anastasia Lazareva, International Economics and Business student, UrfU says: 

«In the discussion process, I can not say that I am performer (but it's nice that in the survey 2 I was marked as such twice) and talk a lot, because I look more on the numbers and share with guys simple and concise comments. Since the entire team follows the strategy, comments are fully taken into account for making a decision. I think our clear mind and focus on result help us to be always competitive and show the sustainable growth». 

The coaching team believes that participants will not make friends all over the world, but will utilize this knowledge for their future business contracts in the real life.