Student Simulation Success

By Marisa Thomas ’22, February 17, 2022

IC student team excels in global business simulation.

Business administration major Denielle Newman '22 and two teammates tied for first place in the Business Strategy Game (BSG) global business strategy simulation competition.

(Photo Submitted)

During the Fall 2021 semester, a team of Ithaca College School of Business students tied for first place in the Business Strategy Game (BSG), a semester-long global business strategy simulation competition featuring nearly 5,000 teams from more than 225 universities around the world.

Senior business administration majors Denielle Newman, Matthew Wimmer, and Patrick Horan tied for first in the contest, which tasked students with running an imaginary footwear company and making decisions regarding aspects of the business such as production, shipping and inventory, corporate social responsibility, pricing and marketing, and finance.

The competition was part of associate professor of management Duncan Duke’s strategic management capstone course. Each week of the semester was equal to a year inside the simulation. At the end of the assignment, the group presented graphs and charts to show how metrics like the company’s earnings per share, return on investments, stock price, and brand image increased.

“I had a great experience doing it and because of that, I have looked into other business simulations that I can participate in.”

Denielle Newman '22

For Newman, seeing firsthand the finer points of marketing a business was a benefit.

“I learned a lot about how different metrics affect a company, whether that’s marketing strategies, deciding where to expand your company, understanding how to take loans, or how to buy back shares for your company,” she said. “I had a great experience doing it and because of that, I have looked into other business simulations that I can participate in.”

Another valuable lesson was learning how to overcome obstacles, such as when another company adopted a similar strategy, forcing Newman and her teammates to switch tactics in the fifth “year.”

“In the end, our strategy was kind of similar to the tortoise and the hare, where the tortoise wins the race in the long run,” she said. “We tried to make strategic decisions that wouldn't hurt us financially, but that would help us in the long term.”

“When we have students who perform well in these types of competitions, it shines a good light on their education. It shows that they’ve learned throughout their time here at IC.”

Duncan Duke, associate professor of management

As Duke points out, the level of detail in this simulation provides a great experience for the students in understanding the complexity of running a business.

“You make hundreds of decisions each week in a lot of different areas, such as financial, marketingand operations,” he said. “This competition looks at how you performed. How much did you sell? What was your profit? How much did you grow? And the nice thing about this is that we can compare the performance of each team to the performance of thousands of teams around the world.”

Duke added that the students’ performance spoke volumes about how their IC education prepared them for global success.

“When we have students who perform well in these types of competitions, it shines a good light on their education,” he said. “It shows that they’ve learned throughout their time here at IC.”