GSEM, UrFU student team wins in international online business simulation

09:28, June 4, 2020

Graduate School of Economics and Management, UrFU co-organizes an Innovative Business Simulation united 220+ students around the world

From 4 May to 10 June Students of BA’s degree program “International Economics and Business”, Graduate School of Economics and Management, UrFU are taking part in an international project developed under leadership of Zuyd University (Maastricht, The Netherlands) and Ural Federal University in cooperation with 12 other universities. Students of 31 nationalities from Russia to Brazil have joined business-, analytical-, cultural- and entrepreneurial forces to practice real businesses in four markets with changing economic, social and ecological market outlook. 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: “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.”

Zhanna Belyaeva, Academic Director GSEM, BA International Economics and Business Programme director, 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, you have to apply your theoretical knowledge to multidisciplinary decision making: fixing your vanishing cashflow or seeing happy shareholders due to well-shaped strategy”.

Valentin Tyazhelnikov, GSEM 3d-year student, with his partners from the Netherlands and Egypt won the competition out of 42 team playing in four business universes​, among his success drivers he suggested that good driving cross-cultural competences and attention to market statistics, analytical  balance between price and innovation upgrade allowed his team to please shareholders and win the game.

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