We can’t believe another batch just wrapped up their last MBA course. The final course in the list, Business Planning and Management Simulation, began a few weeks ago. The students were immersed in the course in no time leaving the course instructor Prof. Liesegang flooded with strategical questions.
Even though held online, one could feel the intense competition between the teams to capture the highest EVA (Economic Value Added), market share and share price. The simulation had 4 teams, rather companies competing in the Electronic Manufacturing Services market simulated by TOPSIM, a German business management simulation company. Each team had Finance, Marketing and Sales, R&D and Production experts that would make the relevant business decisions.
The course began with a trial round to get the students accustomed to the planning processes and the software. Prof. Liesegang was exceptionally patient with the teams as they tried to navigate their way through the enigmatic simulation software. With each round of simulation, the students got better and more confident in their decisions and understanding of their companies.
Doing this exercise for 5 different business quarters over several weeks, gave the students exposure on handling different business scenarios like economic downturn, increased labor costs and more. Before divulging the results of the 5th quarter simulation, every team gave a brief presentation to the other students posing as shareholders on their strategies and lessons learnt. Soon after, the results were announced where Team 4 was the clear winner. However, in a sense every student won invaluable experiences in decision making and team efforts and took home an evolved business understanding.
A massive thank you to Prof. Liesegang who enthusiastically accepted to keep conducting this unique course for more of our batches despite his official retirement last year. The students are already on to the last task of writing a business plan for their company. Who knows, maybe this won’t be the last business plan they write in their careers! We sure hope so!

Text: Surel Surve, Class of 2021
Screenshots: Surel