UAA students win world-wide business simulation competition

A team of two students in UAA's College of Business and Public Policy finished first place in the Fall 2009 Capstone Business Competition, a business simulation challenge in which universities and colleges compete to see who can run the most profitable and productive company. To earn the top position in the Cumulative Profit and Stock Prices categories of the competition, undergraduates Elena Reierson and Chelsey Homan beat out 788 other teams from colleges and universities in the U.S. and from across the globe that were simultaneously participating in the competition.

As part of the challenge, student teams act as executive groups that, through a computer simulation, run a virtual company and make hundreds of decisions across all the key functional areas of business -- marketing, product research and development, production, human resources and finance. The simulation determines the results when the student-teams enter their business decisions into the computer. Teams are evaluated on their performance based on seven criteria: profits, cumulative profit, market share, return on equity, return on assets, return on sales and stock price.

UAA's winning team was from professor Edward Forrest's Marketing Management course. "UAA has been participating in this competition for the last nine years, and has finished in the top 10 six other times -- but this is the first time we have placed first in two of the success measures," said Forrest.

The Capstone Business Simulation is a product of Capsim Management Simulations Inc., the largest provider of business simulations and business games that are used by over 500 colleges and universities world-wide and also by corporations for executive training. Through these business games, students manage their own simulated companies, each one a case study in business, strategy and tactics. 
For additional information about UAA's participation in the Capstone Business Simulation competition, please contact Edward Forrest at (907) 854-8784.