Lipscomb wins Grand Championship in online global strategy game
Rebecca Bilbo |
Student champion of online business game
12/21/06
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(from left) Jeff Carman, Logan Powell, Amy Beth Mitchell, Jeff Baumgartner and Chris Mosley. |
For the past five semesters, students in Steve Little’s policy and strategy management class have spent a semester playing the Business Strategy Game, in which they must create a global athletic shoe company and outperform hundreds of other student teams around the globe.
This spring’s batch of business strategists produced six teams, incorporating 27 students, who were selected to compete in April’s Best Strategy Invitational, a biannual online contest for all the teams that scored high enough during the semester.
One Lipscomb team, Echelon, was declared Lipscomb’s third Grand Champion team.
The Grand Champions were Jeff Baumgartner, Brentwood, accounting and finance/economics; Jeff Carman, Brentwood, management; Amy Beth Mitchell, Huntsville, Ala., professional accountancy; Chris Mosley, Murfreesboro, accounting and management; and Logan Powell, Dallas, Texas, finance/economics. All five graduated from Lipscomb this May.
All 27 students spent two weeks at a computer charting a 10-year course for their shoe companies. Teams must make decisions about plant operations, distribution, advertising, work force compensation and a host of other factors. The company that earns the most points, based on several financial indicators, wins the game.
The Best Strategy Invitational included 176 teams from around the world, divided into 15 “industries.” The winner of each industry is declared a Grand Champion.
“Dr. (Steve) Little encouraged us from day one to consult with those who had been previously successful,” said Powell. “One of my best friends, Nathan Sensing (a 2006 Lipscomb alumni), was very successful and gave me some insight before the competition started.”
“I had a plan from day one,” he added. “The low-cost strategy is best positioned to survive early turmoil. Our strategy proved successful, as we had the lowest cost-per-pairs-sold in the industry.”
The Business Strategy Game was created in 1990 by two professors at the University of Alabama and is used in universities all over the world. This past February students around the globe began playing the game to create the best performing business, including Little’s policy and strategy class at Lipscomb. The students’ performance is scored based on earnings per share, return on investment, stock price appreciation and credit rating.
Lipscomb has had two other Grand Champion teams in the five times the policy and strategy class has competed in the game, said Little, instructor of management at Lipscomb.
The Lipscomb class fielded 14 teams, who played the game from February to mid April.
Echelon was the highest scoring Lipscomb team. In addition to bragging rights, any team that scores within the top 25 percent worldwide is invited to the Best Strategy Invitational held April 23- May 4.
Based on performance in the game and additional class work, Echelon along with five other Lipscomb teams were selected to play in the invitational. The five teams were:
Alpha Athletics finished second in their industry. Team members were Meredith Andrews, Kira Grasham, Cyndee Ray, Nathan Reeves and Stacey Smith.
Ares Footwear finished third in their industry. Team members were Matt Bishop, Julie Martin, Braden Vague and Ashley Wilhite.
Delta Athletics finished fourth in their industry. Team members were Brennan Aerts, Daniel Pape, Binh Pham and Chris Wehman.
ELATA finished fifth in their industry. Team members were Brad Baker, Josh Dyer, Lacey Hughes and Taylor Lewis.
Frontier finished second in their industry. Team members were Brooke Jamerson, Stephen Keene, Will Parker, Caitlin Roberts and Katie Ryavec.
“I'm addicted to the game; no doubt about it,” said Powell. “I had a lot of fun. Winning is always fun.”