General Management Business Simulation

As part of a three-day “General Management” business simulation by Top Sim, students at Furtwangen University were able to try their hand at running a company in a practical and completely risk-free way. In the simulation, the participants took on various roles, from purchasing, production, human resources, research & development to controlling. Business decisions were made for a company in the printing and copying industry.

For the first time, four companies from different degree programmes competed against each other: two were run by master's students from the Internal link opens in the same window:Sales & Service Engineering (SEM) programme; one by students from the Chamber of Industry and Commerce's bachelor's programme in Internal link opens in the same window:Engineering Management (TMB); and one by students from the Internal link opens in the same window:Business Administration and Engineering degree programme in Marketing and Sales (MVB).

All teams closed the financial year with a positive annual result − a great success. In the end, the highest share price decided the winner. The master's groups took first and second place, followed by the TMB team in third place and the MVB team in fourth place.

Internal link opens in the same window:Prof. Dr. Michael Gehrer, who supervised the simulation, emphasised, "The simulation is different every time. The students control the market potential essentially via the price, their expenditure on marketing and sales − that makes the demand side exciting. On the cost side, on the other hand, the participants have to plan properly − and they usually do this very well."

The business game was an exciting and instructive experience for everyone involved, allowing them to try out running a company in a realistic environment − practical, intensive and fear-free.