UC Team Co-Grand Champion in Business Strategy Simulation Competition

University of Cincinnati graduate students Melinda Hubbard, Lisa Martin and Andrew VanHoy have been named “Co-Grand Champions” in the May 2008 Best-Strategy Invitational (BSI) online strategy competition. Team “Everymans Cneakers” bested 10 other teams to share the grand championship with the team from Pennsylvania State University – York.

The Best-Strategy Invitational is a global competition among high-performing BSG-Online companies worldwide. The competition is hosted and administered twice a year (in May and December) by the BSG-Online author team of Arthur Thompson, Greg Stappenbeck and Mark Reidenbach, co-creators of the simulation. All student-teams finishing in first place in the simulation exercise conducted at their respective schools are invited to participate in the BSI.

Hubbard, Martin and VanHoy took first place against 11 other teams in a Global Business Strategy simulation led by Professor Charles H. Matthews in January 2008, earning a berth in the May BSI.

“The team did an incredible job against some very tough competitors,” noted Matthews. “The Business Strategy Game (BSG) is the premier on line global business strategy simulation involving very complex strategic decision sets across multiple areas including manufacturing, production, marketing, financing, e-commerce, personnel, globalization and much more.”

Matthews is a professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management and founder and executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship Education and Research in UC’s College of Business. Matthews himself was recently inducted into the BSG Hall of Fame as a “Master Professor” for his achievement in teaching the concepts of strategic analysis.

More than 850 teams from around the world were invited to compete in the May 2008 BSI and 316 teams accepted the invitation. The teams were separated into 27 different simulation industries, each competing for a BSI grand championship.

About the Business Strategy Game Simulation
In the BSG course, students are divided into management teams of one to five persons each and assigned to run an athletic footwear company in head-to-head competition against companies run by other class members. Companies compete in a global market arena, selling branded and private-label athletic footwear in four geographic regions: Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Company operations parallel those of actual athletic footwear companies Nike, Adidas-Reebok and New Balance.

The challenge for each company’s management team is to craft and execute a competitive strategy that results in a respected brand image, keeps their company in contention for global market leadership and produces good financial performance as measured by earnings per share, return on equity investment, stock price appreciation and credit rating.

About the UC Center for Entrepreneurship Education and Research (“E-Center”)
Founded in UC’s College of Business in 1997 by Professor Charles H. Matthews, the E-Center’s vision is to provide a state-of-the-art entrepreneurship curriculum and research base not only for potential student entrepreneurs and scholars, but also for people in the many organizations that interact with small, entrepreneurial and family-owned businesses on a daily basis. Its mission focuses on removing barriers and creating gateways for entrepreneurs, especially student entrepreneurs. The University of Cincinnati has been consistently ranked as one of the top 50 programs for entrepreneurship in the United States by Success magazine and one of the top 100 programs in the United States by Entrepreneur Magazine.