download a high resolution photo click here. NASHVILLE, Tenn.ó Why would a university student devote dozens of hours during finals week and another eight hours from home when everyone else is catching up on sleep just to compete in a business simulation contest?
It’s not the prize money, because there isn’t any.
According to Vanderbilt student Scott Barnett, who just won the Capstone Challenge, a national business simulation competition, it’s the thrill of playing a game that he found challengingóif not a little addictiveóand the feeling he gets knowing that he outperformed more than 400 other teams of undergraduate and MBA students in a competition designed to test how well a person would run a real company.
Barnett and another Vanderbilt student earned two of the top six spotsóincluding first placeóin the recent competition. Barnett, a rising senior from Scottsdale, Ariz., won first place, and Garvin Chan, a 2003 MBA graduate of the Owen Graduate School of Management, placed fourth.
"We’re very proud of the Vanderbilt students," said Dan Smith, president of Management Simulations, the company that offers the business simulation product that is used in university and corporate training classrooms around the world. "It’s very impressive for a university to take two of the top spots."
The national contest is open to any student who has used the program, generally in a class, over the past semester. It runs for two weeks, from late April until early May, and is not part of any class curriculum.
Students who elect to participate manage a simulated corporation, on teams of from one to six players. Both Barnett and Chan competed as individuals.
The competition mimics the first eight years in the life of a company, and contestants are scored based on the profits they generate. Each round of the contest represents a year in the life of the company.
Over the course of a week and a half, contestants play eight rounds against a computer and are limited to one day per round. The top six teams at the end of this phase of the competition progress to the finals.
In the final round, the game starts over, and teams go head-to-head against each other, playing eight new rounds all in an eight-hour window.
Players make decisions in research and development, marketing, human resources, production and finance. "The company is a mythical manufacturer of electronic sensors," Smith explained. "Each company has five to eight products, each with different markets. Students decide what they want to produce, they market the products, decide how many to produce and at what speed, borrow money, issue stock and so on. They do all the things a real company would do. For the vast majority of students, this is the first and last time they’ll get to run a major corporation. It’s very realistic and exciting for students," he explained.
Barnett said that he usually took about four hours for each round in the preliminary phase. He competed in the finals from Scottsdale.
He amassed cumulative profits of $172,819,920. Chan’s final profits were $123,638,708.
Barnett is double-majoring in human and organizational development and economics and had taken Kevin Clark’s undergraduate Corporate Strategy class in the spring semester. Clark, adjunct assistant professor of managerial studies, has used the Capstone program in his curriculum for three semesters.
"I haven’t pushed the students to participate in the national competition, since it falls during exams," Clark explained. "It shows real initiative on Scott’s part that he did it."
Clark complimented his student’s analytical skills. "In class there are five or six people on a team, and Scott’s team did extremely well against the others in class. Clearly, he was one of the leaders on his team."
Clark added that he considers the program a good teaching tool and thinks it’s good for students to have a semester-long project such as this. "The feedback I get is that it is more fun to learn using this program."
Barnett agreed. "I loved it. I put a lot of time into it and learned a lot as a result. This was one of the better classes that I’ve taken at Vanderbilt," he said. The Corporate Strategy class is offered under the University’s new managerial studies program, which houses minors that are business- and management-related studies.
Barnett’s love of the game is what attracted him to the national competition. "Our group in class had done exceptionally well and enjoyed the game, so I thought that I’d give it a try, since I’d get to play again for free and might even do well in it."
To what does Barnett attribute his success? "The program tests whether you understand the basics from this and other classes. It integrates everything you’ve learned."
He said that he likes that the program is dynamic. "It’s kind of like chess in that there are a lot of different possibilities. You’re playing against five other teams. You can fight with them or cooperate with them. You make decisions that create good opportunities for you in the present and balance future benefit with
present benefit. Certain moves might help you in the current round but would hinder you in the future."
And what about Barnett’s future? After he graduates, he hopes to go into consulting, probably in the area of strategy. He aspires to earn an MBA in a few years. "I just love this game so much; I feel like I’ve finally found a passion for something," he said.
Media contact: Susanne Lotfis, (615) 322-NEWS susanne.loftis@vanderbilt.edu