Iona College issued the following announcement on Oct. 21.
Putting their business acumen to the test on a global stage, 10 Iona College business student teams have earned top placement in the GLO-BUS business competition, an online simulation run by McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Making the “Global Top 100” was especially notable as nearly 2,500 teams from 128 colleges and universities competed. The challenge? Running an international company that produces wearable video cameras and camera-equipped drones.
“Having to work on GLO-BUS every week gives me a deep insight into how I should run a company in the future,” said Kritsarin Oukosavanna ’21. “My teammate, Spencer, and I are very competitive since we come from a sports background. All in all, I enjoy playing this real-life game, where I can refine my business performance skills.”
Students in Iona’s capstone Business Policy and Strategy course, taught by Jeffrey Alstete, Ed.D., professor of Management in the LaPenta School of Business, participate each year as a way to experience the challenges and thrills of running a real business. Alstete added the simulation as an active learning experience in 2005, and today the competition continues to push students to Learn Outside the Lines of the traditional classroom experience. Iona student teams have consistently ranked in the “Global Top 100” over the past 15 years.
Just as in the real world, companies compete in a global market, selling their cameras and drones in four geographic regions — Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Company operations parallel those of actual technology companies, and each week, the best-performing companies are measured on four performance variables (Overall Score, EPS, ROE, and Stock Price).
“I found GLO-BUS to be like a puzzle, you have to make sure that every piece is just right in order to finish and submit it,” said Ciara Serpa ’21. “The simulation placed just the right amount of pressure on my partner and I, and let us see what it would be like to be in a C-Suite. We were able to combine our knowledge of business and refresh our memory on certain topics. I found that my own majors played a large part in figuring out how to maximize our power.”
Alstete explained that the semester-long business simulation requires students to make weekly company decisions, with each week simulating one year of company operations. There are also individual quizzes for students and strategic plans that student teams must complete, in addition to an end-of-semester team presentation focused on their company, team performance and lessons learned.
Elizabeth Quezada O’Rourke ’21 said: "The GLO-BUS experience has allowed me to experience the intricacies of the ever-changing business world. GLO-BUS may change the numbers for you when you adjust your decisions, but it is our job to figure out which strategy is best and how to best achieve it.”
Spencer Moran ’21 said: "This simulation has taught me a lot about what I imagine real-world business operations will be like. By learning as much as possible about the game’s grading system, we have been able to decide what to focus on in each ‘year’ as we would in the business world when given a set of goals or tasks. I have really enjoyed the experience.”
Original source can be found here.
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