Business students rank in worldwide competition

By: Johnathan Skidmore
Copy Layout Editor

Four Monmouth College students recently put Monmouth on the globe with their business management skills. McGraw-Hill hosts an annual world-wide competition, GLO-BUS, where students across the globe compete in a simulated economy, vying for the top 25 most profitable and competitively run businesses. Seniors Raun Singleton and Blair Stewart, as well as juniors Ann Sims and John Tiffy placed in the top 25 for the week of Feb. 5-11. These four students comprised only one team of many from Monmouth College which competed.

According to the GLO-BUS program’s website, each week of competition simulates one year of the company’s life. The four Monmouth College students who placed in the top 25 businesses, out of several thousand, have accomplished an extraordinary feat. The team only took three weeks to overcome their company’s inherited debt and become one of the most profitable businesses, competing against other colleges who have had their companies for many more weeks, giving them more time.

“This is an excellent way for students to compete in an applied business strategy competition,” said associate professor of the department of political economy and commerce, Don Capener. “Each team inherits a plant, debt, and resources for creating a business.”

In teaching his senior capstone business course, entitled “Entrepreneurism,” Capener has been using this competition as a way to teach practical business strategies to his students for several years. The competition allows students to have complete control of their companies, adjusting a wide range of values, including: stock sales, prices of product, advertising, technical support, warranties, management of employees, employee wages, product specifications, even the locations of product sales. According to Capener, “there are approximately 130 different decisions that can be made, which really teaches the interconnectiveness of all these different decisions.”

“The usual business capstone courses have the students present a case on a large company, such as eBay or FedEx, illustrating how they performed. This capstone experience combines all of the major elements of business into one competition,” said Capener.

Stewart, one of the members of the winning team, has enjoyed being a part of the program. “The simulation is very realistic to running your own business in a very competitive world. There are several decisions to be made every year and you have to pay close attention to where your demand is and how to put out the best product and still be profitable. Our group seemed to grasp the concept quite quickly and have managed our numbers quite well so far, but as we advance through the years the teams seem to be catching up and the competition is getting more intense. Overall I am having a lot of fun with this competition and I am constantly learning throughout this process,” said Stewart.