Posted December 16, 2020

A team of Neumann University business students finished 42nd worldwide in an international Business Strategy Game (BSG) that involved 2,968 teams from 164 colleges.

The management skill of the team, based on the performance of a fictitious footwear company that they operated, placed them in the top two percent of teams that entered the global competition.  

The team modeled their company on the university’s Franciscan values. 

Neumann’s Rising to the Occasion team finished tied for spot no. 42 in overall rankings according to results announced by BSG on Nov. 29. The company was managed by Amanda DeCarolis, Joshua Hendrickson, and Brandilee Boose.

“We modeled our company’s values after Neumann’s RISES values, hence our name, which was a major influence on how we ran our company,” said DeCarolis. The university’s core values are reverence, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship. 

The Business Strategy Game casts students in the role of company managers, who are responsible for decisions regarding production, shipping and inventory, corporate social responsibility, pricing and marketing, financing, worker compensation, and other aspect of business management.

Teams from Europe, Africa, North America, Asia and Latin America entered the competition.  

“Having students run a company in head-to-head competition with companies managed by other students provides a truly powerful learning experience that places students in active, hands-on managerial roles,” said Dr. Robert Till, professor of business, whose senior seminar class also produced two top-100 teams in the spring 2020 competition. 

According to the BSG website, the contest is “a competition-based strategy simulation where the outcomes are always unique to the competitive interplay among the specific decisions and strategies of each group of competing companies.”

No set of strategic moves succeeds every time, making each game experience unique.  

Dr. Till holds degrees from St. Bonaventure University (BBA), the University of Notre Dame (MBA) and the University of Massachusetts (Ph.D.). Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he was a managing director in the Investment Banking Division of JP Morgan Chase where he was employed for more than 20 years.