Business simulation games allow students to lose €50,000 while learning
Photo and story: Anne M. Lykkegaard, CBS Wire
Playing video games is usually something you do in your free time. But for students doing the courses on Global Financial Analysis and Supply Chain Management at CBS, video games are a crucial learning tool.
The students are playing two business simulation games, The Cool Connection and The Fresh Connection, which involve running either a business selling cosmetics or a juice manufacturer.
Inter-discilinary and transformative
Thomas Frandsen, Associate Professor, and Victor Lund, Assistant Professor at the Department of Operations Management, have introduced the business simulation games to the students from the MSc in Economics and Business Administration – Supply Chain Management program and the BSc in Economic and Business Administration (HA Almen). In groups of four or five, they take on different roles within the virtual business. For example, they can be the CFO, run sales, manage the supply chain or be the head of purchasing.
“One of the strengths of these games is that there are multiple decisions to be made, and all of the decisions are linked, which is what we want to teach them. Usually, you focus on one area at a time – finance or marketing, but supply chain management is different, as you need to engage all the areas. Through the games, they really get that message under their skin and experience that decisions have consequences,” says Thomas Frandsen.
Thomas Frandsen and the department are working on scaling up the use of the business simulation games to offer more students the experience, and it is well in line with CBS’ new strategy of transforming its students.
“We are transforming our students. We are guiding them through a learning portal, so to speak, using the game, and when entering, it may not be clear what you’ll gain from it, but they need confidence in the fact that they will gain something from this. They will gain understanding that they didn’t have, and they will view the world differently. They will be transformed. That’s what we want. It’s hard to explain, but it’s not hard when you’ve tried it,” he says.
Head of Department: It all starts with faculty
Carsten Ørts Hansen, Head of Department of Operations Management, is happy to have faculty members who throw themselves and their time into trying out new opportunities, despite the risk of faillure. This is the approach they want to give students.
“It all starts with faculty who have the courage to develop the ways we teach across disciplines and formats. We have invested a lot of time in testing these games, Victor and Thomas especially. We didn’t know whether it would work, but now, after some trial and error, we can harvest the fruit of all the time we’ve put into this. That’s what we want to teach the students too. To be courageous and explore new paths”.
- Carsten Ørts Hansen, Head of the Department of Operations Management
You can read the full story on CBS Wire
For more information watch Thomas Frandsen explain the benefits of serious games or contact him at +45 38 15 29 30 or tfr.om@cbs.dk