Chicago, IL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/15/2011 -- Aspiring CEOs from more than 280 universities on five continents competed in the Capsim Challenge in November, with 12 teams qualifying for the 48 hour, high pressure business simulation playoffs last weekend.

Rick Davenport from Midway College in Kentucky won the Capstone® Business Simulation Challenge and Tyler Melugin and Robert Stricklin of Montana State University, Billings, won the Foundation® Business Simulation Challenge.

The Challenge allows students who have completed either Capstone or Foundation business simulation in their university studies to take their skills to the next level in a global competition to run the world's best simulated company.

Brendan Langen, Capsim's Challenge Coordinator, said "challenge winners include their victory on their resumes to demonstrate their business acumen to future employers."

According to Foundation winner Robert Stricklin, "this isn't reading my book and remembering definitions, it is real world analyzing of what is possible and implementing a strategy to make my business as profitable and efficient as possible."

Stricklin said he entered the Challenge because "competition is the key motivator for me, along with the fact I feel the Challenge has relevance toward my area of education." Winning was an added bonus: "I got a sense of accomplishment and something I can put on my resume."

Capstone winner Rick Davenport said: "The Capstone Challenge offers the one time during my entire program where all the concepts we have learned can be used and evaluated. And by evaluated, I mean that not only can the instructors get feedback on the subjects they have taught, but the students can try the various concepts we have been taught in a environment where success or failure is clearly evident."

Capsim's Brendan Langen said that while the competition finalists were still at university, "they have already learned what it takes to be able to balance a company's operational, financial and sales goals under pressure. The Challenge gives business students the chance to pit their business skills against top competition around the world and see if they have what it takes to compete in an intense, time-constrained management experience."

"While most students do their first iteration of the simulation over a whole semester, the Challenge rounds are completed in a week and the finals demand a weekend of focused decision making. Decisions on their company's production schedules, new product offerings, marketing, pricing, forecasting and finances are contracted into hourly rounds so there is very little time to analyze the competition, and the pressure is intense."

The Capstone® and Foundation® Business Simulation Challenge is a global online competition held in the spring and fall semester each year. The competitions are open to all students who have used a Capsim business simulation in their university course in the previous 12 months.

Finalist results from Capsim's Fall 2011 Capstone® Challenge:
First Place: Rick Davenport; Midway College, Midway, Kentucky; Dr. Rik Berry & Dr. Jerry Wellman
Second Place: Vanessa Pazmino and Andres Barriga; Universidad Santa Maria, Venezuela; Professor Jaime Rubin de Celis
Third Place: Josua Bayerlein, Jan Niemeyer & Khaled Amir; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia; Dr. Retha de Villiers Scheepers
Fourth Place: Melissa A. Gulbrandsen, Beth McCullough & Steven Musick; Jacksonville University, Davis College of Business, Jacksonville, Florida; Dr. George Gresham
Fifth Place: Karunanithi Natarajan; Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India; Professor Dharam Pal & Professor CR Subramanya
Sixth Place: Phan Bao Duy; RMIT University Vietnam; Professor David Knock and Dr. Hannarong Shamsub

Finalist results from Capsim's Fall 2011 Foundation® Challenge:
First Place: Tyler Melugin & Robert Stricklin; Montana State University, Billings; Professor Pat Holman
Second Place: Harry Glinos; University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, Maryland; Dr. Ronald L Promboin & Professor Hisae Diez de Medina
Third Place: Daishi Miyazaki; Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, North Carolina; Dr. Craig Schreiber
Fourth Place: David Render, Scott Noll, Jackie Schrick & Adam Forbes; Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas; Dr. Norma Juma
Fifth Place: Dung Tran; Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa; Professor Christopher Conrad
Sixth Place: Eric Marshall; Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Dr. Blaine McCormick

About Capsim Management Simulations, Inc.
Founded in 1985, Capsim Management Simulations is a global leader in developing and delivering business simulations that prepare practicing and aspiring business people to run profitable businesses. Our programs create rich learning experiences that give participants, whether in an academic or corporate setting, the opportunity to practice the skills and build the business acumen that are behind today's successful companies. More than 800,000 participants at 600 schools and corporations have built their business acumen through Capsim learning experiences. Visit http://www.capsim.com for more information and a complete list of past winners.

Contact:
Brendan Langen, Capsim Management Simulations, Inc.
1 312 477 7200
brendan@capsim.com

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Chicago, IL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/14/2011 -- Capsim Management Simulations has introduced the first interactive business simulation with 'plug-in' case studies to provide students with ethical decision-making experience in a competitive business context.

Unlike case studies, which examine situations after the fact, Capsim's Ethics Plug-in lets students experience decision-making as it is done in the real world, without the benefit of hindsight. According to Capsim's CEO Craig Watters, "daily business decisions are never made in hindsight, they are made in the moment, right now. It's reasonable to assume that if Kenneth Lay or Andrew Fastow had the benefit of hindsight, they would not have allowed half the illegal and unethical decisions made at Enron a decade ago."

Case studies, however, remain a primary tool in business education. According to Capsim's Managing Director Gerhard Plaschka, "when I teach a course on strategy at DePaul University, I'll use war stories or some kind of case study. History tends to repeat itself, and Capsim was well aware of both this fact and the notion that many other educators still rely on the case method. With the new Ethics Plug-in, cases become part of the business simulation experience as real-time scenarios for students."

In a simulation-plus-case study program, students experience joining the senior executive team of a company that has undergone a complete restructuring. The shakeup was intense, and now in addition to repairing the company's sales, production and financial operations there's another issue. In one example, a voice within is recommending a marketing strategy that is ethically problematic: a controversial phenomenon known as "greenwashing." There are several courses of action to choose from and each has short and long term financial effects on the company.

The Ethics Plug-in comes equipped with six original vignettes or mini-cases, that literally "plug-in" to the business simulations Capstone (for teaching advanced business concepts) or Foundation (basics of business). These vignettes are based on real-world examples from the recent past. In a given vignette, students will be presented with a series of emails, faxes or memos detailing a problem that is brewing in their organization. What seems like a good idea at the time could eventually have disastrous effects.

The Plug-in was designed for professors who want to combine the simulation with cases in their course. It was also designed to help professors and administrators meet requirements for additional ethics content within existing course-work time frames.

Capsim Management Simulations is a global leader in business simulation technology and services designed to teach business acumen in any learning environment. For more information please visit capsim.com

Media Contact: Wendy Guest (Chief of Staff)
Email: wendy@capsim.com
Phone: 773-477-7256

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