Scholarships awarded at annual College of Business simulation competition


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Ford Team 2 and their mentors accept the ERPsim competition's first-place trophy in McGuirk Arena Thursday, Feb. 13.

Over 300 students, staff and sponsoring mentors competed Thursday to prove who among them is best equipped to run a real-world business.

The College of Business Administration hosted its seventh-annual Enterprise Resource Planning Simulation Thursday, Feb. 13 in McGuirk Arena. Around 200 students in teams of four to five were paired with over 100 mentors from 35 partnering companies to compete in a simulation game. 

The game simulates 20 days of a real-life business. Mentors helped students strategize, practice and learn how to best run their simulation. After two games of four rounds each, the eight highest ranking of the 40 teams won scholarships. The team that came in first, sponsored by Ford Motor Co., won a $1,000 scholarship for each student.

Mentors were paired with students weeks before the event to help them practice and plan. The students together logged over 6,000 hours of scheduled practice and training in addition to unscheduled practicing.

“They get an opportunity to work in the system that is becoming the norm: an enterprise resource planning system,” said Brian Nakoneczny, a mentor and program leader from Dominoes. “There are a lot of companies here that use that same system.”

Students also had time for networking with the participating companies, hearing two keynote speakers, a luncheon and a dinner banquet. 

Students can use this competition as a chance for possible future career paths as well. 

“You’ll see job interviews, hirings and internships come out of this,” Nakoneczny said. “Students come here to learn the system, possibly get interviews and possibly get scholarship offers.”

The dinner banquet concluded with the announcement of winning teams and several awards. 

The first-place winner was Ford Team 2, sponsored by Ford Motor Co. Members Anthony Gennero, Jared Nylund, Mason Krug and Dharshan Pradeep each won a $1,000 scholarship, and their Ford mentors Tom Kolean and Trevis Moore will get to keep the ERPSim trophy for one year.

The seven other winning teams were Fauricia, Stryker Team 2, Haworth, abat US LLC, DOW Team 1, SAF Holland and Marathon Petroleum.

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