All eight teams had one hour to set up a virtual manufacturing company using SAP, the leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software used by companies worldwide. Within this hour, the teams completed initial product design and development, costing, pricing, procurement and production plans, demand forecast, distribution channel selection, and marketing strategies.
For the next five hours, the students evaluated market fluctuations, reacted to breaking news, analyzed consumer behavior and responded to competitors’ reactions as they managed various processes from purchasing raw materials to choosing the distribution channel.
With only four members, the Missouri S&T team was the smallest in the competition. All other teams had six members. Missouri S&T fell to fifth place in the third quarter, but came back to win using their well-planned business strategies.
Missouri S&T also had the only virtual team. “We were all physically in different states and countries,” said faculty advisor Dr. Bih-Ru Lea. “I was in Taiwan, our team captain was in Huntsville, Ala., and the other members were in Rolla, Mo.” The team overcame communication and resource hurdles using audio conferencing and text-to-speech features of Ventrilo voice communication software.
Missouri S&T’s team was sponsored by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. and included:
- Evangeline Bays of Waynesville, Mo., a graduate student in business administration and team captain
- Mayur Raicar of Goa, India, a graduate student in information science and technology
- Abishek Suvarna of Bangalore, India, a graduate student in information science and technology
- Lin Zhu of Zhengzhou, Henan, China, a graduate student in information science and technology
Assisting the team were Lea, assistant professor of business administration, and industry advisor Mark Jordan, director of enterprise application services for Monsanto.
