Economics students to be taught by means of new tools

The School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg now has the capacity to teach students using ERPsim simultaneously with one university in Germany and one in Switzerland. The tool has SAP as its underlying system and is structured as a competition in which teams of 4-5 people run a company that manufactures, markets and sells muesli. Sales and support transactions are simulated directly inside the system. By updating forecasts, product prices, purchases etc., the task for the teams is to achieve maximum profitability over a predetermined number of quarters. A new day is simulated every minute, so time pressures and effectiveness are also decisive factors. The team with the greatest profit is the winner.

– This is a revolutionary tool for training in economics and systems management, says Jonas Klingberg at the Centre for Business Solutions, CFA, at the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg, one of the four people in Europe who, since June, have been qualified to teach students using ERPsim, as well as train teachers in how to use the tool, a certificate that was previously only available to educators in North America.

– The teaching methods constitute the strength of the game. ERPsim generates knowledge about the importance of organisation and communication, a solid understanding of business. Furthermore all data is compiled so that it can be analysed subsequently or during intervals in the game, an aspect which can benefit the teaching of Business Intelligence. And it is risk-free, the worst that can happen is that you come last in the competition.

ERPsim was developed at HEC Montreal, one of Canada’s leading business schools, and moreover a partner of the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg, and it has been in use in North America since 2005. The MGIMO-University in Moscow has also started using it. Students at the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg will be able to acquaint themselves with the tool in the autumn, at which time CFA will also be able to offer training for the business sector using ERPsim. In conjunction with the university in Munich, CFA is also going to distribute the tool in Europe.