A team of University of Houston-Victoria School of Business Administration graduate students recently made university history by earning three weekly top 100 rankings in the eight-week Global Business Simulation competition.

Sumanpreet Phul of Houston, Zaure Russell of Sugar Land, Bianca Sabido of Richmond and Jinzhi Si of Katy were co-managers of B Global Drones, a simulated drone and active camera company, during the international simulation. All three of their rankings were in the Return on Average Equity category.

The team’s Top 100 rankings were:

• April 15 to 21 – 22nd out of 2,754 teams from 133 colleges
• April 8 to 14 – 18th out of 3,625 teams from 165 colleges
• March 18 to 24 – 71st out of 3,547 teams from 158 colleges

Each year, students in the Global Master of Business Administration program compete in the simulation as part of their “International Business Strategy” course. The course is the capstone for the UHV Global MBA program. During the simulation, teams of business students from universities and colleges around the world control individual action-capture camera companies in a global simulation of the worldwide economy. The students must create strategies to help their companies compete in the global market.

Jifu Wang

“The global simulation is a strong tool that helps our students test the knowledge they gained during their studies and apply it in a real-world context,” said Jifu Wang, the school’s associate dean, who teaches the course. “The simulation reacts to the decisions made by the different teams in the same manner as the global economy, so students have to carefully plan and create a strategy to lead their company. It is exciting to see a UHV team be so successful while competing with thousands of other teams around the world.”

Zaure Russell

When the team was preparing its strategy for the simulation, rather than focus on the cost of its product, the students decided to focus on region-specific marketing strategies, Russell said.

“People in different parts of the world want different things when purchasing a product, so we looked at those trends and targeted our marketing to those preferences,” Russell said. “Consumers in North America tend to look for upgraded products with not as much emphasis on price, while other regions may prefer more affordable options.”

The first time the team was in the top 100, the team members were surprised but excited about their achievement, Russell said.

“It was a big source of inspiration and made us work harder to get even better results,” she said. “Afterward, we ended up ranking again two weeks in a row. It helped us understand how to successfully focus a business’s resources to achieve success. It’s all about teamwork.”