Neumann business students are building quite a reputation for themselves. A team in Dr. Robert Till’s senior seminar class finished in the top 50 in a global business strategy competition this semester, the seventh time since 2014 that a group from the course cracked the top 100 in the international game. 

The Rising to the Occasion team finished 42nd worldwide in overall rankings according to results announced by the Business Strategy Game (BSG) on November 29. It is the third time a Neumann team has made the top 50. The company was managed by Amanda DeCarolis, Brandilee Boose, and Joshua Hendrickson. 

“We modeled our company's values after Neumann's RISES values, hence our name, which was a major influence on how we ran our company,” says DeCarolis. The university’s core values are reverence, integrity, service, excellence, and stewardship. 

The BSG contest involved 2,968 teams from 164 colleges. The management skill of the Neumann team, based on the performance of a fictitious footwear company that they operated, placed them in the top two percent of teams that entered the global competition.  

The game casts students in the role of company managers, who are responsible for decisions regarding production, shipping and inventory, corporate social responsibility, pricing and marketing, financing, worker compensation, and other aspect of business management. Teams from Europe, Africa, North America, Asia and Latin America entered the competition.  

“Having students run a company in head-to-head competition with companies managed by other students provides a truly powerful learning experience that places students in active, hands-on managerial roles,” explained Dr. Robert Till, professor of business, whose senior seminar class also produced two top-100 teams in the spring 2020 competition. 

According to the BSG website, the contest is “a competition-based strategy simulation where the outcomes are always unique to the competitive interplay among the specific decisions and strategies of each group of competing companies.” There is no secret set of strategic moves that works every time.  

Other colleges with teams ranked in the top 100 are George Washington University, the University of Massachusetts, University of New Hampshire, University of New Mexico, and Wichita State University. 

Dr. Till holds degrees from St. Bonaventure University (BBA), the University of Notre Dame (MBA) and the University of Massachusetts (Ph.D.). Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he was a managing director in the Investment Banking Division of JP Morgan Chase where he was employed for more than 20 years. His research interests include organizational justice, pay satisfaction, fairness theory, and ethics.