ExSim in the MBA

EXSIM is a week-long course aimed at students in business courses. Its main objective is to create close-to-reality managerial situations that allow students to acquire new knowledge through a learning-by-doing approach. Due to the students’ youth, these managerial situations are not yet within their professional activity and, thus, they learn by experiencing anticipated working conditions.

Students are organized into teams / companies that compete against each other by entering decisions of different types (commercial, manufacturing, logistics, financial, human relations) into a web-based business game. The team has inherited the management of a company that has been in operation for two years; all teams start under the same conditions of results and market share and, based on the decisions they make, the situation varies depending on their performance.

During the week, each team has three meetings with its Board of Directors, to which they report results and forecasts, and with whom they discuss strategies, investments, dividend policies, and everything related with the management of the company. Directors of the Board represent the owners and they also play roles (minority venture capital rep, majority family owner, independent). For this reason, during the meetings, different opinions on how to manage the company may arise which, again, is an example of real-life experiential learning for the students.