Teaching Winners in Shanghai

Renee English

Adjunct professor Renee English knows how to teach winners. Three emerged this year from her capstone business simulation class at Webster's Shanghai campus: Daniel Hu, Mark Hu and Yasen Li won the top honors in the School of Business & Technology's virtual business simulation competition, which included a $10,000 first prize.

For the past three years, the capstone simulation course has been a part of the MBA program's final course. During the course, students compete head-to-head in the strategic management of a virtual $100 million company by incorporating the business acumen acquired while pursuing their MBA degrees. This spring, a competition sponsored by World Wide Technology encouraged Webster MBA students and alumni who have completed the capstone course to participate in the worldwide business simulation contest.

"The beauty of the capstone simulation is that it takes everything the students have learned in the MBA program and helps them learn how to use that knowledge to run a company," English says. "It pulls all the elements together and helps them learn to integrate decisions about cost factors, marketing niche, sales budgets, promotional budgets, etc."

The competition and monetary prize proved irresistible to the Shanghai students. English says her students took the capstone course very seriously, while also enjoying the game factor.   In fact, they were so anxious to do the simulation each day that she threatened to take their laptops away if they didn't wait until the appropriate time.

"At one time, I had 15 laptops on my desk," she laughs. "They were very intense, and they just plain enjoyed it."

Dean Benjamin Akande with the CapSim winners Daniel Hu, left, and Mark Hu, right

The intensity and enjoyment paid off when Daniel Hu and Mark Hu (unrelated MBA graduates) won first place with a virtual company that bested 112 competitors by generating $343 million in sales and $167 million in profits. Second place went to Yasen Li, also in English's class.

Daniel Hu says English was a good coach and her enthusiasm was very motivating. "Her analysis of results after each round in class was enlightening," Hu says. "She never told us what to do, but her analysis helped us learn to tell good decisions from bad ones and how to make assessments of the competitors' strategies."

English, who received the Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University in 2002, has traveled to China three times to teach strategy and competition. Her home base is the Fort Leavenworth, Kan., campus, where she serves as faculty coordinator and teaches business classes in strategy and competition, law, accounting and negotiations.

Webster Shanghai campus director Rick Foristel applauds the University's decision to open American business education in China 10 years ago, as it has made it possible for professors like Renee English to teach there.

"We've put Webster professors into the sprawling port and manufacturing centers of HongKong/Shen Zhen," Foristel says. "Our instructors have started new projects in Chengdu, located in western China, where global companies like Intel are just now opening production facilities."

Foristel says the MBA students Webster has trained in Shanghai are hungry to succeed in the huge number of multinationals that have moved from Europe, Japan, the United States and Taiwan. "MBA skills are putting our people ahead in both established and entrepreneurial companies."

Dean Benjamin Ola. Akande flew to China to present the first place trophy to Daniel Hu and Mark Hu. "We are extremely proud of these champions and all of the teams that participated in this competition," Akande said at the ceremony. "They have demonstrated a mastery of the management concepts we teach and the ability to translate those concepts into successful business strategies."

"We're looking forward to an even bigger competition next year," Akande said.

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