John Setty, a recent graduate of the Executive MBA program at the University of Texas at Dallas – Naveen Jindal School of Management, recently won second place in the CAPSIM Foundation Challenge this past Fall.
Setty graduated on December 19th from the Executive MBA program with a Project Management Concentration. He currently works for L-3 Communications in Garland.
Setty finished in second place, only three points behind the winner. The challenge, sponsored and run by CAPSIM, involved over 2,100 students from 330 and more than 30 countries around the globe.
The competition tests business school student’s strategic skill by challenging them to fix a hypothetical struggling multimillion-dollar business. It takes place entirely online and is available internationally. CAPSIM is a Chicago-based business simulation technology and services firm, which makes their challenge available twice a year to all “alumni”- any student who previously used the simulation as part of their business school studies.
CAPSIM was used in Setty’s Strategic Management class, a capstone course for the EMBA program, but he entered the competition on his own. According to Setty, the main goal of the challenge is to “strategically place products to gain more product share and make more money.” Setty’s second-place winning strategy included diversifying across both low- and high-tech product markets in order to cut costs.
The competition’s final objective was to “maximize your output on the Balance Scorecard,” which scores your success across a number of business categories such as finances, profit margin, productivity and customer satisfaction. The first-place winner walked away from the competition with a $400 American Express gift card, but Setty’s strategy impressed the company enough that they awarded him with several consolation prizes.