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With the extra activity at the end of the academic year and then some vacation, I’ve been away from the Blogosphere and fallen behind on the news regarding ERPSim. I also forgot the procedures for posting to the Saunders College blog so that my posts were saved, but not visible. Hopefully all these issues are behind us now.

In an earlier post, I describe the ERPSim session that was going to be held as part of Imagine RIT on May 2nd.

As usual, the students proved they had better ideas for organizing the teams than I do. I had originally suggested that students would rotate from their team to the faculty team to support the faculty with hands-on transaction execution in SAP. The students concluded that this would be disruptive and suggested that the faculty be assigned to teams of students. So that is the way we organized for May 2nd.

The session received a number of visitors who were intrigued by the use of a management simulation game as an instructional tool. My emphasis in talking with them was the enthusiasm of the students and how that enthusiasm and the student’s competitiveness leads them to seek additional knowledge about SAP and the information available to them as they compete with the other teams.

We ran a game session of three business quarters. The winning team members were

• Lori Dosti
• Harshand Pairla
• John Peters
• Dr. Steve LaGrou

The concept of resonance occurs frequently in nature. It is part of a number of theories in physics and engineering and can seem complicated.

But even children understand it intuitively. My favorite example is an adult pushing a child on a swing. Suppose the adult doesn’t pay attention to coordinating their pushes with the movement of the swing. Sometimes their push is late. So the child doesn’t get the full effect of the effort the adult is putting in. Or their push is early and they actually slow down the swing.

But when the adult coordinates their push with the movement of the swing, their push has the maximum effect and the swing really goes.

What does this have to do with the management of information technology. After studying many cases, I see a pattern of Resonance. When Resonance occurs, companies align their business strategies and operations, their organizational structures and management practices and their use of information and information technology. When full alignment, or Resonance, occurs, then all aspects of the company work in harmony and produce the maximum effect on business results. As the child would say, now the swing is really going!

The business strategy of Wal-Mart is “Everyday Low Prices”. To enable the low costs required by Everyday Low Prices, in the U.S. Wal-Mart locates their stores in suburban locations (lower property costs) near intersections with highways (reduced shipping costs). They carefully plan and manage investments and usage of IT to support information-based decision making to assure that merchandise is ordered early enough, but not too soon.

By contrast, Zara (a division of Inditex) focuses on the fashion apparel and has created a supply chain that can take an idea to clothing in their stores in as little as three weeks. They focus on quickly gathering information about fashion trends from the market, have vertically integrated factories so that they control what is manufactured when and logistics that focuses on rapid delivery to stores in the heart of cities, where fashion conscious customers are likely to shop.

Both companies have achieved Resonance, but for very different products and markets. Both have balanced business, operational, organizational and information technology to achieve their business results. Both have Resonance.

The ERPSim Challenge has been accepted. Join us on Saturday, May 2^nd when student teams challenge a team of faculty from the Saunders College in a management game using the SAP Business Suite and HEC Montreal’s ERPsim. In this popular business simulation, students use the SAP Business Suite to steer their company to the leading position in the Meusli cereal industry in Germany.

We will play the game starting at 11:00 on the 2^nd. Come see how simulation games create a learning environment that creates student excitement and causes students to want to learn more.

The faculty team (limited SAP experience but stellar managers and executives):

• Mr. Marty Lawlor
• Dr. Steve LaGrou
• Dr. Pam Neely
• Mr. Marty Lawlor
• Dr. Kevin Scully (alternate)
• Dr. John Tu

The participating students will compete in teams of 3-4 students:

• Aubrey Bailey
• Barun Paul
• Pratip Biswal
• John Boutell
• John Clack Jr.
• Lori Dostie
• Elias Gebrehiwot
• Nadeim Ghoryani
• Ulysse Migan
• Ucheagwu Okereke
• Harshanand Pairla
• Chendil Kumar Palani
• Abhijit Paul
• John Peters
• Dhananjay Phadke
• Surya Sheetal Saripalli
• Douglas Smith

These  students have all used the ERPSim game for a least a quarter in either the Enterprise Systems (undergrad) or Integrated Business Systems (MBA) courses in MIS. In addition to the business competitions in these classes, some students also competed in the 2^nd International ERPSim game as members of the RIT team last year or are registered for the upcoming 3^rd International ERPSim game this month.

Will managerial experience beat youthful enthusiasm and hands-on experience with the SAP Business Suite?

Find out at the Saunders College on May 2^nd.

SAP has recently launched a new portal to link together the participants in the University Alliance. This portal provides access to educational resources including white papers, videos, consultant reports and case studies. As students at a university which is a member of the University Alliance you are eligible to register and use this portal

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/uac
What does it offer you as a student?

• The Student Union: the student union offers access to content identified as particularly relevant to students, including the learning resources described above.

• Career Center: There is a worldwide shortage of people with skills and knowledge to use and manage SAP within organizations. A key resource for you through the portal is the Career Center, which currently provides access to career information. By the summer it will link you directly to career opportunities within SAP and within the approximately 9,000 organizations that they partner with world-wide.

• Networking: Online career sites, such as Jobs.com are popular, but research indicates the key to a job search is networking. The University Alliance portal is integrated within the SAP Community Portal, which integrates the SAP Developer Network, the SAP Business Process Expert network and the SAP University Alliance into a single community. This community now has 1.6 M registered users. Available to you are networking tools, such as Blogs, Discussion Forums and links to Facebook and LinkedIn.

Many of you are looking for a job in a very tough economic climate. If you are an international student, you may have the challenge of how to network outside of the US. The portal gives you a perfect way to network within a community of 1.6 M people. Consider posting a blog about your experiences with ERPSim and asking for feedback about the types of jobs your knowledge from the game might open up for you. Or less explicitly, post a blog entry about your experiences with ERPSim and ask what additional skills are required for your targeted position.

Your background about SAP is a differentiator in a very tough job market. The portal will bring you into a community of individuals all of who are interested in this area. Explore and give it a try!

Because of student interest, the 3rd ERPSim International Competition is moving to a tournament format. Qualifying round will be held during March and April, so there is limited time to signup. Following the Qualifying round the 8 teams with the highest scores will then compete for the championship.
You will need to register individually and in teams of 3 students. I do have one student seeking two other students to form a team and compete; if you need assistance linking up with other students to form a team, let me know.

There is a research project questionnaire associated with the competition to assess how simulation impacts learning. If you participate in the game and complete the questionnaire, you will also receive a gift certificate for $30.00. What could be better – having fun and earning money?

Time is running out, so register now at  http://ww3.unipark.de/uc/erpsim_registration

In an earlier email to students, I introduced the plans to hold an ERPSim Competition during Imagine RIT on May 2^nd. I have officially registered this competition and have the SAP Clients setup.

I still recruiting students to either join a team of 4-6 students to compete in the game or to join a support team that helps the faculty team by inputting the SAP transactions for them – few of them have any SAP background.  So make plans to join us.  I am still recruiting faculty to form a team to compete with you. I do hope to have a faculty team formed by the end of this week.

I need to put together a list of participants so that I can have Imagine RIT shirts for each of you!

If you would like to join us, either reply to this post or send me a confirmation email by April 1^st .

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