The following is an excerpt from the current ‘EMBA NEWS’ – the quarterly online newsmagazine of The Executive MBA Council:
Through the workshops of Executive MBA Council corporate member Andromeda Training, Inc. and its Income/Outcome Business Simulations, graduate business students and industry participants gain a firm foundation in business and finance. It’s the company’s experiential approach during the workshops that gets students and faculty talking.
At Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business, for example, it all starts in their Executive MBA opening residency, where they have been using the game since 2004. “We use the simulation to provide fun, fast, experiential understanding of the foundations of business, finance, and accounting early in the program,” says Alvin Miles, director of the Executive MBA Program at Coles. “It’s proven to be an interactive tool that helps give our students a rapid start.”
The Income/Outcome Business Simulations offer students who come with diverse backgrounds a way to reach common ground on finance and accounting topics before starting their programs, as well as an opportunity for students to work together.
“The benefit to using the simulation early in the learning process is that the competition makes business planning and analysis engaging, and thereby overcomes the ‘fear of finance,’ ” says Rodney Alsup, accounting professor and director of International Programs at ASEBUSS in Romania. “This is extremely useful at the Executive MBA level, since the candidates have such a variety of knowledge of basic finance tools such as income statements, balance sheets, and budgets.”