Hurrah and Finally (I hear you thinking)! Finally a title concering the actual Business Management Game for which I travelled all the way to the USA! After visiting Washington D.C. and Baltimore, we arrived at Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.
As we are +60 people in total, it has not been easy to find a place to stay, including a big hall for the organisation of the Business Game. We are currently staying at The White Sands Hotel. Point Pleasant Beach was extremely damaged after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. You could still see the damage done, restaurations taking place everywhere in the town and damaged buildings and nature all over the place. At night it literally looks like a ghost town. No one is walking in the streets, a lot of street lights don't work and there's trash everywhere.... To give you a small example: the outdoor pool of the hotel was filled with about one meter (!) of sand. It's kind of sad that we are here now, while it normally is supposed to be very luxerious. But I am pretty sure that the owners of the hotel where super happy when they saw over sixty guests coming in at once. They probably need every dollar they can get at the moment, to restore their hotel and surrounding buildings.The hotel was, for me, typical american. Every morning bacon and eggs, apple and orange juice from a five-liter bottle and bread that tastes even dryer than the African dessert. When at the bar, we had the possibility to put our consumptions on the room, and yes, they were unable to count the total amount so we didn't pay for half of the beers and cokes we ordered. (More cash to spend in NYC!).
Soooooo. About the game! 9 teams, consisting of 6 members, all from different nationalities (USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Switserland, Russia, Finland, China, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and off course Belgium all mixed up) had to play 8 rounds of the BO CASH business game. Each member had a different function: Finance, HR, Purchasing, Sales, Logistics and Production. I was responsible for Purchasing, but actually we did all the decisions for the different company departments together to ensure our success and share our knowledge. In the beginning it went well, we were quite good in the first two rounds but then the odds turned against us. Between round three and seven we only had one positive round and the others all were negative, unfortunately.... In round eight, the last one, we finally managed to cut down our costs and make a small profit. But it was too late, we were not able to join the winning teams. The result was that we, and five other theams had to present their business case on Monday to all of the other teams. After the presentations we all had to vote for which losing team would be the most profitable in the future. You could name it: the finals of the less profitable (read: negative profit-making) teams....
The big final, with three teams, is going to be held at the prestigious New York Institute of Technology (Long Island campus). And, off course, each team has a Belgian member. PS: Yes I am sad that I did not make it to the finals, but I did learn a lot from this game and after all, that's what we all came here for I guess...!
As we are +60 people in total, it has not been easy to find a place to stay, including a big hall for the organisation of the Business Game. We are currently staying at The White Sands Hotel. Point Pleasant Beach was extremely damaged after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. You could still see the damage done, restaurations taking place everywhere in the town and damaged buildings and nature all over the place. At night it literally looks like a ghost town. No one is walking in the streets, a lot of street lights don't work and there's trash everywhere.... To give you a small example: the outdoor pool of the hotel was filled with about one meter (!) of sand. It's kind of sad that we are here now, while it normally is supposed to be very luxerious. But I am pretty sure that the owners of the hotel where super happy when they saw over sixty guests coming in at once. They probably need every dollar they can get at the moment, to restore their hotel and surrounding buildings.The hotel was, for me, typical american. Every morning bacon and eggs, apple and orange juice from a five-liter bottle and bread that tastes even dryer than the African dessert. When at the bar, we had the possibility to put our consumptions on the room, and yes, they were unable to count the total amount so we didn't pay for half of the beers and cokes we ordered. (More cash to spend in NYC!).
Soooooo. About the game! 9 teams, consisting of 6 members, all from different nationalities (USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Switserland, Russia, Finland, China, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and off course Belgium all mixed up) had to play 8 rounds of the BO CASH business game. Each member had a different function: Finance, HR, Purchasing, Sales, Logistics and Production. I was responsible for Purchasing, but actually we did all the decisions for the different company departments together to ensure our success and share our knowledge. In the beginning it went well, we were quite good in the first two rounds but then the odds turned against us. Between round three and seven we only had one positive round and the others all were negative, unfortunately.... In round eight, the last one, we finally managed to cut down our costs and make a small profit. But it was too late, we were not able to join the winning teams. The result was that we, and five other theams had to present their business case on Monday to all of the other teams. After the presentations we all had to vote for which losing team would be the most profitable in the future. You could name it: the finals of the less profitable (read: negative profit-making) teams....
The big final, with three teams, is going to be held at the prestigious New York Institute of Technology (Long Island campus). And, off course, each team has a Belgian member. PS: Yes I am sad that I did not make it to the finals, but I did learn a lot from this game and after all, that's what we all came here for I guess...!
Oh, and by the way, this is just like at College. You go every day and always do the same so why take pictures? Exactly?. No, or little, pictures were taken of me actually working. But I swear I really worked a lot, even overtime!
On our way to New York City, The City That Never Sleeps!
No comments:
Post a Comment