A team of international students from Széchenyi István University beat off American, Asian and European universities in a prestigious corporate governance competition. The runners-up brought together expertise from three different fields to successfully run a company in a simulation environment.

Several master's students from Széchenyi István University recently participated in an international competition organised by Canada, where they ran a company in a simulation environment using the SAP ERP system. The participants had an excellent grounding in the course taught at the institution, where they learned how SAP supports business processes. The main task of the competition was to develop a strategy to maximise the value of the company in a collaborative environment of integrated business areas. To achieve this, the team members had to work in different roles, including purchasing, material requirements planning, sales and pricing in the decision-making process. All of this took place in a virtual target market, where they had to shape marketing strategy and increase sales in response to regionally changing needs.

The team consists of Ortik Abdakimov, William Alizraee, Neda Sharifi, Bashiru Karim and Ho Nhan Duc, and Dr. Ferenc Erdős, the assistant professor who prepared the team (third from left). (Photo: András Adorján

Because of the diversity of the tasks, students from different educational backgrounds were strongly encouraged to apply. Accordingly, two students in supply chain management, one in marketing and another two in business informatics, participated in the competition from Széchenyi István University. "Our team was the only one to represent Hungarian universities and won the prestigious second place, beating several American, European and Asian institutions such as those from Canada, the United States, Spain, India, the Philippines and Vietnam. The result is a great success, as this is the first time we have taken part in such a unique competition," said Dr. Ferenc Erdős, Associate Professor of Management Systems Education, who was responsible for the preparation.

"The competition gave us the opportunity to gain an even better understanding of the market and the importance of SAP in business operations. Tailoring marketing strategy to market needs was a challenge that I learned a lot from," underlined Neda Sharifi from Iran, who is studying for a Master's degree in Marketing at the institute.

"It was a great experience to be able to compete against top universities from around the world. In the simulation environment, I was able to learn about decision making, which is an essential part of business," said William Alizraee, who came to Széchenyi University from Syria and is a student in the Master's programme in Business Informatics.

"It was a very important experience to learn about other perspectives disciplines and to work together towards a common corporate goal, synchronising our tasks," added Ho Nhan Duc, a Vietnamese student studying for a Master's degree in Supply Chain Management.

"We have been teaching SAP at the university for ten years, and for a few years now our students have been learning the most modern S/4HANA system, which is also noteworthy because the training here is unique in that it is ahead of the big companies in many cases. We have recognised the market demand for SAP specialists, as it is the most widely used ERP system in the world and in the region, and knowledge of it is a huge advantage on the labour market," added Dr. Ferenc Erdős.

In response to this demand, a one-year postgraduate course was launched last September, and there has been huge interest. It covers different areas of SAP: logistics and production process support, SAP operations, development and business analytics, available even in the form of micro-certificates.