My Experiences In Nurmes Finland

Every year New York Institute of Technology participates in the International workshop. Where colleges from all over the world sends undergraduates to participate in a business simulation called Bo-Cash. Participating countries this year included United States of America, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, China, Portugal, Finland, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Indonesia, and Switzerland. In total 64 students participated, and then all students from the 11 countries were divided into companies for the simulation. This year during March 22 – April 5, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the 17th international workshop that took place in Nurmes Finland as a member of company 1. This trip was a business, social, and personal eye opening experience

The simulation offers 3 products to sell in these 4 markets. In our case it was headphones, cell phones, and SD cards. Each company is then given members with specific titles that would reflect there position in the company for the simulation. The titles included marketing manager, logistics manager, production manager, human resources manager, purchasing manager, and finance manager. I personally was assigned the job of purchasing manager for company 1. From here all teams would need to use teamwork and decision making skills to try and predict what choices would bring there company profit or throw them into debit. Each manager making a choice in there part of the company that would hopefully bring rewards and not problems in the simulation. All decisions would be imputed into the computer and then processed at the end of the period. At the start of each period the simulation administrator would show were each company stands by profit or debit. The simulation ran a total of 8 periods and then an assembly presentation where we showed how we ran our companies to our “shareholders” in hopes to get votes. The top profit company and two top voted companies would present to the university that hosted us in

The job of the purchasing manger is simple. It was my job to purchase the raw materials for the production of the products we were to sell. Any and all purchases would be delivered to our company in the same period we have asked for them. It was also the company’s responsibility to pay for the raw materials in the same period we asked for them. There were two types of raw materials needed for the making of our products and each product needed a specific amount of each raw material to be made. Leaving it to me and my teammate to decide how much was too much raw materials. I and my teammate also had to keep in mind that if we bought too much raw material and did not use it we would have to pay for extra storage space. In the end I and my teammate both decided it would be best to but a little more than needed for every period to keep costs low and not need to pay for extra storage for the extra raw materials. We also had the option of buying merchandise products to sell as well but we never felt that option was needed for our company. I and my teammate helped make sure that the appropriate amount of raw materials was always available to produce the products needed to