During the course students will simulate a copy machine company in which they have the full responsibility as board members. Teams have to take both operative and strategic decisions for every period based on the provided business information and its’ analysis. Teams are expected to be able to justify their strategies and decisions fact based.
Developing marketing strategies and implementing them, building a financial strategy and braking it down to day to day operations as well as using management accounting tools like product costing will be your daily business. Managing and motivating your workforce at an efficient level and keeping the production capacities in mind will complement your managerial tasks. The combination and alignment of those individual functional strategies to an overarching corporate strategy under time pressure will be your masterpiece. Your shareholders expect rising share prices and want to be updated on development after every period.

In TOPSIM -business simulation teams must take decisions on several fields:
• Corporate objectives and strategies
• Sales: Competition analysis, marketing mix, product life cycles, product re-launches, new product launches, entering a new market, costing of special transactions, contribution margin accounting and market research reports as a basis of information for marketing decisions
• R&D: Technology, ecology, value analysis
• Procurement/ warehousing: Optimum order quantity
• Manufacturing: Investment, disinvestment, in-house production or external procurement, capacity planning, ecological production, rationalisation, learning curve
• HR: HR planning, qualification, productivity, absences, fluctuation
• Finance and accounting: Cost type, cost centre, cost object accounting, gradual contribution margin accounting, financial planning, balance sheet recognition and income statement, cash flow, share price and company value, portfolio

Business simulation (TOPSIM) will be done intensively during one week. Participation to additional activities (familiarizing with the simulation, trial periods of the simulation etc.) might be required.

Business simulation is arranged in Heilbronn, Germany in autumn semester (October – November) and virtually via Zoom, in spring semester (March). Students will enroll to either of the implementations. Implementation in autumn semester requires traveling to Germany (Haaga-Helia travel compensation might apply) according to the given schedule for the implementation.

Participants' Manual

Introduction:

https://cloud.topsim.com/index.php?id=10&L=1

Accounting basics

Assessment criteria - grade 1

• The overall performance of the team is lower than the average on the markets.
• The student is somewhat able to reason decisions made by the team.
• The student is passively participating in the group work.

Assessment criteria - grade 3

• The overall performance of the team is average on the markets.
• The student is able to reason decisions made by the team.
• The student is participating in the group work.

Assessment criteria - grade 5

• The overall performance of the team is above the average on the markets.
• The student is able to reason decisions made by the team in an excellent level.
• The student is actively participating in the group work.