Rachel Nowlain of Gatesville Does Well in International Business Competition

Related Media

Rachel Nowlain (right) and her teammates from Southwestern University who have been invited to participate in an international business competition. At left is their professor, Don Parks.

GEORGETOWN, TX (04/19/2012)(readMedia)-- Rachel Nowlain of Gatesville is on a team of four students from Southwestern University who have been invited to participate in an international business strategy game May 17-18.

The students earned the honor because of their performance in the Business Strategy Game, an international competition that is done via the Internet and tests students in all aspects of business, from HR and marketing to product design, production and finance.

In the game, teams of two to five students imagine that they are running an athletic footwear company that competes in the global arena. Each team has to develop and execute a competitive strategy that results in a respected brand image, keeps their company in contention for global market leadership, and produces good financial performance as measured by earnings per share, return on equity investment, stock price appreciation and credit rating. They have to keep corporate social responsibility in mind as well.

Nowlain, a senior business major, participated in the competition this semester as part of a strategic management business capstone class taught by Don Parks, associate professor emeritus of business.

The competition runs year-round and teams can join whenever they want. Parks requires his capstone students to participate in the competition for 10 rounds, and each round requires making more than 150 decisions that will impact their performance.

Nowlain and her teammates achieved a Global 100 performance six times during the semester. For the week of Feb. 13, they tied for the fourth highest possible overall score out of 3,800 teams from 239 colleges and universities worldwide participating in the competition. During the week of March 19, they tied for the second highest score out of 4,827 teams from 282 colleges and universities.

These performances earned the team an invitation to participate in the Best-Strategy Invitational (BSI), a global competition among the highest-performing teams in the BSG competition. The two-week competition consists of 10 decision-making rounds, with deadlines each weekday at 10 a.m.

Southwestern University is a selective, nationally recognized undergraduate liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,340 students. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas. For more information on Southwestern, visit www.southwestern.edu.