Competing among 80 teams from the U.S. to Asia to Europe, LBCC’s team of Roadrunners made it into the final round of the MikesBikes Championship, placing sixth in the business simulation competition.
To make it into the final round, teams from across the globe compete against one another, creating a business simulation where they produce and market various types of bikes, with well over 20 different business variables that they were expected to control/analyze. Each day was equivalent to one year of business, and the teams had one month in total to produce the highest shareholder value for their bike companies.
Here's the simulation website:
https://www.smartsims.com/news/mikesbikes-world-champs/Coming in hot in sixth place were Linn-Benton students Rachel Tweedy, Cydney Diaz, Alexander Clapp and Isaieh Heiken.
It’s apparent that this team's memorable experience was one for the books, valuing communication and learning to work together in a competition that had no guidance other than a 60-page manual.
“I think it was pretty overwhelming at first, especially because I didn’t know anybody on my team, and it was a lot more challenging than the simulation we did in class,” Tweedy said. “It was a much more advanced version and I just didn’t expect it to be as complicated as it was.”
“I would say that it was intimidating because not only was it more complicated, it was also on such a big stage. Competing against the best teams on such a big stage was exciting and intimidating,” said Heiken.
“‘They [MikesBikes] were just like, alright here’s this 60-page manual, read it and do good.’ So it was really neat to be able to sit there, especially for the first meeting, to talk to everybody and see where everyone is at and how they want to do things, because especially when it’s virtual like this, it’s really hard to connect with everyone and see how things are going to work together,” said Clapp.
According to the group, this exercise (or competition) is unique to anything that's typically done in school, as there was no one overseeing their work. They were on their own.
“This was definitely new, we had to just jump into it. I feel like we learned a lot about compromise, weighing benefits and giving into people’s ideas for the good of the group. We just went for it. You open the manual and it’s like ‘Oh, this is going to be very different,’” said LBCC and high school student Diaz.
And as an almost-accidental-put-together-team, boy did they show up. With much of their time spent arguing, this team had to learn to compromise on a lot of ideas with one another, and in contrast, learn the best way to present and persuade their ideas, which in turn became a very real world-like situation.
“The reason our Zoom calls would last two to three hours was because half that amount of time was spent arguing and talking about all the things we got wrong, so it took a while,” said Heiken.
All together this team spent about 90 hours on this project over a month's time, and finding the time for this competition amid their school studies and personal lives was no easy task.
“We would disagree a lot, but I think that’s what made our team as successful as it was, because we had to really think out every single decision and prove our points as to why we think that,” said Diaz.
However, these Roadrunners agreed on one thing -- that their willingness to work with each other and communicate openly and respectfully was their saving grace.
“There was no easy decision, so when someone wanted to have their way they had to do all the things to show why it would be better than somebody else, and that really helped because we ended up finding out the best and most efficient way to do things,” said Clapp.
“Often times it would be the three of them [Tweedy, Clapp, and Diaz] against me, and I would have to spend a good 20 minutes trying to figure out how to convince them to do something, and sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t,” said Heiken as the laughter from the team filled our interviewing Zoom room. “We were open to the debate, and I think that’s what made us such a great team.”
Curious what the most difficult business variable they were judged on was? Me, too.
“Oh that’s an easy question! The thing about MikesBikes is that once you're behind in the simulation, and not one of the top teams, it’s really hard to climb back up because these teams are constantly going to grab more and more market share. What really nipped us in the butt before the finals, was in the first two days we seriously messed up in our production. We either missed out on sales or overproduced,” said Heiken. “Trying to understand that variable [production] was key to every other variable.”
And just like in real life, market share is up in the air.
“It’s so hard to predict what your market share is going to be, and that’s how it is in the real world, too,” said Tweedy. “They just give you a bunch of data, and it’s your job to interpret it, so that’s why I think it was so difficult.”
“We didn’t talk to anybody from the program, other than emailing the help desk once!” said Clapp.
“It’s hard to say [what we would have done differently] because at the end of the day, we still don’t know what went wrong; we kind of know, but not really,” said Heiken.
Moving forward, Tweedy is a business administration major and wants to go into Human Resources, or that kind of management side of business where she can make a large difference in the world of business and for individuals. However, she says it's been really hard to look for jobs and go to career fairs since everything has been online. We all know how things have changed since the pandemic, and it’s vastly spilling over into students' lives.
Heiken is a business administration and marketing major. He aims to get involved with lots of things, where he can practice his skills in communicating and donate his time and knowledge to meaningful causes. He currently sits on a couple of local boards -- serving as the marketing coordinator for the Linn County Animal Rescue Board, vice president for the Corvallis New Business Generation Board, and is the social media manager for the Lebanon New Business Generation Board. He also works as the marketing director for The Commuter.
Clapp is moving on to OSU to study accounting and join the investors club, and eventually earn his business master’s at either OSU or UO. He dreams of helping people invest safely and smartly with their money, in order to grow their futures comfortably. The pandemic has also significantly made it difficult for him to get an internship, since everything is online.
Diaz is finishing up her high school career this spring, and then will be dual-enrolled with OSU and LBCC this fall, and plans to study business agriculture, where she can find something that pairs business and the outdoors.
This Roadrunner team emphasized and recommended that anyone who is invited to the MikesBikes Championship should absolutely go.
“This was arguably one of the most valuable things I’ve done in a long time,” said Heiken.
“This was a really good experience to work as a team outside of the classroom, especially as a student if you don’t have business experience, this can really give you a taste of what it’s like to work without a rubric, without that teacher guidance. It was a really good opportunity to really grow and develop on your own without that guidance boxing you in,” said Tweedy.
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