CESIM Elite Tournament, the business game that uncovers talent

The World Final of the CESIM Elite Tournament pitched 14 teams representing 10 nationalities against each other, including the Bocuse Corp team proudly representing Institut Paul Bocuse. After finishing second in the national final, the 5 students on the Bachelor in International Hospitality Management programme finished in 4th place. A result that rewards the hard work of Eloïse Bockelee, Lisa Vuillot, Edouard Draillard, Rémi Salminen and Julien Ferrand during the different stages of this business management game against top management schools.

Students in charge of their own virtual company

The CESIM Elite Tournament is a competition based on a serious game (or business game) that brings together thousands of students from the best management and business schools in the world. After national qualifying phases, the finalists compete in the world final. This year, 14 teams representing 10 different nationalities (e.g., France, China, Brazil, India and Vietnam) competed in two challenges.

During the 1^st challenge, students had to manage a car company manufacturing thermal, hybrid, electric and hydrogen engines with a strong international market position.

The students played the role of a new team in charge of reorganising the group’s operations working within the management team. From one day to the next, they were required to make decisions in order to develop an appropriate marketing strategy, taking into account internal production capacities and the company’s position in the market, regulations, customs duties, market conditions and competitors’ strategies.

This year, to reflect current societal issues, the focus was also put on environmental decisions.

The second challenge required the creation of a video in response to a case study on the management of a hotel group needing to implement an ambitious “sustainable development” approach in order to reduce its carbon footprint. A favourite area for our students who won 1st place in this challenge.

The business game as an educational tool

More than just a simple challenge, business simulation games allow our future managers to discover the running of a company that operates in a competitive market, and to learn in an entertaining way by applying the theory they have acquired during their training courses.

 They are required to analyse, decide, act and make adjustments as real entrepreneurs would do.

 Teamwork also highlights the importance of coordination and complementarity of functions in a company in achieving results.

Pascal Lamoussière, their mentor during the competition, explains the educational benefits of this type of business simulation.

“During their studies, students are able to discover the management of an SME (a hotel in CESIM Service) or a restaurant (in CESIM Hospitality). This is an opportunity for them to put into practice everything they have learned in other subjects such as operational management, the decision-making process, development strategy, human resources management, marketing and competition analysis, and also finance…”.

“…During the international CESIM Elite Tournament, our students were pitched against the best teams from Business schools or Universities from around the world in an industrial environment which is not their own, but the skills acquired during their training were sufficiently cross-disciplinary for them to be fully credible and perform well in this type of competition”.

But what do the main interested parties have to say?

For the students, and in particular for Lisa Vuillot, “The best thing about the CESIM Elite tournament is, without a doubt, the detail of the Business Game. Every decision requires reflective thinking, an analysis of the context, of previous figures, of our competitors’ figures, which makes the experience a very worthwhile one.”

According to her, the key to success was teamwork: “A clear allocation of work and analysis and, above all, moments when we confronted our choices and decisions. In general, it was during this confrontation of ideas that we made the best decisions in the end”.

“Learning by doing” is at the heart of our school’s educational philosophy, empowering students to develop their managerial agility, their initiative and their entrepreneurial spirit.

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