Recognition for WBS students who have put their learning into practice

Imagine you were part of the management team at one of the world’s top automotive firms right now as competition heats up to deliver the electric vehicles (EVs) of the future.

That is exactly what more than 600 Master's students at Warwick Business School were asked to do this summer as they took part in the Business in Practice module, which culminated in an Awards Ceremony for the best performers.

Judged best overall for achieving the highest value-added score over the ‘six years’ of the simulation were a student group calling themselves TurboTrove. The students were Karan Mittal, Rishika Rungta, Hemangi Arora, Nia Jain, Keshav Garg, Sharon Rashi, Snigdha Tandon and Shivansh Singh.

“When we first got together as a group no-one knew anyone, but we soon built up a good working relationship,” said Shivansh Singh (MSc Marketing & Strategy). “It was an amazing journey. A great learning experience for all of us.”

Building good team dynamics among the 77 teams of eight that took part was one of the key objectives of the three-week intensive module, according to joint module leader Natasha Mwila, Associate Professor in the Organisation and Work Group.

“The real-world business simulation requires students to perform in teams,” Dr Mwila said. “They need to work with people they don’t know, and still deliver the KPIs.”

The Business in Practice module provides an opportunity for students across seven MSc courses to put their learning into practice. Provided with state-of-the art computer modelling, students can look at issues such as market trends, regulation, operations and finance.

“Our students needed to bring their decision-making skills to those scenarios,” said joint module leader Juan Lopez-Cotarelo, also an Associate Professor in the Organisation and Work Group.

But the focus is not only on this intense interactive experience, according to Dr Lopez-Cotarelo. It is also on learning outcomes. After completing the module, students will now write up both their individual reflections on their team’s dynamics and provide a business analysis of their company’s performance in the simulation.

“We ask students to reflect on how their teams operated, thinking about things like communication, how they dealt with conflict, that sort of thing,” he said.

Why choose Warwick Business School?

The Business in Practice module is offered as an alternative to the traditional dissertation route on the Master's courses, which, for Bowen Zhang (MSc Management of Information Systems & Digital Innovation), one of the members of the team calling themselves M3, was an important factor when he came to choose his MSc course.

“Sure, you can follow the traditional academic route with a dissertation at Warwick Business School but, personally speaking, I am more interested in practice,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons I chose Warwick.”

M3 was the winner of the HR Prize at the Business in Practice 2024 Awards, one of several prizes handed out for specific business functions by the awards committee. The Marketing prize went to EcoPandaAuto for its consistently high product margins and unit sales, while the Finance prize was awarded to Foxtails, the team that had combined high returns on its net assets with low financing costs.

The team named 12X picked up the Operations prize while Titan walked away with the prize for Innovation.   

There were two runners-up to TurboTrove in the Best Overall Performance award, based on their value-added score. Spark was judged as the Second Best Overall, with Wiser coming in third.

Discover more about Warwick Business School’s Postgraduate Courses.