The NIBS International Business SimulationCompetition, organised by the Network of International Business Schools (NIBS), is a prestigious global event centred on strategic management and business decision-making simulations. Although this was the first time that students from the SBA participated in the competition, they won it straight away, despite the fact that the SBA has only been a member of NIBS since last year. Their triumphant journey took them through challenging qualifications, semi-finals, and a dramatic finale, where they overtook formidable opponents from Romania and China with a bold change in strategy. Their victory confirmed the high level of their strategic business skills, and ability to work as a team and significantly raised the profile of Silesian University on the international academic scene.

As the students themselves describe, victory was by no means guaranteed and required considerable learning, adaptation, and courage to change strategy at crucial moments. Their reflections offer a detailed insight into their experience of the entire competition process and how they succeeded against the world's best teams.

Remarks from the winning BGA team:

When we entered the 2025 NIBS/EcoSim Global Business Simulation Competition, we primarily saw it as an opportunity to try something new. At first, we had a trial period in which we attempted to grasp the workings of the entire system. Gradually, we discovered how the individual indicators were related and how different steps interacted with each other, despite having no prior knowledge. This took a lot of time, but in retrospect, it was the most important phase. Thanks to these efforts, we entered the qualification round with a clearer idea of how to make decisions.

We didn't go into the qualification round blind. We prepared a strategy and expected to have to adapt quickly to the evaluation parameters, the weights of which we only received at the start. Our strategy was to focus on achieving the largest possible market share. We invested in marketing, set a low price and, at the same time, adjusted HR and production to handle the growing demand. This combination proved successful, and we won the qualification round.

We applied a similar approach in the semi-finals and were again able to secure first place. However, at the same time, the weakness of our strategy became apparent — a slower start. It always took oour company a while to increase its capacity. This wasn't a major problem in the semi-finals, but we knew it could be decisive in the finals.

And that is exactly what happened. When the final round began, it quickly became clear that the other teams started much more aggressively. Our original strategy proved insufficiently effective, our competitors quickly gained lead and we found ourselves in the last place. We had to react immediately. We decided to maintain our investments, but adjust the price — raise it to make up for the loss more quickly. This decision worked immediately. In a short time, we closed the gap on the leading team to a great degree and moved into second place.

From that moment on, we knew we had to maintain the pace and eliminate all the inefficiencies that were holding us back. Once we had refined our processes, we began to overtake the other teams gradually. Halfway through the finals, we realised for the first time that we could actually win. Originally, our goal had been to finish in the top three, but thanks to our revised strategy, we began to hope for first place.

When we entered the competition, we never imagined that we would succeed at the first attempt. Our goal was to reach the finals and hopefully finish in the top three. We never dreamed that, as newcomers, we would win the competition. However, with each success, the pressure grew because the teams in the semi-finals and finals were playing flawlessly. We didn't get off to a good start in the finals due to several poor decisions, but changing our strategy midway through the round allowed us to turn everything around. Our new approach significantly outperformed the others, ultimately leading us to victory.

Our toughest opponents throughout were the W.C.W.C. team from China, who kept pace with us since the semi-finals. In the finals, they were joined by the Chillmart team from Romania. The W.C.W.C team finished in third place with an impressive score of 72.25. The Chillmart team took second place with 73.25 points. We ultimately won with a score of 73.7, just a few tenths of a point ahead of Romania.

Above all, we took away from this project the warm feeling of victory, a certificate and invaluable experience. We are glad that we were able to participate in the competition and make our university proud on a global scale.

Congratulations to the students on their fantastic achievement and for representing the Silesian University and the School of Business Administration in such brilliant manner!