The poet William Blake once wrote about ​“see­ing a world in a grain of sand, and heav­en in a wild flower,” of ​“hold­ing infin­i­ty in the palm of your hand, and eter­ni­ty in an hour.”

His words, invit­ing us to rec­og­nize the uni­vers­es of mean­ing hid­den with­in even the small­est things, came to mind for me in Michi­gan last month, as I observed Cen­tral Michi­gan University’s eleventh annu­al ERP­sim event, at the Mount Pleas­ant, Michi­gan cam­pus on March 23. 

Around 180 stu­dents and 65 cor­po­rate exec­u­tive men­tors had worked with their teams for about two months to pre­pare for the com­pe­ti­tion, one of of the largest com­pe­ti­tions of its kind in the Unit­ed States. Teams were tasked with gen­er­at­ing the high­est net income using SAP tech­nol­o­gy, work­ing with cor­po­rate men­tors from par­tic­i­pat­ing com­pa­nies. In mak­ing use of both SAP soft­ware and busi­ness prin­ci­ples, the ERP­sim game is intend­ed to make the class­room learn­ing expe­ri­ence come to (sim­u­lat­ed) life. Watch­ing this play out was a beau­ti­ful reminder of what won­ders can occur when vol­un­teers come together. 

Mem­bers of the CMU Col­lege of Busi­ness lead­er­ship, SAP rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the SAP Next-Gen and Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance pro­grams, ASUG Vol­un­teers, cor­po­ra­tions, and stu­dents all con­verged for ERP­sim. While some stu­dents in the com­pe­ti­tion par­tic­i­pat­ed because it was a class require­ment, the major­i­ty in atten­dance asked to com­pete. ASUG Vol­un­teers from the Michi­gan Chap­ter host­ed a recep­tion on the evening of March 22 to let stu­dents con­verse with prospec­tive employ­ers, poten­tial­ly lay­ing the track for intern­ships or full-time employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. A ​“Min­gle Bin­go” game pro­vid­ed a fun, safe envi­ron­ment for stu­dents to prac­tice their social net­work­ing and ele­va­tor pitch­ing skills. Stu­dents learned more about select­ed com­pa­nies and sought advice on class selec­tion, cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, and careers. I was struck by the con­vivi­al­i­ty of the com­pa­nies present, invit­ing the stu­dents to hear their sto­ries and share some of their own. It was a relax­ing way for every­one to ​“warm up” for the main event the next day.

In talk­ing to stu­dents engaged in the com­pe­ti­tion, I learned that the teams could apply as a pre-set group or that their assign­ments could be made ran­dom­ly. CMU data indi­cates that par­tic­i­pat­ing teams with diverse per­spec­tives and dis­ci­plines are the most suc­cess­ful at ERPsim. 

Teams wore team col­ors rep­re­sent­ing their spon­sor­ing orga­ni­za­tions. Men­tors were also in team gear, ready to offer words of encour­age­ment and advice. The teams oper­at­ed in a sim­u­lat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ment and for­mu­lat­ed plans to antic­i­pate sales, pro­cure­ment, mate­ri­als on hand, pro­duc­tion sched­ules, stock on hand, pric­ing, mar­ket­ing, cash flows, and debt repay­ment — among oth­er fac­tors. Under any cir­cum­stances, this would be a test of strat­e­gy, plan­ning, and quick deci­sion-mak­ing. Each game fea­tured four rounds sig­ni­fy­ing 20 days (each ​“day” was 60 sec­onds). Win­ners were those with the best com­bi­na­tion of prof­it, sales, invest­ment, and debt management.

At one point, a tech­ni­cal glitch required the game to be reset. As a first-time observ­er, I thought this was part of the sce­nario itself. After restart­ing, teams found that chal­lenges became even more intense, as the length of a ​“day” was reduced to 45 sec­onds. Teams kept a sharp eye on the leader­board for their results and rel­a­tive progress. Those of us observ­ing the com­pe­ti­tion remarked on the teams’ cool com­po­sure and ready adapt­abil­i­ty to chang­ing cir­cum­stances. This is not very dif­fer­ent from real life — plans change, time keeps run­ning — and the whole team needs to con­tribute to the solu­tion, see­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of each small moment before them, in order to seek out and secure the best results.

Car­olyn Dolezal is ASUG­’s Chief Oper­at­ing Officer.