Imagine entering a virtual classroom where students tackle dynamic, interactive challenges that mirror the complexities of the business world, powered by cutting-edge technology. The Business Builders game, a result of a longstanding partnership between SAP University Alliances and HEC Montréal, is where education meets real-world needs.

The innovative gaming platform is designed to redefine educational experiences and equip students with the skills they need for a successful career start.

To engage with the platform, users need to be enrolled students or active professors. By offering challenges designed to allow students to experience, analyze, and respond to business scenarios in a safe and controlled environment, the platform aims to enhance their analytical, data storytelling, and decision-making skills. The initiative reflects a shared vision for future-ready education, aligning with the World Economic Forum’s recognition of analytical thinking as a core skill for the future workforce.

“Data visualization is one of the most sought-after skills in the current job market, and our gaming platform equips students with a competitive edge,” shared Karina Montilla Edmonds, global head of Academies and SAP University Alliances at SAP. “By merging learning with gaming, we are driving student engagement while building career-relevant skills. It’s a win-win.”

Gamifying Learning Experience to Shape Future Professionals

Business Builders offers students hands-on experience with SAP Analytics Cloud through immersive, data-driven business challenges that mimic real-world business scenarios. It welcomes learners at all levels of familiarity with SAP, including those with no prior knowledge of data science and programming.

Game On: Business Builders Prepares Future Business Leaders for a Complex, Data-Driven World

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Students can engage in three distinct scenarios: sustainability, supply chain resilience, and international business expansion. Each scenario is designed to challenge students in specific areas of business management, including data analytics in the sustainability scenario, logistical complexities in the supply chain resilience scenario, and market analysis and product development in the international business expansion scenario.

In the future, additional scenarios will be added to extend the scope of Business Builders. The aim is for students to learn and apply advanced visualization and data storytelling techniques to gain insights from business data and successfully solve the business challenges.

“All business school students, regardless of their specialization, benefit immensely from learning advanced visualization techniques,” said Pierre-Majorique Léger, full professor of IT at HEC Montréal. “These skills enable them to manage and interpret vast amounts of data, derive meaningful business insights, and make informed decisions effectively.”

The practical experience gained through the business games helps students understand the complex interdependencies of business processes, enhancing the overall educational impact. Additionally, the platform’s interactive nature and competitive elements, such as classroom and global leaderboards, infuse learning with excitement and a tangible sense of achievement.

The platform offers educators an opportunity to revitalize their curriculum, extending beyond the confines of traditional teaching methods to make learning more hands-on, enjoyable, and relevant. They can integrate current, pressing business issues and trends into their lessons, making education more interesting and directly linked to what students will face in their future jobs.

And by joining a global network of educators using the platform, they can extend the reach and impact of their teaching, further enhancing the educational experience with a wide array of perspectives and expertise from around the world.

Free Access for More Inclusive Education

One of the cornerstones of this initiative is its commitment to inclusivity. By offering the platform free of charge to students, educators, and academic institutions worldwide, SAP University Alliances and HEC Montréal aim to ensure that aspiring leaders — regardless of geographic or socioeconomic barriers — have access to state-of-the-art resources.

This democratization of educational tools is critical for preparing diverse groups of students for what lies ahead, making sure they are ready to hit the ground running in the digital economy and data-centric world.