At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) As AI is rapidly replacing and disrupting employee skills, it is imperative to help current – and future – employees bridge the gap between the skills AI demands and the skills they currently possess. As businesses focus on reskilling their current workforce, educators around the world are working hard to develop and deliver courses aimed at equipping today’s students with the skills needed to thrive in a world increasingly defined and driven by AI.
A recent World Economic Forum Cognitive skills, such as creative thinking, analytical thinking and technology literacy, a type of critical thinking skill, are expected to be the most sought-after skills among employees by 2027, according to a survey.
Collaboration between academia and industry is essential to quickly transmit these skills to students. This is why the SAP University Alliances Program has been partnering with educational institutions for 25 years, with more than 2,800 institutions currently working with SAP to train tomorrow’s talent in SAP skills.
One of these partners is HEC Montreala prestigious and internationally recognized business school with a long history of creating innovative learning approaches to equip students with SAP skills.
Twenty years ago, HEC Montréal was a pioneer ERPsima revolutionary and extremely successful educational tool that immerses students in a real-world business scenario within SAP. Today, approximately 30,000 students learn with ERPsim each year.
In an interview, Professor Pierre-Majorique Léger from HEC Montréal spoke about the latest collaboration between HEC Montréal and SAP: Business Builders, the next generation of SAP gamified learning.
Business builders: continue with SAP Analytics Cloud
Business Builders is a gamified learning tool that can develop STEM skills and help students hone their analytical, critical, and creative skills using the SAP Analytics Cloud solution.
Professor Léger says educators are caught in the tsunami of generative AI and need to “rethink a new teaching approach that allows students to develop skills in data analysis and data literacy, while recognizing that ChatGPT, e.g. , allows students to avoid doing the tasks themselves.
Business Builders is a solution to this problem.
The game can be played either in person, in virtual teaching sessions, or synchronously in a single session, or over several sessions.
Students find themselves in one of three scenarios in a competitive, fast-paced game with interactive and realistic learning scenarios. There is no chance of using ChatGPT or a similar AI tool to win. Instead, students must demonstrate data-driven decision-making skills and apply visualization techniques to make informed decisions.
In each game, students take on roles such as marketing or product researcher, financial analyst, or supply chain analyst. Each game has several stages, with subsequent stages requiring greater skills and knowledge.
The steps include 10 business questions targeting different skill and knowledge levels. Business Questions are designed for students with little or no data analysis skills as well as those with more advanced data visualization and manipulation skills.
As part of the game, students use SAP Analytics Cloud to visually analyze data and identify the best graphical representations to answer questions.
Real problems with realistic data
The game uses large synthetic data sets to make the business decision-making process as authentic as possible. “The notion of synthetic data is important,” explains Professor Léger, “because sometimes reality is too complex to integrate into the classroom and does not serve the educational approach. Based on experience with ERPsim, the best solution is to create a realistic synthetic data set that is as close to reality as possible.
Business Builders currently offers three game scenarios offering a wide range of real-world problems that students can solve using SAP Analytics Cloud: environmental, social and governance; supply chain resilience; and international expansion.
According to HEC Montréal, the most played out scenario so far is supply chain resilience. This scenario involves a real-life issue in which the Panama Canal is closed due to climate change, affecting the shipping of holiday gifts from Southeast Asia to the United States. Students are responsible for deciding how to reroute containers and prioritize products to minimize the impact of this event.
A win-win for students, educators and employers
“It is the challenge of our generation of professors faced with generative AI to find a new way to teach students data analysis,” explains Professor Léger. “We found a way to use gamification to inspire students to leverage their analytics and math knowledge to become business builders. Use data to gain insights and solve problems on the best technology available: SAP Analytics Cloud. And best of all, it’s free for teachers and their students around the world.
To guide students through the game scenario questions and help optimize the learning experience, educators have access to tailored training materials. Instead of taking a haphazard approach with data and platform features, these tailored training materials help teachers deepen the learning experience. Students can understand how information is discovered and how to make informed business decisions based on the analysis of datasets and data visualizations.
SAP has also created a manual on the basic concepts of data visualization and storytelling in SAP Analytics Cloud. Available in slide format, teachers can refer to theoretical aspects while students gain hands-on experience with SAP Analytics Cloud.
Since its launch in July 2024, more than 300 educational institutions have signed up for access to the Business Builders game and 2,500 students are expected to use SAP Analytics Cloud to compete with their peers in the game by the end of 2024.
As technology accelerates at an ever-increasing speed, the good news is that teachers can sign up and get up and running with Business Builders for free in just a few days. Find out how on Business creators website.
