Malaysia, Oct 17 -- For the first time in MonsoonSIM history, instead of face-to-face in a conference room in a physical environment, MonsoonSIM Enterprise Resource Management Competition (MERMC) Malaysia Final 2020 was carried out in a virtual environment. 

As in previous years, it was once again exciting when hopeful participants in teams competed against one another for a slot in the e-MonsoonSIM Enterprise Resource Management Competition (e-MERMC) Regional Grand Final 2020 in November and December.

MERMC aims to encourage students to experientially learn Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) via Gamification, and to incubate future ERP talents. Through the fun and interactive cloud-based MonsoonSIM platform, the students experience managing virtual companies in real time, and learn how 13 different business modules of the latest MonsoonSIM V8 – Finance, Production, Material Requirements Planning(MRP), Warehousing and Logistics, Forecasting, Procurement, Asset Maintenance, Retail, Wholesaling, e-Commerce, Marketing, Human Resources, and Customer Service – are interlinked.

This year, a total of 90 participants in 18 teams of 5-player each from 7 universities across Malaysia -- Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Politeknik Metro, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) -- were drawn into 2 groups (9 each) to compete in the morning Preliminary round from which the top 5 teams of each group move on to the afternoon final round. 

From the get-go, every team was not only eyeing the Champion Prize of RM1,500, but also a place in the Regional Grand Final when bigger prizes will be awarded for winning. 

Although the competition was held online, observers can feel the intensity of the 80 virtual days at 45 seconds per day setting when all the teams were battling it out with good focus. After the midway point, FakDak of UTAR in Group 1 and New Explosion of UTM in Group 2 led the way till the end to finish top in their respective groups. The other qualifiers were Justneko of USM, Untouchables of Poly Metro, Dududu, NOYB, and MP5 of UTAR, Shark, Auditors, and SuperPanda of UTM. 

The battle for supremacy of the day began after the lunch break. Many calculated and aggressive moves were seen over the 100 virtual days at 50 seconds per day of intense competition. Needless to say, It was an all-out effort as every team was determined to win using the skills, strategies, and teamwork they had learned in practice. But there can be only one champion. At the end, Auditors of UTM who finished second in Group 2 in the Preliminary, emerged victorious as they had demonstrated the best overall performance compared to all, followed by New Explosion also of UTM, and NOYB of UTAR. 

Congratulations to the winners! 

The rest of the competitors all had put up a very high-spirited fight and deserve praise. I am sure that MonsoonSIM ERP Experiential Learning through simulation and gamification had helped them understand how enterprise business works and realize that there's more to MonsoonSIM than just GAME. When all was said and done for the day, we appreciated their participation very much. They all are winners and will remember this experience in time to come.

The top 7 finishers of this Final will represent Malaysia to meet with competitors online from the Philipines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, and new comer Taiwan in the Regional Grand Final in November and December this year. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

We thank Prof. Dr. Aldrin Bin Abdullah, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, STUDENT DEVELOPMENT AFFAIRS, AND ALUMNI Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for hosting and sponsoring ALL CASH PRIZES, 

Mr. Khairul Anwar and Miss Puteri for organizing the Competition, our President Mr. Abdy Taminsyah for delivering the Competition speech, Mr. Alex Ong of MonsoonSIM Singapore for facilitating the Competition, and all the Certified Facilitators for training their students and giving a hand in making this event a success. 

e-MERMC 2020 is proudly brought to all universities by:

Infusion Information Technology Sdn Bhd, MonsoonSIM Sole Agent in Malaysia.

Powered by MonsoonSIM, provider of MonsoonSIM Enterprise Simulation and Gaming Platform.

Endorsed by SAP.