“Watching my Marketing students passionately negotiate the hiring of a Finance expert… that’s real preparation for the professional world.”

The problem: rich specialties working in isolation

Marketing, Finance, HR, Quality, and Project Management all exist within the school, but the document describes students who often learn in silos. Yet the business world demands the opposite: understanding other departments’ constraints and creating synergies.

The pedagogical mechanics

01

Mixed teams

Three to four specialties within the same group.

02

Specialized briefs

Different objectives depending on team composition and skills.

03

Cross-team hiring

Negotiations and temporary or permanent exchanges of skills.

Systemic vision becomes essential

Marketing needs Finance to understand how pricing affects profitability. Finance has to explain its analysis in plain language. HR discovers that team composition is a strategic resource.

“I hired Mehdi from the Finance team for our pricing strategy. He taught me how to calculate profitability. Now I never make a proposal without checking the financial impact first.”

The cross-functional skills in this case

Cross-functional communication
Adaptive leadership
Negotiation
Systemic vision

The case thus shows a use of the Business Game that goes beyond competition: it becomes a space for cooperation, negotiation, and mutual understanding between disciplines.

“My students no longer graduate specialized in just their field — they graduate specialized AND collaborative.”
Promotional claims in the document about appeal or employability are not presented here as measured impacts.
Source: “etude de cas ISSAM BEN HASSEN.docx.”