10.06.2022
MBA and PhD Students from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration had a full-day fieldtrip to EGT production facilities in Pernik and Sofia. EGT is a leading international manufacturer of land-based slot cabinets and other gaming machines with an unique business strategy of full integration along the value chain. The visit is a follow-up of an earlier guest lecturer of Mr. Vladimir Dokov, CEO of EGT, at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration during a class of the academic director of the MBA Strategic Management program assoc. prof. Todor Yalamov.
Euro Games Technology was founded in 2002 and currently has offices in 26 countries and trade representatives in many more.
Nadia Popova, Chief Revenue Officer and VP Sales & Marketing, based in Panama welcomed students in the EGT HQ at RichHill Business Center in Sofia and introduced them to the EGT’s team in Spain who were on a fieldtrip to the plants as well. Stefan Georgiev, the director of the EGT Steel production (steel housings for the gaming machines) presented the different CNC machines and business processes, welding, painting, resource planning, etc.
During their visit to both plants, students had the opportunity to get acquainted with the 360-degree production process of EGT, thanks to which the Bulgarian manufacturer has achieved almost complete independence in the manufacturing of its slot cabinets and occupies leadership positions in the global gaming industry offering full range of Land-based and online gaming solutions. This value-chain integration strategy appears quite often in the narratives of leading Bulgarian companies, which to a certain extend is in a contradiction of the overall outsourcing strategies around the globe. Yet, these stories could turn to be early signals and microtrends in going back to the old lessons before the globalization.
Students were following a course with prof. Hiroo Takahashi on Organizational theory, where they learned about the Keizen theory of continuous improvement. There are various Kaizen and even more Lean Strategies, yet Kobayashi’s 20 Keys approach (also Kaizen) is getting a lot of popularity and is being implemented at EGT since the beginning of 2020. Nikolay Georgiev, Director of Manufacturing, took the guests around the production base in Sofia, demonstrated the “20 Keys” and business process automation.
Students and faculty members were able to visit and observe new production lines for new details, which were previously outsourced just a few months ago – from touchscreens to armrests. During the visit some students realized (again) the small-world concept by finding out that they have friends working for EGT as musicians or software developers.
Fieldtrips are an integral part of the MBA program in Strategic Management (taught in English) and the whole Faculty of Economics and Business Administration – be it in Energy, AI or Human resources domains. Students can see how the concepts they study are implemented in real production and – most importantly can “integrate” different subjects together. The EGT fieldtrip was a real integration of the courses in International Business Strategies (prof. Veneta Andonova from the University of Los Andes, Columbia and assoc. prof. Ivan Angelov, FEBA), Organizational theory (prof. Hiroo Takahashi, Soka University, Japan and prof. Teodora Georgieva, FEBA and ARC Fund) and Innovation Management in the Organization (prof. Vladimirov and prof. Georgieva, FEBA).