Capsim Simulation S't'R'a'Te

We evaluated our company’s position in the industry, and found ourselves in an excellent starting position to further develop our products and match them to the industry’s needs. Our market share is adequate and we can advance further with our strategy improve and reposition our products in the coming years. We have underutilized capacity, which we intend to improve, while increasing automation to reduce costs. We have plans to improve our promotion to improve product awareness and with the appropriate product lines we will increase price to improve margins and better align our high-end product image. Our current financial position is optimistic, showing our leverage (Assets/Equity) at 2.0, when our goal is to maintain 1.5-2.0 overall. By utilizing the analysis tools we are learning what elements are driving demand, how to effectively tailor our products through R&D, how best to adjust our marketing and pricing, while lowering input costs, in order to improve margins and to ensure our stakeholders are all satisfied.

A Broad Cost Leader strategy maintains a presence in all segments of the market. The company will gain a competitive advantage by keeping R&D, production and material costs to a minimum, enabling the company to compete on the basis of price, which will be below average. Automation levels will be increased to improve margins and to offset second shift/overtime costs.

On a medium/long terms the company has the opportunity to be the pioneer in developing a innovative product with a positive impact among clients and

In my opinion, the first P i.e. ‘Product’ is the most important component of the marketing mix. It is an instrument using which value is delivered to the customer. It is a ‘bundle of benefits’ that can be offered to and appreciated by a particular set of consumers. Products or services lie at the heart of a marketing strategy; they serve as means of differentiation for the company or a brand representative of a firm. If a customer purchases a product and it does not meet her expectations, then she

Most markets are highly competitive, even if there are only a few organizations offering the product – the competition is for both initial and repeat sales. And of course, all organizations want their “slice of the pie”. With new adventures, however, come large risks. A successful company knows beforehand any issues that might arise so as to best plan how to deal with

This course is a great experience for me. I had learn a lot in this course, Capsim the simulator really do help me to learn about the basic how an organization operate, the main function of R&D, marketing, production, TQM and HR, how will of of this function affect each others, consequence of no paying attention in certain segment will lead what issue to arise and how to allocate cash in the organization wisely in order to remain competitive. All of this knowledge could have learned through Capsim. I will have idea on what issue causing which and it could help to have better understanding of the organization operating styles in the current environment and cause us to make less mistake when we go out to work. Although there a lot to learn about

The Andrews management team has opted to pursue the strategy of differentiator with a product life cycle focus. This strategy involves the creation of products with excellent design in terms of size and performance (on the perceptual map), and MTBF. Significant investment in awareness and accessibility, and development of proficiency in the research and development sector is also central to this business strategy. In order to compensate for these high initial investments, our product prices will be relatively high; however it is believed that our customers will be drawn to our product due to high awareness and due to the superior quality of our sensors. Our released products will need to be manipulated according to the changes in expectations of the marketplace by producing smaller and faster products, according to the expected ideal size and performance of the sensors in future years. In addition, our company must invest in other important activities such as; total quality management (TQM), marketing, and human resources (HR) in order to

Product, distribution, promotion, and price are what make up the mix, while the marketing managers are the ones who control the variables. It is their job to match the needs of the customers with the desired marketing mix, and it’s crucial for the marketing managers to look at their target group and decide the level each variable needs to be used to achieve maximum return on a product.

I learned from playing the Capsim simulation that you have to pick a strategy and stick with it. It is important to be patient in making decisions and each decision builds on the next. I also learned that forecasting inventory is very difficult to do. Changes in the market and what other teams are going affects how much you think you will sell and need to produce. This game takes a lot of research and evaulating the reports from round to

Integration Business-Level: Hewlett Packard (“HP”) is an example of an organization that is using the integration business-level strategy, which is a combination of the differentiation and cost-leadership strategies (Rothaermel, 2013). HP utilizes this strategy because Apple holds the differentiation position while Dell holds the cost-leader position in the mobile devices market (Rothaermel, 2013). For this reason, HP must seek to implement both the cost-saving strategies in supply chain management, like Walmart, and the differentiation strategies in product design, like Apple (Rothaermel, 2013). There are differences, however, in the value chain between HP and the two companies above. HP

Marketing Management can see which products are the most popular in each store. Can create advertisements that are catered to each individual store location. Can create new store layouts to promote the popular items in store and draw customers in.

Each decision that we made had an impact. What was difficult to comprehend was had we considered all possible scenarios while making the decision. Any of the following could result in a bad decision.

Andrews Corporation’s previous position after the first half of the simulation is expected for the strategies implemented; the company finished in 1st place at the end of Round 4. The company at the end of Round 4 had six products available in five assorted markets. Initial strategy that was implemented was to develop a Broad Differentiator strategy. Continual product development and addition of our product count as a process to dominate the market and perfect our customer buying criteria. Investment in corporate infrastructure to increase capacity and lower unit costs in volume production. The development of the final four rounds were very different as Andrews was not able to keep up with some of the

Similarly, both companies had a product differentiation strategy, with the aim of being distinctly set apart from their competitors by the viewing market. However, different elements of this strategy were focused on by the firms. For instance,

Danaher uses mainly a Cost Leader Strategy with a few qualities of Product Differentiation. Details of this can be found by looking at their DBS system. The system is designed to increase productivity and reduce costs. This gives them a learning curve and technological advantage. We will further discuss each of these advantages.