Capsim Competition
Owning a business can be daunting, but when you are now in charge of a multi-million-dollar company, it’s terrifying! The Capsim competition was a way to learn from the decisions made to the company by working and coordinating four areas of the company: research and development, marketing, production, and finance. All of this in a simulated environment. The company that I now manage, manufactures and sells electronic sensors that are used in all types of industries. Research and Development (R&D) is where the products are invented and revised, marketing sets the price of the product and forecasts sales, production schedules manufacturing and manages the size of automation, and finance ensures the company has the funding available to grow (Capsim Management Simulations, 2016). Each week was a new year to make decisions and evaluate where the company resources were being spent and how the financial position could be improved. After five rounds, the introduction of new sensor production and the revision of previous sensors, the company turned out to make a great deal of profit and good returns on sales. Not only was there a collaborative effort on the team, but it was a great learning experience in working in a virtual team, where communication is key to the success of any company.
Round Analysis
Prior to the start of the Capsim competition, there was an opportunity to play with practice rounds, which were somewhat helpful. In doing so, there were
“When the simulation began, we felt confident in our team’s vision, goals, and strategic plan. After the first rollover, we quickly became aware that the success of a company relies heavily on the dynamics of the market. The strategic decisions of competitors weigh heavily on the overall direction of a company. Our original plan quickly became obsolete in the tumultuous bike industry, and we were forced to re-evaluate our competitive positioning. To this end, we learned
Findlay, C., & Warren, T. (Eds.). (2013). Impediments to Trade in Services: Measurements and Policy Implications. Routledge.
The key determinant of Chester’s’ success was the management commitment to superior business processes. Chester has a state of the art facility. Management increased capacity in the years after the government split and will continue to add capacity as growth dictates. However, capacity will be expanded at a lower rate than previously, in an attempt to avoid cash flow shortages seen in prior years. Chester has enhanced automation and quality processes in order to gain production efficiencies and cost savings. Chester has invested in labor recruiting and training; developing core competencies in it’s’ workforce. The firm has and will continue to maintain investment in research and development, as product improvements will continue to be demanded by the customers. The other key factor of the corporation’s success was the superior growth of the industry. It would have been much more difficult to sustain profitable growth in this extremely competitive market without the superior volume growth of the sensor industry.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very controversial topic. A question that has been debated for the past few decades is; is it corporately viable to introduce social responsibility as a proposed addition to the work ethic of business organisations. As well as, if adopting the framework of corporate social responsibility would yield positive improvements for those organisations.
To achieve a high net income and be effective in fulfilling contracts in the simulation, it was important to have a strategy set in place. This requires a standard of control over how the business was going to operate and fulfill orders effectively. In order to gain a higher reputation to secure higher value contracts within the game, I worked to acquire specific contracts and purchasing materials to produce the items that would be shipped out to customers. I also found it important to have employees who were highly skilled within each area that they were employed in order to maximize the production process. By having higher skilled employees, I found it easier to continually fulfill contracts at a constant rate as and minimize slack between each area of production. I also found it highly important within the simulation to be able to adapt quickly to changing market and contact requirements because each required a different set of machines, number of materials and time to be produced. It was very important to understand the time constants in order to effectively produce and fulfill each contract within the time that was allotted. Having a diversified production process was also important so that the production process wasn’t constrained to producing one type of contract. Through the game, I learned the
Most corporate financing decisions in practice reduce to a choice between debt and equity. The finance manager wishing to fund a new project, but reluctant to cut dividends or to make a rights issue, which leads to the decision of borrowing options. The issue with regards to shareholder objectives being met by the management in making financing decisions has come to become a major issue of recent times. This relates to understanding the concept of the agency problem. It deals with the separation of ownership and control of an organisation within a financial context. The financial manager can raise long-term funds internally, from the company’s cash flow, or externally, via the capital market, the market for funds
In addition to accountants providing many useful numbers that signal a company’s performance, they also prepare many useful documents and a code of ethics to make sure that all stakeholders have a clear picture on the business’s financial position. For instance, journaling is what accountants do after every transaction. These entries of what is exchanged in a business provide evidence that money deserves to be in a certain account. Especially since every journal entry needs a corresponding document that proves the record did happen, journals can be used by executives to see what really occurred in case a number in an account looks wrong (Schneider). It is also used when a government official suspects that the company is unfairly representing itself to either indict the business or prove its innocence. Journaling illustrates the importance of accounting since everything is documented and has proof for existence in the case of errors. One thing that journals go hand-in-hand with is the general ledger. This is the document that actually lists each individual account and the amount in it. It organizes the overall picture of every entity a business comes in contact with so that every important number can be put neatly into a financial statement.
To calculate the theoretical price of the MMI March ‘86 futures contract, we applied the formula:
Brenda Franklin had been serving Allied Tech for the past 8 years. As any other organisations, Brenda used to be a part of the lunch hour conversations with her colleagues. One day when her colleagues were discussing about corruption and politics, something occurred to her. As a result she prepared a list called “Ethically Dubious Conduct” and pasted it on the common notice board. Her colleagues were taken by surprise. Brenda was now anticipating the next lunch where she was expecting her list to be analysed among her colleagues.
This assignment evaluates the performance of team Baldwin around the success in managing the company over five rounds of the simulation. The assessment will be focused on the round analysis areas with key attention on inventory, profit and contribution margin, emergency loans, and stock price. In addition, the assignment reflects on the areas of improvement and how the team could have developed effectiveness in addressing these key areas in round analysis.
Moreover, this further supports our recommendation for Atlantic to proceed with this acquisition as it will obtain one of the best mills for a cheap initial cost ($319m compared to the construction cost of $750m).
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 by its namesake, Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda. The couple created the foundation “to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world.”1 It is headquartered in Seattle, Washing and is co-chaired by Bill, Melinda and William Gates Sr. Since its founding the foundation has accrued an incredible $31.9 billion and has a net worth of almost $50 billion. With such spending power, the foundation has been able to make great progress, particularly in the areas of global health. It has also made a sincere effort to improve many public school systems in the US.
and the sale of noncore assets were common. Moreover, in anticipation of sluggish sales in the
Large corporations such as Wal-Mart or Home Depot often come under criticism for putting mom-and-pop shops out of business. While this may be a valid criticism, the consumers neglect to realize that they play the biggest part in shutting these businesses down. Consumers across the country are always looking for the best deals or the lowest prices, and in most cases the larger corporations are where products can be found at the lowest price. Many small business owners and the populations of small towns dislike large corporations moving into the area because they believe it negatively effects the local
The strategic management process is sometimes improperly perceived as a unidirectional flow of objectives, strategies and decision parameters from management to the employees. In fact, the process should be highly interactive since it is designed to stimulate input from creative, skilled and knowledgeable people working at every level of the business.