Selective Reasoning

“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

When our group first started planning our strategy to win the second Littlefield simulation game, it was evident that the goal of the game was to maximize profits. We were competing against 18 other teams, but we knew with correct system capacity management and correct inventory management we could be the number one team. Even though we made correct decisions overall, we ended up in second place again with a cash balance of $2,660,393 and remaining inventory of 52 kits. Although we were a little disappointed again, we were very satisfied with what we have learned and the important operations management concepts we used such as capacity management and lead-time and inventory management throughout both of the Littlefield simulation games.

The purpose of this paper is assessing my strategy and decisions in the simulation Biz Café. Then, I will give my results and explain how I got there. However, there were many factors involved creating these results. In this simulation, everything was left up to me to decide how to run my new coffee shop. There were big decisions at the beginning you had to make to create the overall theme of your business. Then, I was to hire employees, buy goods, and act on specials decisions or react to good or bad customer reactions. This, I will explain more in the following paragraphs.

Our team operated and managed the Littlefield Technologies facility over the span of 1268 simulated days. Our team finished the simulation in 3rd place, posting $2,234,639 in cash at the end of the game. We did intuitive analysis initially and came up the strategy at the beginning of the game. And then we applied the knowledge we learned in the class, did process analysis and modified our strategies according to the performance results dynamically. We have reinforced many of the concepts and lessons learned in class and had a better understanding of the operation of the Littlefield Technologies facility and how certain modifications would affect the throughput and lead time.

A challenge that we faced with our coffee shop was making the staffing decisions. We struggled with trying to figure out a sufficient number of managers and servers to hire and an appropriate pay for them. Around the beginning of the simulation, we had a nice amount of servers which resulted in us receiving an award for best staff. After we extended hours, things seemed to go downhill with our staff. As a result, this had an effect on the overall service of the workers. They were not as happy or productive as we had hoped. Our managers were becoming stressed out and our servers were being overworked and even a couple of our servers quit.

H Company finished the simulation in the second to last position. I believe that is a strong indicator that my competitive intelligence level was low for this simulation. H Company’s Earnings Per Share report increases for year 12 and 13 followed by decreases for years 14-18. My ability to predict the competition was below par. In fact, because I spent more money on the private label brand, I may have ended up putting myself in a worse position. My ability to predict my competitions next move was not good. Every year D Company was able to achieve more market share, while H Company gained less, and less.

Our initial strategy to split the strategic decisions per region created company instability in the first couple of BSG simulation years. We found that a single regional misalignment could cause a significant impact on the overall performance of the company. After the first couple years of decisions, the team decided to work together to analyze the previous year’s results and reach a consensus on the next year’s strategic goals and the decisions necessary to reach our competitive goals.

In the beginning we were all confused as to how the game worked and where to begin. We looked at the various tutorials and the booklet to try and make some sense of it. Once we had some understanding, we tried to develop our strategy. In the first few rounds we understood it was important to have our company funded through stocks and long term debt. We issued stock the first

The strategy I chose for the simulation is “Niche Cost Leader." First, with the key focus being value, this strategy will challenge me to keep costs at a minimum and force me to streamline overall costs to produce a valuable commodity that, in turn, will generate financial success that can be shared with internal and external stakeholders. Second, as the success of this strategy primarily relies on the existing product line being prosperous, I will be able to practice and hone my forecasting skills based on one product. Though I eventually will produce more than one product, most of the simulation will be conducting under making the primary product as successful as it can be, and reliable forecasts are

For my project, I ran Coffee-Roma, a coffee shop located in the business district of a large city. My simulation ran for 60 days. Over this timeframe, I hired 7 employees and earned gross revenues of $89,984.20. From those revenues, my net profit totaled $14,046.83. Below are the details of how I attempted to best run my business.

If given the opportunity to re-do the simulation, our top priorities would be to manage the allotted time more efficiently in order to improve decision quality, provide resolution certitude and ensure that each team member is adequately informed and prepared prior to meeting. During the simulation, we were given a finite timeline in which to analyze and input decisions; however, we failed to create a sense of urgency within our group, which encumbered the decision-making process and consequently, led to rushed decisions as time ran out. A team member should have been appointed as a designated timekeeper for time monitoring purposes.

Initially, our firm’s business position was at a healthy position. In the beginning of the simulation, our overall market share for the automobile industry was 28.2%; the highest in the market. We realized that our primary strength from product contribution came from our economy car Alec with 63.5% market share for economy cars, and from our utility car, awesome with a 48.5% market share for its vehicle class. Thus, it was evident what we needed to do; maintain high market share of our leading cars while conforming our least profitable vehicle class sustainably to coordinate to customer demand.

Sometimes it’s not so important that your product fits the exact needs of the segment you target; rather, it’s vital that customers perceive that you do, even if it’s not true. In order to achieve this, the proper amount of advertising and sending the appropriate message are both vital.

Most people think of experiments as restricted to chemistry lab or by cross breeding plants in the name of biology, but marketing experiment has been around for a long time, from testing concept stores in various geographies before the product is launched to showing different television curriculum in a particular state at different time for different audience [10]. In order for the business to scale through magnificent height, a testing program should be adopted for every business regardless of its size [7]. The following are the benefits of experimenting and testing for every organization:

Also, the simulation compelled to gain a deeper insight on various marketing and management theories and frameworks that are elucidated and enforced in the subsequent parts of the report.