Business Strategy Game - A Short Intro

The Business Strategy Game (BSG) was introduced to the Bachelor of Corporate Administration (Honours) Third Year students as part of their coursework for the course BBDM3023 Business Strategy in Practice. Due to the nature of the course, the BSG came in nicely for the students to practice and see the outcomes of their strategies.

BSG is an online exercise where class members are divided into teams and assigned the task of running an athletic footwear company in head-to-head competition against companies managed by other class members. Company operations parallel those of actual athletic footwear companies. Just as in the real-world, companies compete in a global market arena, selling branded and private-label athletic footwear in four geographic regions – Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. All aspects of BSG parallel the functioning of the real-world athletic footwear market, thus allowing students to (1) think rationally and logically in deciding what to do and (2) get valuable practice in making a variety of different business decisions under circumstances that mirror real-world competitive conditions.

In the game, students craft out strategies in the areas of corporate social responsibility, production, sales, marketing, distribution and finance. They are awarded points based on (1) earnings per share (2) return on equity (3) market value of share (4) credit rating and (5) image rating. The game draws together the information and lessons of prior courses, consolidates students’ knowledge about the different aspects of running a company, builds their confidence in analysing the revenue-cost-profit economics of a business, helps students understand how the functional pieces of a business fit together, provides valuable practice in crafting profitable growth strategies, and sharpens the students’ business judgment. Students will gain some useful experience and practice in assessing business risk, analysing industry and competitive conditions, making decisions from a companywide perspective, thinking strategically about a company's market position and the kinds of actions it will take to improve it, developing strategies and revising them in light of changing conditions, and applying what they have learned in business school.

Throughout the duration of the game, where student teams competed with each other for the title of Industry Champion, we observed that there were genuine interest and enthusiasm among the students. The discussions and arguments were of an intensity not normally observed in normal tutorial classes.

Some comments from students on their Facebook group are listed below:

Kyo HuAt good experience in playing this.learn alot from this game.quite stressful but worth it.

Hong Sheng Loh Good experience , not only can apply your marketing knowledge in the game, but also learnt human behavior in business environment and develop your analysis skill . Exploit your mind to learn from mistake and draft the better strategy for next round to keep your competitors out

Elijah Ng Worth the price we pay for since it allow us to run a virtual company at a reasonable price. In the virtual business world we have to make decisions. Each decisions you made, it must be justified and it will affect other departments' decision too, so try to make as minimal mistakes as possible and take corrective actions whenever possible. Everyone definitely will make mistakes so when we made mistakes, asked yourself where does it go wrong? 

You must find out A.S.A.P otherwise you will go down very soon and even when you became one of the top performer companies, understand that it will not last forever. You need to have a clear goals of how is your company is heading through and setting strategies that can align to your goals (or concept). Most of all, you should share your experience with other experts so you get to learn more and win the game.

After ten rounds of decision-making, the Industry Champion is determined. Being the Industry Champion, the student team has won the right to be invited to compete in the Best-Strategy Invitational (BSI) hosted by the BSG’s author team. This invitational is held three times a year in May, August and September. It is in the BSI that our students can benchmark themselves against the best student teams from around the world. In the just concluded invitational, a total of 216 high-performing student teams from colleges and universities worldwide took part. Five students from TARUC participated, with FOUR of them winning in their respective industries and thus were declared Grand Champions. In winning the BSI, our students have demonstrated excellent strategic decision-making skills as well as having the right attitude and temperament to withstand the intensity of the competition over a period of two weeks. Oh yes, one last thing, our students used something extra which no other team applied – psychological warfare which put their competitors in sixes and sevens. What a great experience for the students!!