Business Strategy

The Business Strategy Game is the #1 selling computer simulation in the strategic management market. It is the single best exercise available for helping students understand how the functional pieces of a business fit together and for providing students with a capstone experience in decision-making. The exercise of running a simulated company in a competitive market setting helps students develop better decision-making judgment and improves their skills in evaluating market and competitive conditions and responding to changes that are occurring. The BSG helps students learn from working with the numbers, exploring options, and trying to unite production, marketing, finance, and human resource decisions into a coherent strategy.Version 7.2 is now available to students in 2 formats: via download with the access code and for the first time, via CD. The package includes the playerĹźs manual, download code, and the software on CD.|The PlayerĹźs Manual for version 7.2 has been slightly revised to reflect the new features. Students that have the first printing of the PlayerĹźs Manual will not be at a disadvantage in playing the simulation because they will receive screen messages notifying them of the added features/rules. |Plant Capacity Construction and Expansion Limitations - A new feature has been added that restricts new plant capacity construction and expansion under certain conditions. When worldwide plant capacity for the current year (plus inventories carried over from the previous year) is greater than projected worldwide demand by 25% or more, expansion of any one existing plant is limited to 1 million pairs. When worldwide plant capacity for the current year (plus inventories carried over from the previous year) exceeds projected worldwide demand by 50% or more, no orders for either new plant construction or expansion of existing plants are allowed. However, if excess supply conditions worldwide prevent the construction of new production capacity, access to additional shoe-making capacity can be gained by the purchase/sale of plant capacity from one company to another or by implement Plant Upgrade Options E or F. The authors believe this new feature will be quite effective in preventing or relieving an over-capacity situation in an industry. These rules on new capacity construction and expansion have been automatically programmed into the simulation and students will receive warnings on the screen when decision entries run afoul of the restrictions. However, the game administrator can override these restrictions during processing.|Stock Issue Limitation - Another new feature in Version 7.20 limits the number of shares of stock that can be issued by a company. In any given year, shares may not be issued in an amount that would cause the discounted issue price to fall below $7.50 per share (this is 50% below $15 stock price prevailing in Year 10). Furthermore, if the market price of a companyĹźs stock falls to $7.50 or below at the end of a particular year, then the company will not be allowed to issue any new shares in the following year. These two restrictions on issuing shares of stock have been automatically programmed into the simulation and students will receive warnings on the screen when decision entries run afoul of the rules. |Algorithm Changes and Corrections: - Exchange Rate Cost Adjustments. Correcting the calculation of exchange rate cost adjustments was the most important change implemented in this new release, and is what precipitated the jump from version number 7.16 to version number 7.20. While the magnitude of exchange rate cost adjustments (in absolute dollars) was calculated correctly in all previous versions, the + or ? sign applied to some of the exchange rate cost adjustments was reversed from what it should have been in some of the cases. In versions prior to 7.20, the + and ? signs were reversed in those situations involving Yen/$, Euro/$ and Real/$. In those situations involving the Yen/Euro, Yen/Real and Euro/Real, the signs were correct.- Retailer Support and Online Services. The calculation of the cost of retailer support and online services (and its treatment in the PlayerĹźs Manual) were incorrect in the previous version. The authors have corrected the formulas in Version 7.20. This problem was only noticeable if a company utilized a large number of retail outlets in Latin America. |The BSG website works best with Internet Explorer. Use of Microsoft Excel as the programming platform provides greater operating reliability and easier-to-use features. Version 7.2 requires the use of PCs loaded with Microsoft Excel-the version on Office 97 or Office 2000. |An easy-to-use e-mail feature makes the simulation ideal for use in distance-learning situations, allowing company members (students) to click on the built-in e-mail button that sends their decision file to the game administrator (instructor) and allowing the game administrator to e-mail the results back to company members.|There are 4 global market segments: US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, making this simulation the most globally-focused on the market.|An online market segment enables rival companies to utilize the Internet to sell directly to consumers (to complement sales through brick-and-mortar retailers). |Special help screens are available so that if students forget some of the information in the PlayerĹźs Manual, they can quickly access the information online by clicking on the Help button that appears on every screen.|Instructor Information: The game is avaialable via download on the Thompson and Stickland textbook site at www.mhhe.com/thompson or can be directly accessed at www.mhhe.com/bsg. Instructors can download the following materials:the administrator's programme, student/player software, the player's manual, Instuctor's manual and PowerPoint. In order to download these materials instructors need an access code. Requests can be made through the websiteds mentioned above, through sales representatives, or directly from Zoe Mathieson at [email protected]. Student access codes are one time use only. If a student code needs to be reset, the professor should email the code to Greg Stappenbeck at [email protected]