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GLOBAL SIMULATION CHALLENGE

GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL

REPORT
Cesim Global Challenge

Hernan Hernando Hernandez Hernandez
B00701786

Ulster University
QA Business School

Table of Contents

PART A. Group Report ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Blue team-work best management practices ………………………………………………………………………. 3

Review and Analysis of Practice Round …………………………………………………………………………….. 5

Analysis, Review and Reflection of Rounds ………………………………………………………………………… 6

Market analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6

Determining demand and techs for each market ……………………………………………………………….. 7

Production planning ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

Determining Research & Development …………………………………………………………………………….. 9

Setting marketing plan ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 10

Adjusting logistics ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10

Financial planning ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 10

Checking the availability of cash for paying debt …………………………………………………………….. 10

Evaluation of Strategies …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11

Blue Team Overview – A critical evaluation of the Global Simulation Challenge ……………….. 12

Blue Team Signed letter ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

PART B. Individual Report ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14

Round Individual reflection …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14

Simulation Reflection ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 15

Global challenge simulation relevance ……………………………………………………………………………… 16

Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18

TEAM BLUE REPORT

ACADEMIC REFLECTION

Hernan Hernandez B00701786

Yeqiong Ren B00670727

John Castrillon B00703837

Harkirat Kaur B00700776

Hector Garzon B00701415

Diana Medina B00702130

International Business Simulation

Ulster University

MSc International Business

12th May 2016

PART A. Group Report

Blue team-work best management practices

Blue team applied different team-world best practices, for each round a ‘CEO’ was selected to

be responsible for directing the team-efforts and submitting the final decisions. Time and the

schedules were the challenge that mainly every team member had to face; however, all the

deadlines were met. In order to work in synergy and give the best each team-member was

allowed to work independently and to bring different ideas which then were exchanged,

coordinated and gathered within the group. Every decision made was agreed by the whole

group led by a CEO in every round and the implementation was subsequently assessed, the

team used different methods of communication mainly technological, such as videocalls,

messages and more importantly every meeting in the classroom provided an opportunity to

share information in person and make the necessary adjustments before submitting any final

group decision.

Blue team was made up by six team members each of whom brought their own and unique

experiences resulting in a mix of skills from different and related business backgrounds in order

to make the best decisions. Figure 1 shows the skills and roles of each member of the team.

Fig 1. Management Skills Blue team

Skills Role

Diana Medina Operations Production

Harkeerat Kaur Critical thinking Research & development

Hector Garzon Logistics – networking Logistics

Hernan Hernandez Accountancy Finance

John Iver Castrillon Responsiveness-adaptability Demand

Yeqiong Ren Marketing Marketing

Soon after a round begun, Hernan would take the leadership to organize the team and delegate

specific responsibilities, nonetheless, each member of the team were selected to be the CEO

for a particular round as explained before, therefore, this strategy gave the team the

organization to make the final decisions, their particular specialism and skills brought to the

group are explained as follow:

Diana Medina: As the production manager, Diana was in charge of directing, and coordinating

the resources necessary for producing the technological products in the three different markets,

she had good communications with all the team, mainly with Hector (logistic) in order, to make

the entire decisions based on cost, quality, and quantity specifications. She shared her

knowledge with the team and helped to improve skills such, time, material resources and

financial resources management. Additionally, she brought the ability to pay attention to every

detail in order to avoid costly mistakes.

Hector Garzon: As the logistic manager, Hector was in charge of planning, directing

acquisitions, forecasting and managing product liability in the three different markets. He

mainly focused on transportation priorities, including the relative costs and benefits. He

brought different skills to the team, namely, complex problem solving, coordination by

adjusting his actions in relation with other’s actions, he also helped the team by managing

personnel resources as he had already got experience in HRM, therefore, he not only executed

logistic duties, but also he was motivating and directing the team members as they worked.

Harkeerat Kaur: As the R&D manager, Harkeerat developed good professional relationships

with each member of the team, setting and meeting deadlines, like everyone, she had the

opportunity to manage her own work load and helped the team to keep motivated, she was

autonomous to make decisions, however, before every round ended she would communicate

all the results of her decisions to rest of the group to reach an agreement. She was in charge to

manage product development and observe tendencies that indicated the need for new products

and services. She brought to the team knowledge about Decision making and data analysis

Hernan Hernandez: As the finance manager and leader in every round, Hernan was providing

appropriate financial advice to the process of decision making as well as undertaking related

accounts administration. The sorts of skills that he brought to the team were the ability to work

as part of a team, initiative, leadership, numerical abilities and self motivation, additionally all

his expertise in economy and finance.

John Iver Castrillon: As the manager in charge of analysing the process regarding the

demand, John was studying all the possible changes based on the outlook in every round, to

adapt the strategy and be responsive to any change that would have altered the business

environment, he would analyse all the network coverage forecasts and the trends for

technologies in every market for every round. His role was vital for the success of the company

since sales and operations planning journey were based on his prior decisions, he managed the

forecasting team bringing skills such self-control, adaptability to different contexts and

expertise in international business as that is his first degree.

Yeqiong Ren: As the marketing manager, Yeqiong coordinated all the marketing programs,

namely determining the possible demand for the technological products offered in each market

as well as benchmarking to establish what the competitors were doing in terms of marketing.

She was in charge of applying the pricing strategies to maximize the firm profit and the number

of features to maintain the costumer’s satisfaction; additionally she applied methods (marketing

strategy) for promoting and selling the products. She brought to the team her professionalism

and learning strategies.

Review and Analysis of Practice Round

As the starting process, Team Blue had the opportunity to be familiarised with the environment

proposed by Cesim. It was a really interesting opportunity to demonstrate and practice the

abilities for the negotiation and proposal of business changes and strategies. As the

environment and conditions of the game were giving in the lectures, as group it was interested

to find that all the team members were a little bit disoriented and many questions came up in

order to give the best individual and team efforts to gain every round.

In first place, the group found difficult to manage the software, they were honest to admit that

not all the rules and conditions were clear and explained in a proper way, however after

receiving a lecture the team found that the Cesim platform was a very friendly software that

will allow the team to implement the knowledge and experience as Business Managers.

By following the hand book provided by Cesim, team Blue started to gain confidence with the

managing of the business environment and through the sample provided by Cesim in the video,

it was much easier to follow and adequate the different strategies according to the business

environment proposed for the current universe 1. Obviously the combined effort and team work

was crucial in order to obtain the best results in the practices rounds, preparing the team for the

final and official rounds.

Initially, team Blue follow the analysis of the business environment in order to formulate

accurate strategies, through the PESTLE analysis, the team could identify the possible

opportunities and threats for the business in order to implement the best possible strategies in

order to be the winner and most profitable team; it could be mention that the analysis made in

the two practice rounds helped the team to obtain the first places within the competition,

generating motivation within the team members making more competitive and attractive the

competition through the time; it could be also mention that taking into account the results from

the practice rounds the team could identify which options and strategies were possible to

implement through the whole competition.

Finally it is important to mention that from the practice rounds, team Blue could identify that

the best strategies could be formulate by doing an accurate environmental analysis, taking into

account the performance of the competitors and the actual market conditions and trends, it was

important to determine that the group analysis during the rounds and the individual

contributions of each team member was a crucial factor that allow the tem obtain the great

results for the first time during the competition. Despite the disparity in opinions and thoughts

team blue had a good communication and integration from the beginning, making easier the

development of each round, in moments of confusion and stress because of the lack of

understanding of the platform, it was the good communication the important tool that allow

team blue to be pioneer and gain the first place during the practice round.

Analysis, Review and Reflection of Rounds

Team blue made a process for analysing, reviewing every round’s result:

Market analysis

Generally, team Blue started with PEST model for analyse macro-market conditions. Then

picked most influential points for discussing and analysing current ongoing round’s

modification. Almost every round, there were changes in political or economic situation

between American and Chinese governments, tension political relationship, rising tariff or

currency adjustments, these changes have influenced production, tax and logistics planning

directly.

It is also important to comparing competitors’ results from last rounds, usually, team Blue

follow these steps: Market reports Financial Statement Production Report Cost

Report Ratios, combine with SWOT model. The aim for this process is to determining main

competitors in current market and learning from their strong points.

Determining demand and techs for each market

Basically, team blue depends on analysis results and network coverage forecasts, using intense

data analysis and scenario analysis methods for determining demand and techs for each market.

For instance, as shown in C.1 is the network coverage forecast in round 5.

Round 5 was one of the most important rounds for team Blue’s development. Started from

rounds, team Blue formally changed main product strategy from price war into high-tech

strategy, and production demand distribution tended to become diversification. Thus, based on

previous rounds accumulative capital and technological development, team Blue decided these

products distribution plan (as shown in table C2) for round 5 and further rounds:

Tech 1

Tech 2

Tech 3

Tech 4

USA √ √

Asia √ √

Europe √ √

Tech

Market

Production planning

Demand forecasts and market condition analysis have already determine part of production

goal in each rounds, therefore, team Blue’s main concerns in this step are costs and productivity

distribution. Especially after round 5, strategy has changed in to high-tech strategy, thus

production strategy also changed into diversification. C3 shown the production planning,

production decisions( in-house and contract manufacturing) and production capacity of round

Team Blue tried to achieve lowering costs while maximizing production, eliminating

overproduction and minimizing unsatisfied demand. However, at round 5, team Blue didn’t

give enough attention of insufficient productivity, which actually caused later rounds’ shortage

in demand. It could be solved by planning new plants in Asia. Increasing the productivity in

Asia also can help releasing producing pressure in USA plants.

Determining Research & Development

R&D expenses is sensitive for whole teams financial deployment. As a mobile company,

mobile phone’s short product life-cycle characteristics makes team have no choice but keep

non-stopping invests in R&D. On the other hand, technological development made rising costs

in newer techs. Therefore, team Blue’s approach in this part:

a. Checking and analysing potential tech growth.

b. Comparing with competitors’ R&D expenses.

c. Calculating Return of investment index, make sure ROI is always higher then

costs.

Yet, the different expenses and time-costs of in-house development and purchase technology

and design licences has seriously influenced team’s decision-making. As shown in C4, which

is a technology development charts at the end of round 7

Tech 1, as high selling product with price-war strategy, team blue has stopped developing new

feature since round 5, tech 2 was sold large number in Asian and European markets, however,

tech 3 and tech 4 has replaced its market shares in these tow market, which means tech 2 started

decline stage, so team blue also stooped develop new feature since round 5. As for tech 3 and

tech 4, in-house development is cheaper but costs one more round for developing, which in

contrast, buying technology is slightly more expensive and can start producing immediately,

thus, team Blue has use both ways to make sure diversification of products in markets.

Setting marketing plan

Marketing plan has two parts: price decision and promotion decision.

During round 2 to round 4 for tech 1 and tech 2, price-war strategy with ongoing new product

features has primarily operated in all markets. Thus, profitable lower price, and also need to

skip from dumping suspicion, offered customer more buying choices with reasonable

promotion expenses are the main strategy and aim for team Blue in marketing during these

rounds.

Adjusting logistics

In this step team Blue generally comparing with previous rounds logistic decision then depends

on changing taxation and shipping costs from production area to markets, decided priority

logistics orders to production.

Yet, since high-tech strategy and production diversification strategy started at round 5, the

logistics was also based on market demand

Financial planning

Team Blue has realized several decisions in financial statement are accumulative. Thus,

comparing with previous results and current round’s costs and profit forecast, constantly made

dividend payment and share buyback.

Checking the availability of cash for paying debt

Therefore, C5 has shown several financial points at the end of round7

Evaluation of Strategies

Team Blue used PEST analysis in every round to find something related to economic issues.

This strategy yielded me to years and years. In round one the tariffs were high due to political

tension between USA and China government. So in the beginning team blue used PEST to

analyse some market conditions and then we started to study each part of the strategies. Blue

team used the planning for right process which is focused on cross company enterprise and

beneficially run the business to fulfil customers demand. During the rounds it was discussed

that the demand needed to be planned for the betterment of our business. Our team used

forecasting strategy to evaluate of the future demands. We were also focused on competitor

analysis strategy that allow us to keep an eye on competitor’s decisions in every round and to

revolve our strategies against the competing teams. Micro environmental factors helps us to

interconnected with company factors, customers and our competitors. By using marketing mix

we try to get lowest the cost and highest the production and also get satisfied demand and less

satisfied demand. We also try to find balance with two main factors, financial capacity and

productivity.

Team blue also considered about the consumer buying behaviour, we focused on some steps

that customers take before purchasing the products such as information search, purchase

options and purchase decision and try to meet customer’s demand. Our team was mainly

focused to develop the strategies that devoted to increase market shares because these strategies

grant the formation of a competitive choice for the company to develop an authentic

environment. During the game our team was depended on marketing and we considered that

we are losing some market shares. Therefore for first five rounds we focused on High tech

strategy to win market shares. We also made a plan to pay reasonable payment to the dividends

round by round. Team Blue considered to control market position. Tech 1 and tech 2 were very

popular in USA market where we used diversification strategy. Our team planned to invest in

product development where we offered our customers good products at a lower price as

compare to other teams. At last we can say that these strategies helped us to develop and

improve our responsibilities towards the global challenge simulation. On the other hand, our

sales revenue was very high and in round 6 our profit was not very good. The main reason for

less profit is that we put too much money in research and development and also is making

balance between in-house producing and outsourcing manufacturing.

Blue Team Overview – A critical evaluation of the Global Simulation Challenge

Blue team was a magnificent team where every member was supportive one another. Unity,

good communication between members and the mixture of strategies applied during the game

were core elements of blue team success. These fundamentals drove the team to be always one

of the leading companies with the largest profits year after year.

As most of the team members were risk-averse, in time of crisis such oilstan, decisions were

made trying to evade any form of investment. Consequently, the enlargement of the assets in

terms of new plants and development of new technologies was affected. Being risky would

have helped blue team to increase its production and gained a bigger market share towards the

end of the game considering that the volume of products demanded grew sharply in the last

two rounds of the challenge. However, the assets and the outsourcing capacity that blue team

had in those particular rounds were not enough to meet the increasing demand in the

marketplace.

Furthermore, the high levels of cash that blue team accumulated as a result of great revenues,

should have been reinvested quicker in order to make blue team more competitive against other

players and thus, assure that our shareholders had always the higher returns as they were

expecting. Yet, it is important to highlight that despite of the lack of investment mentioned, our

shareholder received every year the agreed return as well as the long term debt was paid. These

facts can be seen as indicators of how healthy the financial situation was for the company and

it was reflected in the low gearing coefficient that blue team had during all game. Undoubtedly,

blue team had a robust and strong financial performance which could have allowed easily the

firm to take new long-term loans in order to expand it as much as it could.

As a whole, the Global Simulation Challenge was a real experience for the blue team. It created

a real atmosphere of how businesses are carried out in the international environment. The

synergies between the team had to be gathered in order to understand how the market works,

analyse scenarios, financial situation, competitor strategies, understand preferences, estimate

the demand, create an optimal production plan and shape all other price, R&D, logistic and

taxation strategies that permitted to get the most of the market share and guaranteed the highest

possible return to our shareholders. However, the only downside of the challenge could be that

antidumping price and other policies that are present in the real world, should be included to

make the game even more real and enlarge the knowledge and understanding of other situations

that firms can face when internationalising.

Blue Team Signed letter

Deleted for privacy purposes.

PART B. Individual Report

Round Individual reflection

Reflection Round 1. As a member of blue team and considering that my academic formation

has been based on the economic field, it was agreed among the blue team’s director committee

to choose me to carry out all the decision making process in the first round of the game. Even

though I was leading the round, all decision were discussed with all members in our weekly

meeting and via WhatsApp where a group was created to debate any decision. With the

knowledge from the practice rounds, blue team knew that our initial and main strategy should

be focused in gaining the biggest slice of market share possible in order to assure the highest

return to stakeholders. To do so, the firm had to be expanded in terms of new production plans,

number of features to offer and technology evolution. With these element, blue team could

offer competitive prices in the market place and take advantages that maybe others did not

have.

Thus, the initial strategy was in pro of producing all the in-house capacity as well as using the

outsourcing resource we had at the beginning of the game in order to have as much revenues

as firm could. Attending the demand forecasted, the more wanted technologies were Tech1 and

Tech 2. Thus, it was decided to produce only these two technologies. Especially tech 2 that

was the more desired one. Other technologies (3 and 4) were not taken into consideration

because their expensive costs. Prices were stablished considering production costs and some

other relevant information that was analysed from prior rounds. However, with the intention

of achieving our aim of enlarging the firm and considering that there were some political

tensions between the USA and China governments, on my command, it was suggested to make

some investment in Asia. The proposal was to build three new plants in Asia in order to have

presence in this continent, decrease logistic cost and avoid high taxation of products as a result

of the political disparities. In addition, purchasing new licences was a necessity at that time in

the game. It allowed the inclusion of new features on products while making them more

attractive than our competitors. Furthermore, first dividends were paid to our shareholders in

order to build trust between them and blue team. The proposal was accepted for all member of

the blue team committee and it was executed.

The results from this round did not disappoint. However, it could have been better. Blue team

was the third on revenues with sales of 1 989 502, consolidating a share price on U$ 200.4 just

$3 below of the green team which had the highest share price. Yet, it must be mentioned that

other players did not invest in Research and development as blue team did. This dissimilarity

made the difference between blue team and others in future rounds.

Simulation Reflection

Cesim Global Challenge is a system which creates a hypothetic marketplace that gather all

elements found in the international business sphere: suppliers, firms, products and consumers

from all over the world. The simulation involves market analysis in terms of budgets,

competitors and other forces of the market; demand estimations based on evaluation of

demand estimations and consuming buying behaviour; constructing an optimal production

plan (In House/Outsourcing) to satisfy all the demand; Research and Development

determining how and where to invest (Licences purchasing/In house production/Construction

of new plants); Marketing which involves the processes of setting prices and the level of

promotion to push a particular product; Logistics and taxation to adjust transportation costs

and taxes in different continent in order to overlap tariffs; and obviously the respective financial

analysis in terms of capitalisation of company, cash flow statements, ratios, market shares as

well as equity and liabilities statements.

As the all competitors were aiming to maximise the shareholders returns, it was necessary to

develop strategies supported on theories and case studies studied on lectures. For instance,

when evaluating the market conditions, PESTEL and SWOT analysis were relevant to identify

opportunities, threats and other situations that could impact the wellness of the firm.

Furthermore, the initial strategy was decided considering consumer buying behaviour and the

forecast demand. Consequently, low prices were stablished for our team as well as competitors.

As a result, a “price war” started and new strategies had to be applied in order to get the best

possible results. A marketing mix strategy was designed to produce with lower costs than other

players when capitalising on the production. This strategy was combine with policies of

keeping prices down when other teams were increasing prices. To do that, evaluation of

financial situation and productivity was carried out with concepts learned during the course.

Executing those strategies the team capitalised the firm and obtained the biggest market share

in those rounds. Yet, new strategies had to be developed due to the simulation environment

was changing year by year. Thus, as it was a technological evolution based game, the next

strategy was diversification. The aim of this was to obtain the potential profit while offering

new technologies. The technological evolution process could be illustrated as follow:

Tech 1 & 2 in round 4

All technologies in market round 5 and 6

At the end, all these strategies resulted in placing our team in the leading positions of the game

as one of the most capitalised firms with high levels of revenues and achieving our main

objective: maximise our shareholders return.

For designing and executing these strategies, blue team had to have a theory background that

was gained from lectures and own study. The atmosphere created by Cesim provided the

chance to contrast the theory and practice regarding to international business.

Global challenge simulation relevance

The Global Challenge is a didactic business game that allows players the understanding of the

international business operations of a firm in a competitive environment. All lineaments of the

game are …

MSc International Business

MODULE TITLE: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SIMULATION (BMG706)

TEAM REPORT & INDIVIDUAL REPORT

MODULE LECTURER: DR. ANWAR HAQUE

Sohail mia (B00699495)-The Team Leader

Sushil sitaula (B00696966) Md sadequl haque saju (B00699212)

Judith ovadje (B00699810) Abdul bayes shipu (B00700142)

Submitted by -Sohail Mia
B00699495 | LONDON CAMPUS
15 DECEMBER, 2015.
LONDON CAMPUS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Team Report Contents

Page No

Part –A (Introduction of team)
1-5

Part-B (Review and analyse the practice round)
6-7

Part-C (Analysis, review and reflection of the rounds)
8-9

Part-D (Evaluation of the Strategies)
9-11

Part-E (Team performance and a critical evaluation of global simulation challenge) 11-14

Part-F (Signed Letter of Marks allocation)
14-15

Individual Report Contents

Part –G (individual reflection of the rounds) 16-19

Part –H (Reflection of the overall simulation) 19-20

Part-I (My view about the Global Challenge Simulation) 20-21

Conclusion 22

References 23

Appendices 24-28

Orange’s Team Report

Vision – Inspire people to connect with passion and affordability.

Mission – To maximise shareholder value through innovation, affordable prices by

benefiting customers’ needs.

Our Corporate Values-Our values based on three principles –Excellence,

Commitment and Credibility.

 Excellence –Everything we do

 Commitment –To our stakeholder

 Credibility – To staff , clients and suppliers

Part –A (Introduction of team)

Orange is the leading and the most innovative and most profit making

Telecommunication Company based in the United States. We made the largest profit

in the business simulation among all team, it demonstrated and reflected our in-depth

understanding, knowledge and skills throughout the journey of simulation game.

Orange proud of its Excellency, commitment and credibility to stakeholder over the

years. Orange is the most reliable and trustworthy brand in the mobile phone

manufacturing industry which is bringing new and innovative handsets with exclusive

features and technologies to markets first than all competitors.

ORANGE

EXCELLENCE

CREDIBILITY COMMITMENT

Orange has quickly expanded its business operation all around the world through

strong leadership, effective management, leading R & D (Research & Development)

affordable pricing strategies and largest distributions and selling networks. Orange

believe in “destructive innovation” that means our continuous endeavours, focus and

goal is to invent new technologies to satisfy consumers’ demand and to hold the

leading position in the global markets.

Team members’ skills and expertise

Orange team formed with five diverse members. The core values of team based on

five principles which is bonding glue that tie up everyone and everything together that

reflects our team culture. The core values of orange team is demonstrated in the graph

-1. Orange has demonstrated its effective team work, team sprits and collaboration

throughout the rounds leaded by strong and effective leadership of Mr. Sohail Mia

(B00699495). Every team member encouraged and promoted him to be our team

leader. We are delighted that we chose a right individual who showed his leadership

skills, management efficiency, and responsibilities beyond our expectation. Mr. Mia

treated, valued and respected every team member equally and his influence motivated

us strongly to accomplish our team work effectively on time. He has done MBA (Master

in Business Administration) in previously, that helps us to get more insights about

multinational business operations, importance of strategic values, operational and

tactical values of an international organisation and many more things.

Graph-1: The core team values of Orange.

Sushil Sitaula (B00696966) is one of the most dedicated team player, he has shown

his analytical skills throughout the rounds. He is observant and reliable, he utilised his

creativity and efficiency in this simulation. Although, he is quite in nature but his

sincerity impressed the team. He has completed professional leadership and creativity

diploma that helped him to put his learning in the simulation game. Md. Sadequl

Haque (B00699212) and Abdul Bayes Shipu (B00700142) demonstrated their

sincerity and flexibility to the team. They both showed their team sprits and

hardworking attitudes all rounds the business simulation. Sadequal Haque carried out

very good efforts to finish team task on time. Mr. Shipu is a good example of an active

listener, he is introvert, and however he contributed team effectually.

Another, amazing team player is Judith Ovadje (B00699810), she is only female

member of our team. She bought her experiences of working multinational companies.

Her rational and constructive argument added new dimension to our group work. She

is outspoken and inspirational, she shared her knowledge, experiences and expertise

and she added her openness and operational attitudes all over the rounds. Finally,

every team member worked together, shared their views and experiences and

contributed to be the most profitable telecommunication company among all the

competitors.

Orange
Team

Values

Trust &
Respect

Team sprits

Motivation Engagement

Transparency

Communication and Decision Making Techniques

From the beginning of the business simulation, we have developed our team values

that was demonstrated in the previous graph -1. We developed our team spirit and

added our learning outcomes and experiences subsequently at every round to

improve our performance. We have created “What UP” group messenger to

communicated each other’s, besides telephone conversion and email services. Every

round we have set our group agenda, group meeting and minutes as suggested by

our respected tutor Dr. Anwar Haque, which helped us to improve our performance

and group activities round to round.

Arindam & Nag (2011) recognised four ways of group decision making process such

as Brainstorming, Nominal group technique, Delphi technique and Didactic interaction.

Orange group used brainstorming technique for all group decision, as it is the more

effective, allows every individual to generate ideas rather than evaluation of ideas. In

addition, brainstorming technique based on simple structure which is quick, efficient

and lets instantly discussion to make decision among group members.

We set mandatory group meeting participation and engagement. We are very focused

and motivated through effective and friendly leadership of Mr. Sohail Mia. During our

group meeting, brainstorming and identified tactical and operational strategies

individually, and then discussed our ideas, arguments, rational among group .Finally

we have decided together the best strategic options to achieve our company mission

all around the rounds.

Part-B (Review and analyse the practice round)

To understand the business simulation working process, at first team were given the

opportunity to involve within the simulation (cesim, 2015), as refer as Practice rounds

by the simulation itself. There was two practice round. At the beginning team orange

felt nervous and complex regarding the simulation interface and rules because it was

the first time that orange Team is playing the game. Team were sensitive regarding to

familiarize within the simulation, Team was confused and tensed. At the same time,

Team thought that effective leadership is needed to guide the Team. As (Locke, 1991)

states that Leadership is the process that induce others to take action towards a

common goal. Soon team leader was formed then Group discussion was conducted,

realized that every team member needed to understand about strategy and its

importance at the same time Simulation decision guide was considered for

familiarizing the simulation. Various simulation videos was considered to understand

the basic workflow of simulation. Though it wasn’t sufficient to act at first.

With a limited knowledge, Team played practice round 1, decision was made after

group discussion that every member will play the simulation, as per according to

decision guide. Team somehow managed to input some ‘raw value’ raw value because

Team didn’t knew what value need to put what is the minimum and maximum value

and what that value means. For example in demand section, Team forecast that in

USA market share would be 19.3 %, in Asia 19.3 % same goes to Europe. Team did

not knew exact relationship between demand forecast and market share in the

simulation, so Team put same value in every country. Same goes to every part of

business function like production, marketing. Minimum money was invested in

Research and development. As a result came out we found that our team made

highest profit with high market share. After reviewing the result and comparing with

others, knowing that our team actually did well and was more motivated and willing to

learn more about the simulation. Also team realised that leadership is the key factor

that makes the Team strong and success.

As Team moved to practice round 2, group discussion was conducted for making

effective decision, this time every team members had gone thoroughly decision guide

once more to make sure that team understand every aspect of simulation areas. Team

familiarize with market outlook, understand that one round is equal to one fiscal year,

and when investing in production plant it takes two round which means two fiscal year,

and payment is done on that year. Team also familiarize with research and

development areas that in simulation there are two options to get technology in house

development when invest takes one extra round to be available whereas, buying

technology and design licenses when invest technology is available immediately.

Team also analysed the competitors, their marketing budget, and their cost and

production capacity. This round Team was looking for new technology so team decide

to invest in house development with minimum price also effective marketing.

The result of round 2 showed that our team was still market leader with highest profit

and high shareholder return. This was achieved from effective group discussion. From

the practice round Team learn many aspects of business simulation, layout of

simulation, Team realised that there is relationship in every aspects of business

function in simulation, Team also learnt that with effective marketing mix, Team can

maximize market share and profit. Team also learnt other main areas of decision

making such as logistics in order to meet the demand, finance and budget that proper

strategy is needed to pay the dividend. Beside that one the main aspects is that group,

meeting where team felt that it is necessary after playing practice round.

Part-C (Analysis, review and reflection of the rounds)

During Group meeting, Team had discussed various different approach to market the

product in the beginning of the round 1. The strategy was based on company’s vision

and mission. From round 1 to round 3 Team followed the strategy of cost based Pricing

strategy with low promotion. Team Orange also invest in Research and development.

Further Team also considered to not to pay dividend to the shareholders or issue

shares.

From the financial statements and other market reports showed that Team strategy

was not effective because team didn’t able to capture market share nor the Team

orange had surplus the Profit see appendix 3. Team orange market capitalization of

the company was lower than the other team. Team orange market capitalization was

$ 9297005 (K USD), whereas other team like Team Green who called themselves as

Mobile Tech inc had $ 21277713 (K USD), shareholder return was also lower see

Appendix 1 for all ratios of Teams. Also other teams were selling handset more

affordable compare to our team. Team orange also realised that investment on

Research and development was very low which had direct effect on sales because of

unavailable features. Lastly from the analysis from the report, Team understood that

Promotion strategy was not working effectively. Finally from the report, Team

understand that Orange needed to invest in new plants in Asia, because competitors

already invested in plants which was another reason that demand in Asia was not

fulfilled and cost of transportation to Asia was high from USA.

After analysing all the data and strategy that Team had pursued, in future team

considered to follow differentiation strategy in order to maximize Profit because it will

also allow Team to adjust the price according to market competition and availability of

technology. Another strategy that Team would considered to do huge invest in

Research and development and will only consider buying technology if needed.

Whereas in promotion Team orange would invest more for effective promotion. Also

Team will consider investing in few plants in Asia but not too high.

After focusing on different strategy from round 4 to 7, result was very effective all the

strategy that was considered had positive impact on the company’s growth. Team

orange surplus more profit by round 6 see appendix 4, Team had $ 1002977 ( K

USD), Team orange market capitalization of the company had increased to $

21946209 ( k USD) which was the highest among all the teams by round 7. Share

price had increased (see Appendix 2) which was good sign that company is very

strong, shareholder return was high. Team orange was the first Team to gain market

share in new Technology 3 and 4 which shows that the strategy of investing on

Research and development was effective.

Part-D (Evaluation of the Strategies)

A strategy is the way or the direction a firm use to achieve its’ goals and objective in a

changing environment by using its’ limited resources and competence so that they can

satisfy their stakeholders (Johnson et al 2005). In this global simulation competition,

there different strategies all the various competitors from the different team applied in

the challenges to arrive at an end result. Looking at the overall challenges one can

evaluate the different strategies used by the different group. As a team (orange) being

the winner of the competition the strategy we used and how we applied it gave us the

competitive advantages over rivals. As explained by (Hunger and Wheelen 2005), it is

very important to make the best the right and the best possible strategy that will of

benefit to firm. Right from the start we were very careful when choosing a strategy to

be applied although we made some few errors and mistake in some of our decision

making which affected our profit a bit.

At any point in time before we apply any strategy we always look at the market

condition. The market condition as explained by (Butt et al, 2010) is the position of

the firm or the economy of the environment the firm operate in and this condition

influences the firm in taking a strategic decision that will either affect the firm positively

or negatively. The condition can be the demand for the product, cost of production,

price or even the external environment (PEST). The market condition gives us an

insight on what strategy to use at every round.

In employing the strategy we looked at the external factors of the market outlook that

can be an issue on each round using PEST analysis.

 Political:- There are political intervention in all the three market environment ,

USA, Asia and Europe. For example in round 2 the USA and the China

government are hitting each other on a head to head in imposing higher tax on

imported goods of each other country while the whole of Europe is imposing a

very high tax of 31% on corporate firm. The strategy we in this round was to

invest building more plant in Asia and USA to minimize exportation

 Economic:- The ups and down of the global economy plays a role the instability

in price exchange rate and interest rate. For example in round 3, the high cost

of oil in China has made transportation to go up with about 15% which will

eventually affect production and cost of outsourcing.

 Social:- The social behavior of this three region is different each region has

have what they crave for the hand set the Asian customers care of about the

price to purchase the handset while the USA and European customers care for

the features of the handset. Our strategy was to in each concentrate on each

region products that is most requested.

 Technology: – The way things are getting done are being influence at the

speed rate in changes in technology. For example a sudden outbreak in

technology which has helped USA and Europe to support Tech 4. We had to

invest for new plant in USA for tech 4.

Production:- We aim at meeting the market demand, so we make sure we fully utilize

the needed capacity on each round to as much as possible avoid waste or under

produced. Although in some occasions we contract manufacturing. For example in

round 5 we involve contract manufacturing in tech 4 in the USA because we want to

make sure we meet up with market demand.

Investment:- we invested wisely especially in-house research and development

(R&D) being that the mobile phone have a short life span that is, new technology on

handset comes so quickly and if one is not at alert, competitors will take over the

market by offering new and enhanced mobile handset , therefore we make sure we

invested on innovation. With the market growth is what we decide invest in building

more plants to meet up the demand capacity.

Marketing:- In carrying out our marketing, the strategy we use was to invest in

promotions using different type diverse channels to ensure our product rich the right

audience we set our price to suit the different market ensuring we make gain, offer the

product and the feature in accordance to the different market preference for example

tech 2 is most crave for in the Asian market. We also make sure the product is in the

right place. For example we enter into contract with some network provider.

Transportation: – We make sure we have an effective logistic using modern means

of technology to reduce and minimize cost, and time saving. We make sure we satisfy

the region of production more in as much as we try to satisfy other region. Satisfying

the region first save cost for us because we don’t have to pay for tariff since it is

produce within. For example tech 2 is which is mostly in demand especially in Asia,

we make sure that region is most satisfied for tech 2 before the other region.

Finance: – when it comes to financing we make sure we try to limits taking founding

from outside .we use in house funding and when the need to raise fund we take long

term loan and sometimes sell share. We make sure no matter how little the dividend,

as we make profit we pay dividend to our shareholders in accordance with our

dividend policy and also pay back debts that needed to be paid at the right time.

Part-E (Team performance and a critical evaluation of global simulation

challenge)

Team was formed with 5 talented innovative people to face the challenge from

business simulation game. It needed collaboration and contribution from each member

to compete with other groups. It is not easy to achieve the objectives initially. So we

identified the importance of effective leadership and select a leader who has higher

acceptance among the group. As claimed by Yukl (2006), a leader must have the

ability to lead people to achieve the goal.

In this business strategy game, team leader assign task to every member and together

we come out of the solutions in terms of areas such as market conditions, demand,

production, R&D, marketing, logistics, tax, and finance. Team leader has used the

Tuckman model for the process development through four steps which are forming,

storming, norming, and performance. During the process of the business strategy

development, the group members came out with different ideas. There were

arguments and conflicts within the group members but the group was able to come up

with final decision because of strong leadership. The group also faced some problems

during the process development. Looking at the market condition, the US seems to be

the mature market and the European is near to saturation. So we used higher

technology there compared with the Asian market. Also The difficulty we faced is the

right decision making to fulfil the demand in the different market. After effective

consultation, the group members agreed to set new plants in Asia in order to reduce

the costs.

The group members also understood that there is shortage of supplying handset in

the market. Outsourcing strategy (Kenion, 2005) was one of the solution to increase

the cost efficiency and to fulfil the market demand. During the discussion, there were

some agreement and disagreement among the members. However, team saw the

benefits of the process development especially referring to the production

development. This area is very complex when comes to the analysis of unit cost,

production and capacity utilisation. The initial few round, we did not manage to fully

utilise the capacity. There was a waste in the production capacity. However, the time

gone by, the group manages to utilise the capacity maximisation. There are two

production lines at the round 7. Group members decide only producing tech 3 and tech

4 to reach the profit maximisation. However, there was still a shortage of quantity to

fulfil the market demand.

The group members decided to continue the outsourcing strategy in order to maintain

customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the global markets. The decision of the

production was still based on the Asia plants and US plants which was safer option.

Coming to the R&D area, it always had different opinions for the product development.

Group members thought tech 2 was a big unique selling product in the market. So

Tech 2 consume the largest provision fund for the R&D development following by tech

4, tech 1, and tech 3. But we belive there were some lacking in The R&D investment

decision which could have been done better way if we played the game again.

Group members were more knowledgable and confident in term of marketing

development. Marketing is important to gain sales in order to achieve the corporate

goals and objectives (Lynch, 2000). So far, it was the most interesting part of the whole

process of the business strategy development. The team orange manage to compute

the cost and selling price. The calculation also comes out the margin of the sales. The

team also decided the provision amount of products for each region. Obviously, every

round maintains profit margin. The team have made quick decisions on marketing

areas. Obviously this area had better acceptance among the group members.

Team identified the problem of the logistics. Although some members suggested to

develop a new plant in the Eastern Eunopean and to distrubute the products into the

European market. However, team members understood that there was shortage of the

capital investment. So, we did not invest on new plant in europe and the European

market relied on the concept of supplier chain and logistics development through the

US plant and the Asian plant. so it was a tough decision and we could have done

better if we had invested for a new plant in europe.

One of the bad side from the group process and decision was the production strategy.

Tech 2 seems to be the best products in Asian market. However, it may not be right

because there are some developed countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and

Singapore have advantage technology. So The decision to make tech 2 in Asia may

be not reality. We may made a bad decision on European market where the team

could consider building a new plant in the Eastern Europe. This is because some of

the Eastern Europe countries are developing countries which may be a new markets

for the team Orange business development. The outsourcing development also needs

to consider for the quality due to the complaints.

To conclude the global simulation challenge development, it is an interesting project

because of knowledge and skills tranfers among the decision making from the team

members. It can be improved through the collaboration and absopt the professional

knowledge to make decision making.

Part-F (Signed Letter of Marks allocation)

Dear MR ANWAR HAQUE,

First of all a big thanks to you for giving us an opportunity to gain experience about

how to run a business in competitive global market through Cesim global challenge

game. Though it was a long journey but we finally completed our Cesim game

successfully. This was possible because of a strong team work and greater

contribution from each members of our team. As a result group performance was

highly appreciated and we become number one amongst all other competitors in this

business simulation game. Below we identified some main areas where our entire

group members contributed their ideas and knowledge’s to make our organisation

most profitable compare to other competitor groups. And some suggestion provided

regarding the mark distribution among the group members.

Contributing areas Suggested marks among group members

Group meeting Every group members were present at all group

meeting and shared their own ideas equally.

Strategy making Every member analyses and researches the

market condition properly and we all were agreed

to implement the most suitable strategies for the

business success.

Time spent for playing cesim games We all group members spent 15 hours a week to

play this game. It was a long journey and we work

shoulder to shoulder to make it possible. So equal

contribution remarks.

Decision making It was very difficult to take right decision

considering the continuous changes of market

condition in each round. But all of our group

members worked hard and share their different

ideas and assist the future market very well. As a

result our group decisions for future business

strategy were spot on. So we appreciate very

group members equal contribution.

Signatures of group members:

Sohail mia (B00699495)-The Team Leader

Sushil sitaula (B00696966)

Judith ovadje (B00699810)

Md sadequl haque saju (B00699212)

Abdul bayes shipu (B00700142)

Individual Report

Part –G (individual reflection of the rounds)

The purpose of the international business simulation is to maximise the total

cumulative shareholder investment and return, which comprises dividends, changes

in the values of shares as well as the interest that the dividends generate for the

shareholder (Cesim, 2015) .To gain outlined objectives and to fulfil company’s mission,

the Orange team was formed by five dynamic members who worked as a senior

management executive in the international business environment in a team setting.

According to simulation guideline, the all members agreeing together, has urged,

offered and encouraged me to lead the team. I took this challenge as a mean of

opportunity to gain new skills, qualities and experiences and to evaluate my

potentialities. All group members put their trust on me to carry out my responsibilities,

finally through the hardest efforts of team members and through my leadership, the

Orange team has been highlighted as the largest profit making team among all others

participated teams.

Leadership

As being promoted of group leader, I had to work on all the aspects of decision making

process and finalised the group decision at every round through group discussion as

a core responsibility. However, I have tried to allocate group works among group

member in different areas at every round based upon on their interest and personal

skills, so that the team can get more insights and different approach to compete with

other teams, it also develops divers skills of team members end of the rounds. I also

endeavours to work in the different areas besides my core responsibilities that are

demonstrated below.

Market Outlook Analysis

In the first round and fourth round, I worked in the market …

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