A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD GAME: THE BUSINESS STRATEGY GAME: A GLOBAL INDUSTRY SIMULATION, 3Ed. Developments In Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 22, 1995. 134 A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD GAME: THE BUSINESS STRATEGY GAME: A GLOBAL INDUSTRY SIMULATION, 3Ed. Stephen J. Snyder The University of West Florida ABSTRACT This paper presents a review of the additions and changes made to the just-released third edition of The Business Strategy Game by Thompson & Stappenbeck (1 995). The game is placed into context through a brief overview, with changes from the last edition of the game highlighted. INTRODUCTION The Business Strategy Game The BSG is an international total enterprise game, with separate markets for North America, Europe, and Asia. Student teams compete in four athletic footwear markets: three branded geographic markets of North America (plants in Ohio and Texas), Europe and Asia, and a private-label market in North America. Game administrators have the ability to process yearly decisions for four to sixteen teams of students in a fictitious industry. Game variables include such dynamics as plant expansions, sales and closing of plants, advertising, labor inputs, automation, customer service representatives, and rebates, to name a few. Economic variables include exchange rate fluctuations, tariffs and a stock market index. Version one of the BSG (1990) ran on a Lotus 1-2-3 ver. 2.01 operating platform. This significantly limited the ability of the developers to customize the game and build in user- friendly features, such as customizable print menus and the ability to modify specific industry variables. Version 2 abandoned the Lotus 1-2-3 platform in favor of the Baylor program (run. exe). While an improvement, the game still had limited administrator capabilities. The advantage of the second version of the game was that users no longer had to have Lotus 1-2-3 to run the simulation. Version three uses a modified version of the Baylor program (run2. exe) and includes the capability to change a wide array of options and correct run errors. In fact, the crash-proofing of the latest version may be the most valued attribute of the BSG version 3.0a.. The Business Strategy Game, 3rd Edition The third edition of the BSG possesses a wide array of changes and enhancements. What follows is a summary by category of some of these major changes. 1. Variable Additions/Changes Number of Models/ Quality Levels Versions one and two of the BSG modeled one quality level for the four markets available for selling products (three branded areas of North America, Asia, and Europe, and the private label market in North America). Version three allows teams to differentiate by offering different quality levels in each of the markets. In addition, teams can vary the number of models (e.g. product line breadth) in each of the markets. The intent by the developers was to allow a more varied strategy for game players by using the same variables, but splitting them up by market segment. The Private Label Market Thompson & Stappenbeck have further refined the private label market in version three. In the private label market, teams offer shoes at a specific price. In version two, unsold offered pairs were sold in the branded market. In the new version, unsold offered pairs can either be held in inventory in private label or converted (for a fee) to branded sales markets. Plant Sales Another change to the third edition is how plants can be sold. In the first two versions of the BSG, only entire plant facilities could be bought or sold between teams. The new version allows teams to sell entire plants or parts of each plant (in multiples of 1, 000,000 pairs). II. Decision Support System Pro-Formas Game play has been enhanced by including more powerful what-ifs. These what-if projections appear at the bottom of the screen and change as data is placed in the various screens of decision inputs (e.g. labor, production, shipping, marketing, finance). Feedback is automatically updated on the bottom of the screen, which helps to avoid the time- consuming process of viewing separate what-if screens. The decision support system also provides feedback on the number of workers needed for a given level of production, based on productivity levels, and other what-ifs pertinent to the sub-menu a player happens to be in. Error trapping has been expanded so that the program will not accept any decision entry, which falls outside the valid range or is of the wrong type. Competitor Analysis Competitor analysis has been enhanced by including a separate company analysis disk with the program. Teams are provided a sub-menu, which prepares either industry or specific company competitor analysis reports. These reports Developments In Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 22, 1995. 135 facilitate both industry and focused analyses of the competition. Teams have the ability to print a chosen year’s industry analysis or a year-by-year analysis of the decisions from one of the competitors. The reports provide information from the footwear industry report (FIR), arranged into formats suitable for easy diagnosis of competitor strategies. Footwear Industry Report The primary means for students to assess the success of their strategies is the FIR. Version three adds another page of decision information, which compares team-by-team results on income statements, balance sheets, plant construction, and additional information on the private-label market. Ill. Administrator Tools Screen Appeal/Graphical User Interface The developers have changed the visual feel of the game by making the decision entry screens easier to read, with less clutter. The menu bar at the top of the screen has been redesigned for speedy access to sub-menus. The levels of menus are easy to follow and intuitive. Perhaps the most valuable change is the graphical user interface (GUI) addition of a mouse. Screens can be passed over, or specific fields for inputs found by pointing and clicking the mouse. Users may still find themselves using the ESCape key and the arrows keys required in previous editions to move around but once a player or administrator catches on to the abilities of the mouse, the keyboard becomes secondary. Administrator Menus The administrator is presented with a far wider array of options, not only for running the game, but for conducting administrative functions. The simulation still provides the option to choose from either 10 pre-programmed demand growth tables or a customized table. A change to this version is the way exchange rates and stock indexes are treated. In versions one and two, administrators entered exchange rates and the S&P 500 index for the current year. In the new version administrators are asked to type in the exchange rates and S&P index for the following years. The game then uses this information in processing to update company disks with the what-ifs for exchange rates and economic conditions ($&P 500) for the following year. This eliminates guesswork for the teams. While making their decision, they know what the exchange rates and S&P 500 index will be for the year in which they are making decisions. This takes a degree of realism out of the game. The crash-proofing ability of the latest version of the BSG is impressive. Administrators were previously limited to rerunning only the latest year in case of industry problems. Version three has the ability to re-run any year. In case team disks become corrupted, the recreate option from the operations menu provides improved flexibility to restore the lost information .An undocumented addition to the new version is a data editor which enables administrators to change individual information stored about the industry or the companies. A warning is presented when entering this sub-menu (accessed by hitting the F6 key), indicating that changes to the individual files used for running the game may cause irretrievable losses of data. In previous versions of the game, erroneous data could only be corrected by loading specific spreadsheets into Lotus 1-2~3 and then calling the game developer to find out what information was held in the various, number-cluttered fields. Printer Set-up Each time the game is accessed, either in the players or administrators programs, an option allows different printer set-ups to be chosen, including selections for type of printer, port number, and number of lines per page. This allows the game to be run on different players computer systems without affecting printout performance. Printing is also facilitated through the use of PRN ascii files, so that in case teams experience difficulties with printing out reports from the menu they can print them from the command prompt. OVERALL ASSESSMENT The above description was facilitated through the use of a pre-release version of the game in three capstone business policy sections. The biggest difference in running the new version is the appetite of the software. Versions one and two fit on a non-high-density 3 1/2’ disk. The new version gobbles up two high-density 3 1/2” disks (including the company analysis disk). For players, the main difference is the lime it takes to run the game from a floppy drive. Version two could be accessed from a floppy drive in less than a minute, while the new version requires a wait of 5 minutes, depending on system speed. This necessitates running the game from the hard drive. Space requirements for the administrator included 11 megs of hard drive space for a 15 team industry (reduce this number by .5 megs per team for industries with less than 15 teams). Administrators will also notice the increases in time requirements for processing a decision. On a 486-66DX2 system With 20 Megs of RAM, a decision for an industry with 1 5 teams took 63 minutes (including printing out the reports). The read time of company information consumed 30 seconds per disk, while the write time to update company disks was two minutes per disk. This is a significant increase over the processing requirements of version two— 10 seconds per read and 25 per write for each company disk. Non-486 or Pentium based machines will find the going tough. REFERENCES Available on request Table of Contents Volume 22, 1995 Simulation Performance, Learning and Struggle Are Good Simulation Performers Consistently Good? Cognitive and Behavioral Consistency in a Computer-Based Marketing-Simulation-Game Environment: An Empirical Investigation of the Decision-Making Process Chalk & Cheese: Executive Short-Course vs. Academic Simulations Revisiting Personality Bias in Total Enterprise Simulations Are Good Strategies Consistently Good? Investigating the Use of a Computer Simulation as an Effective Pedagogical Tool for the Application of a Strategic Model The Problem of determining an Individualized Simulation's Validity as an Assessment Tool A Simulation Based Analysis of the Value of Information in the Hrebiniak Joyce Typology of Adaptation Relative to Porter's Generic Strategies The Impact of Sales and Income Growth on Profitability and Market Measures in Actual and Simulated Industries A Comparison of a Stand Alone Version of a Simulation with the Traditional Competitive Version Computer-Assisted Gaming of International Business Analyzing Simulations with Computer-Based Programs and Applying the Experience to a Real-World Business A Preliminary Investigation of the Use of a Bankruptcy Indicator in a Simulation Environment Graduates' Views on the Use of Computer Simulation Games Versus Cases as Pedagogical Tools An Analytical Advertising Model Approach to the Determination of Market Demand Dealing with the Complexity Paradox in Business Simulation Games A Prototyping Approach for Incorporating Large Data Bases into Media Planning Simulations: An Example Using Magazine Media Through the Looking Glass, Inc: Superior-Subordinate Personality Type and the Leniency effect Evaluating the Effectiveness of Role Playing Simulation and Other Methods in Teaching Managerial Skills Student and Teacher Perceptions of a Management Simulation Course Performance Evaluation: The Effect on the Propensity to Create Budgetary Slack Management Team Formation for Large Scale Simulations Comparative Static Analysis with the Complete PPA Package: A Strategic Market Planning Tool Consistency in Intent: Learning Objectives at the 1994 Intercollegiate Business Policy Competition A New Twist on an Old Game: The Business Strategy Game: A Global Industry Simulation 3ed Evaluation of Performance in Management Simulation: A Management Coefficients Model Building SimuWorlds: Strategic Management Games of the Future Bulls and Bears: A Stock Market Simulation A Systems Thinking Paradigm and Think Computer Simulation Model of Broadcast and Cable Television Industry Competition Jacket Factory The Sales Management Simulation The Marketing Management Simulation A Demonstration of Promodel Demonstrating A New, Cross-Functional Business Simulation: Vision+ A Cost Chain For The Business Strategy Game Simulation Special Session On Experiential Teaching Compensation Dilemmas: An Exercise In Ethical Decision-Making Organizational Storytelling: Telling Tales In The Business Classroom Evaluating Experiential Training: Case Study And Recommendations The Internship Portfolio: An Innovative Tool For Experiential Learning, Critical Thinking, And Communication An Ethnographic Analysis Of The Pedagogical Impact Of Cooperative Communicating Consumer Behavior: A Long-Term Integrated Exercise Using Personal Consumption Journals And Consumer Analysis Papers An Experiential Paradigm For Teaching Business Problem Solving Developing Leadership Skills The Spss® Student Assistant: The Integration of A Statistical Analysis Program Into A Marketing Research Textbook Negotiating With Your Students Using TQM Principles To Transform Accounting Systems Into An Experiential Exercise Enhancing The Effectiveness Of Outdoor-Based Experiential Training Using Virtual Reality Concepts Case Writing In A Developing Country: An Indonesian Example Experiential Learning Using Focus Groups How Real Should Experiential Pedagogy Be? A Viewpoint From Our Students Reengineering The Internship: A New Approach To Experiential Learning Utilizing The Cosmopolitan/Local And Marginal Man Constructs To Measure Students' Propensity For Creativity Developing Experiential Processes For Teaching Quantitative Techniques For Business Team Learning Roles: A Cooperative Learning Technique Creating the Ultimate Small Business Student Experience: Melding Score/Ace with SBI The Development of Trust in Work Teams: The Impact of Touch Some Outcomes of Experiential Learning: How the Cultural Dynamics of Different Countries are reflected in Workplace Norms & Values Incorporation of Job Analysis Results in Various Forms of Selection Interviews Chudesno, Inc.: An Evaluation of an Experiential Training and Development Simulation An Exercise for Exploring the Relationship between Jungian Psychological Types and Organizational Dynamics Partnership: A Radical Approach to Experiential Learning Partnership: A Nice Idea, But How Do I Get Started? Recognizing Discrimination at Work Using Critical Incident Skills Questions to Help Students Become More Successful at Job Interviewing The Video Project Introduction to Psychological Type Theory Come On Down Understanding Facilitation for Development and Continuous Learning: A Micro-Workshop Leadership and Empowerment: An Experiential Exercise in Decision Making Experiential Exercises and Pedagogy Track Workshop: Selecting a Manager for Maquiladora, Inc. Experiential Training In Multi-Cultural Corporate Settings The Role of Facilitation as an Aid to Complete Learning An Experiential Exercise to Illustrate Difference in Information Processing Behaviors and Styles How to Deliver Accessible Survey Results Age Diversity in the Workplace- Family Feud Style Nafta Standoff: A Cross-Cultural negotiating Role-Play Three Strikes and You're Out!: A Downsizing Experiential Exercise