MEET Project: Management E-learning Experience for Training secondary school's students Code: LLP-LDV-TOI-10-IT-560 Lifelong Learning Programme (2007-2013) Leonardo da Vinci Programme Multilateral projects Transfer Of Innovation 1
STUDENT HANDBOOK 2
- SUMMARY - INTRODUCTION... 4 What is The Business Game?... 4 The Tournament... 4 THE SOFTWARE... 5 GAME OUTPUT... 13 Expected Results... 13 Summary of Last Quarter... 14 Summary of the effects... 14 Competitors... 15 Results... 15 Fundamentals of finance... 16 The Balance Sheet... 17 The Income Statement... 17 3
INTRODUCTION The Business Game is a web-based application that simulates the competitive business to business (BTB) market. Each team plays the role of a company operating in this competitive market by making appropriate strategic decisions. What is The Business Game? In The Business Game, players aim to achieve a common objective in a simulation that, using a defined economic model, recreates the market reality as accurately as possible. Born in the 1950s, The Business Game has educational and evaluation purposes. The European Business Institute acknowledged its main didactic objectives: improving decision-making abilities in terms of the timeliness and efficiency of choices, building familiarity with risk and uncertainty, teaching management techniques, integrating various company functions, and providing strategic decision-making training. Since each player is part of a team, he or she can develop a concrete team spirit, which has started playing an increasingly crucial role in people s professional lives, although it is often neglected by classic educational tools. Consequently, companies wishing to provide their staff with effective and accurate vocational training have shown strong interest in this ground-breaking tool. The Tournament You will participate in a tournament involving all your classmates divided into groups. The best teams will pass the preliminary stage and challenge other students from across Europe to an international final tournament. This is a real competition!!!! Thus think carefully about the choices you will take within the game and remind that you will lose points in case of wrong choices!! Pay attention!! 4
THE SOFTWARE This Handbook aims at giving you some general information about the game. For any questions do not hesitate to ask your teacher!!! Or try to search for the new word or concept on the Web!! QUICK START: 5
Main menu Figure 1: Main Menu. Once the access procedure is completed, the system shows the game s Main Menu. From this page (Figure 2), users can explore all the game sections by clicking the following links: 6
Home Market analysis: Before entering data to initiate game play, users are urged to go to the page dealing with market analysis, which reports useful information on foreseeable trends in market demand; Parameters: This shows the game parameters for the ongoing match; Decisions: Users input their decisions here. During the game, links related to the historical data section are accessible. Summary of Last Quarter: Competitors: This provides access to information regarding competitors from the previous game period; Previous decisions: This allows users to view the data entered for the game period under analysis; Ranking: Here, users can view the results of the completed game; Financial statement: This page presents users with tables reporting the company s financial situation; Summary of the effects: This page presents users with the effects of strategic decisions. Market analysis First, users need to open the market analysis page, which reports the total volume of forecasted demand. The aggregate demand is reported in a table; final result refers to the last game period, and the forecasted result for the following period is reported. We recommend that users consider this forecast seriously, since it acts as a reference value for their own sales forecasts. Users must consider this information when making their strategic decisions during the game period. 7
Figure 2: Market analysis. Parameters The Game Parameters link in the main menu enables users to view the values assigned to the game parameters during match creation. The parameters may help users to understand why a given strategic decision may be preferable to another one. Indeed, the Parameters page helps to choose among the correct available strategic decisions and shows their costs. Product definition Plant efficiency is measured in terms of nominal efficiency. Starting from the nominal value, real efficiency is measured through a linear relationship, according to investments made in maintenance. These investments are then compared to the investments-objective (i.e. keeping the plant in its nominal condition), which depends on the plant s degree of automation and production capacity. Similarly, staff efficiency 4 is assessed through a linear relationship wherein, once again, maximum and minimum values are fixed parametrically. Production depends on both efficiency and production capacity. The staff-objective parameter was created to assess the opportunities available to the company to fully exploit its production capacity in terms of the number of personnel required. This value depends on the degree of automation, number of work shifts, and production capacity. 5 4 Parameters related to investments in the maintenance-objective refer to the initial nominal production capacity; users need to adjust such values to the real production capacity. 5 Parameters related to the staff-objective refer to a work shift and the initial nominal production capacity; users need to adjust such values to the real number of shifts and production capacity. 8
Figure 3: Parameters page Price-Quality Ratio (PQR) The PQR represents consumers opinions regarding the products offered by the company. The ratio depends upon both individual factors related to demand description and universal factors related to offer description. In other words, the value of the PQR depends on the importance given by the consumer to the external product performances and the values assigned to those performances. Through the PQR, the model allows the assigning of market share. In The Business Game, the PQR is defined as the weighted sum of the following three external performances that affect customers directly: Product quality Service quality Price 9
The external product and service performances depend on the company s internal performances: Quality (impact on product performance) Time (impact on service performance) Flexibility (impact on service performance) These observations lead to the conclusion that although the objectives of the PQR and profitability (competitive and profit success, respectively) are deeply interwoven, they are directly opposed. Teams are expected to identify the strategies that will maximize one of the two objectives or arrive at a successful trade-off between the two. Sales forecast Sales forecast defines the marketing plan. The entire business strategy centres on this strategic decision. Actually, the management of the other entry variables must align with the sales forecasts because this value enables the verification of whether the investments align with the available business resources (i.e. if the value is confirmed by the number of real sales). The production plan also depends on this value. The production plan refers to the allocation of the aggregate resources according to the products. In other words, production must be organised in order to achieve the number of components defined by the marketing plan, excluding provisions. For example, if my sales forecast for this period is Sales forecast Product One = 100 pcs Sales forecast Product Two = 50 pcs and my total production capacity is 300 pcs, my production system will produce: Product One/ Product Two = 100 / 50 = 2 Number of Product One produced = 200 pcs Number of Product Two produced = 100 pcs 200 + 100 = 300 that is my total production capacity. If the stocks are higher than the forecast, the product will not be produced. Stock Product One Sales forecast Product One Production product One 100 pcs 80 pcs 0 pcs 10
Table: Summary of decisions impacts. Decisions Internal Performance External Preformance Q T F P S Advertising + Purchase of new machinery + + Sale of machinery + + Maintenance Outsourcing + Design investments + Technology investments + Suppliers expected quality + Overtime work + Shifts Training of permanent staff + - + - Co-design + + Investment in distribution channel + Accounts receivable period + Accounts payable period + After-sales service + (All the decisions have an impact on costs.) LEGEND Q: Effect on Quality T: Effect on Time F: Effect on Flexibility 11
P: Effect on Product S: Effect on Service +: Impact is directly proportional -: Impact is inversely proportional 12
GAME OUTPUT The objective of this section is to enable users to analyse the results. The first part deals with the assessment of forecast results; the second deals with the assessment of the final data. Expected Results After the entry form for strategic decisions has been filled in, the system displays the Expected Results report. Figure 5: The estimated results. 13
If users are not satisfied with the forecast results, they can modify the values by clicking the Change Decisions button at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, they can click on the Save button to save their data. Summary of Last Quarter The Summary of Last Quarter provides information on the previous decisions, financial statements, and effects of a user s company. Previous decisions The Previous Decisions link provides access to the Strategic Decisions page, which reports the values assigned to the different strategic decisions of the previous period. Financial statement On this page, users can find tables reporting the company s financial situation: there is a statement of assets and liabilities, statement of profits and losses, and brief index analysis. This page shows all relevant economic and financial information. Summary of the effects The Summary of the Effects link provides access to the Effects of Strategic Decisions page; the data displayed on this page refers to the information reported on the Forecast Result page, which has been previously discussed. SUMMARY OF THE EFFECTS Offer: Offer for the game period, consisting of total production and available stocks; Sold items: Number of sold items resulting from the offer, demand, and quality-price ratio; Unsold items: Number of unsold items, calculated as the difference between offer and sold items; Stocks: Stocks available at the end of the game period, corresponding to the minimum number of unsold items and the storage capacity per product; Total number of machineries: Total number of machines owned by the user s company; Undersold items: Number of undersold items, calculated as the difference between the number of undersold items and number of items stored within and outside the company; Production capacity: Nominal value of the production capacity after the introduction of any given change; 14
Storage capacity: Nominal value of the storage capacity after the introduction of any given change; Permanent personnel: Number of permanent personnel, including company staff and newly employed personnel; Permanent personnel specialization: Degree of specialization of the permanent personnel, reflected in the specialization degree of company staff and the newly employed; Seasonal personnel: Number of personnel with seasonal agreements (i.e. new seasonal employees); Personnel: Total number of company personnel; Personnel specialization: Average degree of specialization of company personnel. Competitors The Competitors link provides access to the Competitors page, which reports the following data on each company in the market: Number of shifts: Number of shifts activated by the company; New permanent contracts: Number of new permanent employees; New temporary contracts: Number of new temporary employees; Personnel: Number of personnel available within the company; Price: Selling price per product; Sold items: Number of items sold per product. Looking at competitors statistics enable one to gain an understanding of other companies strategies! Results Definition of company success In The Business Game the final ranking (Company Success) is measured in terms of profit success, which is related to economic indexes and, therefore, to company profits (Figure 7), competitive success, which is related to the aggregate market share given by the value of the price-quality ratio, and the technical management of the company. 15
Fundamentals of finance Figure 6: Results. The biggest part of the fundamental analysis involves delving into the financial statements. Fundamental analysis is also known as quantitative analysis and involves looking at revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, and all other financial aspects of the company. Fundamental analysts use this information to gain insight into a company s future performance. A considerable portion of this tutorial will be spent learning about the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement and how they all fit together. The financial statement is the medium by which a company discloses information regarding its financial performance. We will briefly introduce each financial statement s function and identify where each can be found. 16
The Balance Sheet The balance sheet is a record of a company s assets, liabilities, and equity at a particular point in time. The balance sheet is named for the fact that the financial structure of a business balances in the following manner: Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders Equity Assets represent the resources that the business owns or controls at a given point in time, including items such as cash, inventory, machinery, and buildings. The other side of the equation represents the total value of financing that the company has used to acquire those assets. Financing occurs through liabilities or equity. Liabilities represent debt (which, of course, must be repaid), whereas equity represents the total value of the money that the owners have contributed to the business, including retained earnings (the profits made in previous years). The balance sheet, then, offers a snapshot of a company s health. It tells you how much a company owns (its assets) and how much it owes (its liabilities). The difference between what it owns and what it owes is its equity, also commonly called net assets or shareholder equity. The balance sheet offers considerable information to investors regarding a company s fundamentals: it reveals how much debt the company has, how much it needs to collect from customers (and how fast it does that), how much cash and equivalents it possesses, and what kinds of funds it has generated over time. The Income Statement Although the balance sheet is a snapshot of a business, the income statement measures a company s performance over a given time frame. Technically, you could formulate a balance sheet for a month or even a day; however, public companies report only quarterly or annually. The income statement shows how much money the company generated (revenue), how much it spent (expenses), and the difference between the two (profit) over a given time period: Profits = Revenue Expenses Economic Indexes 17
Return On Sales (ROS) is a ratio that is widely used to evaluate a company s operational efficiency. The ROS is also known as a firm s operating profit margin. This measure enables management to provide an insight into how much profit is being produced per dollar of sales. As with many ratios, it is best to compare a company s ROS over time to look for trends and compare it with the ROS ratios of other companies in the industry. An increasing ROS indicates that the company is growing more efficient, whereas a decreasing ROS could signal looming financial troubles. Return On Equity (ROE) is the amount of net income returned as a percentage of shareholder equity. Return on equity measures a corporation s profitability by revealing how much profit a company generates with the money that shareholders have invested. The ROE is useful for comparing the profitability of one company to those of other firms in the same industry. Return On Investment (ROI) is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. In order to calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is then expressed as a percentage or ratio. 18