BEST SIMULATION GAME: TIPS TO PLAYERS

1. Economic Forecast

Read the economic forecast for next year. Pay special attention to the following for each product:

* change in cost (ie higher or lower)
* change in market demand (ie strong or weak)
* consumer behaviour (ie buying direct or influenced by marketing)

2. Your Business Plan

You should decide on your price, marketing and capacity for each product, as follows:

* adjust the price to reflect change in cost and in marketing expense
* adjust your capacity to reflect change in the market demand

3. Capacity

You should aim to have a capacity that is just sufficient to meet your orders for next year.

If you have excess capacity, you are penalised by a higher fixed expense (or overhead).

If you have insufficient capacity, your orders will be restricted to the capacity. The unfulfilled orders will not be re-distributed among the other players.

If you change your pricing or marketing strategy, your orders may be affected by the change (in addition to the change in market demand).

4. Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behaviour will also have an impact on the allocation of the market demand among the players.

If consumers prefer to buy direct, a larger portion of the demand will be allocated to players with lower prices.

If consumers are influenced by marketing, a larger portion of the demand will be allocated among players with larger marketing expenses.

5. Economy of Scale

If you have a larger market share (relative to the other players), you will have an advantage in a lower unit cost and expense. This is to reflect economy of scale.

6. Behaviour of Competitors

You should study the behaviour of the other players. It is the relative pricing and marketing of all the players that decide on your actual business results.

7. Teamwork

You should allocate the work among the members of your team. They can play different roles (eg CEO, marketing, production, finance) or take care of different product lines.

You can rotate the role of CEO each year among the members of the team. This will give every member the chance to make the final decision. It will make the interaction to be more interesting.

Tan Kin Lian
Creator of BEST simulation game