Assessment Preparations: Business Simulation and Video Presentation

Guidelines for the Business Simulation

·All group members should be involved in all rounds of the business simulation

·You should keep notes of all of your group discussions and decisions, so you can complete your group meetings report and contribution log. Therefore, please ensure that one team member is appointed to take notes at each meeting.

·Undertake analyses that you see as supportive to the development of your virtual business

This should be a professional presentation that reflects on and analyses your business decisions. You need to identify what decisions you made with clear explanations of why and how you made them.  You should be able to discuss how the use of appropriate theoretical models has informed your business decision-making and enabled you to make more effective decisions.  Remember to cite all academic references (video and report).

A presentation has to show for most of the time group members directly facing the camera and natural/confident talk, with minimal reading. However you are encouraged to present supporting material, such as diagrams or models (e.g. in the form of power point slides) to back up your arguments. Both picture and voice should be clear and tested on a university PC before the presentation. ‘Presentations’ with people reading behind the scene without showing clear picture of group members will attract poor marks.

Some questions that may help you develop your presentation are listed below. These are possible areas to consider and you should not mechanically use them to structure your presentation. They are merely to assist you to understand how to be self-analytical and reflective:-

·What decisions did we make?

·Did we make effective decisions based on our results? How did we know? What informed us?

·What did we understand and what did we not understand? What was easy / complex? Why?

·What did we take into consideration each time we undertook a new set of decisions? And how did this impact our decision making?

·What went well?  What did not?  Why?

·How could we have improved? With hindsight would we do the same/differently?

·What theory or theoretical models would have assisted us?

Material must be submitted by week 28 (Friday). Failure to meet the deadline will lead to a fail on the assignment. Failure to produce the Contribution Log may prevent the mark from being entered on Evision.

While you are encouraged to be creative in your video presentation, nevertheless below are some key topics that you will need to cover in your video.

1.How did you position your company in the market - what did your mission statement indicate?

2.What was your initial strategy for each product area? Did it differ between products? If so why?

3.How did this strategy influence the decisions you made in relation to prices, stock, supplier selection, quality control, total marketing spend, marketing communications and market research?

4.Did these decisions get the results you expected (how)?

5.If not, why do you think that was the case? And what changes did you make because of this?

6. Did the results in the Balance Sheet/Income Statement/Cash Flow Statement influence your decisions? If so which one(s) – and how?

7.Where can you show that your understanding of the theory discussed in class has influenced any decisions you made? Remember to cite academic references here.

As a group, you need to provide a summary of the decisions you made and why you made them for each of the 5 weeks.

The report should have an overall intro, a main section with details for every week (use appendix if you reach the maximum number of words) and an overall conclusion giving a view about the way forward.

Specifically, for each week you will need to consider the following questions:

-Did you cover all 6 dimensions (categories at top of screen) of the Sneakers’ report?

-What decisions did the team make? (e.g. Strategies, target groups, positioning, Pricing, Stock ordered etc?

-How did the team reach these decisions?

-What theories did you apply in reaching these decisions?

-Have you purchased any market research? Any campaign?

-What results did you get this week? (You should show the most relevant data)

-What did you forecast compared to what you got? Why is it different?

-What happened to your profit/loss and your cash? What were the reasons (lack of sales, too high costs? Why?)

-What are the implications of your decisions on your business strategy and the next set of decisions.

-Are you keeping minutes/meeting log?