Prosim Advanced - Business Simulation

Overview of simulation

In this strategic management simulation, students act as Directors of their own Sports retail company. In teams, they must devise a comprehensive business strategy. Once launched, students need to make operational decisions in-line with their chosen strategy to outperform their competitors in various market segments. Teams are awarded points for decisions that have the greatest impact on improving company performance and increasing stock market value.

Developing a Business Strategy

ProSim Advanced provides students with the opportunity to design, launch, and manage their own  strategy for their own sports retail company. This begins with outlining their company's vision, setting targets and SMART objectives, undertaking SWOT, PESTLE, stakeholder analyses, and determining the DMU, value model, and CSR strategy, as well as other considerations. 

Ultimately, once their strategy has been launched students need to respond to fluctuations in the market and make decisions to accommodate for these changes in-line with their strategic position. 

Applying Management Theory, Models, and Concepts

When designing their strategy and making decisions during each round, students need to refer to and apply relevant management theories, models, and concepts. In ProSim Advanced, students are introduced to a variety of these including: Porter's Generic strategy, Recourse Based View (RBV), Ansoff's Growth Strategy and Matrix, the Treacy and Wiersema's Value model', as well as others.

TEAM-WORKING AND ROLE ASSIGNMENT

A key factor in all of our simulations is team-working. Students need to work together within their team to delegate roles and responsibilities among them, determining who will be the CEO, CFO, HR-manager, Marketing Manager, Head of Operations, and any other role they believe fits the strategic requirements of their company.

Module FLEXIBILITY

As detailed above, this strategy game offers many different theories, models, and concepts. These can be added and amended in-line with your module structure and weekly contact points with your students. In other words, if you are teaching SWOT and PESTLE in week 1 and RBV and Ansoff in week 2, our Operations team will add those themes into the simulation along the same schedule. This way your students will apply the tools and theories straight after you have introduced them.

Learning Outcomes

• Students create an effective management strategy designed to increase sales, market share, and stock-market value.
• Students gain a greater understanding of the management theories, concepts, and models by applying them to their own sports retail company. 
• Students develop effective team-working, analytical, strategic, and leadership skills.
• Students understand and value the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) the effects this has on internal and external stakeholders i.e. brand value and awareness.

Assessment ideas and examples

• Students design a new strategy for the next financial year based on their performance in the simulation. 
• Individual students provide a reflective report on their role within the simulation, highlighting areas of strength and areas for improvement, decisions that went well and decisions that did not go well, and how they would do this differently next time.  
• Written group report in which the teams write down each round what decisions they have taken and what they think the outcomes will be. They reflect on the decisions made during each round and continue logging this throughout the simulation.
• Students conduct a 360 Peer Assessment in which students have to allocate a hundred points
  among their fellow team mates based on their contribution.
• Students deliver a “Dragon’s Den” elevator pitch to a panel of ‘investors’, played by the other student teams or Lecturers.
• Students participate in a stock exchange assessment where their share price or ranking can be translated into 25% of their final mark on the module.