When new students start the Business Strategy Game, they often feel overwhelmed by the amount of decisions that are possible on all of the screens. A very common mistake is for students to treat the game like a typical weekly homework assignment by spending only a few hours trying to learn the game. This game is far too complex to be able to learn it well enough in a short amount of time.
Students also learn at different speeds and have trouble learning different aspects of the game. Don’t underestimate the time that it could take to learn how it works. You will not do well if you wait until the last minute to make the necessary decisions. Players and teams who learn the game better will increase their chance of success tremendously.
In fact, one of the best ways to fall to the bottom of the rankings is to make no decisions at all, or possibly only focus on one limited aspect of the game such as celebrity bidding.
For best results, students need to learn the meaning and use of every value on every screen. The values all matter to varying degrees.
Let’s say, for example, that a team decides to produce 100 models of shoes of 6 S/Q quality in the Asia-Pacific factory. It’s not too hard to get that result by simply increasing the amount of superior materials until the screen show 6 S/Q as the result. However, it’s a MAJOR MISTAKE to think that you’re done with that screen because you achieved the production target you set. That’s because there are literally millions of combinations of ways to achieve that result, each of which affects the cost of production and therefore the profitability. Of all of those possibilities, there is only a very small number of combinations that are optimal, meaning that they produce the same goal for the least cost, the maximum amount of productivity, and the most benefit in the future for material savings through investment in technology improvements.
Learning how to optimize the production factors is fundamental to achieving the most profitability. This is one key aspect of the BSG that takes hours for me to personally explain to students for them to understand how important optimization must be done well to succeed. Production isn’t the only part of the game that requires optimization. Distribution and marketing also require precise optimization.