Business Decision Making Reports

Business decision making report
Introduction
The Edumundo sneakers Inc. simulation game was a decision making and business strategy
computer based game that was played online by a particular group of people. This paper seeks to
offer a comprehensive report on the progress of the Edumundo sneakers Inc. simulation game
from its commencement date to its final stage. The report will cover all relevant stages of the
game starting from the initial business plan, the strategic choices and target markets, the rationale
or significance of the decisions made by the team has the game progressed, the decision
environment and finally, the company statement of Edumundo sneakers Inc.
Business plan strategic choices and targets
According to the rules of the Edumundo business simulation game, the team members were
situated on the post of the top executives of the Edumundo sneakers Inc. company and were
responsible for making the strategic decisions with regard to the general company performance
and outcomes in relation to the company’s production capacity and profit margins. All the
members of our team were able to acknowledge the effect that the top executive of any business
firm have in trying to develop the strategies that will drive their businesses. In any strategic
management aspect, the role and impact of the executive management on the company’s
performance as always been recognized as a very vital issue that may break or nature a business
(Ferrell and Fraedrich, 2015).
During the business simulation game, the business environment was first analyzed by constantly
and continuously practicing the Edumundo business simulation game. The analysis of the
business environment was crucial for team because it enabled us to come up with a good
business plan for Edumundo sneakers Incorporated (Lerner, and Kassam, 2015). After a
comprehensive analysis of the business environment, the team embarked on an extensive study
with an aim of establishing the best possible business strategy that could be used in the sneaker
business. The extensive study revealed that there is a wide variety of business strategies that
could be used in the shoe industry market but the team placed its focus on three main ones which
are:
 Cost leadership
In this context, Edumundo sneakers Inc. would seek to manage its cost of production as this
would be effective in managing the prices of the sneakers in the market. The team put this
strategy into consideration because they thought that implementation of low pricing on the
sneakers produced by Edumundo sneakers Inc. would automatically lead to more profits because
clients tend to prefer items which cost less compared to other products produced by our
competitors in the market (Corbett-Davies and Huq, 2017)
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 Focus strategy
This strategy is also known as niche strategy and it basically refers to the production of specific
products for specific target groups. Essentially, if the team were to pick this strategy, they would
have to place all emphasis on a particular potion of the market and ignore the wider population in
the market (Koskela and Liira, 2015).
 Differentiation strategy
In simple terms, this strategy refers to the act of creating uniqueness and extreme quality of
products that will automatically differ from those of the competing firms.
After an in-depth review of these strategies the team employed the use of SWOT analysis which
is one of the most important decision making tools, with an aim of figuring out which one among
these three strategies would be best suitable for their business. On the successful application of
SWOT analysis, the team realized that even though the differentiation strategy would be a little
bit more costly compared to the other two strategies mentioned above, but generally, the high
quality of products that will be produced by Edumundo sneakers Inc., the uniqueness of its
products and the good ethics involved in trying to produce high quality products will generate
move value to the business because it will lead to a higher brand value and in return generate
more profits for the business (Carey and Asbury, 2016).
Decision rationale and evaluation
The rationale behind the differentiation strategy
The team arrived on the decision to use the differentiation strategy as part of the business plan of
Edumundo sneakers incorporated majorly because the SWOT analysis done by the team showed
that the differentiation strategy was the most robust and viable business strategy. Nevertheless, it
is important to note that this decision was also informed by the knowledge that, one of the key
determinants of a businesses’ success is the management team’s ability to make the business as
unique as possible and also different from the different players available in the market, it really
does not matter whether one is a major player in the market or just a small business all that
matters is the ability to differentiate one’s products from those of the main competitors in the
market (Echemendia and Schneider, 2017). After a comprehensive study of the differentiation
business strategy the team concluded that will come in handy while trying to build the brand
loyalty of Edumundo sneakers Inc (Salomon, 2016).
Evaluation of the differentiation strategy
According to Rothaermel 2017, the differentiation strategy calls for the advancement of sneaker
brands that offer unique attributes that shall be valued by the clients and make the clients feel
that the products produced by Edumundo sneakers Inc. are way better than those produced by
different competitors in the market. It is important to note that a good differentiation strategy
follows the universally acceptable concepts and rules for both form and content so, essentially
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speaking, differentiation strategy comes up with a product that is perceived by all players in the
industry be it, the target customers or the company’s competitors to be very unique and of high
quality. The team achieved the differentiation strategy in a variety of ways namely:
 Unique brand imaging
 Technology used in the production, packaging and marketing of sneakers produced by
Edumundo sneakers Inc.
 Unique and high quality of service issued to clients
 Formulation of a very unique dealer network.
The team sorted the implementation of the differentiation strategy into three parts which are:
 The acquisition of the expertise and capital that were used in nurturing the differentiation
strategy.
 Formulation of a team whose role was to support and sustain various activities that were
crucial for the success of the differentiation strategy such client marketing aspects and the
development of product reputation through consumer engagement.
 Finally the team sought for different means in which Edumundo Sneakers Inc. can
achieve competitive advantage through differentiation strategy over their fellow
competitors in the market by going through several literatures that were written about the
differentiation strategy in the past (Johnson, 2016).
The application of differentiation strategy in the business of Edumundo sneakers Incorporated
gave rise to superior profit margins and brand loyalty by the target customers which then
provided immense protection against the company’s competitors while at the same time,
resulting to a lower sensitivity to the prices of the company’s sneakers. The increase in profit
margins as a result of the application of the differentiation strategy also enabled Edumundo
sneakers Inc. to avoid the need for a low-cost positioning of its products. Also, on top of
minimizing the threats of entry into the market, the differentiation strategy created value to the
business by placing Edumundo Sneakers Inc. in a situation where they were able to charge a
premium price that was greater than the extra cost that was incurred by the firm as a result of the
decision to use the differentiation strategy in its business plan.
External decision
Just like a big organization, during the simulation game all the group members were tasked to
identify, predict, and manage trends, issues, and opportunities that the business could come
across. To successfully achieve this task, the group members were forced to analyze the external
business decision making tools and processes to uncover the uncertainties which were due to; the
activities of the Edumundo Sneakers Inc competitors which encompassed how they conduct their
activities, level of recruitment, employees’ salaries, future plans and their financial muscles. The
trends in the market also paved way for uncertainties in the external decision making which
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caused havoc in understanding the business dynamics; it was relatively hard to make a decision
focusing on future trends while basing on the current market trends (Snyder and Diesing, 2015).
The role of economy in market availability and use of technology to improve sales leveled up to
uncertainties in making decision. However, to overcome these uncertainties, all the group
members were tasked with comprehensively divided tasks which they were to submit their
decision and reflections basing on their task awarded to the group leader before the elapse of the
scheduled duration, also the members were urged to source other sources of information that will
facilitate easier decision making and to clear the uncertainties. This included using decision
making tools such as Marginal analysis, SWOT diagrams and the use of Pareto analysis. This
tools were used to tactical analyze the rival actions to give the group team the true picture and
skeleton of the rivals (Trianni and Farné 2016).
Company’s future statement
Edumundo Sneakers Inc is a moderately small business aiming to take over the sneakers market
entirely. It begun small but with unbridled ambition and utmost dedication they took on the
enormous rivals that were habitually leading the worldwide sneaker market. The goal of the
upcoming company is to, ultimately, end up as a solemn player in the sneaker market. Every day
the company sets foots on a new market, the sales graphs have an uphill trend signifying steady
but flashy increase in sales. It is with confidence that in the next five years, Edumundo Sneakers
Inc will have outshined the entire sneaker companies and have reached a global milestone. With
excellent management and managers who plays within and by government set rules and reins
with integrity, the company is the best bet for any potential investors who wish to sow now and
reap loads later.
Reflection
The simulation game was all about making of decision which more of thinking than the actual
writing. At the end of the scheduled eight week, the students in the group were exposed to real
world business environment, which enabled them to have a glimpse of the business operations
and were able to understand business dynamics. However, during the same period of time;
excluding the trials runs, the student had to make tough business decision using the business
decision making tools such the Marginal analysis, SWOT diagrams and the use of Pareto
analysis.
How decisions were made:
 Holistic thinking; all the students members of the group were primarily informed of the
true intention of the business aim and objective. The decision variable was made clear so
that each member of the group was capable of picturing the aura of the business plan.
This left the group members sinking in the business dream which result in a complete and
comprehensive understanding of how different sections of the business work together so
as to make sound decisions for the business as a whole.
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 Future prospects; Yes, it was a short game. However, the students in the group were
more intense to make decisions that would reflect on the actual position of the company
in the next five to ten years. Just like a tree planting session, the ideal focus was on a
steady and strong growth over time as other tall, mature and bigger trees are cut off,
which would eventually result in the young well taken care of tree been the tallest. We
started with the end in mind.
 Task division; to ensure a 100% percent participation and contribution of all the group
members, available business task was divided among members with some assigned to
analyze decision using SWOT analysis, some student tasked to analyze business decision
using a different tool with the remaining two students tasked to analyze the activities of
the potential rivals and competitors. It was important to cross check the activities of the
rivals in order to ensure that our tree will stand the tallest over time.
 Risk consideration; the students in the group were aware of the needs to consider
occurrences of the risk for a successful business venture. This included taking of
insurance covers and taking care of necessary pre cautionary appliances (Janssen and
Wahyudi, 2017).
List of reference
Carey, M. A., & Asbury, J. E. (2016). Focus group research. Routledge.
Corbett-Davies, S. & Huq, A. (2017, August). Algorithmic decision making and the cost of
fairness. In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge
Discovery and Data Mining (pp. 797-806). ACM.
Echemendia, R.J. and Schneider, K., 2017. The sport concussion assessment tool 5th edition
(SCAT5): background and rationale. Br J Sports Med, 51(11), pp.848-850.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson
Education.
Janssen, M., and Wahyudi, A., 2017. Factors influencing big data decision-making
quality. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.338-345.
Johnson, G. (2016). Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.
Koskela, T, & Liira, H. (2015). User perspectives on an electronic decision-support tool
performing comprehensive medication reviews-a focus group study with physicians and
nurses. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 16(1), 6.
Lerner, J.S. and Kassam, K.S., 2015. Emotion and decision making. Annual review of
psychology, 66, pp.799-823.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2017). Strategic management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
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Salomon, G. (2016). It’s not just the tool but the educational rationale that counts. In Educational
technology and polycontextual bridging (pp. 147-161). Brill Sense.
Snyder, G. H., & Diesing, P. (2015). Conflict among nations: Bargaining, decision making, and
system structure in international crises. Princeton University Press.
Trianni, A., & Farné, S. (2016). Barriers, drivers and decision-making process for industrial
energy efficiency: A broad study among manufacturing small and medium-sized
enterprises. Applied Energy, 162, 1537-1551.
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