Individual Reflection Report on Simulating a Business for Decision Making

BUSINESS CAPSTONE PROJECT
Name
Date

Individual Reflection Report
Introduction
This reflective report is based on a team activity that involved simulating a business to demonstrate
and test decision making skills as would happen in the real world (Rooney & Witton, 2016). The
activity entailed forming a team and working in groups, with people given different roles, in order
to obtain the best results and outcomes from the simulation exercise. The simulation exercise is of
great importance because doing the simulation mimics decisions one would have to make when
running a business. In this paper, the activities undertaken and the lessons learned are discussed, in
the context of team work theory. The team work theory was developed by Tuckman as having four
distinct phases that include forming, storming, norming, and performing. (Kornspan, 2009) This
self reflection report will also be based on the eight rollover sessions, when decisions were made,
resulting in the observed performance outcomes.
Rollover One
Before undertaking the first rollover where we had to make decisions, we set down our objectives
during our first meeting. We decided that we wanted to attain the best possible outcomes in terms of
added shareholder value and profitability of the business. During the meeting, we discussed issues
such as how we would do the pricing, public relations, and budgeting. This meeting was particularly
poignant because we understood the performance of the team during the simulation depended a
great deal on this first meeting. I made the first suggestion on pricing, suggesting a slightly lower
entry price of below $ 735; my thinking was that this aggressive pricing strategy would help the
company gain market share at the initial stages by attracting more customers based on a lower price.
Of course being the first meeting, the team had not yet understood each other well, despite having
had gone through the manuals and learning videos. There were disagreements on what strategies
we should take, with myself proposing the medium price and the medium advertising strategy. The
disagreements was natural and expected; based on the teamwork theory, this was the initial stages of
the team coming together (the forming stage). The forming stage is the initial stage when
individuals within a team have not yet gelled together very well, and everyone is sizing each other
up, trying to find their position and direction within the team (Egolf & Chester, 2007). I, for
instance, was of the idea that we should put in more expenditure in advertising and public relations
(PR), informed by the reasoning that an aggressive marketing strategy also requires an aggressive
advertising and PR strategy to go with it. If we were going to use the medium strategy on pricing,
then we needed to go all out to advertise that strategy. The pricing strategy was informed by us
knowing that mountain bikes exhibit medium sensitivity to pricing. Nonetheless, we had
competitors who probably had the same reasoning and sought the same market as we did.

As shown in the Fig above, the results of the first rollover confirmed my fears; that we had put way
too little into advertising and PR. The results showed that we were trailing all the other teams in
terms of sales, market share, and awareness. Clearly, the strategy to think that the price would
attract customers, without a strategy for letting the customers know about the price through
effective advertising, promotion, and PR set us back significantly, when compared to the others.
With sales lower than for the competitors, the firm was less profitable, leading to lower shareholder
value created or added; further, the share price was lowest compared to all the other companies.
Second Rollover
Because of a low share price and the lowest net sales, we figured that we needed to fight for greater
market share. My idea was that we spend more on PR and advertising and promotion, and
aggressively advertise our new price strategy which would be reduced further to $ 725 from $ 730.
Still, there were disagreements, others felt that increasing advertising spending would only led to
higher operating costs, and not necessarily add value to the sales and subsequently, profitability and
value added to shareholders or even the share price. However, there was some agreement that we
needed to inform the market in a better way about our product and the product pricing. However,
the challenge was the best way in which to advertise and promote the brand and the company. The
way in which people began to agree and look at the situation follows upon the team work theory of
storming (Halverson, 2008); storming is a stage in which people within a group start to see
themselves as being part of a team. While there was agreement on the need for awareness of the
product, the team had not gelled together fully, there were still power struggles on who would be
the leader (natural leader), and who would hold more sway. There were still conflicts though, as
differences emerged between and among the group members. There was especially a problem on