Individual Reflective Report on Strategic Decisions in BSG Simulation

This report evaluates the major strategic decisions made during the six-round BSG simulation, reflects on one round that stood out, discusses relevant theoretical frameworks applicable to understanding the internal, external and competitive environments of the business, and critically evaluates the impact of one specific emerging technology on the future of the business.

Reflective Report

Table of Contents
Evaluate the major strategic decisions made during the six-round BSG simulation.............3
Reflect on one round that stood out, why and key lessons learnt...........................................4
Reflect on relevant theoretical frameworks applicable to understanding the internal, external
and competitive environments of your business; and discuss how these frameworks helped in
shaping decisions made in your BS........................................................................................5
Critically evaluate the impact of ONE specific emerging technology on the future of your
business and make useful recommendations to future managers...........................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In context of education system of today, there is need to develop high level of competencies
among students. This enables for possessing broad range of skills and problem solving skills for
managing them within workplace. There is rapid change among the global economy and that is
why there is high demand of flexibility and adaptability among the students. The following
report provides the information about new business of footwear.
Evaluate the major strategic decisions made during the six-round BSG simulation.
A simulation is always having power for engaging students and simulate learning. In order to
develop an effective approach at the marketplace, it is essential for a business entity to focus on
BSG simulation. In the six round BSG simulation, I have learned about different strategic
decisions and their implementation using a good and effective approach. The development of a
business should be focused towards goals and objectives of a company which is essential for
overall development. I made following strategic decision during BCG simulation:
 Growth and development decisions- The growth and development decisions are
important for a new or existing business in order to develop marketplace growth. Also it
is key responsibility of supervisor to focus on each and every decision in order to gain
desired growth. I took management related decisions which were helpful in our project
growth which lead to expand our business in a short period of time.
 Analytical decisions- I majorly took different analytical decisions which were good and
effective in promotion of our business. The analytical decisions are majorly related to
development of company related decisions after major analysis. I performed analysis of
external and internal environment to formulate major analytical decisions. It was hard to
perform analysis of external environment so we used PESTLE framework. On the other
hand, for performing major decisions related to internal environment, I developed SWOT
analysis.
 Competition related decisions- Our business included competition with many
companies which are major rivalries of our company. In order to gain competitive
advantage, it was essential for us to develop major competitive strategies. The decision
making related to competition took huge efforts and in depth analysis.
 Risk minimisation decisions- In the functioning of a business, risk is considered as a
major element which impacts on business decisions. It is compulsory for a company to

formulate risk free decisions with business operations. This brings major stability in the
business organisation and also helps in development of systematic operations.
 Culture management decisions- The culture management decisions were important to
be taken and framed by me in order to develop effective internal environment in the
company. I took the help and support of human resource management of my company in
order to lead the marketplace in a short span of time. Companies in the international and
national marketplace always focus on development of fair and cultural decision for
development of effective working environment.
 Workplace management decisions- Workplace management decisions were very
helpful for us in order to manage effective and precise environment for employee growth.
This helped me creating a deep understanding about wants and needs of all employees.
This approach also helped us to increase productivity of employees to develop and gain
sustainable growth. Management of workplace was a major challenge that was faced by
our whole team and in order to facilitate the management we developed a good
workplace. Strategic decisions related to management of workplace helped us to gain
competitive advantage in a set period of time.
Reflect on one round that stood out, why and key lessons learnt.
The simulation provides a setting for teams to immerse themselves in the collaborative nature of
doing business. To be successful in the simulation, the first step is to integrate with team
members and learn about the many ways that members complement each other. When members
of a team can fit into one other's grooves like gears on a well-oiled machine, they become more
valuable than individuals. This will result in synergy. The game necessitates a level of precision
that can only be attained if the entire team is pushing the same strategy; thus, it is critical to
choose a strategy that is compatible with the varied points of view of members. Diverse points of
view should be promoted, especially if they are founded on facts. Do not disregard the
information in the market snapshot, but rather focus on the footwear industry report rather than
the section that provides you with a strength and weakness analysis. For example, advertising
may be identified as a weakness, but spending less on advertising while outperforming your
competitors is an advantage. Investing in enhancements later in the simulation does not provide
enough time for the investment to pay off. Spending too much money on CSR should be
avoided. Be wary of how much money is spent on celebrities because there are no measures to

determine the value of celebrity endorsements. It is important to note that lowering the internet
price can result in the wholesale sector being cannibalised because the difference between the
internet and wholesale prices is related. The emphasis on final cumulative scores rather than
current period results stresses long-term rather than short-term initiatives. Furthermore, emphasis
was placed on three key circumstances. First, the simulation's exact ending period would be
uncertain. (In the BUSINESS STRATEGY GAME, each period is a year, and the semester
duration allowed for a maximum of ten periods of play.) Second, all teams were expected to
leave their management positions with a company that was still in business, rather than a
company that had been robbed of its long-term potential in order to earn a short-term ranking
boost. Third, the semester mark for the course was based on the final cumulative score rankings,
which accounted for 20% of the semester grade. This business started in this game was named as
Cheetah Pro.
Mission statement: to inspire all athletes by offering a wide range of affordable but high quality
footwear for everyone worldwide.
Vision statement: Leading the change of the footwear by becoming more environmental and
eco-friendly, whilst remaining fair and affordable
I have started this simulation game by the idea of footwear start up. There are various strategies I
used while implementing the footwear start up. There is scenario of opening new warehouse so
that individuals will the opportunity to get their choice of shoes on time. There is also analysis of
selling and producing market penetration. This is involved with proper evaluation of different
marketing strategies which provide help in analysing the different ways to tackle business
operations.
Following is the week wise plan of the game plan -
 Year 11: We open new facility warehouse.
 Year 12: Sell and production market penetration.
 Year 13: Increase de modèles, increase incentive pay (worker) increase production
improvements (North American and Asia)

 Year 14: Change competitive, increase change wholesale marketing, increase internet
marketing increase distribution warehouse.
 Private-label not sale in North America and Asia- Pacific
 Year 15: work out in North America we change brand production, production facility,
distribution and warehouse
There are major SMART objectives developed for completing the business plan. This included
the following -
 to achieve a market share of over 15% by year 16 for both internet and wholesale
 to increase net revenue by more than 20% by the year 16 and double net profits by end of
year 16
Values statement: our passion and drives are focused on CSR initiatives by being one of the eco-
friendliest and ethical companies by year 16. We are investing in improving the working
conditions for our staff and in renewable energy sources
Reflect on relevant theoretical frameworks applicable to understanding the internal, external and
competitive environments of your business; and discuss how these frameworks helped in
shaping decisions made in your BS
While conducting the business simulation, I have considered various framework ad models used
for knowing business opportunities. Pestle analysis is a strategic management tool which helps in
reducing the threats of the business. Pestle stands for political, economic, social, technological,
legal, and environmental factors.
There are various advantages of pestle analysis to a business or a company such as it is cost
effective, its helps in providing, deeper understanding of the business, alertness to threats, and
methods to exploit opportunities.
 Cost effective: The only cost involve in pest analysis is time. Pestle analysis for any
business can be done on a piece of paper using a pen.
 Deeper understanding to business: Without pestle analysis, the business can be affected
directly or indirectly by various factors shown as above. It helps the business in
understanding various influential factors that could affect your business and the product
you wanted to launch in the market.

 Alertness Development: With the help of pestle analysis, the company can analyse in
broader sense all those factors affecting the business. When the company wants to enter
into the new business segment or wants to launch a new product, pestle analysis helps in
identifying the potential threat such as who are the existing competitor or upcoming
competitor for the company in the market in which company wants to enter or the
product company wants to launch.
 Exploit opportunities: Opportunities are always lies in the external environment. With the
help of pestle analysis, the business can make a proper study with respect to external
environment, various opportunities can be identified and used to establish the business in
the market. With the help of pestle analysis, the company can research social and
technological changes taken place in the environment so that the company could
understand that the market they are targeting is moving in which direction. Pestle analysis
also helps in exploring the new business idea or helps in identifying the target audience
for the business.
How SWOT analysis helps the business:
Swot analysis is a framework which is used to evaluate the company's competitive position in the
market and helps in developing the strategic plan and policies according to them. Swot stand for,
strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
1.Strength reflects the internal analysis of the company, its product or services. If the company
able to identify those products in their product line, which are the market leader and having a
good market share then the company can make policies to hold them or make improvements in
them on regular basis so that the company will be able to achieve its revenue targets on time.
2. Weakness is essential analysis for the company's weaknesses. With the help of this
component, the company will be able to address all the issues at one place such as cost of the
product, innovation, market share, competition etc. Sometimes it is also important for the
company to obtain third party or customer feedbacks so that they can convert their weakness into
strength.
3. Opportunities are the external factors lying ahead for your business. Tracking down those
opportunities will immensely help the business in setting out their growth plans and
understanding the competition in the market, business environment etc.

4.Threats is an internal and external analysis of probable and possible threats for the company
such as competition, government policies, economic condition, markets, resource, trade union
etc. By making proper analysis of threats, the business can make possible changes in its policies
and growth plan. Additionally, it helps the business in facilitating supplementary or alternate
plan, contingency plan etc. in the event of decline in company's sales. The entire swot analysis
helps the business to bring light to their resources and proper utilisation of those resources in an
effective and efficient manner so that the company's goals and objectives can be achieved.
Porter's five forces is to analyse the overall competitive rivalries, new market entrants,
suppliers, customers, and the competitive substitute products inside the company. These forces
are important to sustain in industry and by which, company can pinpoint their targeted areas
where their strategies can become more profitable. Porter's five force determines company's
competition to sustain in the industry and make strategies according to the targeted area to
maximise profit. Competition in the industry: Competition is the number of competitive
companies with similar targeted areas, larger the competition makes the power lesser of the
organisation in the industry. Similarly, When the company's competition is low then company
become more powerful and set higher prices. And if company competition is high an
organisation has to make new effective strategies to stand against them. Competitive company
sometimes offers same product in lower prices with better valuable deals. Rivalry usually are
equal in market size and position. New Entrants into an industry: When new entrants become
threats it forces the exiting company to reduce their prices and make good relation with
customers so that they do not diverse their ways. Whenever any new company enters in the
industry it takes immense time and money but sometimes it can become powerful by bringing
lower prices and overall cost. Usually new entrants into an industry is low because they can take
place of any existing company easily. Power of suppliers: Suppliers are linked with every
companies in the industry as the company purchases various inputs from them. Suppliers can
make up the cost of inputs in a company, it depends on the suppliers to put unique inputs to the
company. When bargaining power of suppliers is high then suppliers become powerful and can
use their advantage to put the price higher and demands more approbatively terms with the
companies, which can lower the profit of the industry. Suppliers play an immense role in
industry but switching suppliers become expensive and time consuming. Power of
customers/buyers: It depends on how much customers or buyers does the company has, a smaller

and powerful client base depicts the power of negotiating with prices and powerful deals and
more services with the existing price. And customer power is low in case of loyalty based
customers and who cannot compromise the quality because of lower prices. There are multiple
customer segments with different level of power in an industry. Threat of substitute product or
services: Whenever a new product or services matches the same basic needs in a different way,
industry suffers in its profit terms. Threat of substitute can only be high in price performance,
when the customer's cost of switching is low or in case of trade off. Threat of substitute can be
low in condition of quality conscious.
Critically evaluate the impact of ONE specific emerging technology on the future of your
business and make useful recommendations to future managers
There are different technological trends that helps in making the footwear industry more
effective and creative and one of them is 3D printing. This technology helps in creating
personalised shoe spikes that allowed runners to enhance the level of their performance. It has
been evaluated that 3D printing technology will be the best technology for the new business that
is operated in this report. This type of technology will help the company in making creative and
personalised shoes as 3D printers have become more efficient as well as precise and are also
cost-effective. This emerging technology helps the new business in exploring the production
possibilities of the company in comparison to past times. 3D printers are having fully functional
prototyping capabilities that will provide assistance to the managers of the new business to move
through an innovative cycle in a faster way instead of traditional methods. And, it also facilitates
the administration of new business in increasing the profits by expanding the volume of
operations as on-demand printing makes production immediately scalable. The emerging
technology of 3D printing in footwear industry helps the new business in designing new, unique,
modify and customise shoes. This technology would provide assistance to the organisation in
creating more accurate as well as faster moulds along with bringing new products to the market
place in a faster way. It would facilitate in capturing more of the target base by providing
innovative footwear. When new business will make 3D printed shoes, then it can sustain within
the market place for a longer period of time because these types of footwear would be very
comfortable to wear as they would be fully customised to the feet of the person.
It is recommended to the managers of the new business to adopt the technology of 3D
printing in the creation of the footwear as there is growing demand for the personalised products

within the market place and an increased focus on the digital manufacturing. It would be
beneficial for the organisation to use this technology as it would help the business in introducing
new performance materials in a long unrivalled product range by creating the comfort as well as
durability that is not available within the marketplace. This technology would assist the
organisation by producing the complex structures of the footwear that modify the shock
absorption by making the shoes lighter in weight. With the help of 3D printing technology, the
organisation can create a concept of recycled 3D printed sneaker. In this concept, the upper part
of the sneaker would be made from ocean plastic content along with it, 3D printed mid-sole
would be made from recycled polyester as well as fishing nets. Freedom of design and speed to
market are also considered as essential factors that helps the business in gaining competitive
advantage over the rivalries in the market place.

REFERENCES
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