The term paper consists of your answers to 4 questions (listed in the Questions’ section below) about the business simulation team game that you played during the semester. The paper is to be written by each student as an individual piece of work and this will be individually assessed and graded. The paper is not part of the team project but can and should make use of the data generated in the simulation by the team. It is vital that your paper is your own individual work and is not shared or plagiarized with or from other students including those who were in your game team.
The student can and should make use of any documents, data and notes prepared or downloaded by the team to record and explain the decisions for each round of the game played. In addition the paper is expected to make use where appropriate of relevant academic concepts studied on the course.
Questions:
Please answer all 4 questions. The questions are not intended to be of exactly equal weight so the paper will be graded as one piece. Provide evidence and support for your answers, citing any market, simulation or other data used, or academic concepts applied. Use Harvard referencing where appropriate.
1. Describe the strategy adopted by your team at the start of the simulation game in year 1 and explain the basis and rationale for your decision. Extend your analysis to include not just the overall strategy but any decisions taken in relation to marketing, production and finance.
2. Did your strategy change in subsequent years? If so explain how, and for what reasons it changed or remained the same, and its implications?
3. What do you consider were the main competitive and market factors that had most impact on your performance over the 5 years and explain why?
4. How would you assess your team’s performance over the five years? On a personal level what did you learn about the task of defining and implementing strategy?