Category: Experiential Learning

Strategic Planning & Implementation

7/29/2019

I have begun investigating offering a Strategic Planning & Implementation training program to businesses in the Buffalo/Niagara area. What would make this unique would be the use of the Business Strategy Game (BSG) simulation that I use for my capstone strategic management courses at Canisius College, Daemen College, and the University at Buffalo School of Management in Buffalo, and at the University at Buffalo School of Management business program in Singapore. The target companies would be manufacturing or product distribution companies. This is because the BSG simulation is for a globally manufactured product.

For Buffalo/Niagara area businesses, the benefit would be that members of all functions, such as Engineering, Finance, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Sales, could participate and apply what they know about their function during the planning and decisions-making stages of the simulation, and then see the results. Each function gets to see how its decisions affect the whole business.

The participants in each client company would form teams, with each team acting as an athletic shoe manufacturer. Here are details from the BSG website:
"The co-managers of each company are responsible for assessing market conditions, determining how to respond to the actions of competitors, forging a long-term direction and strategy for their company, forecasting upcoming sales volumes, and making decisions relating to:

Production operations (up to 10 decisions for each plant, with a maximum of 4 plants)
Upgrading plants and expanding/reducing plant capacity (up to 6 decisions per plant)
Worker compensation and training (3 decisions per plant)
Shipping and inventory management (up to 8 decisions each plant/geographic region)
Pricing and marketing (up to 10 decisions in each of 4 geographic regions)
Bids to sign celebrities to endorse their brand of footwear (2 decision entries per bid)
Corporate social responsibility and citizenship (up to 6 decision entries)
Financing of company operations (up to 8 decision entries)"

Learning outcomes for local business managers would include learning about data analysis, understanding strategic planning and decision-making, and seeing the interactive nature of business decisions. Each week of the corporate education program would represent a year of business in the BSG simulation industry.

I share these thoughts now to explore the level of interest. If you think this might be of use in your company, please get in touch with me on my LinkedIn page - www.linkedin.com/in/paulmcafee.

Two of the many data graphs are below, showing relative positions of the teams in one of my recent capstone strategic management courses.

#strategicmanagement #globalstrategy #corporatetraining #experientiallearning #businessstrategygame #strategysimulation

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Business Strategy Simulation

7/13/2019

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Since 2012, I have taught the capstone Strategic Management course in the following institutions:

Keuka College, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2016)
University at Buffalo School of Management in Singapore (2016-2019)
University at Buffalo School of Management in Buffalo (2016-2019)
Canisius College in Buffalo, in both the undergraduate and MBA capstone courses (2019).

Teaching in three countries at four campuses, has helped me develop the use of the Business Strategy Game simulation (https://www.bsg-online.com/) into the undergraduate capstone courses.
The students make 57 decisions weekly for each year of the simulation, covering business operations in the following areas:

Corporate social responsibility and citizenship (up to 8 decision entries).
Production operations (up to 11 decision entries per production facility, with a maximum of 4 plants).
The addition of facility space, equipment, and production improvement options (up to 8 decision entries per production facility).
Worker compensation and training (up to 6 decision entries per production facility).
Shipping and distribution center operations (up to 5 decision entries per geographic region).
Pricing and marketing (up to 9 decision entries in each of 4 geographic regions).
Offers to sign celebrities (2 decision entries per offer).
Financing of company operations (up to 8 decision entries).

Each week represents a year of business operations in a global shoe industry. The students are divided into teams, with each team representing one international shoe company, and the entire class represents the worldwide industry. The teams compete with each other.
Students approach the simulation in one of two ways. The majority of the students see it as a game and simply guess. A few student teams realize that this is their opportunity to apply their undergraduate studies into one course, using the skills they have gained from their business education to make holistic decisions in competition with the other teams (companies). It is these few groups of students who learn the most from this simulation.
This is an example of Project-Based Learning. The students learn from experience. They analyze their strategic positions, make decisions weekly, and then see the results of their decisions on Monday mornings.
After graduation, students have contacted me after job interviews to tell me that when they explained their work in the simulation, the interview took notice, exploring in greater depth what they had done and learned. These students tell me that their experience, and discussing it with interviewers, has helped them stand out from other candidates, and in some instances, get jobs.
I'm about to start two new sections of Strategic Management at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. With my own learning experiences from using the simulation, I hope these two capstone sections to be the most productive for the students ever. I'll report back at the end of the coming fall semester.

#project-based learning #experientiallearning #businessstrategygame #bsg #unca #uncAsheville #universityofnorthcarolinaatasheville

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University at Buffalo classroom design for experiential learning

1/31/2019

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Because all of the courses I teach involve team-based project work, it can be frustrating to have a classroom designed in the old lecture style, with arcs of fixed chairs and tables. Students have to contort themselves to work in teams. Increasingly, universities and colleges have begun to design classrooms with movable tables and chairs. This enables students to regroup in their teams quickly - and comfortably.

I am very happy that the classroom in the University at Buffalo School of Management Jacobs Building, where I currently teach the capstone Fundamentals of Strategic Management course, has chair-desk combos that can be rolled into team configurations quickly. The only challenge we will face is that the room is full, so students will need to sit in groups at the start of class, or shift to new desks when the team project work begins.

#experientiallearning #highereducation #universityatbuffalo #daemencollege #canisiuscollege #keukacollege

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