CAPSIM Course

Assignment No. 1 Part I (to coincide with year 11 and year 12 decision rounds)
After you have read the Player's Manual for The Business Strategy Game, you and your comanagers should come up with brief 1- or 2-paragraph answers to the following three questions prior to entering your first set of decisions. While your answers to the first of the three questions can be developed from reading the Player's Manual, the second and third questions will require a collaborative discussion among the members of your company's management team about how you intend to manage the company you have been assigned to run.
1. Where are we now? (Is your company's in a good, average, or weak competitive position vis-?-vis rival companies? Does your company appear to be in sound financial condition? What problems does your company have that need to be addressed?) 2. Where do we want to go? (What goals do you have for your company? How fast do you want to grow the company's business? By how much would you like to increase total profits of the company by the end of the simulation exercise? What kinds of performance outcomes will signal that you and your co-managers are managing your athletic footwear company in a successful manner?) 3. How are we going to get there? (What basic strategic and competitive approach do you think makes the most sense to pursue? What are the 3-4 key elements of the strategy that you and your co-managers intend to employ? What kind of competitive advantage over rivals do you intend to try to build?)

Assignment 1- Part II (to be done before you move to the decisions of Year 12; could be done while working Year 11 as well, however, the Company may choose to do either during year 11 or during year 12 decisions)
Meet with your co-managers and prepare a strategic vision statement for your company. It should be at least one sentence long and no longer than a brief paragraph. What would be a good slogan that captures the essence of your strategic vision and that could be used to help communicate the vision to company personnel, shareholders, and other stakeholders? 1. What are your company's financial objectives? What are your company's strategic objectives? 2. How would you describe your company's strategic intent? 3. What are the 5-6 most important elements of your company's strategy? Have any of these strategy elements been fine-tuned or radically changes since the Year 11 decision round when you and your co-managers first took over the company and assumed strategymaking responsibility?