Whether you are a serial business owner, a fledgling entrepreneur or a promising one, you know you have certain strengths and weaknesses that got you exactly where you are today.
One of Sun Tzu’s words of wisdom says, “If you know the opponent and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the opponent, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the opponent, nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
If these words ring a loud bell in your mind, if you feel that you have over-flowing potentials to be a successful entrepreneur, come over and test it out amongst other accomplished entrepreneurs in a realistic gamified business landscape. Find out what you are really made of and also your opponents and how to win the game of entrepreneurship.
As an action-oriented person, you will take the initiative to form your own team amongst the participants. You will then be briefed – MBA-style – on the key information you need to know about the game. You will compete (for real) against other teams over EIGHT lively rounds of play. At the end of each round, you will get a management report detailing your business performance. This is to support your business decisions for the subsequent round of play.
By the end of this highly experiential challenge, you will CLEARLY see where your true entrepreneurial potential lies as well as your areas of improvement. And whatever the outcome, it is better to find out right here rather than in the costly real-world ventures. After all, we all know that eight out of every ten business fail within the first eighteen months!
How Does The Game Work?
Objective: To accumulate the highest cash reserves by the end of the game.
This extremely real business simulation game is set in a highly competitive and challenging market. Team leaders and his or her members have to learn about the mechanics of the industry quickly and operate their business competitively against each other. In other words, the decisions each team makes in each round will accumulatively affect another team over the pre-set number of play rounds. They are subjected to many constraints and possibilities similar to the real business world. At the same time there are also supporting resources available to them and just like in reality only the sharper entrepreneurs will pick them up and use them intelligently!
All teams have to make EIGHT critical business decisions at every round within the allocated time. These decisions are equally crucial in any business enterprise in the real world. This ‘round’ is similar to a business cycle and late decisions are as good as no decisions at all!
All the decisions will be fed into our computer algorithm system and automatically generate business reports for the respective teams. Some of the key information found in this report is their respective market share and details of their financial health. For those teams that bought market intelligence report, they would also get them with very useful data, such as outcome of investments made in talent development, market development and product development. What is interesting is that some of these intelligence report also show all competitors’ selling pricing for each round.
The team that gets all the puzzle pieces figured out and placed in the right position stands a very high chance of emerging as the WINNING TEAM! Key learning value for team leaders;
- cost-benefit analysis skill
- innovative and creative abilities
- setting vision and strategy strengths
- business acumen
- team bonding intelligence
- risk-taking aptitude
- critical thinking skill all-round communication effectiveness
Key learning value for team members;
1) increasing self-awareness
2) develop adaptability
3) display drive and purpose
4) self-leadership strengths
5) influence and persuasive skills
6) possibility mindset
7) flexibility and adaptability abilities
8) external situation awareness
What worked very well so far?
This business simulation environment is an exemplary set up for the players (entrepreneurs and business owners) to test their real potentials, discover their innate strengths and weaknesses and learn from their and other people’s mistakes in a safe environment as opposed to committing costly mistakes in the real business environment.
It also serves as a perfect opportunity for current and potential investors to observe the players in action. Many of these entrepreneurs and business owners could be very good in producing excellent business plans, eloquently present their case during the pitching session and persuasively convince their potential investors to bet on them.
It is proven that most people can make all the decisions perfectly during normal, low-stress times. But business of today and beyond is hardly normal and always subjected to intense pressure. The New Normal is all about volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The only way to figure out whom amongst the entrepreneurs will make it big eventually is to see them in action under real pressure! In other words, the investing community can serve as the observing team and select their choice of entrepreneurs to invest in.
At the end of day, it’s not how well the business plan is being written. It’s the ability of the team to make it work in spite of the challenging business environment. The insurance of making it work is the depth of business experience, which is the core value of this business simulation game!
