business creation & growth sim venture
Deliverables: Signed participation sheet, detailing lab input, together with a print-out of yearly results from SimVenture + company
valuation
As a team, you should play SimVenture and run your business successfully throughout the three years of the simulation. You should
grow the business to a minimum turnover of 400,000 / year by the third year with at least four employees.
You must run the simulation on the following settings:
As a team, you should allocate responsibility for decision making to individual members of the team for each of the four functional areas
of the game. You should also nominate either a separate person as CEO to direct the overall strategy for achieving sustainable growth
for your business, or agree the strategy as a team.
At the team presentation, you should present a short analysis of the growth of the business throughout the period of the simulation,
including screen shots and financial statements taken from the game. You should also introduce the team members and their roles
within the simulation. This should not take any more than two or three minutes.
Having demonstrated the sustainability of your teams enterprise within the simulation, you should also research the future markets for
computers and other information technologies, by using the various databases available through the library (e.g. Cobra, Mintel and
Keynote). With reference to your research, you should then outline TWO creative strategies to grow the business for a further three
years. You are not limited to options available within the simulated environment. One strategy should be high risk and one strategy
should be low risk.
For example, you could choose to outsource manufacturing overseas, which is not an available option in the simulation.
You should provide financial projections for these three years and document the level and type of investment that may be required to
implement your three strategies.
You will be required to submit a signed team participation sheet that outlines both individual responsibilities within SimVenture and also
contribution to the team presentation.
You will have to attend the full session you have been allocated and present to your peers and module lecture staff. You are free to use
PowerPoint presentations and / or other visual aids.
These are formal business presentations, and as such, your dress should reflect the nature and scale of the business you are
presenting.
Please note: Each team member will receive the same grade for the team assignment. In exceptional circumstances, students formally
censured by their team will have their contribution and performance scrutinised and moderated as deemed justified by the Module
Coordinator. Grades may be individually moderated according to the contribution made by each student during the assignment. This
contribution will be measured on the basis of evidence of lab participation and input to the team presentation. If a team experiences a
problem with an individual team member, it is vital that this is brought to the attention of the Unit Coordinator as early as possible so
that appropriate action can be taken.
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Added on 21.03.2015 16:03
SimVenture labs + resources
The SimVenture lab sessions are self-directed sessions allowing students to explore the
game environment at their own pace. Attendance will be taken during labs, however, you
should feel free to also access the game at other times.
Queries relating to the game will be answered by tutors during scheduled lab sessions or
via group messages distributed through Moodle. Individual queries via email cannot be
answered.
It is strongly recommended that you save the game at regular intervals as computers can
(and will!) crash at inopportune moments.
You should also save each game with sequential file names, so that you can compare
and contrast various iterations of your game play.
Approaches to game play:
Some students prefer to dive straight into SimVenture and explore the game through trial
and error, whereas other students prefer a more structured approach to the game.
You can access the game from the ABS folder which is in the RGU MyApps folder when
you log into a university computer.
To start with, you should play the game on the default settings. Do not allow yourself
extra start-up capital or play it at the harder settings until you have become familiar with
the environment. For the formal assessment, however, be sure to play the games on the
settings specified in the assessment guide.
From within the game, there are a number of introductory videos that you should watch
(you will need to bring headphones or contact technicians to borrow a pair to hear the
narration), which will introduce the main functions of the game. There is an extensive website (www.simventure.com) for the game.
For background on how the game operates on a functional level, you should also view the
videos at:
http://www.simventure.co.uk/the-product/how-does-it-work If you would like to apply a structured approach to the game, it is recommended that you
work through the various training scenarios that you can load up from within the game.
Whether you prefer to dive straight into the game, or work through the various tutorials
before playing the game in a team situation, it is vitally important that you keep a record
of the decisions that you make each time you play the game, either through hand-written
notes, or by using the notebook function within the game. There is also a business plan
that you can fill in, which might be useful to complete when playing the game strategically
as a team. Please note: certain parameters change each time you run the game (e.g. market
research results etc), so you must undertake these activities each time you run the game. There is a special student version of the game available for individual play, priced at 20 g. Please note, games played and saved on this
version may not open properly on the University versions of the game and vice versa.