Introduction

"Have you ever wondered, during a marketing lecture or while plodding through a case study, what it's really like to make important marketing decisions? Have you ever fantasized about running your own company and having the authority to do all those things that you feel are necessary for operating the company profitably? Well, dream no longer! COMPETE is going to provide you with the opportunity to experience the gamut of emotions felt by marketing executives as they make strategic and tactical decisions and then live (or die) with the results.

COMPETE is an interactive marketing simulation that places you in a competitive, market place environment. Within the volatile arena of COMPETE, you will be responsible for making all of the marketing decisions necessary for effectively managing your company's growth and profitability on an on-going basis. And, as you will have to deal with the consequences of your decisions, your courage and ability will be put to the test.

From the outset of this unique and exciting journey, you will be called upon to skilfully apply all that you have learned in your marketing (and other) courses to correctly identify and define corporate problems and market opportunities. As a marketing manager, you must solve the problems you have identified and take advantage of the opportunities that you have discovered by making appropriate marketing decisions. As the competitive expedition you will be on covers an extended period of time (several COMPETE years), you will quickly learn that today's decisions can, and usually do, create tomorrow's problems and opportunities.

As you proceed, it is important to keep in mind that COMPETE, unlike simple case analyses, is not an exercise in limited, one-shot problem solving. During this experiential adventure, you will be part of a living case, one that grows and changes at your direction. The excitement builds with each decision period as you begin to sense and enjoy the "thrill of victory" as described by Theodore Levitt in his classic article "Marketing Myopia" (Harvard Business Review, 1960):

'Obviously the company has to do what survival demands. It has to adapt to the requirements of the market, and it has to do it sooner rather than later. But mere survival is a so-so aspiration. Anybody can survive in some way or other, even the skid-row bum. The trick is to survive gallantly, to feel the surging impulse of commercial mastery; not just to experience the sweet smell of success, but to have the visceral feel of entrepreneurial greatness'."

Source: Faria, A.J., 2006

Experiential Learning

This course is dedicated to the proposition that the primary purpose of business school education is to prepare students for decision-making responsibilities in their future careers. Facts about various facets of business can be taught. However, the ability to make sound decisions in a dynamic, complex, and uncertain environment is best developed through experiential learning. The value of experiential learning was recognized by Confucius in his saying:
"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."

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Learning: A Two-Stage Process

Learning involves the acquisition of knowledge and the application of concepts learned. This course provides budding marketing managers with the opportunity to learn, practice and apply marketing concepts and skills.

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Learning Using a Marketing Simulation

This course uses a marketing simulation game that:

• places one in a dynamic, complex, and uncertain environment,
• helps one understand the need for and usefulness of the principles learned,
• induces one to be active, make decisions, and influence one's learning environment,
• provides feedback and thereby reinforces learning,
• enables one to gain confidence as one improves one's performance,
• encourages one to be an active seeker rather than a passive absorber of knowledge,
• stimulates one to learn in order to excel,
• encourages more and improved student/teacher interaction,
• provides experience in goal setting, decision making, and group dynamics without paying the price of wrong decisions in real life, and
• facilitates specific and realistic discussion of actual decisions made rather than broad generalizations as to what might or should have been done.

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Business Week B-School Briefs, April 7, 2008

"Case studies, once considered the only way to train MBAs, are losing some of their street cred. The latest challenge: computer simulations that allow students to run virtual companies. The games, now used by more than half of B-schools, can last a couple of days or all semester. Students are assigned management roles and presented with a problem, then get to work. Professors track their every move and supply feedback.

At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, professors can create custom simulations, convert case studies to simulations, or develop alternate endings for existing scenarios. Even Harvard, where the case study originated nearly 100 years ago, plans to unveil a new management simulation this spring. As Samuel Wood, a former Stanford B-school professor who markets his own simulations,says: "You can read about bicycles. But you won't be a good cyclist until you start riding one."

Source: Di Meglio, Francesca (2008). "The Sims: Executive Education," Business Week, April 7, 2008, p. 92

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Go to: MKT 361 Marketing Management & Decision Making Seminar

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