Workshop on Management Games

Term I, AY 2021-22
Industry: C129812 Company Name: Ferris

Group Members:

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Contents

● Objectives during each round and adapted strategy

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1.
Please state the objectives that you set out to achieve at the beginning of round 1, also
tell us why? (You can mention segments that you intended to focus, your strategic choice for
each segment and financial objectives that you wanted to achieve thereof.)

Objectives
• Our main objective was profit maximization
• To maintain a stable growth with the progress of rounds
• To capture the market share of the segment that gives the highest profit

Strategy
• To focus on traditional and low segments because even if they had the lowest price, they still
generated the maximum revenue (as observed in the Capstone Courier of round 0).
• R&D - Prioritize the exact position of Size, Performance, MTBF, and age based on the
percentage weightage allocated in different segments.
• Depending upon the sales volumes and margins, allocate budget accordingly and set the
price depending upon its importance for a particular segment.

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2.
What was your strategy to achieve these objectives and tell us the operational decisions that you
Took (round-wise), that you thought, would help you achieve these objectives? Which decisions
helped you achieve success through the rounds, and which did not work and why?

• The strategy was to be as close as to the ideal position of the segment. However, we
overlooked other parameters, and it ended in a failure

• We were focusing on Traditional and Low segments, but they had

• Because of the mistake in round 1, our traditional segment product’s age in round 3 was
closer to the ideal age than the competitors. However, we failed to consider this and
forecasted lesser demand and got stocked out and missed an excellent opportunity.
• Throughout the game, we did not sell any capacity, which could have been a good
investment. We realized this in the end, and in the last 2 rounds, we sold a significant
proportion of the capacity.
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3.
Mention unexpected events that took place over the rounds. Did you change your
objectives at this point of time, if yes, did those work?

• Even after maintaining the performance and size close to the ideal point, incurring a loss in
the first round just because we overlooked the age which was the most important criteria for
that segment.

• In round 4, we expected good sales for the Traditional segment’s product. However, because
of reduced customer accessibility (due to lower investment in the Sales budget), the sales
were not good, and we ended up with lots of inventory.
- We introduced two new products and increased the sales budget so as to increase customer accessibility. One of
the products did help in increasing customer accessibility later in the game.

• In round 4, we failed to notice the R&D’s expected date, which was almost 2 years in the
future, affecting its sales next year because age could not be brought closer to the ideal age,
which was an essential criteria for the low segment.
- From this moment, we made sure that the expected date should be within a year.

• Significant emergency loan in round 6, which was late in the game, and we had only two
rounds to cover up for the losses.

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4.
Name the competitor(s) who you were most alert about in different segments, functional areas
and financial parameters, why? (Please state here specific decisions made by competitors that
hurt your business and you were not expecting them.)

• After few rounds, we were most focused on the competitor Baldwin because they performed
well in almost all segments and had a good contribution margin

• In round 4, Baldwin had 3 products in the traditional segment, which led to Baldwin having a
significantly higher share than any of the competitors. This affected our sales in the
traditional segment, which was one of our major focus.

• Later in the game, Chester overtook Baldwin and had a good contribution margin, and we
feel that it was because Chester spent more on the automation, which we couldn’t because
of the losses in the initial rounds. With this, Chester was able to reduce their price, which
reduced our sales.

• Later in the rounds, after having incurred losses in one of the rounds, we made the decision
to retract our investment in TQM to minimize our short-term expenditure since it was the
most convenient way to reduce the costs, but in the long run, it affected us, since other
competitors had invested significantly in it, and therefore reaped the positive benefits from
it in the later rounds even though their product specs were similar to ours.
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5.
Please mention decisions that changed in the competition round when compared to the practice
Round (Mention specific decisions.). Discuss whether you opted for similar segmental focus and
financial objectives, and how would your operational intents be different?

• During practice rounds, the focus was more on Research and Development. Further, more
attention was paid to automation in the subsequent rounds but was limited to few segments
(Traditional, low, etc.)
• In practice, a particular market segment was not targeted. During the competition, we
focused on sales of Traditional and Low segments as the total market share of them was
about 60%
• The aspects of marketing, like promo budget, sales budget, etc., were not given any
preference in practice rounds. These parameters were not considered initially during the
competition but were later given importance to penetrate the products into the market and
increase sales.
• In practice, automation and 2nd shift capacity were not considered for a particular product of
a given segment. With emerging market trends in later rounds with the competition,
decisions were taken to improve the performance of products that were performing well in
the market, and production schedules were decided.
• The financial decisions were made to accommodate the R&D, marketing, and production
aspects. The focus was more or less not to take the emergency loan, which remained the
same throughout the rounds.
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6.
Any other observations that you want to discuss.

• We did not perform that well in the first few rounds, and we realized it was essential to
perform well in the initial rounds as in later rounds, we had to focus more on damage
control.

• Because we gave a lot of time on R&D, marketing, production, and finance, we missed on the
TQM part entirely because of which our net profit was low compared to our competitors

• We were thinking about the short term, to increase profit in the immediate next round, but
what decision we take may affect even after 3-4 rounds, and we should keep this in mind
while strategizing.

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Thank You!

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