A well researched Business Strategy Game Guide From Experts to Help you Win

Understanding essential strategies to run a business is critical to launching a successful entity. What if you could familiarize yourself with these strategies by playing a game? Exciting, right?

With the BSG game, you can develop critical decision-making skills, familiarize yourself with real business issues, and work with fellow students or your staff to evaluate options aligned with your company’s goals and objectives. But what is a Business strategy game?

The business strategy game is an online program whereby students or staff are grouped into two groups. These two groups are then assigned tasks that provide a head-to-head competition while running an athlete footwear company business. The goal is to achieve a competitive edge over other teams and stay ahead.

However, while BSG is an online game, it is not straightforward. You need to be strategic and work on factors like maintaining the growth of the earnings, increasing image rating, and maintaining returns on average equity investment.

To help you get started, we’ve put together a business strategy game guide to get you off to a successful start.

Feeling stuck? We can help you navigate the BSG game while offering best practices training to enable you to stay ahead of the competition and earn profits.

All you have to do is contact us. We are happy to provide the help you need!

Tips on How to Win the Business Strategy Game | BSG Game

The best way to improve the chances of winning over your competition or other participants is to start the BSG simulation game right. You could achieve this by maxing out our total quality management and best practices training. Below are more tips on how to win the business strategy game.

Let’s get started.

1. Choose a Strategy

The first step to launching a successful game is deciding the strategy you want to pursue and stick to it. By choosing a winning strategy and sticking to it, you set yourself to make the highest profits. Without a plan, you only focus on revenues or ending market share or cash, increasing the risk of losing.

Some strategies you could pick include:

• High quality/low model strategy. This strategy involves pairing high-quality shoes (those with an S/Q rating of eight and ten stars) with a low number of models, usually 50.
• Mid-quality/high model strategy. The medium quality/high model strategy involves pairing mid-quality shoes (those with an S/Q rating between five and six stars) with many models, often between 250 and 350.

2. Build Space in Latin America

Building equipment and space in Latin America is perhaps one of the essential long-term saving plans you could incorporate into your BSG simulation game. The reason? Thanks to labor costs, Latin America is one of the most affordable places. You could save up to $10 per branded pair in tariff expenses!

3. Set up a Plant Capacity

Be sure to strategically define a plan for putting up a plant capacity. The most important advice we could provide is setting up your plant capacity into an existing plant. This way, you will expand your learning curve while the shoe prices are significantly low.

Avoid selling your plant capacity as you may need it in the future, especially if you intend on upgrading the S/Q if you decide to employ the high-quality strategy or upgrade production setup reduction for the low-quality plan.

4. Branded Production

Get the right S/Q by toggling the best materials, TQM, and features for branded productions. You can achieve this by signing up for our best practices training at an affordable price, and you will get the desired S/Q rating.

When toggling TQM, materials, and features, ensure the TQM ranges between $0.70 and $0.80. and the features cost at most $50,000 for a combination that delivers the highest profits. You should also consider reducing employee wages first to maximize profits. You should then increase employees’ salaries in percentages over time. However, ensure the employee’s wages toggle 6% to 14% across all regions, including Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe Africa, for maximum profit.

That said, determining the number of pairs you need across the regions can be challenging. Engage your team and play around with numbers to make effective decisions to arrive at a specific quantity. However, if you get a surplus number of shoes in the first year, consider lowering the percentage in the following year.

5. Avoid Dropping Retailer Support

While dropping your retailer support can increase your net profits and EPS(earnings per share), it is not advisable to take this step until your final year. The reason? Dropping retailer support reduces the demand for your branded pairs over the years.

Be sure to keep your retailer support above industry averages to increase your demand and supply.

6. Corporate Citizenship

While most students view corporate citizenship as a waste of money, it is critical to improving your image rating, especially if you select the best options. Some suggestions for optimizing your practice image rating include “All Employees,” Ethics training, and a workforce Diversity program.

7. Launch a Private Label

The private label market share is an excellent measure of your team’s achievement. It also avails the opportunity to provide the most affordable shoes. This enables you to maximize your profits.

Be sure to put in a private label market, especially if you have a remaining production capacity. You should then allocate a reasonable amount in the market while evaluating profit margin over direct costs to establish whether or not your private label will be profitable, depending on the amount you intend to sell the products.

Ensure you buckle the private label shoes with stylish features and superior materials upon allocating them to different regions to keep the costs for production at a minimum. You should also ensure you meet the S/Q rating for each decision round.

Bonus tip: Price your private label shoes at least $5 below the industry’s average wholesale prices in each region to increase sales. Pricing above average wholesale price could result in not selling even a single shoe.

Other practical tips when running a private label market include:

• Price your shoes under other industries when the private market is competitive
• Price your shoes high when no other enterprises are engaged in the private label market.
• Expand your private label market to all regions by setting a lower price than other industries in all or selected regions.

What is Image Rating in BSG Game?

You must get an image rating of 70 and above when playing the BSG game online to be safe. That said, various factors impact image rating in a business strategy game. They include:

• The patented footwear and private label market share directly linked the four geographic regions specified in the BSG game.
• The business’s styling/quality (SQ) rating in the four geographic regions.
• The company’s actions showcase corporate citizenship and its operating practices in a socially acceptable manner for over four to five years.

How to Improve Your Image Rating in BSG Game

As earlier established, you must increase your image rating(get a rating of more than 70) to win a BSG game. The following are tips for improving your BSG game rating:

• Establish an effective cost strategy. This improves image rating by increasing your styling/quality rating. Setting a lower price is directly linked to maintaining a high BSG image rating.
• Consider a CSR initiative. However, be strategic about how much you splurge into the initiative.
• Ensure you have a minimum of 20% market share in all segments when in competition with more than five teams. This ensures your company is adequately represented in the four geographic regions specified by BSG, impacting your image rating positively.

Decision Entries for the BSG

To start playing, you first have to complete a Course setup procedure. You have to make various decisions to play and succeed in the game. Below are some decision rounds or pages and how to optimize every entry to increase the chances of staying ahead of your competition.

1. Compensation and Training

To make your workforce more efficient, you must determine how much you intend to compensate them. You further have to train them to hone their skills. However, be careful not to overspend or underspend on workforce compensation and training to maximize profits.

The key features in this decision round include:

• Base wage
• Incentive pay
• Fridge benefits
• Workforce best practice training

2. Company Sales Forecast

The sales forecast is perhaps the most significant decision entry round in the BSG game, and you and your team will likely spend most of your time on this page. On the sales forecast page, your team will optimize entries and toggle every value to reach the maximum possible profit for every entry.

During this round, do not solely focus on market share percentage or other values. Instead, prioritize the net profit. This is because your net profit is critical to your success in a BSG game. Consider noting your net profits for each entry on paper and comparing them before adding different values.

3. Branded production

When it comes to the branded production decision round, you are required to set your production values. This involves deciding the S/Q rating for the manufactured branded pairs and the compensation and training for your workforce. Be sure to prioritize maximizing the net profit. You should also determine the number of branded shoes you intend to produce in each geographic region you have existing plants.

4. Branded Distribution

This decision entry page allows you to allocate all your production across the four geographic areas specified by the BSG. When allocating production, be sure to pay attention to your inventory: inventory shortfalls and surplus.

Ensure you also label or type the number of boxes you intend to distribute to a specific region. You should also ascertain that you ship the branded shoes to the right plant to reduce operating costs while building capacity where necessary.

5. Wholesale marketing

When it comes to the wholesale decision page, plug in the values for the wholesale price, models available, S/Q rating, advertising budget, retail outlets, rebate offer, retailer support, celebrity appeal, and delivery time.

Be sure to start with the values you are certain of when plugging in the wholesale sales. For instance, you could start off with shoes with an S/Q rating of seven stars and 50 available models for a high-quality, low-model strategy.

The retail outlets should always be the highest number the game allows you to set. You could then estimate the delivery time to be three weeks. Next, play around with the wholesale price, rebate offer, advertising budget, and retailer support values to optimize profit.

Not sure how to plug in your wholesale sales values? Contact us. We are happy to offer the guidance you require to stay ahead of the competition.

6. Internet Marketing

For this decision round, you should plug in the values for the retail price and the models offered. Be sure to also establish whether or not to offer free shipping.

Free shipping will likely not increase your profit, so consider setting it to ‘NO’ and the models offered to 50. However, you could consider playing around with numbers and setting free shipping to ‘YES.’ If you notice an increase in net profit, leave free shipping at ‘YES’; otherwise, always set it to ‘NO.’

Keep track of your company’s internet price and its changes. This way, you can use the data collected to set a reasonable price for the subsequent years.

7. Total Branded Production Needed to Achieve Sales Forecast

Leverage your wholesale and internet segments for each geographical region to forecast regional sales volume. The internet segment for regional sales volume provides an excellent estimate. However, the business strategy game often underestimates wholesale segment values by 20%, so you have to keep adjusting them for an accurate appraisal.

You will likely get a bonus point if your estimated values are closer to or equal to the actual figures. For this reason, always multiply your wholesale segment values for the four regions by 1.2 to get an accurate regional wholesale sale volume.

Once you get an accurate wholesale volume, add this value to the regional internet segment for each region. This gives you an estimate of the number of shoes you will likely sell in the four areas.

With that being said, ensure you account for rejected shoes during production to establish the total branded production needed to achieve the sales forecast. To achieve this, add the abandoned shoe rate to your total sales volume for each region.

Other decision entries in BSG include:

• Corporate citizenship
• Adjusting to competition
• Finance and cashflow
• Private-Label Production
• Self-Construction of Additional Capacity
• Sources of Additional Cash
• S/Q rating of branded pairs produced

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do you win the BSG business strategy game?

Increase the chances of winning a BSG game by picking a winning strategy, setting up brand capacity, building space in Latin America, launching a private label, and keeping your retailer’s support.

2. What does the business strategy game teach you?

The business strategy game is beneficial to both students and entrepreneurs. It combines lessons and information from other courses, impacts knowledge and skills essential to starting and running a business, and boosts learners’ confidence in analyzing a company’s revenue, cost, and profit economics.

3. How is the business strategy game graded?

There are five scoring dimensions in a business simulation game trial. These include Return on Equity (ROE), Earnings Per Share (EPS), stock prices, image rating, and credit rating.

4. How can I improve my BSG Credit Rating?

You can increase your BSG credit rating by paying off current debts and applying for new loans.

Contact Us Today

If you are feeling stuck or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our BSG support team for assistance. We will help you navigate the game to stay ahead of your competition.

Get in touch with us today!