Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management

This business simulation is similar to the Supply Chain and Channel Management simulation, with a slightly simplified decision content compressed into 4 decision rounds.

It will give your students in-depth exposure into the challenges involved in making supply chains work. The business simulation focuses on the development and management of business-to-business relationships between student teams who become either suppliers or distributors within an international business setting. Your students will learn to execute a supply chain strategy and deal with the complexities and conflicts of supply chain management. They will need to balance selfishness and short-term gain with the potential for greater reward resulting from building long-term business relationships. They will learn to negotiate, cooperate, and coordinate to achieve desired ends while focusing on win-win solutions.

Storyline

A group of venture capitalists will provide the seed capital for your student teams to start their simulated companies. They will become either suppliers or resellers in the microcomputer industry. All firms will have limited financial resources and complete accounting responsibility. Resellers must find suppliers who can produce the goods they wish to sell to the end user market. Suppliers must approach resellers to become their sources of supply. Your students will experience the complicated process of building relationships and putting channels in place. The business simulation provides a full set of supply-chain options, allowing students to make investments to speed up and better coordinate the exchanges between business partners. Achieving high level of supply-chain coordination will require extensive negotiations and trust between the involved parties.

To speed up the start up process, all suppliers start with an operational factory in Asia, and the resellers have a sales office open in one of the 12 regions. As the exercise unfolds, suppliers will make tactical decisions related to factory expansions and scheduling production to supply products for one or more resellers. They will need to optimize their production process, increase contract fulfillment and improve quality and reliability of the products they produce. Resellers will select a product portfolio and advertising budget, expand their sales channels and experiment with marketing campaigns to stimulate demand throughout the world. The quality of the supply chain relationship between the student teams will be the critical element determining each team's performance in the game.