MARKSTRAT 2

Monsoon has arrived in Hyderabad in full strength.

Amidst these showers some of the things that took place in the last 48 hours include the strengthening of our team position in Markstrat in Industry ‘I’. Our net contribution is a 12 thousand more than the team in second position. It was a tough decision session as we had changed our two top products and game could have gone anywhere.

Most of the clubs here at ISB have steadied after the elections of various Presidents and selection of the team members. Some clubs have even started their activities and brain storming sessions. Some interesting guest speaker sessions are also expected in near future.

One of our seniors from the previous batch Deepak Mittal, who was working as a TA for Economics course- before joining his assignment in BCG- took a farewell ‘knowledge sharing session’ today. He is leaving to proceed to join his company. Knowingly or unknowingly he was very helpful for many of us, as interaction with the senior batch is not easy in a one year MBA course.

Lastly, have you ever come across the great saying, ‘There are no free lunches’? Well! It is heard quite often in the management world. I will be coming with my experiences on the same in my next post.

The MARKSTRAT World

This note was long due, but the culprit for this delay is the topic I am writing about. I am talking about MARKSTRAT, the simulation marketing game, which is a part of the curriculum for the course on Market Decision Making.

There are ninety teams taking part in the game. The teams have been divided into 5 Industries A, E, I, O and U, each having their own advantages and disadvantages as in a real life market. There are 5 consumer segments each having its own characteristics. The teams are doing research to improve their products, developing their own strategies and learning from the strategies of their competitors and also launching new products.

And as the fate of the teams is changing after every round as per their net contribution, the Products of companies- stars, cash cows, dogs and question mark of the BCG matrix are also basking in glory one day and are flop on the other day. As a summary and as I always say, I am rediscovering Marketing and management. What could be more interesting than seeing your competitors go in red all the way? While you a business czar think aggressively of price wars and acquisitions and watch the novice falter on every step.

But as the game is progressing, the pressure is building up. After all, it is only a small contribution of 6000 Markstrat $ that separates us from the team which is second in Industry ‘I’. Whatever is the outcome -for me like many others- MARKSTRAT is more than part of a course, and we are spending disproportionate time on it aggressively planning for our future actions.

At the same time, Ziv Katalan, our Decision Modeling Professor from Wharton has covered the Monte Carlo Simulations using the Crystal Ball software. Now we are modeling our decisions on oil prices, options valuations, and have also revisited the old Newsvendor Problem.

On the whole this term is more intensive than the last but the component of fun has also increased. And in case if our team does well in the marketing game, I will write more about our progress. And if we do not do that well, I leave a clue for you, I adopt a non disclosure policy (The copy right to the last line belongs to our Accounting professor).