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The Strategy Game™
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"When you are successful with a strategic play in your marketplace,
your competitors will not send you congratulation notes and bottles of
wine. They will react."
Kevin Nuttall, SigmaField
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Predicting how your
competitors or customers are likely to respond to a strategic play is
essential input to formulating winning business strategies. Simple linear
models will not predict the complex interplays of your market place. The
Strategy Game™ can. By setting up the key "value nets" in your market
place and simulating their interactions, we can predict with much more
accuracy how a particular strategy will act out in the real world.
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For example, Lockheed
Corporation used game playing to forecast the reactions of their major
customers and competitors to proposed changes in the design of their aeroplanes;
this allowed the company to examine various options before making a final
design decision.
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Research suggests
predictions can rise from mere chance or 27% to 61% accuracy. The researcher's
comments were "we have been involved in forecasting since 1960 and have
never before encountered a forecasting method that produces such large
improvements over other procedures." (Victoria University in New Zealand)
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The Purpose of the Strategy Game™
The purpose of the Strategy
Game™ is to test the effectiveness of a business strategy in a no risk
environment and to simulate the potential up sides and down sides of a particular
"strategic play".
Whilst most organisations
have access to much of the essential data, information and knowledge to make
the right moves, few know how to account for the interplay between their own
decisions and those of the other key players on the business arena - rivals,
customers, suppliers, complementary, competitors and regulators.
The Strategy Game™
is a simple, yet powerful way of addressing this issue - based on the very latest
tools and techniques from game theory and strategic analysis. Teams act out
the roles of the real-life players - to give you dramatic insights into the
way today's decisions shape tomorrow's business environment.
What Problems can the Strategy Game™ Help Solve?
Entering a new market:
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- Should we go ahead?
- Which approach
is best?
- How will our competitors
react?
- What will be the
impact on our resellers?
- How do the timing
options compare?
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Someone new is entering your market:
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- How will we be
affected?
- What strategy are
they likely to adopt?
- How should we react?
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Creating a new distribution channel:
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- How do the options
compare?
- How will they impact
the existing resellers?
- What will the competition do?
- What are our greatest
risks?
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Developing a new policy:
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- How are all the
key stakeholders affected?
- What are the critical
political implications?
- Where is opposition
likely to be strongest?
- What compromises
are desirable?
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Launching a new product:
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- Should we do it?
- What is the best
pricing policy?
- Will our existing
products suffer?
- How will the competition
react?
- How will customers
react?
- What will be the
impact on our logistics?
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A rival is launching a new product:
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- What is their likely
pricing policy?
- What is our best
pricing strategy?
- How will our products
be impacted?
- How will customers
react?
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Securing a supplier:
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- Does it make strategic
sense?
- How will it impact
our rivals?
- What will happen
to our cost structures?
- How will other
suppliers react?
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Acquiring another business:
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- What is the best
approach?
- How will regulatory
authorities view the proposal?
- What are the key
management issues we face?
- How will it impact
our existing business units?
- How will our investors
react?
- Should we integrate
- or keep the unit separate?
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What are the Outcomes from the Strategy Game™?
A confident, reliable and robust decision on your preferred business
direction:
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You obtain deep insights into the way your decision will be worked out,
and a comprehensive understanding of the behaviours of all stakeholders
in that decision.
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Learnings from your management team:
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Players can hone their decision-making skills before "trying their hand"
in the real world.
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What Happens in the Strategy Game™?
The Strategy Game™
is played out in three phases:
Preparation:
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Where we construct a gaming framework peculiar to your particular business
problem.
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Enactment:
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Where teams act out the roles of the key players in your business environment
over a number of closely facilitated and rigorously structured game-plays.
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Conclusion:
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Where a team of your own people report on the outcomes of the Game and
recommend a course of action - based on the results of analysis carried
out by SigmaField's Principals.
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What is Delivered from the Strategy Game™?
Each Phase of the Strategy
Game™
delivers high-valued outputs:
Preparation:
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A concise formulation of your business problem and a rigorous model of
the environment in which this must be solved.
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Enactment:
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A comprehensive description
of the influences, interactions, decisions and behaviours of players in
your business environment.
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Resolution:
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A rigorous analysis
of the problem and your options - together with a comprehensive description
of the recommended move, its consequences and implementation.
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