GBA 498 GoVenture CEO Simulation Guidelines and Rubric During the course of the semester, you will be participating in an on-line PC-based exercise in head-to-head competition against their classmates and computer-based participants. Access to the simulation can be attained by going to www.goventureceo.com and following the student registration. However, before registering you will need a company ID that is provided by your instructor. Your instructor will notify you of which group you are a member of, along with the simulation number required to participate. There are three components of this project:
1. Weekly decision rounds 2. Draft of 3-Year Strategic Plan (This Dropbox basket is linked to Turnitin.) 3. GoVenture Simulation Debrief (This Dropbox basket is linked to Turnitin.)
Decision Rounds Practice Simulation – Decision Rounds
• All companies start out on the same footing – with equal resources • Each decision round represents a year • You can advance each year manually
Full Simulation - Decision Rounds
• All companies start out on the same footing— with equal resources • Each decision period in represents a year. Periods will be advanced by the instructor. • You will make variety of decisions each period relating to product pricing, R&D, sales
and marketing, and targeting different consumer profiles and market territories. • In addition, there is accounting and cost data to examine. • The overall goal of the your company is to achieve net profitability, a comprehensive
measure that accounts for a combination of profitability and the different ways in which you can raise capital.
• Your cumulative rank score is calculated based on the company’s achievement of each of the ten performance targets are as follows (more detail on the calculations is contained in GoVentureCEO):
• Rank • Achievements achieved compared to other businesses • Trends – percentage of periods where your performance score stayed the same
or increased • Profit – total profit earned compared to other businesses • Revenue – total revenue earned compared to other businesses • Product competitiveness – combination of price, brand, and R&D scores • Inventory Management – percent of missed unit sales compared to units sold • Marketing – total brand equity scored • Advertising – advertising effectiveness score • HR Management – HR Score • Cumulative rank score (out of 100)
• The total score is composed of an average of your cumulative rank score, scaled market share, scaled price competitiveness, scaled advertising effectiveness, scaled web site usability, and scaled revenues. Note the raw scores in each of these areas is scaled based on your performance relative to the other groups in the simulation.
http://www.goventureceo.com/
Draft 3-Year Strategic Plan After year 3 in the simulation, you are required to submit a three-year strategic plan that will cover the remaining three years (years 4, 5, and 6). Preparation of a 3-Year Strategic Plan involves:
1. Stating a strategic vision for the company in a brief paragraph. What is it that you are striving for? Think of this as your team’s vision statement – what are your broad goals for the next three years?
2. An introductory paragraph that discusses where your team is in the simulation – what have you done up until now, what has been driving your decisions, what is your performance like? Just provide an idea of your current status in the simulation.
3. Based on (2) above, discuss your current strategy and note whether your current strategy is either on track or will require substantial internal changes;
4. Declare what strategy the company will employ, why you chose the strategy, and how you will deploy it. This will be based on your current status in the simulation and you will choose a strategy based on improving your status. This is not an action, but a specific strategy (e.g. market development, product development, market penetration, etc.); and
5. Establishing financial objectives for total revenue, profits, cash flow, and stock price appreciation for each of the next three years. You should also have a projected income statement that lays out expected unit sales, revenues, costs, and profits for each of the three geographic regions for the each of the next three years. When you create your financial projections, be sure that you state your assumptions as well.
GoVenture Simulation Debrief In addition to the draft strategic plan, you are required to submit a 10-page maximum paper discussing their strategic plan. It must contain, at a minimum, the following topic areas:
Discuss the original strategy, the plan and original financial targets
Identify issues related to the original strategy and underlying assumptions o Stakeholders o Key Assumptions o Strategy with Potential / Desired Outcomes
What occurred in subsequent decision rounds – did you have to modify your approach or assumptions and why/why not?
Financial Debriefing – did you achieve your financial goals and why/why not? Deliverables All deliverables are due no later than Sunday 11:59 PM EST/EDT of each module.
Module GoVenture Simulation
1 2 Practice Rounds + 1 Decision Round
2 Decision Round 2
3 Decision Round 3
4 Decision Round 4 Draft of 3-Year Strategic Plan
5 Decision Round 5
6 Decision Round 6
8 GoVenture Simulation Debrief
GoVenture CEO Simulation Debrief Grading Rubric
Content
Points Earned
Comments:
Original Plan Discussed: Original Strategy Original Financial Targets
/ 25
Original Strategy Discussion: Identify issues related to
strategy Evaluates assumptions Recognizes stakeholders and
relationships to the strategy Frames a concrete strategy
and acknowledges potential outcomes
/ 25
Strategy Debriefing: What occurred in subsequent
decision rounds Did strategy have to be
modified
/ 25
Financial Debriefing: How did you perform vs goals?
/ 25
Total / 100
Grading Rubric Limited Proficiency Some Proficiency Proficiency High Proficiency
Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1
Grading Rubric for Strategic Plan Component Within GoVentureCEO
Identifies & Explains Issues Related to Company’s Strategic Plan
Fails to identify or explain main issues or topics relevant to the company’s strategy. Presents the issues or topics inaccurately or inappropriately.
Identifies main issues or topics relevant to the company’s strategy, but does not explain them clearly or sufficiently.
Successfully identifies and summarizes main issues and topics relevant to the company’s strategy, and weakly explains how to deal with these issues or topics.
Clearly identifies and summarizes main issues and explains how to deal with them by addressing the company’s strategy.
Evaluation of Facts and Information Used in Developing Strategy
Fails to identify facts and information that counts as evidence used in developing strategy and fails to evaluate its credibility.
Successfully identifies some facts and information that counts as evidence used in developing strategy but fails to thoroughly evaluate its credibility.
Identifies the majority of important facts and information used as evidence in developing strategy and rigorously evaluates it.
Identifies all facts and information used as evidence in developing strategy and provides additional data or information for consideration.
Recognizes Stakeholders and their Relationships to Strategy (including all employees, political, shareholders, community, vendors, environment, and ethical)
Fails to accurately identify any relevant stakeholders and their contexts to the issues. Presents problems as having no connections to stakeholders.
Shows some general understanding of the stakeholders and their contexts to the issues but does not identify any specific ones relevant to situation at hand.
Correctly identifies all the stakeholders and their contexts to the situation but only addressed a limited few.
Correctly identifies all the stakeholders and their contexts to the situation and also identifies minor stakeholders and their contexts to the company’s strategy.
Frames a Concrete Corporate Strategy and Acknowledges Possible Outcomes
Fails to formulate and clearly express corporate strategy and/or fails to anticipate possible outcomes.
Formulates a vague and indecisive corporate strategy and/or vaguely describes possible outcomes.
Formulates a clear and precise corporate strategy, but addresses the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats only lightly.
Not only formulates a clear and precise corporate strategy, but also addresses the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in detail.
Adequately Discusses Strategic Outcomes and Deviations From Plan
Fails to identify and evaluate any of the important issues and/or outcomes in subsequent decision rounds and their effects on the company's strategy and resulting deviations from the initial plan.
Identifies some of the most important issues and/or outcomes in subsequent decision rounds and their effects on the company's strategy and resulting deviations from the initial plan.
Identifies and evaluates the majority of important issues and/or outcomes in subsequent decision rounds and their effects on the company's strategy and resulting deviations from the initial plan.
Identifies and evaluates the all important issues and/or outcomes in subsequent decision rounds and their effects on the company's strategy and any resulting deviations from the initial plan.
Adequately Discusses Initial Financial Targets and Performance Relative to Plan
Fails to discuss any of the financial targets along with justification and assumptions. Fails to address any of the issues related to deviation of performance vs. goals.
Discusses most of the financial targets along with justification and assumptions. Identifies most of the issues related to deviation of performance vs. goals.
Discusses the majority of financial targets along with justification and assumptions. Identifies the majority of issues related to deviation of performance vs. goals.
Discusses all financial targets along with justification and assumptions. Identifies all issues related to deviation of performance vs. goals.
Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1
0 – 69 70 - 79 80 – 89 90 - 100
Points Given – 100 Point Scale
Grading Rubric for Student Performance in GoVentureCEO
Grading Rubric Limited Proficiency Some Proficiency Proficiency High Proficiency
Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1
Time Spent Online Working With GoVenture CEO Simulation
Less than 1 hour per week Between 1 – 1.5 hours per week
Between 1.5 – 2.5 hours per week
More than 2.5 hours per week
Student Discussion Question Posts (Optional)
Fails to identify or explain main issues or topics relevant to the discussion question. Presents the issues or topics inaccurately or inappropriately.
Identifies main issues or topics relevant to the discussion question but does not explain them clearly or sufficiently.
Successfully identifies and summarizes most of the main issues and topics relevant to the discussion question.
Clearly identifies and summarizes all the main issues and explains how to deal with them within the context of the discussion question.
Cumulative Results - Scaled Revenue
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Cumulative Results - Scaled Market Share
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Cumulative Results - Scaled Price Competitiveness
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Cumulative Results - Scaled Advertising Effectiveness
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Cumulative Results - Scaled Web Site Usability
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Cumulative Results - Scaled Cumulative Rank
Score 0 - 49 Score 50 - 64 Score 65 - 79 Score 80 - 100
Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1
Points Given – 100 Point Scale
0 – 69 70 - 79 80 – 89 90 - 100
Score
Sample Spreadsheet for Calculating Scaled Grades in GoVenture CEO
Cumulative Rank Mkt Shr Competitiveness Site Usability $Million
Group Score Scaled % Scaled Price Scaled Score Scaled Adv. Effect. Rev Scaled Total Score
One 66 93% 8% 100% 30% 60% 94% 100% 100% 24.626 100% 92%
Two 58 82% 4% 50% 50% 100% 80% 85% 100% 13.010 53% 78%
Three 71 100% 7% 88% 30% 60% 94% 100% 100% 23.801 97% 91%
Four 55 77% 1% 13% 9% 18% 88% 94% 100% 10.593 43% 57%
Five 49 69% 0% 0% 0% 0% 72% 72% 100% 3.134 13% 42%
Cumulative Rank: One Two Three Four Five
Rank 2 1 1 1 1
Achievements 5 8 4 2 1
Trends 9 9 9 9 9
Profit 1 1 1 1 1
Revenue 8 10 7 6 2
Product Competitiveness 6 6 5 4 3
Inventory Managment 10 10 10 10 10
Marketing (Brand Equity) 5 6 1 2 2
Advertising 10 10 10 10 10
HR Management 10 10 10 10 10
Total Points 66 71 58 55 49
Percentile Score 93% 100% 82% 77% 69%
Note Percenitle Scores are Calculated As A Percentage of the Highest Group's Score. All Raw Scores Come from Within GoVenture CEO Reports