[B-School] Anyone Ever Play the CAPSIM Capstone Simulation?

I can't remember exactly what I did but I did that simulator about 3 1/2 years ago. My team was very aggresive in launching new products(in addition to the products you already had) and doing a lot of R&D early. We took on debt and we failed to invest in some things to be more efficient with our production. All I remember is that we had the largest marketshare and sales of all the groups but our debt ratio was terrible. Watch out for the labor costs. You'll want to hire second shifts instead of paying overtime on the first shifts. I had some r****d accountants in my group that didn't want to spend in the first few rounds and invest and it ended up costing us big time in the end.

My advice:

Launch new products within the first few years to steal market share
Do your R&D correct to get the right kinds of products out there
Launch products ahead of schedule that will net big sales in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th years in the big market share groups
Don't worry about debt the first few years
Invest in as much capacity as you can the first few years

You'll be in debt, but if you play it right, you'll have huge 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th years that will blow everybody out

That's all I remember about it though...i did that simulation in summer of 2005

 

i have no advice but my friend is playing now and their share price is down to $1 and they're getting their asses kicked.

 

While these are all good points, the most important thing is to maintain a presence in every segment and to focus on the buying criteria. Make sure you forecast correctly, and to do this, look at your dec survey score and figure out what your total market share will be, then look at additional products and see if you are likely to go up or down. We used an online guide at:

www.capsimexperts.com

and we scored in the 99th percentile and got an A+. It's really good. Good luck!

 

I smell a scam. Don't advertise your products here sir.

 

My group wont his in my class.

We didnt do any new products.

We focused on pricing lower than competitors, advertising, and reducing debt. Once our debt was down, we started issuing dividends which raised our stock price. By the end, we were the only ones with no debt and issuing new stock and dividends. We also focused on R&D for our products making sure they were more technologically advanced than others.

While everyone else had sub-par products because they had to keep taking on debt to make new products and R&D and eventually couldnt spend as much sense we were taking market share with prices, we were eventually able to raise our prices and keep sales, since everyone else didnt have the technology that the customers were looking for.

 

I did it 2 years ago. My team won, I remember. I think Classic's advice is pretty good. You need to be aggressive in the beginning or you will never recover. Also, there is a lot to think about on the finance side, so I advise you get someone to really examine the mechanics there and understand it well.

I can't remember what we did exactly, but I do remember we picked a couple of choice market profiles to concentrate our efforts and just had also-ran products in the others. And, we planned our products all the way out in the beginning to take advantage of the market drift -- our high-tech product was positioned to slide to the middle market at the same time we got a new high tech one, and we let the middle market slide to the economy market. We also had two products in the low end, because the drift was slower and they would stay in the sweet spot longer. Our also-rans were in the products off the main axis of the drift because of the obscelence. I think we also abandoned the high-tech in the late rounds because it drifted too quickly.

That game was a ton of fun (made all the better, I'm sure, by kicking the crap out of our competitors).

 

I'm just starting this in my class as well at the UW. Good advice...guess it's time to be aggressive.