BSG Tips

Here are some useful tips on how to win the Business Strategy Game (BSG) for your class.

Stick With Your Strategy
A really important thing to do is to stick with your strategy. Typically the high quality or low price group will win the game. I recommend choosing one of those strategies. If you produce a low amount of models, your costs will decrease and your profits will increase. That's because your setup costs decrease with a lower amount of pairs. I chose the high quality strategy when I played it and my group won. We actually placed 67th in the whole world.

Keep Costs Low
One of the best methods, which most people don't ever figure out, to lower costs is to max out your best practices. This will increase your S/Q rating more than anything else. You save tons of money because you don't have to spend the money on superior materials. Other than that, fiddle around with the rest of the numbers. Focus on the numbers on the side of the screen, particularly net profit. When you fiddle around with the numbers, notice if net profits go up or down with each move. Only participate in the Corporate Citizenship segment as far as it is worth the additional Image Rating. Don't worry about the Golden Star Award; it doesn't do anything to help you. The best thing for you to participate in is the ethics training for everyone. The next best thing is the workforce diversity. If you do those two, you'll have reached the max benefit, and mostly likely exceeded it. You will also want to build capacity in NA and AP, where you have plants already. This is because you take advantage of the learning curve associated with having plants operating already. If you build in a foreign country, you'll want to do it during the first year or else it really isn't worth it. Take advantage of the upgrades. The S/Q upgrade is great for those that choose high quality. Setup Cost reduction is great for groups that have a lot of models. The other two didn't seem very useful to me. You may think differently.

Know What the Other Groups are Doing
One very important thing to do is to know what moves other groups are going to make. This is difficult in the first few years because most groups like to completely change their strategies. This is why it is beneficial to stick with your strategy. The most important component of the game to know is what price others are charging. You'll especially want to know what the groups that are your direct competitors are going to do. Spreadsheets are the best way to do that. After several years of the game, you can use trend analysis in Excel. It seems to be a pretty good indicator of what groups are going to do.

Play the Private Label Market
Use any excess capacity, including overtime, to put shoes into the private label market. At first, you might want to see how many shoes each group is putting in. If you can figure out how many shoes are going to be put into the Private Label market, you can have a high price for a certain amount of shoes that is $5 under the wholesale price of the region. This can boost your profits a lot!

There it is. I hope it was useful. I know there are tons more things you could do to improve your standing, but these are the most important. Good luck!

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