MBA Essentials – Business Simulations for MBA Students

• My Strategy Experience simulation – Experience of how to formulate and implement strategy as a senior manager/board director
• Delivering Strategic Projects Experience simulation – Enabling future senior managers to oversee or manage strategic projects
• Mergers & Acquisitions Experience simulation ­- Building shareholder value through successful inorganic growth

MBA Essentials – Business Simulations for MBA Students is intended for curricular Masters-level students and has been designed to be flexible so that it can be integrated into MBA programmes for course credits or embedded in an Executive Education programme, delivered on-campus or online.

This exciting simulation challenges participants to develop a comprehensive strategic review of a global service business and the business environment in which it trades, prepare a 3-year plan for the business and then implement strategic choices and see the financial and non-financial impact of those choices on the company’s performance and consequent impact on share price.

Learning Outcomes

Operationally focussed managers turn into strategists with a focus on options for organisational growth that deliver shareholder value.

Working through the four phases of managing projects: start-up, initiation, execution and close-down, participants will be introduced to the qualities required of a successful project manager and will work in a competitive team with time pressures to deliver at each stage of the project.

Learning outcomes – Managing Operational and Strategic Projects

The simulation is not designed to develop professional project managers but to enable future senior managers to develop of a range of competencies that are appropriate to managing operational and strategic projects and a set of tools and frameworks that they can apply to their real-life projects in order to deliver them on-time, to budget and to specification/quality standards.

The practical and strategic simulation is all about delivering shareholder value through M&A activity.

The M&A Simulation is based on an international company seeking to build a global presence through acquisition.

Over the course of the 4 phases of the simulation, working in competitive teams, participants will:

• Consider Inorganic Growth as a Strategy
• Evaluate Industry Attractiveness
• Consider the Growth Strategy of an Acquiring Company
• Evaluate its Acquisition Readiness
• Set Acquisition Criteria
• Identify Potential Target Acquisitions
• Evaluate & Value Target Acquisitions
• Consider Due Diligence Activity and Hazards
• Evaluate and Manage M&A Risk
• Anticipate Defence Strategies
• Evaluate Hostile Takeovers re Shareholder Value
• Consider the Pros and Cons of an MBO Option
• Examine Objectives for Post-Merger Integration & PMI Role in M&A Failure
• Evaluate Levels of Integration such as Consolidation, Subsidiary, Hostile Takeover and Horizontal Integration
• Use a Range of Project Management Tools that are Helpful in Successful Delivery of M&A Activity
• Consider Change Generated by M&A Activity, and Specifically Change that Impacts on People, and How this Should be Managed.

Learning outcomes – The Mergers & Acquisitions Experience Simulation

While more than 50% of M&A activity fails to deliver on its objectives, this simulation will enable participants to structure and execute a successful M&A deal using the tools and frameworks embedded in the simulation.

Learning review & scoring work produced

Students are encouraged to keep a learning review throughout the simulation.  A scoring system is built into all phases of the simulation so that it can be run competitively, where appropriate, with teams working together to produce the best scores for each individual phase and best-combined score.