Teaching Marketing-Operations Interface and Sustainability Dimensions: Excel as Free Alternative to Proprietary Simulators
摘要
Shortage of full-fledged alternatives to proprietary simulators of management that offer financial and other comprehensive forms of reporting limits effective applications of business games in classrooms. This article summarizes the five-year experience of implementing spreadsheet-based business games within several courses in an institution of higher education. The aim was to develop a business game with a wider inclusion of variables than previously offered by available free resources to match proprietary management simulators. The game can help teach students how decisions made by managers affect aspects of sustainable supply chain management. Conceptually, the business game is based upon a modification of the well-known beer game incorporating marketing, personnel, accounting, and supply chains’ competition. Electronic spreadsheet format allowed modifying the simulator without programming experience. It was demonstrated that spreadsheet-based business games are capable of replacing proprietary management simulators as free yet powerful alternatives. Results of the game in a classroom were particularly suitable for demonstrating the financial impact of a chosen business strategy on the key performance indicators incorporating a wide range of variables to study supply chain management from a perspective of economic, social, and environmental sustainability dimensions.