BSG Reflection Paper

BUS 690: BSG Final Paper Guidance

Paper

The weekly journal entries and reports should serve as source material for your paper and presentation. The journals ensure that you have a perspective of the simulator from each point in time versus simply evaluating from the endpoint.

The paper is to be an analysis of your strategy and firm performance.

Section 1: What is your firm’s strategy? What were your top priorities? How did this guide your approach to the simulator?

Section 2: Simulation narrative. Discuss how you deployed your management decisions and what justifications guided you. Also, discuss competitors, which teams were a threat and how did their actions impact your firm? Do not neglect to also offer up a short discussion of the larger systemic influences that impacted the entire industry. Then, discuss how successful you were… what challenges did you face? How did your competitors influence you or thwart your actions. How did the overall market and trends impact you? Was there turmoil within your team?

Section 3: What did you learn? Use this section to really apply concepts from the course. I will be looking for a substantive discussion… not, ‘I learned a lot.’

Be sure to include exhibits to illustrate the points you are making. If you want to claim that your moves were successful, then be sure to have proof to demonstrate it. The key is to be sure you demonstrate what you have learned in the report… and to also diagnose errors that you made.

I grade these reports on the thoroughness of your analysis of firm, competitor, and industry performance. The paper is not to be an opinion piece (therefore don’t use phrasing of ‘I believe’ or ‘in my honest opinion’).

The length of the paper is undefined. Write what you feel is necessary to demonstrate your analytic, diagnostic, and rhetorical capabilities. If you need guidance… use your textbook (don’t forget to cite where appropriate).

Final Tips: The weekly journals serve as a way to track the progression of your firm and how you reacted to the competition of others. Your paper is about what you have LEARNED, not about how every decision was the correct move, while ignoring what went wrong. Think of this paper as your post-mortem of the simulator. I want to evaluate what you have learned, what drove your decisions, and how you dealt with competition. Some of the learning could be on how you navigated infighting amongst your team (this happens in many firms… e.g. JCPenney and former CEO Rod Johnson), how you analyzed your own managerial efficiencies and performance (Sales & Marketing vs. Operational aspects), diagnosis of competitors, and of the overall market.

Also, do NOT use the phrase ‘begs the question’ unless you truly know how to use it properly (as a trained philosopher this is ‘nails on a chalkboard’ to me… usually you mean to say ‘raises the question’).