Storewars
is an international, dynamic, live action total business simulation, where
participants take charge of a $600m virtual FMCG company and by developing
strategies, negotiating and making decisions to determine its success.
It focuses mainly on the aspects of retailer-manufacturer interactions. The
workshop is conducted throughout the globe touching more than 40 nations. In
India SIMSREE is the only B-school other than SP Jain where this workshop is
conducted.
The Store wars at SIMSREE, which
was conducted on 23rd and 24th August began with a gush
of anticipation, excitement and some cunning strategies based on the study
material sent to the participants a couple of days before the event. Before we
begun the workshop, the host – Prof. Umesh Dhand, explained the rules, the
possible routes of winning and certain basics about the software which we were
about use. After that, the participants were randomly divided into five
different groups. Out of these, two groups of five each were the retailers and
three groups of four each were the manufacturers. The role of the manufacturers
was to make products considering all the costs and sells it to retailers
negotiating on shelf space and promotional activities while the role of the
retailers was to acquire products, sell shelf space and introduce and brand new
products. The purpose of this was to make the management students understand the
company operations from the top as well as to see the perspectives of the
manufacturers, retailers as well as of the consumers. Since it was totally a
risk free environment for us, it was a good test of the implementation and
execution of our decisions.
All the teams had an option to opt for reports
coming from the market research giving them a market share of each product from
the 2 segments - packaged food and detergents. The entire workshop consisted of
3 periods of 6 months each where inventory-management, market share, EVA,
NOPAT, customer mind space were decisive factors determining the success of a
company in a given period. In the end Manufacturing 1 and Retailer 2 were the winners
in their respective categories after 2 exhaustive days of negotiations,
brainstorming and strategies. It was a great experience for both the seniors
and juniors - some got to revive their concepts while some got an understanding
of retail sector negotiations.
We thank the organizers of SIMSREE for
providing us with hands on experience on this business development model via
software simulation of international standards.
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