An Interactive Telecommunications Business Game for Strategic Exploration
Kjeld Jensen, Ian Gallacher, Syed Hussain
and John Mcleod
British Telecommunications ple
Abstract
We have developed an interactive business game based on a model of a telecommunication
industry with a number of operators and a regulator. We have used this game in a number of
workshops that allow teams of managers to explore new strategies together. In this paper we give
an overview of the game, which is based on a Powersim systems dynamics model linked to a e
Microsoft Excel interface, and relate our experiences of using the game. We will particularly
focus on the insight into the potential benefits of using this type of game to create a learning
environment and how this fits in with the organisational change processes.
1. Introduction
Interactive business games based on computer models are becoming increasingly popular as
learning tools, particularly within training and education [1]. There are fewer documented
examples of applications within businesses. Applications in the exploratory stages of the strategy
formulation or organisational change processes, as opposed to the later consolidation stages, seem
to be very rare indeed. However, the highly interactive nature of such games and their ability to
bring a group of people together in a simulated business environment suggests that business
games can be a useful technique for helping teams of managers to explore strategic issues.
The game we developed was tailored to address issues that are likely to be faced by
telecommunications companies in the next decade where they find themselves operating in new
roles and unfamiliar environments outside their country of origin. In this paper we will describe
the game briefly and relate our experiences in initial trials of the game with managers from within
BT (British Telecommunications).
2. The game
The BT Telecoms Business Game is based on a competitive market model of the
telecommunications industry in a fictitious country. The current version of the game has four
players: three operators and an industry regulator. The operators offer telephony products to a
market of business and residential customers and the players make decisions on tariffs, work
force levels, marketing effort and network infrastructure investments. In addition, the game
includes a wholesale market including indirect access and interconnect agreements as well as
opportunities for operators to lease plant from each other. The regulator has powers to control the
tariffs set by the operators as well as a range of powers within the wholesale area.
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Player 1 : —— ae Negotiations
Player 4 : Regulator
mee Referee decisions
outcomes
a eee model Womes
ee x.)
(— 2: eee Player 3 : Operator 3.
couteoms decisions
outcomes
Negotiations
FIGURE 1. Game Configuration
The configuration of the game is illustrated in Figure 1. The central “referee” computer plays host
to a system dynamics model, implemented using Powersim, which models the retail and
wholesale markets. This is linked dynamically to a Microsoft Excel workbook which enforces the
regulatory constraints on operator decisions and manages the communications with game players,
receiving decisions and transmitting results. Each of the players use a front-end implemented in
Microsoft Excel residing on computers networked to the central computer. The players interact
through the decisions they make and the results they receive from the game model. However, we
encourage negotiations between the players during the course of the game; this interaction is as
important as, if not more than, those mediated by the computerised aspects of the game.
Operator 2
FIGURE 2. Example of operator player front-end
Figure 2 shows an example of the main game control screen of an operator player. The buttons on
this screen are linked to other screens used to enter decisions and providing more detailed results.
The process of running a game workshop typically takes 6 hours and can be done in one day.
Each player is run by a team of 2-4 people so the total number of people involved is usually 8-16,
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with the 3 members of the development team acting primarily in a facilitatory role. Workshops
have so far been held in one large room with the four teams based in the corners of the room.
The workshop starts with an introduction to the game and a demonstration of the game interface,
which takes about 30 minutes. This is followed by about 8 rounds of the actual game,
corresponding to 8 years in the game model. At the end of the game a representative from each
team gives a brief presentation to all workshop participants, outlining their strategies, how these
strategies were pursued and how successful they were in achieving what they set out to do. The
presentations and the resulting discussion act as a platform for relating the experience of the game
back the real world and real issues faced by the organisation. We aim to allocate at least .
90 minutes to this session to allow time to draw out as many learning points as possible.
3. Experiences so far
During the development phase of the game we ran four trial workshops with different groups of
BT managers representing areas responsible for technical strategy, national and global marketing
strategies, regulatory strategy and the central business management function. We gathered.
feedback from the participants in the course of the event complemented with a questionnaire
completed by participants immediately after each event. The questionnaire included questions
about the game, the overall event and the benefits gained by taking part. Table 1 shows some of
questions used and percentage of “Yes” responses (the remainder being either “No” or “Unsure”).
The numbers in the table are typical of the overall results, i.e. responses were highly favourable in
all cases.
Table 1. Questionnaire results.
Question Positive responses
Does the game reflect a realistic situation? 81%
Did the feedback you get from the game influence your decisions? 81%
Did you find the game easy to play?_ 85%
Did you learn about alternative strategies which you had not considered 81%
before?
Did you learn anything about the other players in terms of their views on 92%
Strategic issues? :
Did the gaming experience help the participants feel part of a team? 85 %
Was the playing the game fun? 100 %
A specific point to note is that we seem to have struck a reasonable balance between perceived.
realism and ease-of-play. The number of decisions that players have to make in each round is
quite high, about 30. However, the game is aimed primarily at industry experts who can not only
cope with a large decision space but require a significant amount of complexity for the game to be
seen as a sufficiently realistic model of a real industry to enable them to explore the issues they
are concerned with. We have deliberately not tried to model any specific country since, if we did,
minor inaccuracies might distract from the real issues and it would make the game less versatile.
The interactive nature of the game also help players become engaged in the game, more than with
stand-alone flight simulators.
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In terms of the potential benefits of the game, the questionnaire was also highly encouraging,
indicating that it does indeed deliver the benefits we were aiming for. We have not tried to
programme in specific learning points that we try to get participants to discover. Rather, the game
is designed to be an open playing field which allows people to learn from each other and about
each other. This is particularly useful when participants are drawn from many different areas
since the game helps you to find out what other parts of your business think about strategic issues
that are of common concern.
Sensing the Exploring Deciding Planning & Consolidating Becoming common
need for possible change Implementing _within practice in many
change change strategies change organisation organisations
strategies
“Exploratory games
Games used in
ames used in
g business schools
training programmes |
Our Business Game. (
FIGURE 3. Change process indicating how models are used in organisational change
One of our main objectives was to make a game for strategic exploration. We appear to have
succeeded in doing this as participant indicated that the game did make them discover and
experiment with strategies they had not considered before. This emphasises that games and
simulation models in general have many potential uses within organisations. Figure 3 shows how
our game is positioned in relation to organisational change or strategy development processes and
indicates how models may be used within the different stages of these processes. As indicated in
the introduction the potential uses towards the left hand side of the diagram appear to be less
common than the other uses but we hope that our experiences have shown that it can be done.
4, Outlook
The initial trials of the game have generated substantial interest within BT. Over the next year we
will be running a number of workshops commissioned by internal customers seeking to address
specific strategic issues with each workshop. One of the main strengths of the game is that it is
sufficiently general to enable such customised workshop with only minor modifications to the
existing game.
5. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the internal customer for this work, David Brown, for his support and
encouragement, Ian Burnett for contributions at the early stages of the project and Ian Dufour for
granting permission to publish this paper.
6. References
1. AJ Faria, “A survey of the use of business games in academia and business”, Simulation &
Games, June 1987, pp 207-224.
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