Tablet Simulation

REQUIRED READING

SCENARIO CONTINUATION:

SLP2: It's New Year's day, 2016. You just had a great New Year's Eve celebration. You have finished analyzing the performance of Tablet Development in a great report that you turned in a few days early to Sally Smothers. Now you are ready to charge ahead into the future.

As you turn on the TV and try to open your eyes, you notice something strange. The TV commentator is saying something about New Year's Day, 2012. You are now wide awake and listen more carefully. Yes, she said 2012. But that can't be. You look around and everything looks different. Yes, it's true; it's New Year's Day, 2012. Time has rewound it's a Time Warp, like the guy in the movie "It's Groundhog Day."

You realize that you get to make the decisions for Tablet Development starting with 2012. Perhaps you can do better than Joe Schmoe.

You decide to determine the prices and R&D allocations and whether to discontinue any products over the next four years: 2012 -2015. At the beginning of each year, you will determine your pricing, your R&D allocations, and if you want to discontinue any products. You make your decisions and time advances to the end of that year. You look at the results and see what happened. You keep track of your decisions and make notes about your reasoning and analysis of the data. You collect and keep the data for later analysis.

You run the Marketing of Tablet Development through the end of 2015. It is now 12/31/2015, New Year's Eve. What is your total Score? Did you do better than Joe Schmoe?

You decide to organize your notes about your decisions, your analysis, and your reasoning into a report, which you think will help you move ahead into 2016 (finally!!, you get to move ahead into 2016, weren't you at this point in time once before??)

ASSIGNMENT

Run the Tablet Development simulation with your strategy, making decisions year by year for prices and R&D allocations. To reach the simulations (click here).
http://forio.com/simulate/jelson/tablet-development-sim/simulation/#p=page0

Please turn in a 4 to 6 page paper, not including cover and reference page, in which you:

Write a report that shows your decisions and the results. Discuss why you did better or worse than Joe Schmoe.

KEYS TO THE ASSIGNMENT

The key aspects of this assignment that should be covered and taken into account in preparing your paper include:

As you run the simulation keep track of your decisions and keep track of the results - both financial and marketing. You can copy and paste the results into Excel or into a Word document. You can also record the information that you get from the Advisor who discusses the market and compares Tablet Development products to the competition. Make note of the Final Total Score.
You should include your Final Total Score, some tables and/or graphs showing some of the results. Be sure to explain the differences clearly and using good logic.
Remember that the key here is ANALYSIS.
Time Line Summary:
SLP1

2015: 12/15 hired. 12/30 turned in first report to Sally a few days early. 12/31- celebrated
SLP2

Time Warp begins: 1/1/2016 WARPS INTO 1/1/2012
You freak out, and then realize you have to make decisions for 2012 - 2015.
1/2/2012 input decisions for 2012
1/2/2013 input decisions for 2013
1/2/2014 input decisions for 2014
1/2/2015 input decisions for 2015
12/31/2015 -you have gone through all four years, and you write your report to summarize how you did. You are hoping that you will wake up tomorrow and it will be 2016.