Simulation Reflection Paper

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Introduction
Over the past several weeks, the simulation assignments in MGT578 have introduced three significant concepts by applying them to simulated real-world business situations.
First, the Thinking Strategically simulation, required determining a long-term objective for a bicycle manufacturing company on the basis of internal and external information. Using this long-term objective the simulation then walked through isolating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company followed by applying Matched Pair Analysis to identify strategies that would enable the company achieve its long-term objective.
The second simulation dealt with Grand Strategies - it analyzed the strategic situation of a toy manufacturing company and identified the position of the company in the Grand Strategy Clusters matrix. The simulation then worked through several of the company's strategic choices during three phases in the company's growth path. Each phase situated the company in different quadrants of the Grand Strategy Clusters matrix, and therefore required different strategic responses.
In the third and final simulation, a growing construction firm, aiming to be a global leader in its industry required analysis. Based on this long-term objective of becoming a global leader, strategies and the corresponding goals that would enable the firm to achieve leadership status were defined.
This paper will discuss lessons learned from each of these simulations, how these concepts and the analytic tools introduced in these simulations could be applied in real-world strategic planning and some of the challenges facing strategic planners.
Thinking Strategically
BJ's Prosports started as a single store but quickly expanded to 25 stores due to the growth in the popularity of cycling. BJ's became an industry driven ...