Ailon.

The CEO Game.

When you want to reach a given goal, there is usually more than one way to achieve it. There can be more than one good way to act and they might all help you to get to where you want, but for certain there is always one way which is better than the rest.

Which way to go?

You have to decide not only which ways to take, but also how much effort should you invest in each step. How would you know how to decide what’s better or more effective? Well to do so you’ll have to rank your alternatives. To rank most effectively and reach the right decisions you will have to compare the options in front of you with the main goal.

The ranking is fairly simple, the more each action assists you in reaching the main goal the more it’s important. You will have to find a link between each step and the main goal otherwise this step is simply useless. The more you will be able to connect each step to the main goal the more you will know how to rank the steps.

A right implementation of this approach will assist you in prioritizing task and in the ability to effectively choose which task or project are worth more effort and which are simply don’t. Knowing how to prioritize task is the corner stone in the CEO’s job.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Learn To Talk The Talk

An MBA looks great on your resume. And as more and more B-schools are only letting in people with real-world experience, there is more and more to learn in business school from your peers, and you will probably get more out of it yourself when it is not just theory. You’ll probably be intellectually stimulated. You’ll make great contacts. You’ll know how to talk the talk and walk the walk. Some complain that an MBA is just a waste of money because people who have MBAs still have a hard time finding jobs, but I think that’s nonsense. Those people would probably have a harder time without an MBA. Unless you’re getting your MBA in some unaccredited school no one has ever heard of. Then you might as well save your money.

But, honestly, an MBA doesn’t create a business tycoon. An MBA might help you climb the ranks, but it isn’t going to put you at the top. What puts you at the top is your mind, your idea, your ambition. No number of classes are going to bring you that idea that will shake up the world, and nothing but real-world experience will teach you to be an entrepreneur. If anything, classes might teach you that success as a formula, they might teach you to be too formulaic and risk-averse. An MBA might help you guarantee a moderate level of success, but it might stop you from being number one.
Some of the most successful business people in the world didn’t have a BA, let alone an MBA. Just ask Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Rachel Ray, Ty Warner or Coco Chanel if they think they need an MBA. But they had balls, insight, and determination. So save your $80,000 and the two years of your life if you think you’ve got what it takes to become a leader on your own. But if you need help, let a great B-school hold your hand on your way to the upper-middle ranks of the business world. That’s good enough for some people.

Tamar.

The CEO Game.

Choose Your Logo Wisely

Today’s leading companies acknowledge the importance of a well-designed logo. The days in which you would have hired a third grader to design your logo are gone. The logo’s meaning is so tremendous that it in most cases require a professional to create it.

Few words about logo colors- Since the logo is the face of the company, colors are highly important. From a design view, the main color takes a key role in the message we try to pass to our targeted market. From a more technical view, the more colors you use the more complex your logo becomes and therefore less understandable.

What about Fonts?

Well fonts also a have a tremendous effect on our logo design. We select a certain font to pass along the company’s message. The font creates the atmosphere of the logo and therefore it is important to choose one wisely as part of your marketing plan. The font type also reflects on the company’s image and therefore it should reflect the company’s values.

In the CEO Game, you will have the opportunity to design your own logo. This is another reason why the CEO Game is the most realistic business simulation out there. Design wisely. Your logo is another weapon in your arsenal—do you want a butter knife or a bayonet?

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Sharing Resources

The Global Economy- means that wares, ideas, people, cultures and services are moving freely across national borders. When you look closely at the factors that caused globalization to spread so rapidly in the last decades, you find that technology was the main factor. Technology has shortened distances, created large communication networks, allowed us to be exposed to different cultures and even improve our lifestyle. Dealing with this tremendous global space required collaboration between many business corporations around the globe, mainly to ease development and distribution efforts.

The Need For Knowledge – is growing rapidly and the knowledge to be gained is now more diverse, multidisciplinary, faster and complex. This need requires that we share with others in creating data sources that are needed in the business world. We need external feeds from different sources to enrich the organization’s knowledge, and without it the organization won’t survive in the modern business world.

The Demand for Immediacy- This is a critical factor in global economy. Everybody wants everything, faster, sooner, and quicker. In this age, when a technology can become dated faster than it was developed, it’s crucial for different organization to collaborate. A firm that insists on doing everything on its own will soon find out that it’s already too late and it missed the market. Companies that participate in these collaborations will always be faster in reaching the market, dealing with changes and empowering their synergy.

The complexity of Technology- This is the simple fact that, if we take a look at the products that we use today, we will find that most of them were not here in the same configuration only few years ago. Every product now has new features, new capabilities or is totally new. There is always a human hunger for newer and better technologies and that is why the complexity is always growing. So what is the easiest and fastest way to produce this new technology? You probably guessed it right: create business collaborations that allow the merging of different technologies and ideas to new and improved products.

Now one might ask what are the factors for a successful collaboration? The main factors are:
• Mutual interest in which each partner knows what he is getting from the collaboration.
• Organizational culture that embraces changes.
• Preliminary planning for setting the collaboration goals.

The same concept applies in the CEO game as well. It will prove to be very hard for one company to research new products, produce them, advertise them and sell them around the globe without the assistance of different companies in different ways.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Creating Your Own Luck

Why do we need Luck?
Two people are applying for the same position. Both have about the same GPA from the same university. Both have a good background and experience. Only one will get the job–do you think that the interviewer will know which one is better skilled for the job? He`ll probably base his decision on factors that have nothing to do with the candidate’s skills. It might be gender, age, skin color, the ethnicity etc. You`ll never know what the final decision was based on.
People will tell you that you don’t need luck. They will also tell you that the only thing you need is ambition and hard work. I`ll give you all the time in the world, but you still won`t be able to convince me that the last person who won the lottery`s jackpot had high ambition and worked hard for that. I`m not trying to tell you to play the lottery now, but this extreme example can show us that luck is a factor in life that should be taken under consideration and for sure you want it to be on your side.
Turn your luck into calculated risk:
The lottery is not the place you want to put effort to increase your odds. This is because there is nothing legal you can actually do in order to change your odds of winning – every ticket you buy has the same odds of winning, but if you buy all of the possible tickets you will end up losing money – not a great deal. You need to increase the odds in scenarios which your actions can actually make this difference.
If you own a startup, and your main goal is to sell it to a big company, you`ll need to go out and meet with people. Make sure everybody in the industry knows you. The more people that know you, the bigger your chances are to make the big exit. There might be a chance of 1:1,000,000,000 (this number has no statistical evidence) that a stranger who has no idea who you are or what you`re doing will come up to you and ask you “Hello, is there a chance that you`re working on this startup and you want to sell it?” But if more people know what you are doing, the odds increase magnificently. Focus your efforts in the right directions and in the right places in order to maximize your chances. In this example you control your luck by letting people know about your business.

In a different example, I want to invest money in the stock market. There is a constant risk in the market; we never know what`s going to happen tomorrow, things changes constantly and rapidly. New information sends the stocks up and down without prior notice. If you`ll buy one stock, you`re relying mostly on luck. We have seen good stocks go down in good market and we have seen bad stocks flying in a bad market. Nothing we can do about it. If we want to control the luck and turn it into a calculated risk, we need to have a wide and diverse portfolio.
The statistical error:
I personally look at good luck and bad luck as statistical errors. If we`ll look at the normal distribution, I believe that if something occurs on the right side of the distribution that’s a result of good luck, if something occurs on the left side that’s a result of bad luck. The middle is where we expect the result under normal circumstances. At this point, we want to put our efforts in moving to the right side of the scale, creating, by doing so, more “good luck”.

Assaf Arie.

The CEO Game.

Chairman is the highest office in the organization (company). The chairman is the head of the Board of Directors (deliberative assembly). The chairman needs to lead the board meetings and conducts the board’s business in an orderly fashion. The chairman, as a part of the board, must appoint or approve the CEO as well as set the strategic path the company is following, by setting the annual goals and long-term programs. The chairman gives these orders to the CEO; the CEO has to follow the guidelines set out by the board while achieving the highest profit possible as the chairman supervises.

The Chairman And The CEO

The chairman is, most of the time, representative of a group of shareholders or individuals in the company. In public companies there is also a Non-Executive Director whose job is to keep the interest of the public (the small shareholders) in mind. This is because sometimes the public doesn’t have enough shares to have real power and so they need someone to keep an eye on the private representatives. The Non-Executive Director job is to monitor and alert the public to any exploitative behavior of the board to the small shareholders.
The CEO, on the other hand, needs to follow the strategic path that the Board of Directors set. He also needs to inform the board on any new developments that occurred in the market that might lead to changes in the master plan or obstacles he might foresee as problematic in the future. The CEO can also suggest strategic plans to the board but he can’t force them to approve those plans.

The CEO must also deal with the day-to-day problems such as HR, financial, marketing and logistical planning. In some cases the CEO can also initiate business plans; some boards even delegate the CEO power to change the strategic plan in case of any given event such as sharp market changes.

Omri.

The CEO Game.

The answer is: All of the above. The CEO Game is a management business simulation in which you play as the CEO. Your job is to increase your wealth and get rich but also to promote your company. At first you need to create your own company, analyze the market, and decide in which country you’ll build your HQ. This is a major step as once you build your HQ you can’t move it. The location of the HQ will give you some benefits in your home country and will determine the currency you mostly do business in. After this you’ll need to chose the city in which to build your stores—every city and region has its own unique population. Regions vary in the age, political leanings, and socioeconomic status of its citizens, so make sure you are selling the right products to the right population. For example, a luxury product will sell well in a region with high income and almost not at all in a low income region.

You will also have to deal with the storage and shelf life of your products. Managing the storage of your stores and factories will be easier over time after you collect some data on the sells rate. You’ll also need to manage the HR department by hiring the best employees at the lowest possible cost, as well as arrange the financial reports. If you manage to create a successful company you will be able to go public (sell your shares in the stock market) or take over other companies by hostile takeovers. As a creditor or as a major share holder you will also be able to develop new products and import and export foreign products—or even go global and start selling your product in other countries, or maybe just to move the production line to low cost manufactures contraries

You as a CEO can harvest much information from the newspaper and internet about your competitors’ stats and on macro data such as average income or interest rate. If you want to be successful you’ll need to utilize every bit of knowledge.

In summary, in the CEO Game you will aim to become a leader in the global market, a highly profitable company. You will be playing in a highly nuanced and sophisticated world more realistic than any other business simulation around. And, you will be competing against people who want it as bad as you. Good luck!

Serious Business Game

Omri.

The CEO Game.

LinkedIn - The Leading Networking Tool

1) Carry a Card. Nothing looks as unprofessional when making a contact as fumbling around in your bag for a scrap of paper to write your contact information on (or to write someone else’s). Not only does it make you look stupid and unprepared, but that little scrap of paper is going to get lost. There are many high-quality, low-cost options around (vitaprint.com, for one). Invest in an attractive, professional card. This means no unicorns and rainbows. Obviously in some fields your card can be more artistic than in others. Use your judgment.

2) Be Interesting. Often people make the mistake of networking with a one-track mind. They think to themselves “I need a job; I better sell myself” and they proceed to do so. In the process, they bore the socks off of the person they are talking to, with the added bonus of making that person feel hounded. Just be interesting. Talking to a person you meet at a professional event or any place with potential contacts, should be much like talking to someone at a tasteful cocktail party — without the sex, drugs, religion, or politics part. A person is much more likely to remember and want to help out a charming, intelligent person they conversed pleasantly with for half an hour than a person who recited their resume at them.

3) Be in touch. Don’t wait until you need something to contact your contact — not only might they have forgotten you already, but it’s tacky. How, you might ask, does one stay in contact with someone they have only briefly met? There are two basic ways, and they both involve email. Always, always email people. It is the most convenient, fastest, and least intrusive way to be in touch with a person. While a written thank you card can be a nice touch, don’t forget to send an email — the email will probably be stored forever, and the person is more likely to respond immediately So, the first way to be in contact is obvious: the holidays. A brief note on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s or the Fourth of July wishing the person or note and their family and happy holiday season is always appreciated. But what if you want to remind your contact about your existence and there is no holiday looming? Find a product, article, or movie about something that you know the person likes, and send them a link with the note “Saw this and thought you might enjoy”. Your contact will be pleased that you remembered that he loves fly-fishing and that you took the time to let him know about this fun story in the Times about it.

4) Be Thoughtful. In the end, everyone likes to be liked. A way to make a person feel liked is to remember things about them. And please, don’t trust your memory. Write down in your contact book, Google calendar, rolodex, whatever, things that you have learned about a potential contact. This way, before you ask them for something, you can ask “And how is Janey doing at Colgate”? It helps.

Any successful entrepreneur has learned how to network. It is a skill that every aspiring business tycoon needs to develop. Good luck!

Tamar.

The CEO Game.

For instance, in the real business world, in order to earn more than normal profit (which is zero) you need to do something better than the other competitors. Otherwise, you’ll simply maintain your position, instead of earning a real profit.

Price Wars- Who Will Win?

It is easy to describe this problem in a simplified economy. There are two stores selling the same products in the same place to the same customers, who have complete information on the store prices and there is no additional cost to produce aside the cost of the product itself. So people will go from one store to the other to bargain until they get the minimum price of one store. If the product has the same manufacturing cost to both stores, the stores will end up selling their products in the same price. Their profit will be normal profit rate, a little higher than the interest rate.

How do you get to a normal profit rate?

Well, if you don’t have anything unusual like a unique product or services, trademark, patent or even knowledge that you’re other competitors don’t have, eventually you’ll get to normal profit rate. Because if you are selling a commodity and if your store is in a certain region that makes lots of money by selling a product that every one of your competitors can sell at the same price, they will. So they will start to sell the same commodity in the same profitable region and slowly decrease your profit rate. Eventually, one store will start to lower its prices in order to be more attractive to the customers and that will lower your profit rate of both stores even further. Then you will lower your price and so on and so forth–this is called a “Price war“. The only ones winning here are the customers, while you and your competitors’ loss profit until you reach the normal profit rate.

How can you avoid a normal profit rate? As mentioned before, you need something that your competitors don’t have, such as a patent on a product or trademark, which your competitors can’t use, and therefore you can charge how much you want because you are the only one that can supply the certain good. Even a source of knowledge can be a barrier to competition, but not as strong as patent or trademark. For example, if you know in what region the demand to your product is the highest you can open the store there and sell it at high prices. But after a while your competitors will find this profitable region and start selling the same product and once again you will have a price war.

This is just one of the key economic concepts you need to understand to succeed in the business world. In the CEO Game, as a realistic business simulation , these concepts are just as important. Good luck, with setting up your business tycoon!

Omri.

The CEO Game.