Systems, Structures and Operations

Master of Business Administration, UWE Bristol

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation

Full name : Darshon Anthony Sachithanantham

UWE Student ID : 21056932

BIBM ID : S2100173

Group name (colour/brand name) : Green / GreD

Refection report no : 01

Date : Thursday, June 24, 2021

Email : s2100173@students.bristolinstitute.edu.lk

Mobile : 0774244988
 Table of Contents

1. Year: 2022 – Week 01 & 02............................................................................................................. 3

1.1. Current situation: .................................................................................................................... 3

1.2. Group decisions taken: ........................................................................................................... 3

1.3. My contribution: ..................................................................................................................... 4

1.4. Results/conclusions: ............................................................................................................... 5

1.5. Lessons learned ....................................................................................................................... 5

2. Annexures ....................................................................................................................................... 6

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 2

 1. Year: 2022 – Week 01 & 02

Year 2021 2022

Group Rank 5 6
Overall Rank 15 17
Figure 1: Annual ranking progress

1.1. Current situation:

During our 1st year we stepped into Malaysia, we were not able meet most of our KPIs, furthermore
we ended the year incurring a loss of 41.7Mn which positioned us at 5th from group and 15th overall.
During the second year we made some crucial changes which led us to close the year retaining a profit
of 4.1Mn, nevertheless due to the lack of sales we ended up 06th in group and 17th overall.

Financial 2021 2022

Net Turnover (€ Mn) 50.97 117.18
Cost of Sales (€ Mn) 25.43 59.19
Gross Margin (€ Mn) 25.54 57.99
Gross Margin (%) 50.11 49.49
Retained Profit (€ Mn) (41.70) 4.10
Figure 2: Financials

1.2. Group decisions taken:

We were a team of 04 board members and were responsible in making key decisions since inception.
As we progressed, the board had made crucial decisions, some decisions were later reviewed and
changed during the second year as a part of rectifying the wrong decisions and miscalculations made.
I have listed below some of the key decision and changes that were made.

Area of decision Description

Selection of country We chose Malaysia as we believed it would be easier to penetrate a price
sensitive market.
Storage location We selected a warehouse in the country’s main trading estate. We agreed
not to overstock phones. Storage capacity of 25,000 was ideal and cost
effective.
Sales and Marketing In 2021, since we were entering an existing market with an existing
product, we decided that we need to spend heavily on market
penetration and local promotions which cost us € 40Mn. However, during
2022, we decided to forego market penetration and reduced our
marketing budget to € 20.12Mn
Organisational Having spent heavily on marketing we decided to proceed with a
Structure functional structure in order to save costs.
Recruitment & We hired 02 managerial staff and 08 Full time employees. Further we
Remuneration awarded increment bonuses to staff who overachieved their targets. We
Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 3
 believed this would motivate the staff do better and stay loyal to the
company.
Learning and We spent mildly on L&D, we decided to create coaching programs as that
development (L&D) was cost effective.
Product In 2021 we decided to go with a 3-star rated manufacturer as we did not
want to compromise too much on quality. However, during 2022 we
learnt that that the price sensitive market required lower prices, hence in
2022 we decided to have a 2-star manufacturer. In 2022 we lowered our
phone prices by 20% from € 500 to € 399. Despite these changes we had a
100% mark up on the phones.
Research and We decided not to compromise on R&D as we believed it would pay off
Development (R&D) on the long run. We invested € 3.5Mn on R&D along with 05 researchers.
Distribution As our logistics partner we selected Express Service Transport as they
were able to ship goods within 2 weeks which was sufficient for us.
Table 1: Decision taken for the simulation

Cost against Price

Amount in €

500
600 399
400 249.5 199.32
200
0
2021 2021
Year

Cost Price

Figure 3: Yearly comparison on cost against price

1.3.My contribution:

As the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of the company, I was present at all the board meetings. I used
my leadership skills to moderate meetings and ensured that everyone’s opinion was considered. I also
took upon the tasks of analysing the calculations before the actual decisions were inputted in the
simulation.

Upon reflecting on the 1st year’s results, I proposed that we should not expand to another country
before rectifying our decisions. During the rectifying process I took upon responsibility to analyse and
understand how certain calculations such as recruitment and remuneration costs were calculated,
upon this understanding I was able to propose a new phone manufacturer as well as the price point
for the 2nd year. Also, as the CMO I utilized my linguistic skills for press messages and news articles.

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 4

 1.4. Results/conclusions:

During 2021 we had not accounted several financials which had major impacts to our profits, I have
mentioned them below;

• We missed out on accounting the annual costs of having an office in Malaysia

• Marketing costs were accounted incorrectly
• Recruitment and remuneration costs were incorrect as we were not aware of the automatic
staff recruitment.

Upon analysing the clarifications provided by Edumundo team (Annexure 01) we understood how the
financials were accounted and we made necessary changes which led us to retain a profit of € 4.1Mn
while achieving 60% of our KPIs during 2022.

In conclusion, we converted our losses to profits from 2021 to 2022, however due to not expanding
to a new market we lacked in our sales which led to position drop from being 05th in group and 15th
overall to 6th in group and 17th overall. We take this as a learning and plan to expand into more markets
and focus more on our sales.

1.5. Lessons learnt

During the past two weeks of simulation, I learnt that there is a lot of understanding and analysing to
be done before making any business decisions. When I reflect upon the decisions that we took, I can
say that we have learnt a lot from our 1st year mistakes and have a better understanding on how to
analyse the potential market and the required price points to meet expected demands. I also learnt
to be carful and vigilant about the costs we incur through our decisions.

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 5

 2. Annexures
Annexure 01

1.6.Re: Vraag over Villa College 21 MBA PV 2021 May

External

Inbox

Edumundo.co.uk <support@edumundocouk.freshdesk.com> Sun, Jun 20, 4:29

PM (4 days ago)

to me

Hi Darshon,

I'll try my best to answer all your questions.

1. The total remuneration costs on the income statement consist of the following costs:

1. Remuneration for Headquarter workforce (hired by you)

2. Remuneration Local employees (hired automatically)

1. Headquarter staff: they take care of a number of tasks. Depending on many decisions in the game
(company structure, their efficiency, time allowed for training, entering new countries, etc.), their
workload might increase or decrease. You will have to analyse how well your HQ staff is handling the
workload at Results>staff. If you do not hire enough employees for your HQ, external employees will
have to do the work, they would be hired automatically and are much more expensive. When entering
a new countries the workload increases by quite a lot, the increase in workload in FTE's (full time
employees) is mentioned on the page of the country.

2. Local employees are the cause of most of your remuneration costs, they are hired automatically
based on the following formula:

(Your sales numbers in a country / Productivity Local employee for that country + number of base
staff for that country = number of local employees automatically hired).

Per example If you enter the US (see image below), the workload for your HQ will increase by 20
(FTE = Full time Employee), thus you should hire 20 extra employees at Decisions>HR.

You should always track your staff results to see if you are hiring external employees. Because the
workload increase might be higher than 20 FTE's due to time allowed for training or huge number of
sales.

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 6

 • You would automatically hire 25 additional Local employees, even if you don't sell any
phones. If you sell 1 or 1050 phones is the US, you will hire 26 Local employees and if you
sell 1051-2099 phones in the US you would hire 27 local employees (automatically)

When entering new countries, you will always hire the base amount of staff even with 0 sales.

2. I unfortunately cannot say that I know the reason for the licensing costs being added, so I will have
to ask the dev team to see if there are any bugs around this issue.

4. The recruitment costs you also need to take into account the local employees that you have hired.
Which I have mentioned above.

5. Regarding the general administration costs, I need to double check with the dev about this, as
there is a cost which is not stated in the cashflow statement.

Ticket: https://edumundocouk.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/6098

Hope this Helps,

Best,

Jack Monaghan | Operations

Edumundo

On Sun, 20 Jun at 6:15 AM , Gred <s2100173@students.bristolinstitute.edu.lk> wrote:

Naam: Darshon Organisatie: Villa College 21 MBA PV 2021 May Inlognaam: Gred
Email: s2100173@students.bristolinstitute.edu.lk ****************** Hi good day all, We from team
Green D have few clarifications with regards to the financial that have been inputted, please refer
below. 1. Clarification Required on FTEs (Full Time Employees) Remuneration. It was informed that
the FTE cost would be 35K annually. Since we hired 8 FTEs, we calculated as 35K*8. However, in the
income statement under staff & admin cost of hired staff it is mentioned only as 35K. 2. Licensing HR
system – We didn’t purchase this; however, it has been considered as our costs. Please clarify 3.
Remuneration – Please clarify as to how this was calculated. Further there seems to be a
miscommunication in the salary packages. Are the quoted packages monthly salary or annual salary?
4. Recruitment costs – Please clarify as to how this was calculated. As per our calculation there
seems to be a difference of over 1Mn. 5. The general admin cost mentioned in the income statement
is 27Mn approx., however as per the shown breakdown it adds up on to 24Mn approx. Please rectify.
Your earliest response would be highly appreciated. Regards Darshon Team GreD

Edumundo.co.uk powered by Freshdesk

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 7

 Marking criteria for individual self-reflecting posts on group simulation activity

Marks:

Mark
Below 40% 41 to 50% 51 to 65% Above 66%
Dimension
Format Sequences of Reader has Student presents Information is
information is difficulty information in a clear and logical,
difficult to follow following work logical sequence interesting
because flow in which reader can sequence which
the post is follow through the reader can
missing the post follow
Decision Student does not Student is able to Student is at ease Student
awareness have a grasp of demonstrate with operational demonstrates
the operational basic level of decisions; there knowledge of
decisions made knowledge of is little operational
by team; absence operational elaboration of decisions and
of appreciation decisions made consequent consequent
of team ranking by team and impact on team impact on team
marginal ranking ranking in clear,
awareness of concise post
team ranking
Group dynamics Post does not Post has tenuous Post has a All of the post
have a connection to connection to the has clear and
connection to group decision way the team evident analysis
group decision making processes went about of the way the
making processes used by team arriving at team went about
decisions making decisions
Mechanics Little time was Student has not Post is edited, Post is a well-
spent preparing planned, planned, and conceived writing
post; post has prepared or trading phase example that
spelling and edited the post, specific; student demonstrates
grammatical some incorrect demonstrates appropriate
errors spellings and/or correct use of language use,
grammatical domain specific grammar and
errors language academic
standards

Reflective Writing on Business Simulation – S2100173 8