Threshold Competitor : A Management Simulation

Threshold Competitor: A Management Simulation

WHAT IS THRESHOLD COMPETITOR TEAM AND THRESHOLD COMPETITOR SOLO?

Threshold Competitor Team and Threshold Competitor Solo are computer-based models that simulate a small manufacturing company that produces two plastic molded products—Product 1 and Product 2. The manufacturing process consists of forming plastic raw materials (sheets of plastic) into the finished consumer products. The products are sold through retail markets to the general public. The two products are not substitutes for one another, nor are they complementary. This means that sales of one product do not effect sales of the other product.

In Threshold Competitor Team, you are part of a group organized to manage your company in competition with the other groups in your class. Each group will manage a separate company that will compete with the other groups in the same marketplace. In Threshold Competitor Team, the administrator uses the computer to process the decisions that teams make regarding the operation of their company after collecting the decisions from all the competing teams.

Threshold Competitor Solo is a play-alone version of the Threshold Competitor Team. It places you in competition with semi-intelligent companies managed by the computer rather than other groups in your class. While your competitors will act rationally, they are not all-knowing, perfect competitors.

In Threshold Competitor Team and Threshold Competitor Solo, you will:

• Decide your company mission, goals, policies, and strategies.
• Develop skills in planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling a business.
• Make decisions in the areas of
1. Marketing, including market research and sales forecasts.
2. Finance, including short-term and long-term loans.
3. Manufacturing, including raw materials, production, scheduling, staffing, and inventory control.
• Have the opportunity to ask "what-if' questions by entering a sales estimate and seeing what the results of your decisions would be given this level of sales.
• See the results of your decisions and have an opportunity to correct mistakes in the following quarters of operation.

WHAT ARE THE COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS?

In order to operate the Threshold Competitor programs, you must have access to a personal computer system with the following characteristics:

• Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, NT, or XP.
• 3 Megs of space on your hard disk.
• At least 1 disk drive.

Although optional, we advise that you use a printer so that you can generate printouts of your quarterly results. We also strongly recommend that you have a blank disk suitable for use with the PC to use to make backup copies of your Threshold Competitor company files. You should do this after each time that your decisions for a quarter are processed and you receive the results.

HOW DO THRESHOLD COMPETITOR TEAM AND COMPETITOR SOLO WORK?

You work on a personal computer, entering your decisions on two screens. You can review previous quarters' decisions and results either on the screen or on printouts as you work.

When your decisions for a quarter of Threshold Competitor Team and Threshold Competitor Solo operations are final, the decisions are processed either by your instructor (for Competitor Team) or by the computer (for Competitor Solo). The Threshold Competitor Team and Threshold Competitor Solo programs will determine the number of products each company sold and produce a series of operations, marketing, and financial reports for your company. The programs also rate the companies and rank them according to their performance on sales revenues, net income, return on assets, and accuracy in forecasting sales.