What is a Business Game?
First of all, the Business Game is a game in which one or more players aim at achieving one common objective. Moreover, the Business Game is a simulation; on the basis of a designed economic model, the game aims at recreating the market reality as accurately as possible.
The Business Games, which were born in the 1950s, has educational and evaluation purposes. The European Business Institute acknowledged its main didactic objectives, thus the improvement of decision-making abilities in terms of timeliness and efficiency of choices, familiarity with risks and uncertainties, learning of management techniques, integration of various company functions and training to strategic decision planning. Since each single player is part of a team, s/he can develop a solid team spirit which is a more and more central concept in people’s professional life, although it is often neglected by classic educational tools.
The business games vary considerably, according to their different development and application environments.
They can be classified in several types, according to data processing (manual or automatic), number of players (single player or multi player), model type (functional or inter-functional), number of products and/or markets and number of strategic decisions.
Many leading companies, which aim at providing their staff with an effective and accurate vocational training, are using this ground-breaking tool.