The basis of the game is the result of the researches to forecast crisis happenings in the world financial system for the period of 1997-2003 and made with the participation of the authors.
The specific character and novelty of the game is in deeper considering external factors that have hard influence on and form enterprise's vital activity in the modem conditions.
The basis of the game was provided for with the mosaic principle envisaging the dynamic extension of the game and filling it up with new details and models. Each participant having formed one 01 another logic scenario is able to collect data from the world's Internet bases and to complement mosaic's elements after having carried our an economic and mathematical analysis.
Основой деловой игры послужили результаты исследований по прогнозу кризисных явлений в мировой финансовой системе на 1997-2003 гг., которые были проведены при участии авторов.
Спецификой и новизной данной ДИ является более глубокое рассмотрение внешних факторов, жестко влияющих и формирующих жизнедеятельность предприятия в современных условиях.
В основу игры положен принцип мозаики, который предусматривает динамическое расширение и пополнение игры новыми параметрами, моделями. Каждый участник, сформировав тот или иной логический сценарий, в состоянии собрать данные из мировых Интернет баз и, проведя экономико-математический анализ, дополнить элементы мозаики.
The basis of the game is the result of the researches to forecast crisis happenings in the world financial system for the period of 1997-2003 and made with the participation of the authors.
The aim of these researches was to determine the phases of business (economic) cycles of the world and Russian economies and to give some practical recommendations to a number of financial investment funds and industrial enterprises of Russia. The researches resulted in identifying crisis processes in the world financial system as well as forecasting the world financial crisis in 1998-2000 and inevitability of the financial crisis in Russia in 1998.
It's a pity, but no one of the world financial institutions and governments of the G-7 countries but the USA FRS President Alan Greenspen reacted and took any radical steps to bring crisis processes to a halt, localize them and to standardize the world financial system. The crisis having happened in Russia and the following after that declaration of Alan Greenspen to the Budget Committee of the USA Senate on the 23d September 1998 on the inevitability of the world financial crisis confirmed all our estimations and prognoses of 1996-1997 as well as the reasons having brought to the crisis processes in the world economic system. On A. Greenspen's opinion one of the reasons is non-professionalism of investors that gives rise to non-transparency of commercial, law and government structures and weakness of banks' control over capital investments.
The characteristic features of the present-day economy are high dynamics and degree of mutual countries' integration and therefore there is deep interdependence of all economic systems of states and enterprises.
The changes going on form new requirements for Business Game(s) (BG).
That is why we try in the BG to co-ordinate world geo-economic processes of the G-7 countries and Russia with concrete financial management of a real enterprise. We suppose crises embryos to be generated not only as results of non-correct monetary fiscal policy but also in productive and financial sphere of concrete enterprises and in financial credit institutions.
Due to wide development of computer and Internet technologies and modem state of economic science nowadays the conditions for managers have been created to consider the economies of their enterprises in the close connection with the common economic system of the world.
The final business game "Invest" is intended to adapt financial managers to real conditions of the modem economy. It is targeted on the integrated usage of knowledge got in the course of studies.
On the conditions of the present-day economy financial management becomes the most complicated and priority task to be taken on by management of any enterprise irrespective of its business activity and scale.
The financial management of enterprises is fulfilled proceeding from the general interests of their managers, employees, owners (shareholders), creditors. It is the most often case that the parties unanimously single out the main aim for enterprise as to get maximal profit through maximizing its cost by raising its capitalized value. To achieve this aim one must make decisions in two key directions of financial management, namely, investment policy and everyday financial and economic activity.
The specific character and novelty of the game is in deeper considering externalities that have hard influence on and form enterprise's vital activity in the modem conditions. In the BG the theoretic material is formed in the context of practical decisions making that demonstrates the possibility of how theory can be used to make more effective decisions.
In the BG many laws, models, methods are realized on the base of the standard package of electronic Microsoft Excel tables and Visual Basic Microsoft Excel language.
The main aim of playing the game is to verify in complex and assess the knowledge got by students, their practical skills, abilities to make collective decisions as well as to analyze, forecast and argue decisions made in financial management.
The BG must be based on the analysis and forecast of real cases taking into account the state of the present-day economy, computer and Internet technologies. BG must also contain mechanisms of dynamic extension.
As foundation of the game the proving right of each participant is laid to make known and add to the BG the factors (parameters) omitted in game scenarios.
The main principle of the game is that of mosaic that provides for dynamic extension of the game and its filling up with new parameters and models. Each participant having formed a logic scenario is able to collect data from the world Internet bases and to complement mosaic's elements after having carried out an economic and mathematical analysis. It is the super-task of the game.
The main function of the financial manager is to develop the financial policy for the enterprise including its tactical and strategic tasks. Each group of players is a group of financial managers headed by the leading manager and coordinator. Each group gets an enterprise to manage which is the same for all the groups and is in the same starting position and the same concrete environment (market, competitors, inflation and so on). Various results having been got already after the first modeling are challenged by different strategic and tactical decision made by the teams.
The main aim of each team is to analyze and forecast external and internal factors that affect enterprise's activity and to work out financial as well as organization and technical measures to be taken.
The aim, tasks and functions of the BG are the base for financial managers in their everyday practical work.
The game model consists of three base stages and/or subsystems:
1. The first stage is to analyze and forecast scenarios of the environment (macroeconomics of the world, the G-7 countries, Russia) and to make known the base factors (parameters) able and sufficient enough to determine the degree (facilities and directions) of environmental influence on the vital activity of the enterprise. These signal parameters must comprise qualitative and/or quantitative changes of the following structural and system shifts in macroeconomics within a year and longer. For example, it is a glaring mistake to use the rate of change of GDP in the strategic analysis. Since it results from the monetary fiscal actions of the government, its investment activity, changes in the unemployment rate etc. Their change per year or longer creates pre-requisites for and forms integral index of the Gross Domestic Product, On tactical intervals it can be used for the elaboration of the strategic forecasting.
2. The second stage is to analyze and forecast everyday financial and productive activities of the enterprise taking into account externalities. Such analysis is necessary to specify strategic and tactical plans of the enterprise. The present-day level of automation and the development of modem economy let and force do it constantly as well as make reports. The real value of enterprise's reporting is that it can be used to forecast future profits and dividends. From investor's point of view analysis of the financial position is the forecasting in essence while management considers it to be useful both as a means of forecasting and what is more important as the starting point for planning actions that will influence the course of events in future.
3. The third stage is to form the investment policy of the enterprise that is based on possible scenarios of development of externalities and internalities. The investment program of the enterprise must function permanently during the whole enterprise's "life". The staff of the enterprise's structural subdivisions, when working out a financial strategy, should always analyze others markets and select them paying the regard to the requirements of reducing risks of the portfolio of the enterprise. While selecting markets on the principle of paying regard to their changes and business phases financial managers identify new ways of enterprise's activity.
Unless the stages above are realized the enterprise is not able to work stable.
Subsystems of all these stages can be presented as a "black box" with data in- and out-flows.
The starting information for the first stage is statistic data collected from Internet-bases. They are grouped in the following categories:
The general condition of the world economy on the goods -, financial and resources markets and trends in changing them.
The condition of the economies of the G-8 countries, OPEC and the world stock exchange centers.
The subsystem consists of modules each of which works on information flows above. The purposes of these modules are:
Making choice from the variety of the base statistic data.
Identifying the leading countries that are in the phase of business cycle's extension.
Forming resulted correlation regressive matrixes and efficiencies of elasticity that reflect qualitative, quantitative and time characteristics.
Subsystem allows to work out the more probable scenarios for the development of the world economic system and possible aftereffects of these scenarios concerning the vital activity of the enterprise, its markets, competitors, branch.
The result of that is the report of the group about possible scenarios of the environmental changes and consequences of their effects on the vital activity of the enterprise.
The starting information for the second stage is periodic data from financial reports as well as average branch data.
Subsystem is grounded on the methods of preliminary financial analysis including the estimation of the coefficients of enterprise's financial condition. A deeper financial analysis is made about fixed and current assets, capital owned and liabilities, the value of capital etc.
The result of this stage is the program of measures to optimize everyday activity of the enterprise taking into account the starting data from the first stage.
The conclusions made on the first and the second stage as well as the complex of investment projects suggested are input data for the subsystem of the third stage where the main aim is to work out the investment policy of the enterprise. The subsystem realizes:
final evaluation of the average value of capital,
estimation and analysis of each project,
comparative analysis of the projects,
evaluation of projects risks,
evaluation of projects cash flows and so on.
The result of this stage is making choice from the most optimal investment projects taking into consideration the results from two previous stages.
The result of the business game "Invest" is the report about the final investment policy of the enterprise.
All three subsystems are based on software realized in MS Excel and other applied programs.
Authors
Galina Samarina, Mila Novik
Saint-Petersburg State Academy for Engineering and Economics, Russia
Ó Г.П. Самарина |
К.э.н. доцент. Санкт-Петербургская государственная инженерно-экономической академии. |
Ó М. М. Новик |
Руководитель Центра прогрессивных технологий обучения Санкт-Петербургской государственной инженерно-экономической академии. |