Simulation in management as alternative of initiation for business success.

Popescu, Catalin ; Gogot, Gabriela ; Oprea, Mihaela 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Simulation in management, although it is used mostly for typical management situations, that are producing with a certain repetition, generates a sequence of interventions of the participants in the form of game management decisions, whose results serve as a start base for the future decisions and actions thereof, and as perspectives, may be constitute the initial elements of a future business success.

Simulation of an economic process in general and of business, in particular, creates competitions situations of economic and managerial (strategic management) essential and helps participants to develop the ability to diagnose situations and economic management with competitive character, to substantiate and implement strategic and tactic decisions to be taken in conditions of risk or uncertainty, the absolute elements necessary conditions on the launching of a new business in the real environment. In this case, simulation would be an alternative to start successful businesses and to prepare students as future managers of success, students fully prepared to face competition increasingly fierce (Radu, 2005).

2. RESEARCH--FROM SIMULATION TO BUSINESS

Training potential of managerial simulation is remarkable and this is the reason for which many companies including Junior Achievement focused their interests to develop training programs for young people because they represent the key factor to success for the future companies Such programs aim to provide concrete information and knowledge about the functioning of market economy mechanisms, show the importance of education in achieving career, underline the economic impact on the future of young people, build skills and develop entrepreneurial attitudes, encouraging the spirit of competition, social qualities and responsibilities of the next business people.

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The simulation management "Titan" (Junior Achievement Romania, www.jaromania.org) introduces elements of economic decision and management through an interactive simulation and a competitive line (fig. 1). The application is a simulation of a decisional management organization of medium dimensions, which operates under a imaginary concurrencies market, where are placed other groups of players that are in charge in other similar companies, with the same object of activity.

During the business simulation the students have to take decisions concern the prices, production, marketing, capital investments and also for increase the research and development fund, fund that is responsible for improving the competitiveness of manufactured product (fig. 2).

Down through the simulation, students will determine a price for their products, will determine levels of production, they plan budgets for marketing and research and development and will invest to develop business. Because these decisions require planning and analytical thinking, Titan is a competition so interesting, challenging and a powerful tool for teaching the mechanisms of the market economy mechanisms and decision-making based on simulation.

The basic idea of this simulation consists in making decisions in a cord prior to the evolution of business results, all in accord with what is happening on the industrial area which is part of the company. Thus, there is an initial report on the company at a time [T.sub.0], and a report on the industry, at the same time [T.sub.0]. After analyzing the data and market situation of these reports, decisions are taken by the players, decisions that are influencing state data output from the above-mentioned industries.

During development of this simulation, either online or manually, participants follow the consequences of adopting certain decisions. Thus, the simulation starts from an initial situation regarding the "[T.sub.0]" when all participants start from the same state. (fig. 3, fig. 4). During the simulation, depending on decisions taken, the company's own situation improves or gets worse, so you can become a leader on the market or you can reach the last place (fig. 5).

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Decisions and actions taken and enforced by a participant in the game, affects the decisions and actions of other participants. In the case of on-line application, decision processing and any other information delivered by the participants are carried out by the computer. By following analysis of existing situation, a manager can take strategic decisions that are able to ensure optimization of company activity. The program contributes to improving the knowledge of decision makers, to development of managerial skills and behaviors suited to the peculiarities of certain activities related to the business problems. This article tries to highlight the fact that through these simulation business enterprise games students gain experience in real business management because it is placed in the front of concrete situations, which has to face and solve successfully, while the decisions results are visible fairly quickly.

3. CONCLUSION

Simulation proposed by this application creates economical and managerial (strategic management) concurrent situations and contribute to the development of participants' ability to diagnose economical and managerial competition situations and, also, help to substantiate and implement strategic and tactic decisions that has to be taken in conditions of risk and/or uncertainty, the absolute elements required in the conditions of launching of a new business in the real environment. This could be considered an alternative to start successful businesses and to prepare students as future managers of success, fully prepared to cope with the competition increasingly fierce.

For the future the authors would like to propose the identification and use of simulation, in a much more complex context, which will take into consideration several factors influence of the system decisions in order to find out the maximum applicability of the software.

4. REFERENCES

Bavaud, F. (2005). An introduction Information Theory and Applications, Ed L'Harmattan, Paris

Duke, D.R. (2004). Policy games for strategic management, Purdue University Press

Gogot, G. (2009). Research for the implementation of informatic systems in quality management for manufacturing technologies of 3-cone drilling bits, PhD Thesis, Ploiesti

Laramee, F.D. (2003). Secrets of the Game Business, Charles River Media Ed, New York

Mora, M. (2003). Decision Making Support Systems, Ed Idea Group Publishing, Hershey

Radu, I. (coord.) (2005). Science and Management, University Publishing, Bucharest

Ursacescu, M. (2002). Informatic systems, between a classic and modern, Ed Economica, Bucharest

*** wwwjaromania.org, Accesed on:2009-05-25