Overview
Discussion: The goal of this discussion is to focus your thinking on how strategy is defined in your organization and what role innovation and ideation play in it.
Thinking about Porter’s Five Forces, Viima’s Cascade, and 3M’s 15% solution, how are strategy and innovation connected in your organization (I work for a telecommunication company)?
Assignment: Michael Porter's Five Forces framework has long been used as a method to assess an industry. The Strategy Simulation: The Five Forces (located in your Harvard Coursepack) helps us understand how industry forces interact and how an industry's structure affects competition and profitability.
This simulation focuses on challenges to the cocoa industry. For some background on the industry you may want to check out these sites:
DiLallo, M. (2024). Investing in Chocolate Stocks.Links to an external site.
Moreno, J. Edward. (2024). Why Prices for Chocolate And Cocoa Went Nuts.Links to an external site.
Instructions:
Run the simulation. You will be assigned to play one of the forces. All other roles will be played by the computer (which will make logical decisions). You will review all preliminary information then go to the events center where you will look at three stages of the event – decision, analysis, and outcome. This pattern will continue until the simulation is complete.
When you have completed the simulation, please submit a 3-5 page reflection on the experience focused on these questions:
- What force seemed to hold the most power in industry? Why would you pick that force? What does this imply for the other forces?
- Were there any outcomes that surprised or confused you?
- Did the consequences of any of your decisions surprise you?
- What is your biggest takeaway from this simulation? Will you apply this in your current organization?