Serious Games

The fun and engaging nature of Serious Games fosters discussion and team cohesion, and challenges you to find the best possible solution. During these sessions, make good use of all the lessons you have learned in class.

EM Normandie Business School uses a variety of Serious Games including simulations, business games, board games, virtual reality, drama, escape games, etc.

Use the Dryrun simulation to learn about marketing concepts

I lead a strategic marketing course based on a Dryrun simulation as part of M2/ MS Marketing Strategy and Business Development. Each group of four to six students manages the marketing strategy of a given company which has a certain starting value. Groups are in competition with one another and must increase the value of their business. The decisions made by each company influence the market, as well as other companies.

Samy Belaïd
Professor in Marketing

Use simulation to apply and appropriate the concepts of strategic marketing, representing company life as closely as possible. At the end of the simulation sequences, learn how to prepare and present your pitch to sell your business to future investors.

The sequences take place over eight to 10 “rounds”, each of which equates to an accounting year. During each session, the professor will start by introducing you to the concepts of the course, and then you apply these concepts when making the decisions for your company through the simulation tool. The teacher then goes around each group to provide coaching and answer your questions.

Each session ends with a very informative plenary session in which the results of each round are presented. The professor debriefs the class on the decisions made by each team, highlighting the positive points but also any mistakes made, so that everyone can learn from them.

Use the simulation to put into practice a real business case

Fresh Connection is an online supply chain management simulation game. Students have six rounds to make the necessary strategic decisions in order to save the struggling company. In each group of four to five students, each member occupies a key role within the company. At the start of the first round, we go over the key theoretical concepts required in order to understand the game and make decisions.

Mame Gningue
Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Take part in a business game and get to grips with communications between the Supply Chain Management role and the other roles within a manufacturing organisation. Make strategic decisions as a team to improve supply chain performance.

During this simulation exercise, you’ll have access to a user manual that will help you to get started with the simulation tool connected to the School's IT platform.

The game will be held over four six-hour days. A consultant from our Inchainge supplier and a permanent School staff member will supervise the game. At the end of each round, each group debriefs and analyses the results of the simulation.

Design a Business Model as a team and analyse your performance

This business game consists of designing a complete business model for the launch of a new product by an industrial SME which manufactures sensors used by a range of industrial processes. Several teams of students compete with one another. In each session, there will be an opportunity to analyse the actions carried out and results obtained by each team, and to understand the link between environmental analysis, strategic decisions, management control and organisational learning.

Luc Tessier
Associate professor in Finance

Use a cross-disciplinary approach to gain an awareness of the multiple interactions between the company’s operational management, the related economic and financial systems in place and your inevitably biased perception of the environment.

Understand all of the components required in order to build a case study, including the market survey, strategic analysis, full costing, and profitability scenario and forecasts. Working with the manufacturing sector gives you access to a wide range of challenges in which you must overcome capital, market and organisational constraints as part of a single lesson in management and economics.

The shared monitoring tool allows you to tackle all of the operational and strategic dimensions of an economic project. You can adapt the tool to the parameters chosen by your teacher, which can be adjusted according to the educational objectives and level of difficulty sought.

Our professor developed a virtual market that can accommodate up to ten companies. Each company had to make decisions and aim for the best possible profitability and solvency over a seven-year period. Each team had starting capital and had to invest and borrow at its convenience by completing a weekly decision sheet that included our investments, employee management, pricing policy, marketing and outsourcing for the coming year. We then received a document showing our annual performance as well as that of our competitors, which included income, cash flow, sales, inventory and debt. This allowed us to make our decisions for the following year in accordance with our initial strategy. Our team chose to develop an innovative company, which is why we invested heavily in marketing and R&D. Three other companies opted for a strategy similar to ours. Another option was to be a subcontractor and therefore a mass producer, which did not fit in with our innovative strategy. At the end of the seven years, our business was solvent and making a profit.

Laura M.