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+++ Please note: We currently offer two editions of the Business Simulation Game: Business Simulation Game – Management Essentials (3 CP) and Business Simulation Game – Scale Up (3 CP). +++
What do you do when your business model stops being enough? In this simulation game, you and your team take over an established manufacturer of motor scooters – a solid company with loyal customers and a market that is shifting towards electric mobility. Your job: bring a new generation of e-scooters to market without losing the business that pays the bills today.
Over three days at the Innovation Center, you deal with the questions that real management teams face in times of disruption: Where do we invest? How do we position a new product against faster competitors? And how do we transform a company while it keeps running? The simulation makes corporate entrepreneurship, business model innovation and strategic repositioning directly tangible.
The entire course is held in English and is open to students of all disciplines. The number of participants is limited to 30.
What can you expect?
Day 1: Taking over the company, strategy input, first decisions
You analyse the starting position of your company: its strengths, its cost structure, its customers – and the electric wave rolling towards its core market. A compact input on strategy, innovation and business model development gives you the tools you need. Then your team sets its first strategic course and enters the simulation.
Day 2: Transformation under competition
Now the hard trade-offs begin. How much do you invest in the new e-scooter generation, and how long do you defend the existing business? Over several decision rounds, you work on positioning, marketing and competitive strategy – and experience how demanding it is to renew a company and stay profitable at the same time.
Group work phase: strategy paper and presentation preparation
Between the second and third day, your team prepares a short strategic write-up: you sharpen your transformation story, back it up with your results and build the final presentation.
Day 3: Final round, presentation and reflection
The final decision round shows where your strategy has taken the company. Each team presents its approach in a short pitch with Q&A. In the closing reflection, we compare the different paths the teams chose and discuss what they reveal about growth, innovation and transformation in established companies.
Who is the programme intended for?
The course is open to Bachelor’s and Master’s students of all disciplines who want to understand how established companies stay competitive when their markets change. It works well as a follow-up to Management Essentials, but it also stands on its own – if strategy, innovation and market change interest you, you can start here. Since the course runs entirely in English, all students are explicitly welcome.
Why should you participate?
Because entrepreneurial thinking is not only for start-ups. Most of us will at some point work in organisations that need to reinvent parts of themselves – and in Scale Up you experience first-hand what that takes: reading a market, weighing risky investments against a running business, convincing others of a new direction. Along the way, you strengthen analytical thinking, KPI-based reasoning, teamwork under time pressure and confident presenting.
The Business Simulation Game is part of the “Entrepreneurship Basics” programme, the first stage of the Entrepreneurial Education Path at Saarland University. Successful participants receive 3 of the 6 CP required to complete “Entrepreneurship Basics”.
Registration covers all three days. To receive the 3 CP, you need to attend the full programme and submit a short written assignment after the simulation.
