MBE-Simulations Ltd. -

The Company:
Motorola Israel started its business in 1948. Motorola is the leading supplier in the world for communication solutions integrated with electronics. Motorola Israel has 4000 employees. Motorola Israel is the leading company in Israel for all wireless communications and cellular communication.

Motorola Challenge for MBE Simulations Ltd.:
Motorola requested that MBE Simulations develop a two–day, intensive workshop, aimed at training managers across the company in business acumen, using a dynamic case study simulated organization.

The target was:

To help managers discover and understand the organization’s value chain and understand each department’s contribution to the bottom-line.
To explore the impact of collaboration between departments on the organization effectiveness.
To enlighten the effect of uncertainty and fluctuated business environment and acquire useful insights and guidelines for dealing with them.

Target Group:
The target group included about 70 managers from various managerial levels across the company business units. Each workshop involved managers from various functions and businesses such as: R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales, Finance and HR.

A Customized solution:
MBE Simulations has tailored a special scenario focused on industrial, Hi-Tech organization. The nature of the organization involved a significant R&D activity in its value chain.
The participants managed the on-going day-to-day organization’s life dealing with the fluctuated internal supply chain. They were requested to develop a new product, and had to decide on which product to develop, its quality and additional features, based on market research that they purchased. They then had to plan for the new product development life cycle dealing with various aspects such as hiring new R&D employees, purchasing materials and launching the new product. At the end of the development processes they were responsible to sell and service the product.
The Time-To-Market issue was a major consideration that directed the participants at all stages of the development cycle. Another aspect was the quality level that impacted the TtM (Time to Market) as well as the development cost and the off-line service after launching the product.

Risk Management – taking calculated risks to support the organizational goals
Process Management - management attention as a tool to improve organizational process
Change Management – control & implement changes
Uncertainty is certain – guide-lines aimed at building and using alert mechanisms to anticipate business issues and allow managers to react on time
Integration- Local optimization vs. better integration for organizational results
Value chain- how to be efficient in a context of organizational effectiveness
Day–to-day Key Performance Indicators “KPI” - insuring a clear managerial “windshield view” that combines balanced measurements (profits, customer’s reputation etc.)

The workshops:
70 managers participated at a 2-days workshop. Each workshop had 16-20 participants grouped into 4-5 groups. In each session of the workshop the participants had to fulfill a different managerial mission of day-by-day management, running a dynamic case study using a simulated organization.
After each session the participants recorded the group results and discussed their way of running the business according to guided questions listed in the workbook. Following the group level discussion the whole class analyzed the various approaches and gained insights that were aimed at being implemented into the next session.

Feedbacks we got:
Generally, the average score given by the participants to the workshops was 4.6 out of 5
Some examples of the participant’s feedbacks:

I now understand better what effects my actions have on other department such as marketing and purchasing. I now realize that sometimes when we do something that appears to be good for our department, it might hurt some other department and the organization as well.
The key for the game is making the optimal decision to the current situation.
Leaning by experimenting worked great for me. Although the simulator is not perfect, it is a very convenient way to deliver the insights that were delivered in this workshop.
I learned a way to create a control mechanism that will alert me and help me to better control my project. I also think that this scenario shows very clearly the responsibility that the development team has on their shoulders. The organization spends and risks a large amount of money on development and the outcome of the development is very important to the organization.