http://www.essec.edu | Ariane simulation is a two-day business simulation game. Each group of 5-6 students forms an executive committee of firms that are in competition with each other. The simulation game deals with all the major aspects of management. The students have to manage their firm over several periods and take decisions on production, marketing, R&D and finance. On the market, each firm is in competition with 4 other firms managed by other teams. At each period, the decisions of a group are compared with those of concurrent teams and with a market simulated by a computing program. The objective of the game is to deal with all the components of management and the links between them. The objective of the game is also to simulate the management of a firm in a competitive environment, which implies rapid reaction adapted to any change in the market or in the policy of the competitive firms. On the human side, this training enables students to take into account the advantages and the difficulties in taking collegiate decisions and in working as a team.

Video Transcript
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ESSEC began using simulation games when we arrived at Cergy. The implementation of business simulation games came from our desire to help our students see the interaction of company roles and understand the overall picture. The games that are most used at ESSEC today, Kallystée, Mirage and Ariane, go back to the early 1970s and our desire to create something for ESSEC. We have a wide range of students. First year students, profile-based admissions and Master’s students. This represents easily some 1,200 students per year. Plus those in continuous professional training, and the Mannheim Executive MBA program. We also have the MBA program established two years ago in direct liaison with Singapore, and a lot of executive programs. This amounts to about 2,000 participants a year using these games. Students arriving at ESSEC will generally go through this simulation. It makes for a surprise in their first days at ESSEC, and provides a chance to practice team building. Each student is given a working group, usually of 5 people. The first stage consists of getting to know the other students, distributing roles and tasks within the group, defining a common strategy together, and ensuring that the team endures over time in all the decisions made throughout the game. Among the different elements the students have at their disposal, apart from the software and the results posted on their screens, they will also have access to the results of the other worlds they are playing against. In particular the screens you can see behind me which show all of the results on the best sales, net accumulated income, etc. This promotes the sense of competition between the teams. In principal, the sectors can be homogenous or mixed. If they’re mixed and people have existing skills, they can share more of their knowledge through the game. We encourage people to show their skills to others, and also to take charge of unfamiliar areas. We want people to understand their gaps in knowledge and how to integrate that. In these games, we start everyone on the same basis. It’s not obligatory but we find it more fair. Then we place firms in competition in a controlled environment, and people can see their results. They state objectives, do case analyses, and tell us what they have understood. Little by little the game gets more complex, so once they learn certain things, they’re given new goals. We use these games heavily in our teaching at ESSEC. We’re one of the few schools to use them systematically, providing total immersion. Ariane and the other games at ESSEC are a big success because they provide large-scale internal support, especially in general organization and Information Technology. This year it allowed us once again to have video contact with Singapore. We began and ended the game together despite the time change with Singapore, with a final summary through video conference with students there. That was very interesting. We also have other projects coming up with the Mannheim Executive MBA program. We intend to do a mixture of work in small groups like we do here, and also games by correspondence with debriefs. This is all possible thanks to the technical and staff support of our teams.

Duration : 0:4:17

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