Gaël Planchais (FR) June 19, 2023 Training Education | Having a crush

Business Game Innov’Action, BGIA

The business game was created in 2018, with the collaboration of two other professional teachers.

Having participated in certain business games, I wanted to do something different and closer to the business world.

The interest is to put the students in immersion and above all that everyone is active!

Business game theme

For the project to succeed, it was necessary to choose a theme, to create desire but also to restrict certain fields of action. From Master 1, I told students that I wanted people with ideas. The theme was easy to define: innovation

The game lasts about twenty hours (24 hours) and the students thought that finding an innovation would not have been so complex! Bad luck, I said that one hour of play corresponded to one year… If the students offer us a single innovation in twenty years, I fear that the result will not meet our expectations.

The think tank

Groups of 6-7 people are created (the grouping is done on the basis of profile). Each group must set up its own organization and define the positions and salaries, which will be validated by the facilitators. However, by presenting the slideshow, some manage to define positions that will not be useful to the company, such as marketing, which is not required in the business game (we can ask to establish a business model but not manage the sale of products and/or services).

The animators

Main role

The main role of the animators is to be shareholders who finance the projects of the different teams (initial budget defined for an autonomy of a few hours and calculated upstream according to known salaries). The groups must present the progress of the projects and await the GO of the shareholders. We can validate, ask to rework on the project, redirect…

We wait for the groups to ask us for funding, which is not always done and it is a disaster in some cases.

Complementary roles

We are also there to support students and can wear different hats such as R&D consultant for example. This consists of helping a group in return for a cost: this service is invoiced for example for a quarter of an hour, that is to say 3 months, we can ask for 60,000 €.

Another role is chartered accountant since the groups must manage their accounts (mini-accounting and cash management) and can claim the research tax credit.

We are also bankers, tax auditors, courts (it can happen!).

The last important element is the famous “environment” (cards or dice) which spice up the game and corresponds to the vagaries of the life of a company and its resources (an incident, an accident, the departure of employees, a strike , a social audit, a tax audit, etc. any event that companies experience on a day-to-day basis.

Abandoning a project, liquidating a company can sometimes be confusing for students, but we tell them that the most important thing is their reaction, their ability to react, to bounce back…

Mastery of the game

Some students may be players and seek to destabilize the other teams, the shareholders. We must stay alert and be reactive in making decisions.

We have experienced the following situations:

  • Face-to-face and remote business game during the Covid
    Trusteeship of a group when people can no longer manage the business
    Labor Court
    Industrial spying
    Integration of a student among the shareholders
    Foreign investors (English, Arabic)
    Speeches by former students
    Creation of a self-employed status
The outcome of the game

At the end of the business game, we propose to make a synthesis on the role of the different actors of each group.

Many are interested in reliving the game, especially on the side of the animators.