Forio and Darden Business Publishing have recently released four new simulations. Developed at Darden using the Forio Epicenter platform, these simulations are interactive illustrations of key concepts in marketing and supply chain management:

• List Testing Exercise: Economic Selection: Students explore the practice of testing a random sample of names from a set of rented lists, deciding how many names to test and how many rounds of testing to conduct before making each rollout decision. Students must weigh the value of testing against its costs while working to maximize profits for their marketing campaign.

• PFG Bank: Credit Card Exercise: Students review a variety of products (12 versions of a credit card) and detailed information about several thousand potential customers. Then, students use test-cell marketing to determine which products to market to which customers, and send out multiple direct mail campaigns, each with different associated costs.

• Positioning Game: Market Segmentation Exercise: Students compete to position products and find the ideal market for new offerings. After reviewing a perceptual map of market structure and noting consumer preferences, students place their products. Over several simulated rounds, students seek to increase total market share by updating market positioning for their products.

• The Beer Game: Supply Chain Communication: Teams of students take on different roles in a supply chain and experience for themselves the challenges of minimizing costs. Teams must cope with variable demand, lead times, modes of transport, inventory-carrying costs, stock-out costs, and incomplete information across the supply chain. Instructors determine whether members of each team are able to share information with each other, and how much the information may cost.