GREAT LAKES INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

Programme

: PGPM PROGRAM

Batch

: 2015-2016

Term

: 07

Course Name

: MARKSTRAT SIMULATION

Course ID

: PGPM MKST 01 / PGPM MKST 02

Reference Textbook

: Simulation Course. No Textbooks / Reference books

Course Credits

:3

No. of class hours

: 20 HOURS

Course Instructor

: PROF. EASWAR KRISHNA IYER

Great Lakes Institute of Management

Contents
1. Course Objective
2. Pedagogy
3. Clause of Academic Dishonesty
4. Session-wise Course Structure
5. Evaluation components & weightages
6. Tips to play Markstrat well
7. Class Split into 6 teams

1. Course Objective
Markstrat is a simulation game intended to be a close to real simulation and implementation of all
marketing and strategy concepts in a hypothetical market. The hypothetical market shows the
behavior of a consumer durable goods market. The market has two product categories Sonites and
Vodites. In each category, there are competing firms (the teams in the class room). The total market
share gets divided across these teams (firms) as it happens in all real markets. Each team will have
an identical start after the end of year one (the system plays the game for the first year for all
teams). So you technically start at the beginning of year 02. All of you will start and end another
eight rounds of production market research - advertisement sales hiring distribution sale
inventory management cycles. Each of these rounds will start and end at the same time for all
teams (the details of which are given in the class scheduling). The course manual will give in detail
the series of steps that you have to go through in each cycle, ending up with a new set of decisions
on a product by product basis. As far as possible, the teams have been made with all types of
student majors in every team (as much as possible). Please try to learn as much as possible, the
more a team learns and plays, the more it will win. Mere gaming will fetch some dividends in the
initial few rounds. Since it is a course without exams, attendance and presence for strategizing in
every round becomes very important. Hence a good 30% is assigned for attendance. Attendance and
its associated marks would be driven by manual head count and not by biometric data.

2. Pedagogy
This course amalgamates tools and streams as diverse as conjoint analysis, perceptual mapping,
inventory management, production planning, sales force management, advertisement budgeting,
semantic scales, new product launch, product repositioning, market share / mind share
management, branding, budgeting, obsolescence management, product life cycle planning, product
phase out, category management, time management, decision making with imperfect information,
data sciences, information overload management, R&D planning, interest exposure management
and the likes. It offers an as close to real ring side view of the rivalry that gets triggered in a real
market with many players.

3. Clause of Academic Dishonesty

All forms of academic dishonesty (cheating, copying, plagiarism etc) will result in a grade 0 for that
particular activity. If some form of academic dishonesty is observed, then the names of the students
involved will be reported to the academic officials in accordance with the stated policy of the
Institute. Identical transcripts for the end term exam will result in an F (failed) grade for the
concerned students.
Since this is a market simulation game and in real markets the information to survive and thrive will
be available from external (exogenous) sources, hunting for data from Google on tips to play
Markstrat better (in reals terms, how to survive in real markets better) is permitted.

4. Session-wise Course Structure

5. Evaluation Components and Weightages

6. Tips to Play MARKSTRAT WELL

1. Ensure that all team members are present in all sessions. This is a team exercise and
wouldnt work on individual brilliance.
2. Split the team right on day one into different functions / roles / responsibilities. Ensure
that the same person develops and maintains a given picture cycle after cycle. This
integrated picture cannot be developed by any single player. So this has to be a team
effort (the way it is played out in real markets).
3. Some of the independent pictures that have to be developed and maintained include
(but not necessarily restricted to)
a. Production Planning
b. Inventory Management
c. Competitive Strategies
d. Understanding Perceptional Maps
e. R&D Planning (with justifications)
f. Budgeting
g. New Product Development and launch
h. Entry into Vodite Markets
i. Advertisement Planning
j. Sales force planning
k. Sales force allocation
l. Brand Portfolio Management
m. Correlation with past decisions
n. SPI implications
4. For your course, there are 6 teams (competitors) with 5 players / team. All the 30 of you
will have in dependent login IDs [Participants Activation Keys]. You will be given your
PAK 48 hours before the course starts.
5. Ensure that the data up to every previous round is transferred to you by the faculty at
the beginning of every session.
6. Even more important, ENSURE that the final data with ALL relevant decisions are
transferred back to the faculty after every round. The teams will also maintain in excel
sheet their round by round decisions as a 100% back up.
7. Students / teams will leave only after the faculty confirms that he has received their
entire data for the current round.

7. Section A Split into 6 Teams

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45

Roll Numer

Name

FT162090

Subhasree Roy Choudhury

FT162085

Sneha A

FT162034

Divya Babbar

FT164059

Purti Arora

FT162014

Ankit Mehta

FT164060

Pushkar Pradeep Pathak

FT162077

Sahil Singla

FT161052

Mohd Anique Rafique Khan

FT163040

Kaustubh Sharma

FT163042

Kingshuk Chakraborty

FT163010

Amit K Nair

FT163050

Mayank Bhayana

FT163076

Ravi Seth **

FT164007

Abhishek Thyagarajan

FT162091

Subhiney Chhabra

FT164076

Sanyukta Ratnakar

FT162086

Sravya Chandrika Yellapragada

FT163043

Kiruthika S **

FT162027

Bhavana Gurnani

FT163033

Jay Ghosh Khemka

FT163069

Prateek Parashar

FT162043

Ishan Nag

FT163036

Joy Dutta

FT164084

Shishir Kumar

FT162026

Bhaskar Vashistha

FT161002

Aamir Phulrawala

FT162105

Vineet K. Sharma

FT161022

Arpit Tyagi

FT163027

Harpreet Singh Sandhu

FT164065

Ramanathan N R

FT164036

Komal Agarwal

FT161055

Neha Bamhore

FT164053

Pallavi Sah

FT162009

Alolika Pattanayak

FT161088

Soham Dutta

FT162047

Kaushik Prakash Gurav

FT161053

Mohit Wadhwani

FT162004

Abhishek Pandey

FT164067

Rishabh Singla

FT162039

Gautam Kumar

FT161108

Rishi Puttoo

FT162067

Prassanna R **

FT164030

Himanshu Khandelwal

FT161071

Rajahamsam TR

FT162075

Rishabh Neema

Team
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

Team Name

No. Roll Numer

46 FT162051
47 FT162061
48 FT162022
49 FT161094
50 FT161019
51 FT161038
52 FT161046
53 FT163066
54 FT164012
55 FT163100
56 FT163064
57 FT162012
58 FT161035
59 FT164032
60 FT162082
61 FT164081
62 FT163026
63 FT161095
64 FT161008
65 FT163067
66 FT161058
67 FT164066
68 FT162050
69 FT164025
70 FT162046
71 FT162028
72 FT162076
73 FT161106
74 FT161105
75 FT163081
76 FT162058
77 FT164026
78 FT162098
79 FT162021
80 FT161056
81 FT164045
82 FT164080
83 FT162055
84 FT162037
85 FT163002
86 FT162018
87 FT161012
88 FT162016
89 FT162102

Name
Manavi Vatsala **
Pallavi Dwivedi
Arpita Kapoor
Susina Roshni Borromeo
Ankush Balllal
Harshit Agarwal
Kushal Raveendra
Prashanth Ramesh
Amit Bhardwaj
Varun Chhabra
Piyush Mahajan
Anish K T
Dixit Taneja
Karan Gandhi
Saurabh Kumar Srivastava
Shagun Srivastava
Gunjan Kaur Jabbal
Swati Johri
Adity Sharma
Prateek
Nishchal Bhargava
Rishabh Gupta
Kunal Mishra
Deepanshu Hans
Kapil Ramani
Chandranuz Bhuyan
Ritish Puri
Agastya Mishra
Vineet Khandelwal **
Sahil Shah
Nidhi Iyer **
Sv Devi Aishwarya
Umapriya C
Apra
Nikhil Shivakumar Mahajanashetty
Mukund Balnarayan Iyer
Shabarish Nama Radhakonaiah
Nakul T M
Gaurav
Abhinav Chaurasia
Anuj Sharma
Amal Goswami
Ankit Vasant Gala
Venkat Viswanathan

Team
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

Team Name

8. Section B Split into 6 Teams

No. Roll Numer
1 FT162093
2 FT163051
3 FT162053
4 FT163023
5 FT164010
6 FT162011
7 FT163029
8 FT163096
9 FT163093
10 FT161037
11 FT163003
12 FT161078
13 FT164075
14 FT164079
15 FT161042
16 FT162023
17 FT163091
18 FT162064
19 FT164029
20 FT161075
21 FT164104
22 FT164006
23 FT163099
24 FT164042
25 FT163062
26 FT163083
27 FT163018
28 FT163014
29 FT163056
30 FT164013
31 FT163097
32 FT161102
33 FT163085
34 FT164092
35 FT163047
36 FT163022
37 FT164083
38 FT163098
39 FT162103
40 FT163086
41 FT163059
42 FT163031
43 FT161007
44 FT161001
45 FT164094

Name
Sulagna Sil **
Megha Varghese
Mitali Kapoor
Garima Sinha
Akshay Kumar
Ananth P S
Himanshu Aggrawal
Suyash
Srikanth Vadrevu
Girish Kumar Sreeram
Abhinav Choudahry
Sathiyanarayanan.B
Sankara Karthik S
Sayan Mukherjee
Johnson K John
Arunima Shivangi
Shuchi Saxena
Pooja Pai
Gayathri Narayanan
Rohel Deb
Yaksh Ahluwalia
Abhishek Mishra
Vaibhav Malik
Melvin.A
Nitin Raj
Sankhadeep Ghosh
Debharshi Bhattacharya
Arsh Prakash **
Mr. Mudit Gupta
Anand G Kurup
Swetha Nandakumar
Vibhuti Raizada
Shamipa Saha ***
Tanvi Singhal
Mahendar Singh B
Eashwar G
Shashank Sharan
Tejas Madan
Vignesh Ganapathy Venkatesan
Shaswat Dash
Naveen Kumar G
Himanshu Malik
Adarsh S
Aakash Srivastava
Vaisakh Sreenivas

Team
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

Team Name

No. Roll Numer

46 FT163087
47 FT162101
48 FT163053
49 FT164019
50 FT164106
51 FT161050
52 FT161036
53 FT162080
54 FT164033
55 FT162087
56 FT164105
57 FT163038
58 FT161087
59 FT163049
60 FT164100
61 FT162074
62 FT163015
63 FT162092
64 FT163019
65 FT162084
66 FT161079
67 FT164062
68 FT162088
69 FT164101
70 FT163079
71 FT164087
72 FT164070
73 FT163028
74 FT163032
75 FT164097
76 FT161026
77 FT163095
78 FT163013
79 FT164021
80 FT161048
81 FT161090
82 FT162032
83 FT164086
84 FT161020
85 FT161107
86 FT164077
87 FT164055
88 FT161097
89 FT162017
90 FT162072

Name
Shipra Singh
Vasudha Monga
Minaxi Khataniar
Ayesha Alam
Nalin Mohan ***
Mohak Prawal
Gautam Sankar
Saurabh Sisodia
Karthik Sreekumar
Sreejith Nandakumar
Yashwanthy G Kanniyappan
Kalpit Gupta
Shreyash Kandarkar
Mavath Praveen
Vignesh Ramanan
Reetu Chopra
Arshia Parveen A **
Sujatha Shankar
Deepshikha Sharma
Shreyas Narayan
Senoj Selvin Jones
Rahul Kumar
Srihari Sreedharan
Vikram Aditya Rattan
Ritvik Sahai
Shubham Khandelwal
Rushabh Shah
Harshil Gagnani
Jai Shiva Ram P
Varun Sodhi
Bhramari Bisht
Susmita Chatterjee
Ankita Dhar
Bhavna Verma
Manik Sudan
Sumit Kumar Aggarwal
Devansh Dhiria
Shivanshi Alawadi
Arnab Dey
Guru Mahesh
Saumitra Shekhar
Pranit Bhandula
Tejas Rajendra Badgujar **
Anshul Bhatia

Rahul Riyal

Team
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

Team Name