Why Marketplace Live?

Sound teaching methodology. The teaching methodology of Marketplace Live has been developed by Dr. Ernest Cadotte, professor of Marketing at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Cadotte worked with a dozen of international faculty to create a robust simulation model that covers the essence of every functional area of business and their interconnectedness with maximum realism. The simulation model used in Marketplace Live has been refined for over 20 years. It is one of the most sophisticated business simulation models available today.

Ultimate realism. In Marketplace Live, students deal with decisions and situations that are commonly encountered in real-life business. This strategic and deeply tactical exercise challenges the students to collaborate, communicate and adapt to the unexpected. 3D visualization allows them to touch and feel the products they design and introduce to the market. It also helps them grasp the key business concepts and better understand the results of their actions.

Assurance of Learning. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) requires that business schools specify their learning objectives and measure how well they are meeting these objectives. Our simulations offer a number of assessment tools that address these requirements. They are designed to gauge students' progress and learning during the simulation and to help faculty enhance the educational outcomes of the exercise.

Effective learning strategy. Rather than start in the middle of the story with a mature firm, the simulator uses a new venture situation. Your students gradually build the business and the simulation introduces new issues as they become relevant. This approach makes the logic of business practices more intuitive.

Each decision period presents a dominant set of decisions. In several rounds, players evaluate the market opportunity, choose a business strategy, evaluate the tactical options and make a series of decisions with profitability in mind. Each period's activities build upon the prior content so that there is considerable repetition. Business activities such as cash flow planning, value creation in product design, production scheduling, profitability analysis, and strategic planning and management require repetitive exercise in order to set them into one's natural thinking.

Ease of use. Marketplace Live is a web-based application that requires no installations or manual file transfers. You and your students can access the simulation from any computer with Internet connection. Easy to use interface guides your students every step of the way. A comprehensive help file system ensures that the information the students need is always only a click away. The Marketplace support center handles the mechanics of running the simulation so you can focus on teaching.

Bundled electronic textbook. You can order an electronic copy of the Cadotte and Bruce textbook, The Management of Strategy in the Marketplace for your students when you submit the request for your simulation game. The textbook will be available to your students in a pdf format directly from the student site. You can customize the textbook by selecting the chapters to include. Even with the full set of chapters, the simulation and the e-Textbook bundle will cost less than a typical printed textbook alone. And, you save a bunch of trees.

Simulations for specific courses. Marketplace Live is a family of business simulations also referred to as difficulty levels. Each simulation is tailored to specific marketing and business courses. Choosing a simulation from different vendors for each of the courses you teach requires you to take the extra time to get familiar with several different products. While each Marketplace Live simulation offers different content, they all have the same standard design, so once you get acquainted with one, you easily learn others.

Integration of functional disciplines. Marketplace Live simulation exposes the students to all the functional disciplines of business. They deal with the interplay between marketing, operations, finance, accounting and team management. They see how their decisions and actions affect the performance of others within the company and the entire organization. They learn to understand the linkages among the functional areas of business.

Marketplace Live exercise helps the students grasp the big picture of how business operates, while providing enough detail to help them understand the nuances of marketing, operations, finances, accounting and management. Linking each decision to the firm's cash flow and financial performance enables the students to see and feel the financial implications of their actions. This results in a greater financial accountability and an in-depth understanding of the business enterprise as a whole. When they finish the exercise, students feel there is a sharp increase in their level of confidence gained through new knowledge and experience.

Real time team collaboration. With the chat, email, and teamwork monitor built directly into the student software, Marketplace Live makes online collaboration easy and enjoyable.

Free 24/7 support. Marketplace Live comes with free support provided by the best support team in the industry.

Everything to get you started. Get access to free instructor materials containing ready to use handouts, lectures, presentations, sample syllabus, coaching tips, grading guidelines, test banks and more. To learn how to make the most out of simulations in learning, join one of our free Train-the-Trainers workshops (provided for university teachers only).