Research Study #28 (Marketing Program Experiment) Updates:

Research Study #28 (Marketing Program Experiment) has been enhanced to automatically include three experiments for each RS#28 input set. Research Study #28 now includes experiments with the specified marketing spending input plus additional experiments with 50% more and 50% less than the specified marketing spending input. These three experiments are included at the standard cost of Research Study #28.

LINKS Services Versions Updates: Research Study #28 has been added to the research study resources in the LINKS Services Management Simulation and the LINKS Services Marketing Simulation to provide access to a powerful experimental research study to permit detailed study/analysis of the drivers of customer perceptions. Research Study #34 (Accessibility Perception Drivers) has been added to the LINKS Services Management Simulation and to the LINKS Services Marketing Simulation to provide additional research resources to access effective/efficient drivers of perceptions of support services. Service design element “Service Appointment Schedule” now has indirect cost implications for CSR productivity. To provide sufficient standby/reserve CSR capacity to service shorter Service Appointment Scheduling programs, available CSR service time is reduced by 1.5(7-SAS)(7-SAS) hours per quarter where “SAS” is the Service Appointment Scheduling level associated with a support service. A new “Service Center Statistics Report” is included in the standard financial and operating reports. The Service Center Statistics Report provides categorized service center call counts of callers’ questions for each of your firm’s services in each market region. Service center call counts are reported for these ten categories: billings, design configuration, design quality, first-time usage, introduction (service introductions to market regions), miscellaneous, service call duration, service experience, service scheduling, and unfilled orders. Where a single caller has several questions, the call is recorded in multiple categories. Thus, these “call counts” are really “question counts” rather than counts of caller calls. LINKS firms outsource service center management to a reputable provider/vendor in each market region in which your firm operates. Firms pay the outsourced service center $6 for each call received. These costs are recorded as “Call Center Service” on a firm’s financial statements.

There is no cost to participate in LINKS Train-The-Trainer Seminars. However, participants are responsible for their own long-distance calling charges during the teleconferences.

A total time commitment of 16-18 hours (including pre-reading of the LINKS participant's manual) is typical. Train-The-Trainer distance-learning seminars are available to academic faculty wishing to learn more about teaching with LINKS prior to adoption and use in instructors' courses.

Details about LINKS Train-The-Trainer seminars may be accessed via these links:

The audit trace logfile is accessible via the “Display Audit Trace Logfile” button on the opening webpage in the LINKS Simulation Database (i.e., on the webpage that appears after the successful input of a firm’s passcode).

Normally, there’s no particular need to access the LINKS audit trace logfile since all current inputs are accessible via the various web input screens within the LINKS Simulation Database. However, the audit trace logfile is useful for resolving questions relating to verifying a particular input change’s timing. And, sometimes questions arise regarding the possibility that multiple team members were simultaneously making input changes within the LINKS Simulation Database … a definite “no-no”, as per warnings in the LINKS manual and e-mail reminders that all LINKS students receive during their LINKS events.

The LINKS Services Operations Management Simulation is targeted at elective services operations management courses and introductory operations management courses where a medium-sized, 5-6 round, team-based, competitive simulation event is of interest.

Learning emphases in the LINKS Services Operations Management Simulation include:

The LINKS Services Operations Management Simulation is a sophisticated, competitive, team-based services operations management simulation. LINKS firms market and deliver “support services” (e.g., computing/IT support, financial management, health care, repair, or maintenance services) to households (consumers) and major accounts (businesses) in multiple market regions.

More information about the LINKS Services Operations Management Simulation (including the complete student manual) is accessible via the LINKS website. Accessing the “Which?” link on the LINKS website provides comparative information about the three LINKS services management simulation variants (marketing, operations management, and full-scale services management).

The LINKS author, Randy Chapman (Chapman@ChapmanRG.com), would be pleased to converse with services, operations management, and supply chain management faculty who’d like to chat about the LINKS Services Operations Management Simulation.

To better position the LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation as an entry-level business simulation and to reduce its “size” (scope) a notch, the repositioned LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation includes a slightly reduced decision set (credit financing, supplemental dividends, and loans decisions have been eliminated), a single sales channel (“retail”) in each market region, and a slimmed-down set of research studies (research study #25 has been deleted).

With these reductions in simulation “size” (scope), the LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation now has the potential to involve 1.25-hour decision rounds (although the initial decision round should be longer, to account for initial startup time-cost issues). And, as before, the LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation can be scheduled as a four-round event, although five-six rounds are generally recommended. Thus, the repositioned LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation provides a rich, competitive management simulation experience but in a relatively small time-footprint in an academic degree-granting course or executive education seminar.

A comparison of the three LINKS enterprise management simulation variants is accessible via this link: Enterprise Management Simulation Variants

LINKS FAQs are an initial information source for students and instructors with LINKS questions. And, since the FAQs have been developed over time based on prior students’ and instructors’ queries, they naturally reflect common and not-so-common user questions.

To access the LINKS FAQs for a particular LINKS simulation, access the LINKS simulation variant from the main LINKS webpage. The FAQs link is in the LINKS Resources section on the variant-specific webpage.

The LINKS FAQs have been re-engineered to improve accessibility and usability. For example, in each FAQs category, the full set of category FAQs are displayed in a lengthy web-screen display to permit convenient printing of a category of FAQs. To facilitate access, FAQs are routinely cross-listed in multiple categories. In addition, there is more cross-listing of individual FAQs in relevant FAQs categories. And, all LINKS FAQs have been refreshed to fully reflect the current status of each LINKS variant.

• LINKS allows faculty to provide students with an opportunity to analyze customers and competitors across distinct regions/segments in a dynamic, realistic, competitive marketing environment. This simulation gives students experience in a competitive marketing environment and can be used in a number of ways to assess their ability to implement various strategic marketing concepts and frameworks. There are no other tools available to faculty that accomplish these objectives. Exams, assignments, cases, etc. are all deficient in this regard because they do not hold students accountable for the consequences of their decisions in a dynamic, longitudinal, and competitive environment. Similar to real life experience, students are given the opportunity to learn in an iterative process of research, analysis, decision-making, and feedback across multiple events. - Jeff Thieme, University of Memphis
• I just wanted to drop you a note to say that the simulation ran grandly this semester. I really appreciate your efforts and assistance. Thanks again. - Duane Davis, University of Central Florida
• My class just finished their final presentations. Your LINKS Supply Chain Management product was absolutely fantastic for my MBA students. They loved it. More importantly, it gave them an opportunity to apply different business and operations management strategies to drive firm performance and get feedback almost in real time. Having firm #6 (an inert, unmanaged firm with no decision changes throughout the LINKS event) was also a great benchmarking tool to demonstrate that when appropriately applied, these strategies would result in better performance over the longer term. - Eric Jack, University of Alabama at Birmingham
• I picked LINKS because it was the closest thing to reality that was out there. Participants are faced with making decisions that have interaction effects and one of the keys to doing well is to understand how one decision interacts with others and impacts the other processes that are being managed. LINKS gives you a sense of the overall complexity of managing an entire supply chain from the perspective of one firm in the chain. - Brooke Saladin, Wake Forest University