SABRE™

SABRE™, (which stands for Strategic Allocation of Business REsources), is a market simulation developed by IIBD and used in IIBD's executive courses, and in MBA programs worldwide, including the Wharton School of Business in the US, and IMD Business School in Switzerland. SABRE offers unmatched flexibility for instructors to customize the simulated market if desired.

The Simulated Market

SABRE provides the competitive environment which immerses the participants in a dynamic competitive situation. Teams may launch and withdraw products from the marketplace as well as advertise, price, distribute and design those products to best fit varying market segments.

Each decision period represents a year of business activity. At the start of each period team members receive a company report and various market studies. The company report is a detailed snapshot of the company's results while the market studies detail product awareness, customer purchase habits, customers' perceptions, etc.

Each year teams make a series of strategic decisions - product planning, sales force deployment, R&D expenditures and market research purchases. Once the decisions are made, the team decisions are collected and loaded into the administrator's computer.

The simulation is run (simulating one year in the marketplace) determining market share, product contribution and overall profit for each company. Each team has an equally fair chance of succeeding depending on the strategies and tactics they employ.

Participants must make their decisions in the face of uncertain market conditions, including competitor's moves. As is often the case in real life, there is no one specific solution to a problem but there are alternatives that are clearly superior or inferior.

Course Integration

In both academic and executive courses, classroom learning objectives fit well with the decision-making required to be successful in the simulation (and in real world business applications). For example, after the plenary session on portfolio management, participants can immediately view their simulation portfolios on their computers. With this new information they can further plan and execute their strategy.

Given the complexity of strategic planning, the simulation offers a unique learning experience that can not be gained using traditional static educational methods. Most importantly it provides a competitive environment in which strategic decisions must be taken – this process easily translates over to real world business situations where a strategy must be development and executed.

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