Why will your company matter to customers? A complete answer to this question should say something about each of the following:

• How will you create customer value?

• What will be distinctive about the company’s products or services?

• How will capabilities and resources be deployed to deliver customer value?

After you have read the Participant’s Guide or Player’s Manual for the strategy simulation exercise that you will participate in during this academic term, you and your co-managers should come up with brief one- or two-paragraph answers to the questions that follow before entering your first set of decisions. While your answers to the first of the six questions can be developed from your reading of the manual, the remaining questions will require a collaborative discussion among the members of your company’s management team about how you intend to manage the company you have been assigned to run.