Industry 100 · GMS200-051 · read live 12 Nov 2026

G Company, Year Nine

Every change the company needs, and why. Read off the decision screens, all seven journal pages, the competitive intelligence reports and the operating reports.

Year 9 closes tonight, 11:59 PM. Last save was 5 Nov. Nobody has touched it in a week.

Fix this first

There is a 49% price increase sitting in the entries

G Company sold North American cameras at $226 in Year 8, which was 19% below the industry average. The Year 9 entry reads $337. Nothing was added to justify it: still one model, still the joint-lowest advertising budget in the industry, still a 60 day warranty against a market at 170.

The projection screen forecasts North American share falling from 12.3% to 6.6% as a result.

Part one · The diagnosis

EPS
$4.66
vs $4.25 expected · beat
ROE
33.6%
vs 30.0% expected · beat
Credit rating
A
vs A− expected · beat
Image rating
66
vs 75 expected · miss by 9
Net profit
$93.1M
up 70.2% on Year 8
Ending cash
$193M
up $82.0M, sitting idle

You are over-earning and under-investing. Four of the five scored measures beat expectation. Image rating is the only miss, and it has fallen every year the company has been run.

60 65 70 75 80 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 73 71 69 66 77 investor expectation your image rating
Image rating has fallen every year while the bar has risen. Year 9 is a projection from the entries currently in the system.

Why the next three years carry most of the score

The five measures are worth 20 points each, but they are not scored the same way. Two of them throw away your entire history.

MeasureScored onStill winnable
Stock pricemost recent year onlyall 20
Credit ratingmost recent year onlyall 20
Image ratingaverage of last three yearsall 20
EPSweighted average of every yearpartly locked
ROEweighted average of every yearpartly locked

Sixty of the hundred points reset to Years 9, 10 and 11. That is the entire argument for spending heavily now and accepting a weaker Year 9 profit.

It is the Best-In-Industry half that is sinking you

Your score splits two ways. Against investor expectations you sit on 105, which is respectable. Against the best firm in the industry you sit on 63. D Company is on 99. That second number is where your 84 comes from.

Measure by measure in Year 8, your Best-In-Industry marks were EPS 8, stock price 7, ROE 12, image 18, credit rating 19. Relative to the field you are not actually losing on image or credit. You are losing on the money.

What the sim itself says is wrong

The Strengths and Weaknesses page flags the same block red in all four regions and in both products: number of models, retailer support, advertising, website displays, sales promotions, search engine ads and retailer recruitment. Every one of those is a marketing spend decision.

Price and P/Q rating come back green almost everywhere. You were competitive on price and better than the field on quality. Which is exactly why the $337 entry is the wrong move: it converts the company's one consistent strength into a weakness without fixing a single weakness.

Part two · Twelve changes for tonight

Ordered by how much each one moves the score.

1

Start corporate citizenship. You have spent nothing for five years.

All six initiatives read No or zero for Years 4 through 8. The industry averaged $8,060k of outlay last year and the top spender put in $16,423k.

Image points awarded for CSRYear 6Year 7Year 8
Industry high5812
Industry average357
G Company000

Why it mattersImage is your only failing measure and it is scored across Y9 to Y11, which is exactly the window you have left. The average company collected 7 image points from citizenship last year and you collected none. Your image was 69. Seventy-six would have cleared the Year 8 bar.

The page states that five years of sustained effort lifts image 15 to 20 points. You have three years, so expect roughly half of that. The benefit also compounds, which is why the industry high climbed 5, then 8, then 12. Starting tonight rather than next year is worth more than the money involved.

DoCharitable contributions at 3–5% of operating profit. Green initiatives on. Renewable energy $2,000–2,500k. Working-conditions facilities, safety and lighting, and the supplier code all yes. Around $8–10M, matching the industry. You are holding $193M in idle cash.
2

Undo the North American camera price

North America, camerasY8 actualY9 entryIndustry Y9
Your price$226$337$279
Position vs market19% below21% above—
Share12.3%6.6% proj.—

Why it mattersWhoever typed $337 was solving a real problem. In Year 8 you earned $35.59 of operating profit per camera in North America against an industry average of $63.86 and a high of $117.06. You were the thinnest margin in the region. The instinct to raise price was right. The size of the step is what breaks it, because a 49% rise with no extra models, advertising or warranty just hands your buyers to someone else.

The other three regions are already near market and can stay roughly where they are: Europe-Africa $288 against $287, Asia-Pacific $285 against $278, Latin America $271 against $266.

DoBring North America back to $240–265. Not all the way to $226, because with a 5.2 P/Q against a 4.5 field you were underselling yourself. But $337 is a different company's price.
3

Extend every warranty. It is the cheapest thing on this page.

Warranty, daysCamerasIndustryDronesIndustry
North America6017090160
Europe-Africa12016060130
Asia-Pacific18016060150
Latin America6013060140

Why it mattersYour warranty claim rate is 6.9% against an industry average of 19.8%, the best in Industry 100. Repair cost runs $3.43 a unit against an average of $9.93. A longer warranty therefore costs you roughly a third of what it costs a rival, while buying the same amount of buyer confidence. It is also the easiest way to justify charging more.

Do not let the grid fool anyone here

The Strengths and Weaknesses page shows warranty as a green strength. That is because its legend scores price, production cost and warranty inverted, where below average counts as a strength. The green means your warranty is short and therefore cheap, not that it is helping you sell.

DoMatch the market everywhere except Asia-Pacific cameras, which is already ahead.
4

Go from one model to a real range

The anticipated industry average is 4.1 camera models and 2.4 drone models. You run exactly one of each. In Year 8 you had one camera model against an industry 3.5, which the sim flagged as 71% below average and a weakness in all four regions. A Company runs seven.

Why it mattersNumber of models is a direct buyer-appeal variable in its own right, separate from price and P/Q. One model means you compete for one slice of the market and give retailers one reason to stock you. It also feeds image rating.

DoThree camera models, two drone models. R&D already runs $16M and $18M a year so the capability is paid for.
5

Fund advertising to at least the industry average

Camera advertisingYouIndustry avgGap
North America$3,000k$5,568k−46%
Europe-Africa$1,500k$3,646k−59%
Asia-Pacific$1,000k$2,988k−67%
Latin America$500k$2,556k−80%

Why it mattersThe worst single gap in the company is on the drone side: search engine advertising of $1,490k against an industry average of $4,724k, 68.5% under. H Company spends $10,000k. That is on the half of the business that is actually growing, where your share is rising in all four regions.

Website display budgets are under the industry in all four regions too, and your sales promotions run one week at 10% against an industry three to four weeks at 15%.

DoEvery camera region to at least the industry average. Treble drone search spend. Promotions to three weeks at 15%. Latin America is the cheapest place to buy camera share back.
6

Pay the retailers outside North America

Support per unitYouIndustry avg
North America$10.45$9.20
Europe-Africa$6.93$10.30
Asia-Pacific$6.00$10.80
Latin America$6.80$11.30

Why it mattersRetailers are walking away. Local shops carrying your cameras have gone 3,360 to 2,880 in North America and 2,150 to 1,615 in Asia-Pacific. Online drone retailers have dropped from 34 to 28. Distribution is slower to rebuild than price is to cut, so this one compounds against you the longer it is left.

DoLift Europe-Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America to roughly the industry per-unit figure.
7

Reprice the drones, which are the half that is winning

Drone share is rising in every region: North America 9.2 to 9.6%, Europe-Africa 16.5 to 18.9%, Asia-Pacific 14.4 to 16.7%, Latin America 11.4 to 13.1%.

Drone priceYouIndustry avgGap
North America$1,600$1,45510% too high
Europe-Africa$999$1,38328% too low
Asia-Pacific$999$1,29823% too low
Latin America$1,001$1,19816% too low

Why it mattersYou are winning share in three regions while charging a quarter less than the field. That is margin you are giving away for share you already have. The extra profit is what funds the camera price cut and the citizenship spend, so this change pays for changes one and two.

DoRaise Europe-Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America toward market. Bring North America down toward $1,455.
8

Deploy the $193M. Stock price is scored on the final year alone.

No dividend has ever been paid. The Year 8 dividend was $0.00. There has been no share repurchase and no early loan repayment. Cash available from all sources this year is $601M.

Stock priceYouExpectationBest in industry
Year 8$71.29$60.00$217.45 (D)
Year 9—$100.00—
Year 11—$200.00—

Why it mattersThis is your widest single gap and simultaneously your most recoverable, because nothing before Year 11 counts toward it. Dividends and buybacks both lift stock price directly, and a buyback also raises EPS by shrinking the share count. Idle cash meanwhile drags ROE, which is one of the two measures you are still winning.

DoStart a dividend this year and raise it in Y10 and Y11, or repurchase stock. The Year 9 repurchase cap is 1,200k shares at $71.29.
9

Fix the camera workforce. You are running two different companies.

Per worker, per yearCamerasDronesIndustry avg
Total compensation$26,488$28,401$28,348 / $30,644
Quality incentive$1,537$2,045$2,717 / $3,032
Productivity training$1,250$9,000—
PAT productivity3,0531,6553,240 (cameras)

Why it mattersDrone workers get the maximum $9,000 of productivity training. Camera workers get $1,250. The camera quality incentive is barely half the industry rate. The result shows up downstream: camera labour cost is $35.35 per unit against an industry average of $31.24, second worst in Industry 100, on below-average productivity. Underpaying the camera line is costing you more per unit than paying properly would.

DoRaise camera training toward the drone level, lift the camera quality incentive to around $3.50 a unit, and close the base wage gap. This lowers cost per unit rather than raising it.
10

Raise R&D, or stop paying over the odds for parts

CamerasLowAverageHighYou
Year 8 R&D ($000s)023,00050,00016,000
Cumulative R&D51,000120,250185,000109,000
Component cost per unit24.3578.21101.5583.89

Why it mattersYou spend less than the field on R&D and more than the field on components. R&D is what lets you hit a given P/Q rating with cheaper parts, so under-spending here is why your bill of materials is above average despite a mid-range product.

DoMove camera R&D toward the $23,000k average, especially as you add models.
11

Fill in the Operating Projections carefully and collect a free point

Bull's Eye, Year 8ForecastActualVariancePass
Revenues (within 5%)481,336462,744−3.9%yes
EPS (within 5% or 10¢)$3.04$2.74−9.9%no
Image (within 4 points)7069−1 ptyes

Why it mattersTwo of three passed. EPS alone cost the point, by 30 cents. You have zero cumulative Bull's Eye awards while A and E have two each and D and F have one. Fifth place on the scoreboard is four points away, so bonus points are not a rounding error here. Your Year 7 forecast variance was 0%, so the skill is already in the room.

DoFill in the three-year plan's Operating Projections properly, then keep the year's decisions consistent with it rather than changing course halfway.
12

Two more bonus points are sitting uncontested

Leap Frog gives a point to the most improved current-year score. A Company took it in Year 8 with +28 after a bad Year 7. Your current-year score has gone 73, then 87, then 82, which puts you in exactly the position A was in. A genuine Year 9 turnaround is a live candidate.

The Corporate Responsibility Award begins this year, for the highest citizenship outlay as a share of revenue. You currently spend $0, so every rival starts ahead, but nobody has won it yet and change one already puts you in the running.

DoNothing extra. Both follow from doing changes one through ten properly.

Part three · What this costs and what to watch

All of this reduces Year 9 profit. That is the point, not a side effect. You are converting a surplus you do not get scored twice for into image, share and distribution that you do.

  1. Protect the A credit rating. It is scored on the final year alone and you currently beat expectation on it. Fund the spending from the $193M of cash, not from new long-term debt.
  2. Do not cut EPS below the expectation line. You are projected at $4.66 against $4.25. That is about 40 cents of headroom in Year 9, and EPS is scored on a weighted average so a bad year stays on the record.
  3. Watch the Year 11 ladder. Expectations climb to EPS $7.00, ROE 40%, image 77 and stock price $200. Spending in Year 9 has to buy share that pays back by Year 11, which is why doing it tonight rather than next year matters.
  4. One flag I could not reconcile. The grid marks your North American drone price as a strength, yet the intelligence report has you at $1,600 against a $1,455 average, which is 10% above. Under the page's own legend that should read as a weakness. Check the Help file before anyone quotes that row.

Part four · What this means for the December report

The report is due 3 December, 11:59 PM, one PDF to the D2L dropbox. The simulation's final year lands 26 November. That is seven days to assemble.

  1. The 3-Year Strategic Plan in the sim is completely blank. Step 1 is the Strategic Vision Statement, which is Section 3 of the report. Step 2 is Performance Targets, which is Section 4. Two report sections already have a home in the software and nobody has filled them in.
  2. Section 2 wants six charts. Revenue, EPS, ROE, credit rating, stock price and image rating. Double-click any chart in the sim and it downloads as a PNG rather than a screenshot.
  3. Section 7 wants competitors "as of the last year or two". That means Year 10 and Year 11 data, which will not exist until 26 November. Build the structure off Year 8 and Year 9 now and swap the numbers in.
  4. Export on the 26th. Three CSVs per year from the Export page: CDJ, CIR and COR. That is the whole data set in three clicks.
  5. Section 10 is not required unless the team finishes last or second to last. You are 6th of 8 and F and E are behind you, but re-check after Year 11 rather than assuming.