Role play of Corona virus economic impact in MBA class

Corona virus, picture courtesy BBC.

Corona virus we know is taking a hit on the Chinese economy now. The city of Wuhan and the province of Hubei is taking massive hit.

To understand the global impact -  social, economic, political, health, business, supply chain, travel, students on the Chinese society, business, global community etc. in greater depth and detail, we did a role play in the Operations class yesterday, 7 Feb 2020.

Our way of carrying out role plays, is different from how the leaders and the best in the field does it, Harvard University ... (Click here to understand how Harvard does it).

Our methodology for doing the role play is based on my earlier experience doing similar role plays in the class. We identified the major objectives of the role play which were

1. to help the authorities control the spread of the virus, to prevent infection and

2. chalk out strategies to help the infected

As the second step we identified ten major stake holders in the Corona virus scare case.

1. Communist govt of China

2. Infected Patients of the novel Corona virus in China

3. people of China who until now and even now is subservient to the Communist rule with no freedom of expression

4. Medical fraternity comprising of doctors and supporting medical personnel

5. United Nations / World Health Organisation (WHO)

6. Airlines of different countries operating into and out of China

7. Parents of students studying in China

8. Operators of major supply chain facilities like warehouses and transporters of medicines, food,

9. Utility operators like power, water and Internet

10. Global media, TV and newspaper

The class of 29 was divided into 10 groups of 3 each (one group had 2) and they had to formulate their strategy in the following areas -

1. to contain the spread of the novel Corona virus

2. to alleviate the fear among the Chinese public

3. to ensure the basic utilities like power, water , basic transportation, hospitals etc are kept running

4. to ensure medical personnel are available to the needy patients across the city of Wuhan and the province of Hubei

5. to ensure proper information dissemination was happening to the public with no room for rumours.

After doing an initial analysis of the different supply chain drivers and how the virus scare is impacting the primary drivers like facilities, transportation, inventory and information, as also the secondary driver of demand, the exercise started with the representative for the global media, myself, asking questions to the Chinese government as to how they were trying to contain the spread of the virus across the country and to different parts of the world.

An invigorating hour later with lot of interesting and informative exchanges happening across the different stakeholders and more importantly the passionate pleas from the doctors and parents of the students stranded in Wuhan with no prospect of flying out, the role play came to and end.

The most gratifying aspect of the study was the fact that all the students while playing out their role in the role play, got to empathise or understand the emotions and feelings of the other stakeholders of the play and how their individual decisions would have an impact on the other stakeholders.

Our students in future when they get into senior decision making roles in industry and government across the world, these experiences will definitely help them to empathise with the different stakeholders and make effective decisions.

The other big advantage is that our students are well informed of all measures to contain the spread of the virus in India and can to a limited extent advise senior government functionaries on controlling the spread of this virus.

We continued with an extension to the role play called JIGSAW, where each member of the stakeholder group was formed into a separate GENERAL group, there were three general groups in total, and after heated discussions they suggested excellent strategies to help counter the Corona virus scare in China. Notable among it was airlifting medicines and food across China, using drones to deliver food, vaccines and medicines for the last mile. 

George.