Worksheet: War-game the response before the next major move

A business case that assumes competitors stand still is a best case. This sheet works out what each competitor's economics push them to do, then reruns your case. It builds the Competent step of the check:

For each major move, the likely competitive response has been thought through.

Step 1. State the move

Our move	When	Price or terms	What it takes from competitors

Step 2. Read each competitor's position

Competitor	Cost position against ours	Spare capacity?	Share of their profit at stake	What they lose if they do nothing	Likely response	How soon
e.g. Competitor A	Higher	Yes	Large: it is their biggest segment	Their largest account	Cut price to keep volume	Within a quarter

Responses to consider: match, undercut, ignore, or strike back somewhere else.

Step 3. Play it out

Hold a half-day session. Give one small team the role of each main competitor, with the table above as their brief. Play three rounds of move and counter-move. Record what each team did and why.

Round	Our move	Competitor A	Competitor B	Competitor C
1
2
3

Step 4. Rerun the case

Case	Volume	Price	Profit	Still worth doing?
As first written
After the most likely response

Done when: the paper for each major move records how each main competitor is likely to respond and shows the case after that response.

Adapted from our own war-gaming training (PSP, 2012).