With 30-plus executives from energy and technology giants GE, IBM, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard and others looking on, four leading business schools yesterday participated in a war game to stress test the global strategies of these firms in competing for China's $100 billion Smart Grid — only to encounter obstacles that had nothing to do with their companies' technological prowess and everything to do with how they work with and within China.

Through rapid-fire arguments, interrogation by an expert panel of judges, as well as questions from the corporate observers, "The Battle for China's Smart Grid" War Game revealed many obstacles that many observers admitted that their companies must acknowledge and overcome if they are to win a piece of the $10 billion-per-year funding China has offered. These predictions included: 1) To fully take advantage of the emerging opportunities regarding the "smart grid" in China, Western companies, such as GE Energy, Siemens and Cisco, may have to sell a stake in their business. 2) Western companies need China to take on the world. 3) Standards setting and the capability to manage the buildout process represented by companies such as IBM may trump China-legacy firms such as GE and Siemens, selling technology and hardware into the Smart Grid.

The other elephants in this Smart Grid room identified by the judges and the teams playing out their roles included China's concern about its own security in preventing others hacking the country's system, as it hires Western firms who have the technological prowess to build out the Smart Grid. Another elephant that Western companies have underestimated is capacity. The grid needs to add enormous transmission capacity at the breakneck pace China will demand. China's acceptance or nonparticipation in carbon pricing will also speed or slow down the expansion of the power grid.

"With a potential annual value of approximately US$20 billion over the next five years, the onset of the Smart Grid initiative in the PRC represents one of the largest, most strategically important global business opportunities for the coming decades," commented Denis Simon, professor of International Affairs at the School of International Affairs, Penn State University and senior China advisor to Fuld & Company. "Not only will the Smart Grid project define a potentially new, transformational economic trajectory for China in the energy field, but it also may serve as a catalyst for changing the rules of the road in terms of the way firms compete and cooperate across the global commercial landscape."

All four teams worked hard to identify how the firms they represented in the War Game could add enough value to the Smart Grid initiative in China to earn profits for their companies. They recognized the need to enter into strong partnerships with Chinese and potentially other Western firms in order to bring a successful package of products and/or services to the table.

With 30-plus executives from energy and technology giants GE, IBM, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard and others looking on, four leading business schools yesterday participated in a war game to stress test the global strategies of these firms in competing for China's $100 billion Smart Grid — only to encounter obstacles that had nothing to do with their companies' technological prowess and everything to do with how they work with and within China.

Through rapid-fire arguments, interrogation by an expert panel of judges, as well as questions from the corporate observers, "The Battle for China's Smart Grid" War Game revealed many obstacles that many observers admitted that their companies must acknowledge and overcome if they are to win a piece of the $10 billion-per-year funding China has offered. These predictions included: 1) To fully take advantage of the emerging opportunities regarding the "smart grid" in China, Western companies, such as GE Energy, Siemens and Cisco, may have to sell a stake in their business. 2) Western companies need China to take on the world. 3) Standards setting and the capability to manage the buildout process represented by companies such as IBM may trump China-legacy firms such as GE and Siemens, selling technology and hardware into the Smart Grid.

The other elephants in this Smart Grid room identified by the judges and the teams playing out their roles included China's concern about its own security in preventing others hacking the country's system, as it hires Western firms who have the technological prowess to build out the Smart Grid. Another elephant that Western companies have underestimated is capacity. The grid needs to add enormous transmission capacity at the breakneck pace China will demand. China's acceptance or nonparticipation in carbon pricing will also speed or slow down the expansion of the power grid.

"With a potential annual value of approximately US$20 billion over the next five years, the onset of the Smart Grid initiative in the PRC represents one of the largest, most strategically important global business opportunities for the coming decades," commented Denis Simon, professor of International Affairs at the School of International Affairs, Penn State University and senior China advisor to Fuld & Company. "Not only will the Smart Grid project define a potentially new, transformational economic trajectory for China in the energy field, but it also may serve as a catalyst for changing the rules of the road in terms of the way firms compete and cooperate across the global commercial landscape."

All four teams worked hard to identify how the firms they represented in the War Game could add enough value to the Smart Grid initiative in China to earn profits for their companies. They recognized the need to enter into strong partnerships with Chinese and potentially other Western firms in order to bring a successful package of products and/or services to the table.

The Battle for Healthcare Information, held in New York City on April 3, 2009, is the fifth national war game championship organized and run by Fuld & Company, the global leader in competitive intelligence. In this public war game event, four top business schools predict the most prominent companies in the healthcare information technology and healthcare delivery industries will quickly move to create alliances and in certain cases merge with their rivals, to take advantage of the government push to adopt electronic medical records (EMRs).

Teams assumed the identity of four major healthcare icons simulating and stress testing their anticipated strategies to determine who will profit from the adoption of EMRs. The Obama administrations injecting $19 billion to kick-start this nascent electronic medical records industry just gets the players moving. It is no guarantee you will see universal adoption of electronic records in healthcare anytime soon. The teams included:

Columbia Business School Microsoft
MIT Sloan School of Management McKesson
Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management Kaiser Permanente
University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business Allscripts

MITs team, simulating the McKesson strategies, won the war game competition based on four criteria: the teams strategic insight, accuracy in presenting McKessons strategy, creative ways it expressed McKessons culture and goals, and finally, its ability to project their strategic vision into the future. Last years war game on The Battle for the Wireless Internet, won by the Kellogg MBA team, successfully predicted a number of industry alliances.

Teams assumed the identity of four major healthcare icons simulating and stress testing their anticipated strategies to determine who will profit from the adoption of EMRs. The Obama administrations injecting $19 billion to kick-start this nascent electronic medical records industry just gets the players moving. It is no guarantee you will see universal adoption of electronic records in healthcare anytime soon. The teams included:

Columbia Business School Microsoft
MIT Sloan School of Management McKesson
Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management Kaiser Permanente
University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business Allscripts

MITs team, simulating the McKesson strategies, won the war game competition based on four criteria: the teams strategic insight, accuracy in presenting McKessons strategy, creative ways it expressed McKessons culture and goals, and finally, its ability to project their strategic vision into the future. Last years war game on The Battle for the Wireless Internet, won by the Kellogg MBA team, successfully predicted a number of industry alliances.

Teams assumed the identity of four major healthcare icons simulating and stress testing their anticipated strategies to determine who will profit from the adoption of EMRs. The Obama administrations injecting $19 billion to kick-start this nascent electronic medical records industry just gets the players moving. It is no guarantee you will see universal adoption of electronic records in healthcare anytime soon. The teams included:

Columbia Business School Microsoft
MIT Sloan School of Management McKesson
Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management Kaiser Permanente
University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business Allscripts

MITs team, simulating the McKesson strategies, won the war game competition based on four criteria: the teams strategic insight, accuracy in presenting McKessons strategy, creative ways it expressed McKessons culture and goals, and finally, its ability to project their strategic vision into the future. Last years war game on The Battle for the Wireless Internet, won by the Kellogg MBA team, successfully predicted a number of industry alliances.

University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Google
Northwesterns Kellogg School of Management - Intel
Harvard Business School AT&T Mobility
MITs Sloan School of Management Vulcan Capital

Teams worked to predict corporate strategies that may follow the upcoming FCC auction closing. They concluded that the industry will be hard-pressed to build out the infrastructure needed to enhance consumer benefits in the next two-to-three years.

Kelloggs team, representing Intel, won the war game contest based on four criteria: its strategic insight, accuracy in presenting Intels strategy, creative ways it expressed Intels vision in the wireless Internet space, and, finally, its ability to project its strategic vision into the future.