{Insert Life} Mine’s Outsourced…=/

Archive for June, 2008

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.

So by now most of you know that I have gone for the Exoro competition and both of you pretty much have no idea what it is about.

The Exoro card game is pretty much a luck independent game (this being the best part ) that has no rules whatsoever (another bonus with the game being relatively flexible ). Anyway, the game revolves around teams which own their own companies whose main aim is to purchase goods from the supplier (i.e. the numbered cards) and resell them to the general public at a highest price possible to achieve the greastest possible turn-over in the game.

The game contains three mini rounds per round and each one comes bundled with complications of its own. The meeting stage seems by far the most important throughout the game. This is when teams focus on their primary stategies and if time permits, may choose to build alliances with other teams. It is during this vital stage whereby teams are required to make important marketing and purchasing decisions for the following round.

At the end of the meeting round, team members are required to rush off to hand in their marketing and puchase forms before the 30-second timer rounds out. It is at this stage when teams make payments for their products and if two or more teams happen to have bought the same card, the game goes into the bidding stage whereby these two companies have to bid for this card until eventually one gives in.

The next stage is by far the most interesting. It involves the selling of the purchased products by these companies. In this stage, just like with the law of demand and supply, the consumer buys the cheapest product and only buys as many products as there is generated demand (i.e. done through the marketing as mentioned earlier). This is where, the CEOs of each team have to, just like “Survivor”, have to outwit, outplay and outlast all other teams’ members either by promoting their products to make it cheaper, by bribing the other teams not to sell their products, etc.

Again, the game has no rules so it is left to the teams to come up with the most ingenious plan to outwit their opponents to emerge top.

At the end of the game, the net worth of all the companies’ assets, consumer base etc. are totalled up and the team with the highest net worth wins!

Anyway, now that I’ve pretty much summed up the game, it is time to move on to the competiton itself which was held between the 2nd and 4th of June 2008 at the YMCA Metropolitan located along Steven’s Road.

On the first day of the competition, we were pretty much greeted with the standard Exoro game play with some minor changes to the game play such as the interest rates. We jumped at the attempt to try and patent a product from the market. However, little did we know that the interest rates, which were at 35%, were too high for us to repay despite continual efforts.

Sadly, on the first day, we finished at last place learning a painful but important lesson about risk analysis; something which might not have been learnt through other games, or what might have been a really painful lesson in real life. Despite the loss, we were glad to have played a great game and have made friends with other teams we had formed alliances with such as the Raffles Junior College team and the Nanyang polytechnic team.

On the second day however, the game had faced significant twists such as the incredibly high start up costs, the uneven distribution of products for sale and varied prices of the products. These changes had forced us to make significant split second decisions as the game had taken a turn we had never expected before. Learning from the previous day’s lesson, we were reluctant to borrow money from the bank despite continuous efforts to get us to do so by the Exoro team.

Thankfully, with the alliances made and split-second thinking decisions made by my team CEO, Clive, during the selling round, we were able to emerge top with a net worth almost triple that of the second place team.

Once again, another day instilled another learning point of the importance of the analysis in our plans and the importance of making alliances and building friendship to ensure that both parties gain through mutual benifits.

The last day would have to be the most challenging out of all the three with the game taking the biggest twist ever seen from previous years of the Exoro competition. On this day, we were required to select a company profile, each of which having significant advantages and disadvantages to it. Out of the numorous company profiles avaliable, our teams choose the “Suppliers Favourite” giving us the ability to purchase the goods at lower prices and the ability to purchase one card per round wihout having to contest for it if a clash was too occur.

Although we were unable to emerge top and having to settle for fourth place, my team and I feel that the final game was by far the most exciting and challenging out of the three games played. As usual, we were given ample oppertunity to make new friends such as Levina (See….! I remember your name hahahaha) from Nanyang Junior College.

After the competition on the third day, we were treated to lunch (which might I add was excellent *drools*) followed by a talk by Mr Koh Kian Seh, a teacher at Temasek Junior College on “innovation and I” and on his success of the Synthetic card ,which increases the interest of students in organic Chemistry. Through this, we were able to learn important life lessons on innovation and the difficulties that one might face as an entrepreneur. I feel that his wisdom on the topic will carry on with me if I ever do decide to take the risk, follow my dreams and become an entrepreneur myself. I wish Mr Koh the best of luck with the marking of his product and i’d highly recommend it to anyone who has a lack of interest in organic chemistry.

The day was brought to a close with the prize presentation with Hwa Chong Institution emerging the overall winners and with Meridian Junior College winning the best team name award as well as the Indonesian team for winning best dressed.

The networking at the end of the prize giving presentation had provided us with ample amount of time to meet and interact with fellow competitors who despite being our competitors had in the end become our friends of which I only hope that our friendship will only further strengthen despite the ending of the competition.

To end off, I would like to thank the organisers, Exoro Pte. Ltd. and the Metropolitan YMCA for, well… organising the event. In addition, I would also like to thank the sponsors, AMCO Jeanswear and Shell LiveWire and the supporters The National Youth council, NUS Enterprise and the NUS Entrepreneurship Society wihout whom I am sure the competition would not have been made possible and also my fellow competitors without whom would not have made the competition such an enjoyable and enriching one.

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

Game rules:
A. People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves. Tag 8 people. Those who are tagged cannot refuse.
B. These 8 people must state who they were tagged by. You cannot tag the person who tagged you. Continue this game by sending this to 8 other people.

okay i was tagged by Emil. 8D

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
depends on the reason i suppose and on how sympathetic she is after that but yeah hmm i think i’ll be like in denial first, then get upset, attempt to get angry, fail at that, then get detached.

2. If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?
world peace and an end to global warming! (i can dream about all of it in one dream can’t i?)

3. What will your dream wedding be like?
ohhhh.. okay, it’s never going to be the under the block nonsense (no offence tot he muslims) but i want mine by the beach under the gate like dome thinggy that will be covered with rose pettles and we’ll have our wedding at sunset/sunrise as the sky turns golden (:

4. Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?
yeah

5. What’s your ideal lover like?
someone who would understand/love/care for/respect me.

6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone else?
both are a curse without having the other love you back or you loving them. ):

7. If the person you like does not accept you, would you continue to wait for them to change their feelings?
wait until the next girl catches my eye. hahahaha

8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
refer to qn 7 (:

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy recently?
tupid NS check up

10. What do you want most in life?
“To achieve peace of mind. Essentially that would entail a sense of completeness in all aspects of my life but when I really think about it the shortest and surest route to that is to get the closest I can to God.”
model answer, haha (stolen from Emil)

11. Is being tagged fun?
wheeeeee…-.= time of my life (:

12. If you find out that your best friend is going out with your boyfriend/girlfriend, how would you react?
as long as i know she loves me, i’ll trust her enough (: besides, they prolly went out to get me gifts…who else would know better right?  *cough*my birthday is on the 1oth of July!*cough*

13. Who is currently the most important person to you?
many people are important to me haha

14. What kind of person do you think I am?
*cough* pig *cough* i think Emil is the sweetest and loveliest girl in the world and that no one else can ever compare to her beauty that radiates thoughout any room she’s in.

15. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
married and poor hahahahaha

16. If the person you secretly like cannot recognize you, what would you do/how would you react?
phhhfffttttt…everyone knows me!

17. Would you give your all in a relationship?
hell yeah as long as i get her all (:
18. If you fall in love with two persons simultaneously, who would you pick?
the one who loves me hahaha
19. What type of friends do you like?
what kind of question is this. hahaha. i take them as they come. no template

20. If you played a prank on someone, and he/she fell for the trick, what would you do?
LAUGH MY HEART OUT (:

P.S. I would like to thank Emil for most of the answers (:

“The past cannot be changed.
The future is yet in your power.”
- Hugh White