(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Sony Affiliate Trains Staff Using PC Games
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January 27, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Carrier Development International (CDI) Inc.,
a Sony group company, will offer a training program for mid-level managers
using a computer game.
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It developed the game with Sentius Corp. of the United States.
The program will be for mid-level staff in charge of management, finance
and marketing. The company will start providing the program around March
1999.
In the beginning, the training will be conducted using individual PCs.
Remote training using a network, however, will be made possible later
in 1999.
The game used in the training is "LAUNCH," a business simulation game
designed by CDI and sold by Nihon Keizai Shimbun Inc.
The theme of LAUNCH is managing a company that plans a trip to the moon.
The player assumes the role of the president (manager) of the tour-conducting
company. In order to continue playing, the player has to make judgments
on issues needed for managing a company, such as funding, decision-making/strategy,
product development, advertisements, securing human resources and education.
The player has to compete with a company run by the computer in terms
of profit and market share.
CDI is already conducting training with LAUNCH for employees who will
be newly recruited by Sony Corp. A program combining the game and live
lectures on management and accounting was developed for one-day training
for those recruited in medium-level positions.
Kenji Hashimoto, manager of CDI's ED Business Section, said PC games
respond immediately to the judgments of the player, giving the player
practical lessons.
CDI has been conducting training programs using a board game. Hidetoshi
Miyazaki from ED Business Section said PC games are more suitable to
foster decision-making ability and management sense, because they set
a time limit for replay. This is why the training with the game was
developed and employed.
CDI plans to add a network playing feature to LAUNCH. It will employ
it in training programs in 1999. Sony subsidiaries and branch offices
throughout Japan and abroad will be able to use the remote training
system simultaneously.
(BizTech News Dept.)
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