Teaching the digital transformation of business processes: Design of a simulation game of business process change

The impact of digital transformation (DT) on the business processes within the context of education is an issue that should be addressed when preparing the future workforce. It is necessary to emphasize the effects of digital technologies on business processes so that students can come prepared for their future working places. Simulation games are proven to be a valid method of teaching these concepts. On the other hand, topics like sustainability or environmental friendliness are also gaining more attention during last years. These factors are even considered among the DT drivers. However, the existing games, aimed at teaching DT, often bypass these concepts with their attention. Our paper aims at closing this gap by extending a game that simulates the manufacturing process of a bike producer, undergoing servitization, by integrating, sustainability, regionality, and ecological factor into its simulation model. By taking the role of the process manager, players guide their company through various process steps in several rounds and compete against other teams. At the end of each round teams are compared based on their financial success, with balancing out the ecological factor being an essential part of the strategy. Evaluation of our game shows that this approach contributes to a better understanding of both effective process management under DT as well as sustainability, regionality, and environmental friendliness concepts by the target audience.