Our Simulations
International Marketing Simulation
CountryManager: Authors
CountryManager provides a rich, realistic environment to explore market entry for classes in International Marketing.
Martin Roth
Dr. Martin S. Roth is Professor of International Business with expertise in the areas of global corporate and marketing strategy. He is also Chair of the Sonoco International Business Department, top ranked globally in international business research, undergraduate and graduate programs. Previously he served as Executive Director of the flagship International MBA Program, and as the School’s Chief Innovation & Assessment Officer. He teaches global marketing management, foreign market entry and growth, and strategy courses for which he has won numerous teaching awards, including the Alfred G. Smith, Jr. Award as the Moore School of Business outstanding teacher, the Outstanding EIMBA Elective Professor Award, and an Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of South Carolina Alpha Chapter of the Mortar Board. He has also taught at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, Katz Graduate School of Business (University of Pittsburgh), the Arthur D. Little School of Management (Boston), and at universities in Austria, France, Hong Kong, Mexico, Thailand, and Tunisia. He has led executive education programs on global strategy, scenario planning, marketing strategy, customer service, market research, and program evaluation, including custom programs for companies such as BMW, CSX, Enodis, Hillenbrand, Metso, Milliken, Nissan, Verizon, and Xerox.
Marty’s research has been published in the leading marketing and management journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of International Marketing, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of World Business, Marketing Management, the Journal of Health Care Marketing, the American Journal of Managed Care, the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, and the Journal of Professional Pricing. His articles and video interviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Marty currently serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Advertising, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. His CountryManager international marketing simulation game is used in over 90 schools worldwide. He has spoken on a variety of marketing and global management topics at industry and academic meetings throughout the Americas and Europe. Dr. Roth has consulted for companies ranging from multinationals to new ventures, most recently including Bank of America, Colonial Life, Holopack International, and Kimmel & Associates. Prior to his academic career he held a number of marketing research and retail management positions.
Lawrence Feick
Lawrence Feick is the Senior Director of International Programs, Director of the University Center for International Studies, and Acting Director of the Global Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh where he is also Professor of Business Administration at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He has been a faculty member at Katz since 1982 and served as its associate dean from 1989-1996 and interim dean during the 2005-06 academic year. From 1999 through 2005 he served as the director of the University's International Business Center (a federally funded CIBER). He teaches in the areas of marketing management and international marketing; and does research in the areas of consumer information search, international marketing, word-of-mouth influence, and the analysis of categorical data.
Previously, Feick served on the faculty at Pennsylvania State University where he earned his PhD. He has published articles in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, Psychological Bulletin, and Public Opinion Quarterly.
Professor Feick has served as a consultant to a number of profit and non-profit firms, including Eastman Kodak, General Motors, and Newsweek. He has done extensive executive teaching, including programs for Samsung Electronics, Audi, and Cheil Communications, and has developed a train-the-trainers program on the use of simulations and games and case studies in teaching marketing concepts. He is the coauthor of Country Manager, an international marketing simulation game. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg (Germany), Czech Management Center (Czech Republic), International Management Center (Hungary), Comenius University (Slovak Republic), and Universidad Santa Maria (Ecuador); and has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Universidad de Montevideo (Uruguay).
Stuart W. James
Stu James is the founder of Interpretive Simulations, one of the leading publishers and developers of business simulations worldwide. Interpretive’s simulations are an integral part of the curriculum at many of the world’s top business schools in the areas of marketing, strategy, management, and international business. To date, over 100,000 people have experienced one of Interpretive’s simulations, and many rave about how the simulation was one of the best learning tools they have ever used.
On the academic front, Stu is currently Visiting Lecturer at the University of Michigan (EMBA and EP programs), and at the Colgate-Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA Core Marketing and Custom Executive Programs). In addition, Stu has served at the Allen Center for Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Business, the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB).
Along with his academic work at the above business schools, Stu has also worked with American Honda, CIGNA, The Davidson Institute, General Electric, Genworth Financial, Harvard Business School, Navy Federal Credit Union, Pearson Prentice Hall, and McKinsey & Company. He is co-author of a number of leading simulation products including StratSimManagement, StratSimMarketing, StratSimChina, CountryManager, PharmaSim, HRSimSelection, MarketShare, BizCafe, and ServiceSim, all used at leading universities worldwide. Stu has extensive experience in facilitating simulation events, having directly worked with thousands of executive and MBA participants over the past 20 years.
Management by the Numbers, Inc. (MBTN), a new venture that Stu has co-founded with Paul Farris of the Darden School of Business, launched in 2010. The focus of this project is providing a self-paced, on-line environment where students and executives can master the numbers side of marketing. The goal of MBTN is to improve marketing acumen of mid-level managers to ultimately enhance the financial performance of businesses worldwide.
Stu and his family reside in Afton, Virginia at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In his spare time, Stu enjoys playing Irish and old-time traditional music and competing in triathlons.
Michael Deighan
Michael Deighan is a co-author on the new web-based editions of Airline, Entrepreneur, and HRManagement. His expertise, insight, and creativity proved invaluable and made it possible to convert these models to their current web-based versions. Michael joined Interpretive Simulations in 1989 as lead software developer, and is now Chief Technology Officer. He is co-author on a number of Interpretive simulations: PharmaSim, AutoSim, BizCafe, StratSimMarketing, StratSimManagement, StratSimChina, ServiceSim, CountryManager, and MarketShare. In addition to developing software, he has been teaching computer programming classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College, in Charlottesville, Virginia, since 1990. Michael received his B.A. in German and Economics from Washington and Lee University, and an M.A. in German from the University of Virginia.
At a Glance
Covers Marketing |
Advanced Level |
Benchmark Competition |
Benchmark Competition
Benchmark competition allows you to test and develop your skills against simulated competitors.
CountryManager: Courses
- International Business
- International Marketing
CountryManager: Decisions
- Market Entry: Which countries to enter and in what sequence.
- STP: Choice of segmentation, target market(s), brand positioning objectives.
- Distribution: Choice of channel partners and promotional support.
- Pricing: MSRP by SKU in local currency, channel discount and slotting allowances.
- Advertising: Budget, theme, and cultural / language adaptation considerations.
- Product: Choice of SKUs, including consideration of localized vs. standardized strategy.
- Manufacturing Location: Import or local production facilities and choice of country for plant (manufacturing and transportation cost, tariff issues).
What is benchmark competition?
Several of our simulations operate in "benchmark" competition. This means that the students compete directly against computerized competitors. These are responsive models that react to the student's decisions and provide an engaging and exciting experience. Typically we employ benchmark competition for our sims where we want to provide the students with the ability to experiment with marketing mix--since they're playing against the computer, they're able to try different strategies and learn from them.

