🌍 How to play Border Lines
You either take a UAE brand into four foreign markets, or you run a local partner firm deciding which brand deals to accept.
Your goal
Brands win by choosing an entry mode per market, offering terms partners accept and can live with, and managing currency risk. Partners win by closing deals that fit their real needs and add profit on top of their own business. Both sides gain trust by being honest about what they need.
Players alternate by join order: the first company is a brand, the second a partner, and so on. Partners sit in Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt and Kenya in turn. Each year every partner is paired with one brand, and pairings rotate.
Join in 30 seconds
- Scan the QR code on the big screen with your phone camera, or open the game page and type the 4-letter code.
- Type your first name. No app, no account.
- Join a team or create one and name it. Your teammates get a role each. In individual mode you run your own company.
- If your phone locks or the page reloads, open it again: you return to the same seat.
Team roles
- Lead
- Chairs the team and submits the final decision. If the Lead's phone dies, any teammate can take over. In this game: Own the entry-mode map: one clear logic per market.
- Analyst
- Owns the numbers and the team's prediction for the round. In this game: Compare gravity pull, tariffs and cultural distance before choosing control.
- Treasurer
- Watches the budget and costs before the team commits. In this game: Set the hedge. Local-currency profits and assets are what a devaluation hits.
- Risk and ethics officer
- Flags harms and pushes back before the team commits. In this game: Flag markets where a subsidiary puts too much capital at political or FX risk.
- Voice
- Talks to other teams and presents the team's story at the debrief. In this game: Read the partner profile and signals: what do they need but not say?
The three rounds
Each round you predict your own result, make your decisions within about 9 minutes, and then the model reveals what happened. An event card lands between rounds.
- 1
Year 1 · First entry
Brands pick an entry mode for each market and one term sheet. Partners set the terms they will accept. Brands see only a placeholder profile for a human partner this year.
Watch for: Brands: which deals closed and which failed. Partners: whether you accepted or rejected, and why. Everyone: the FX moves by market.
- 2
Year 2 · Reading the room
Pairings rotate. Brands see last year's profits and why offers were rejected, plus their partner's profile. Partners add a public signal about what they value most.
Watch for: Check whether rejection reasons changed your terms. Partners: see if your signal matched your real needs.
- 3
Year 3 · Commitments
Brands may offer a 5-year contract. Partners choose which term they will sign. All Year 2 signals are on brand screens. Simulated partners that prefer short terms reject 5-year offers.
Watch for: Compare long and short deals, and whether signals helped deals close. Look at total profit and final trust for both sides.
Your decisions
What each control on your phone does, and how to think about it.
| Entry mode in each market | Brand only · every year | Export, Licensing, Joint venture or Own subsidiary for each of the four markets. Export pays tariffs. Licensing and JVs need the partner to accept. A subsidiary costs more where cultural distance is high and holds AED 6m of local assets. Match control to the market: weigh pull, tariff, cultural distance and FX volatility. A rejected deal falls back to export with an extra AED 0.3m cost. |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty you ask | Brand only · every year | 2–15% of sales, default 8%. Paid by licensees and by a JV on its sales. One term sheet covers all your licensing and JV markets. Offers above a partner's limit are rejected. A royalty above what a partner can really afford may still be accepted, but it lowers store quality and costs you trust. |
| JV equity offered to partner | Brand only · every year | 0–60% in steps of 5. The partner's share of JV profit; it only matters in markets where you choose a joint venture. Offers below the partner's minimum are rejected. Giving more equity shrinks your share of JV profit but also your local assets at risk in a currency fall. |
| Also offer | Brand only · every year | Exclusivity costs about 5% of market potential per deal. Training costs AED 0.4m per deal, lifts quality and halves the cultural-distance drag. A 5-year contract is offered in Year 3 only. Extras are worth most where a partner truly needs them. Read the profile before you pay for them. |
| FX hedge on local earnings and assets | Brand only · every year | 0–100% in steps of 10. The hedged share earns the expected rate instead of the actual move. The fee grows with the hedge. It also covers a currency shock before next year's decisions. Hedge where you hold local earnings and assets. Export earns in AED, so it carries no FX exposure. |
| Highest royalty we will pay | Partner only · every year | 2–15% of sales, default 10%. Any offer above this is rejected. Accepting more than your real affordable royalty squeezes your margin. Set it near your real limit. Too low and you reject deals you could have afforded; that costs trust. |
| Lowest JV equity we accept | Partner only · every year | 0–60%, default 30%. Only applies if your brand proposes a joint venture. JV offers below this are rejected. Asking far more than you need can block a good deal and lowers trust. |
| Require exclusivity? | Partner only · every year | Yes rejects any offer without exclusivity. No still welcomes it. If you truly need exclusivity and do not get it, store quality falls. Make it a hard requirement only if it matters to your business. |
| Require a training package? | Partner only · every year | Yes rejects any offer without training. No still welcomes it. If you truly need training and do not get it, store quality falls. Firms new to foreign brands gain most from training. Check your private needs. |
| Investment we commit if a deal forms | Partner only · every year | AED 0–6m, default 2m. Only spent if a deal forms. It costs you 10% a year and raises store quality and sales, with diminishing returns. A moderate investment lifts quality and resilience; the extra gain from very large amounts is small. |
| Public signal: what matters most to us | Partner only · Year 2 only | Say nothing, or name royalty, equity, exclusivity or training. Every brand sees it in Year 3. A signal that matches your real needs adds trust; a false one loses trust. Signal what you truly value. Brands use it to shape next year's offers. |
| Contract term we will sign | Partner only · Year 3 only | Either, 5-year only or 1-year only. Offers with the wrong term are rejected. Accepting a 5-year deal when you prefer short terms costs you a little. Only restrict the term if your firm really needs commitment or flexibility. |
What you see on your phone
- Markets (illustrative data)
- Both sides see it. Gravity pull (biggest market = 100), sales potential in AED m, tariff, cultural distance from the UAE and FX volatility. Unrest is flagged here after a political event.
- Your negotiation (brand)
- Your named partner and its market. From Year 2 its profile hints at its needs; in Year 3 you also see its public signal. Your other licensing and JV markets use simulated partners.
- Last year and rejections (brand)
- From Year 2: your profit by market, why any offer was rejected, and in Year 3 a table of every partner's public signal. A currency alert appears after the devaluation.
- Your firm, private (partner)
- Your real needs: the royalty you can afford, JV equity you need, whether exclusivity and training matter, your preferred term and your profit without a deal. Only you see this.
- Who you negotiate with (partner)
- The brand you are paired with this year. Its entry mode in your market decides if a deal is possible. If no brand is free, a simulated UAE brand makes you an offer.
How you are scored
Every game in the library uses the same scoreboard. Your round result is your Profit (AED m); the leaderboard adds resilience and trust.
Performance is your total Profit over the rounds, scaled from the lowest to the highest in the room. Before each round you also predict “Your profit this year”: land close and earn up to 10 bonus points; miss by the whole amount and earn none. The facilitator may change the weights before the game starts.
Tips
- Brands: high control pays in big, close markets but costs more where cultural distance is high. Read the table before choosing a subsidiary.
- Brands: one term sheet serves every licensing and JV market. A royalty that suits one partner may be rejected by another.
- Partners: set thresholds close to your real needs. Too strict blocks deals; too loose lets brands squeeze you.
- Treat signals and profiles as evidence, not proof. Signals can be false, and a leadership event resets what simulated partners want.
- Hedge where you hold local-currency earnings or assets. The hedge you set this year also covers next year's shocks.
- Talk across the room. Interest-based negotiation means asking what the other side needs, not just haggling on price.
Common mistakes
- Brands asking a high royalty everywhere. Partners reject it, and each failed deal falls back to export with an extra AED 0.3m cost.
- Partners demanding far more equity or a much lower royalty than they need. There is no deal and trust falls.
- Holding a large unhedged subsidiary in a volatile market. A devaluation writes down the assets and resilience drops.
A worked example
A brand licenses in India at an 8% royalty and adds training. The partner's real limit is 10% and it needs training, so it accepts. Store quality is high and sales reach about AED 25.7m. The brand earns about AED 2.1m in royalties minus AED 0.4m for training, about AED 1.7m before currency moves. The partner gains about AED 2.4m on top of its own AED 5.5m business.
Shocks that can hit
The facilitator draws one event card before rounds 2 and 3. It changes the market from that round on.
- Egyptian pound loses 30%. Overnight the Egyptian pound is floated and falls 30%. Local profits and assets are worth less in AED, and imports become far dearer.
- Saudi local-content rule. Saudi Arabia announces a local-content rule. Imported goods face a 15% levy; joint ventures and local subsidiaries win preferred status.
- Partner families change leadership. A new generation takes over at several family-owned partner firms. Their priorities have changed. Old assumptions about what partners want may be wrong.
- UAE–India trade agreement. A comprehensive trade agreement cuts India's tariff on UAE consumer goods to 3%. Exporting to India just got much cheaper.
- Political risk rises in Kenya. Protests and a contested tax bill unsettle Kenya. Local sales fall 15% and there is a real chance of store disruption.
The model behind the game
Gravity pull, entry-mode economics and Kogut–Singh cultural distance. Big, near markets pull more sales. High-control modes cost more where cultural distance is large, while partner modes need a deal that meets the partner's real needs. Unhedged local earnings and assets take the full hit when a currency falls.
- Entry mode
- How a firm enters a foreign market: export, licensing, joint venture or its own subsidiary. More control usually means more cost and risk.
- Gravity model
- Trade between two countries grows with their economic size and shrinks with distance.
- Cultural distance
- How different two countries' cultural values are. Here it is a Kogut–Singh style index from Hofstede-type scores.
- Royalty
- A share of sales a licensee or JV pays the brand for using its name and know-how.
- Joint venture
- A business co-owned by the brand and a local partner, sharing profit by equity stake.
- FX hedge
- A contract that locks in an expected exchange rate, so a currency fall hurts less. It has a small cost.
- Devaluation
- A sudden fall in a currency's value. Local profits and assets become worth less in AED.
- Interest-based negotiation
- Negotiating by finding out what each side really needs, rather than only arguing over positions.
For facilitators 3 rounds · about 50 minutes
Set-up
- Team mode with an even number of teams gives every brand a human partner. Teams of 3–4 work well.
- Allow 9 minutes per round so brands and partners can actually talk before submitting.
- Bots fill up to four companies, so a small class still gets two brands and two partners.
- Before Year 1, explain that join order alternates brand and partner, and that partners' needs are private.
- Encourage brand and partner teams to meet in person; the Year 1 brand profile literally says to ask the room.
Modes
- Team
- Teams alternate between brand and partner in the order they are created. Brand teams split the market map; partner teams debate thresholds against their private needs.
- Individual
- Each player is a brand or a partner by join order, with bots filling to four. Players negotiate face to face, which makes the cultural-distance discussion personal.
- Hybrid
- Each player runs their own company, brand or partner, but sits with a team. The team leaderboard averages members' scores, so mixed teams can compare both sides.
Run sheet
| Before class | Open the facilitator console on the projector laptop, choose the mode in Setup, and check the QR shows. |
|---|---|
| 0–5 min | Students scan and join. Read the situation aloud while teams form. Point out the roles on their phones. |
| 5–16 min | Round 1: 9 minutes to decide and predict, then Reveal. Read the headline and one surprising line from a team. |
| Between rounds | Draw or choose the event card. Give teams 30 seconds to read it before opening the next round. |
| 16–27 min | Round 2, then Reveal. |
| 29–40 min | Round 3, then Final results: podium, awards and the score chart. |
| Last 12 min | Debrief with the questions below, then open reflections (4 minutes). Download the CSV. |
What usually happens
- Brands often anchor on one royalty and get rejected in several markets. Ask what they learned from the rejection cards.
- Partners sometimes set greedy thresholds and end with no deal. Compare their profit with partners who were honest.
- Year 2 signals can be strategic rather than true. In Year 3, ask brands which signals they trusted, and why.
- Event cards shift the map: a devaluation, a local-content rule, a trade deal or unrest. Ask who was exposed and who was hedged.
- Watch for brands that drop last year's partner for export or a subsidiary. It costs trust; ask if it was worth it.
Debrief questions
- Which entry mode protected you from the currency shock, and which one exposed you most?
- What did a partner need that you never asked about? How did it show up in the results?
- Where did cultural distance make full control too expensive?
Follow-up probes
- Which market was worth full control, and which was not? What data drove that?
- What did your partner need that you never asked about?
- Partners: did you reveal your real needs, hide them, or bluff? What did it cost or gain you?
- How did one term sheet across several markets limit your strategy?
- If you had to enter one market for ten years, which mode and terms would you choose?
- How much hedging was enough, and how did you decide?
Reflection and evidence
Write an entry recommendation for one country: the mode, the deal terms you would offer, and the main risk you accepted and how you would manage it.
Students write 80–120 words on their phones. The Data tab exports every decision, result, prediction and reflection as one CSV for grading.
Console controls
- Pause, extend or set the timer; step back a round
- Draw, choose or write the event card
- Move players, make a Lead, add computer players
- Award or fine with a reason that appears on phones
- Message every screen; hide names; spotlight a team
- Keys: P projector mode, Q join QR