Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics: A Feedback Systems Approach

Preface and Acknowledgments¹

^[]

^[] Full details of articles and books referred to in the Preface can be found in later chapters by cross-referencing with author names in the index.

I first became interested in models and modelling when I studied physics as an undergraduate at Bristol University. Or perhaps my interest was really awakened much earlier when, as a boy of nine or 10, my friend Alan Green introduced me to the board game of Monopoly. I soon became fascinated with board games of all sorts and accumulated a collection that included Cluedo (a detective murder mystery game, also known as Clue), Railroader (a game to build and operate your own wild-west railroad in competition with rival railway companies), and Buccaneer (a game of pirate ships and treasure collecting). I was intrigued by the colourful tokens, the chance cards, the rules and the evocative boards that showed city sights, a murder mansion, a treasure island or whatever was needed to fire the imagination. In Buccaneer, the game's clever distinction between the 'sailing power' and 'fighting power' of a treasure-seeking frigate is something I still appreciate today. And as a modeller I admire the game designer's artful representation of a pirate's world, set out on a blue-and-white chequered board that serves as an ocean.

Later, after graduating from Bristol, I joined Ford of Europe's operational research department, where computational decision models replaced the abstract and elegant models of physics. There ...