What It Takes to Run a Platform: Two Simulations Reshape Platform Operations Teaching at IIM Lucknow

Over multiple cohorts at IIM Lucknow, I have successfully integrated the “To Pay or Not to Pay” and “Order Ops” simulations into my MBA elective “Platform Operations in Sharing Economy (POSE)” and several executive programmes, including the Executive Program in Strategic Marketing, Senior Leadership Programme, and Chief Operations Officers Program. These simulations have become central to how I translate abstract concepts in platform operations, incentives, and execution into concrete, decision-oriented learning experiences.​

In “To Pay or Not to Pay”, participants step into a decision-maker role and must take a structured, data-driven approach to compensation and incentive design under realistic constraints. Instead of only discussing frameworks, they analyze information, evaluate alternatives, and make explicit trade-offs, which closely mirrors the dilemmas organizations face in practice. The built-in evaluation component provides immediate feedback on the quality of their decisions, prompting reflection on both outcomes and reasoning, and thereby deepening conceptual understanding. In POSE, these insights connect directly to platform performance, pricing, and the design of incentives for different sides of the platform; in MDPs, they link to salesforce management, channel incentives, and partner engagement.​

“Order Ops” complements this by shifting the focus to execution, capacity utilization, and service levels in multi-unit operational settings. Participants experience first-hand how order acceptance, routing, and allocation policies influence both cost and customer service. The simulation naturally surfaces trade-offs around demand variability, lead times, and SLAs, making the impact of operational decisions immediately visible. In POSE, it highlights the coupling between front-end platform promises and back-end operational capabilities; in senior executive programmes, it triggers candid discussions on bottlenecks, process design, and the role of dashboards and metrics.

Across both simulations, engagement has been consistently high. Participants come to the debrief with concrete decisions, performance outcomes, and “what-if” questions, which lead to rich peer learning and very grounded discussions. Even relatively quiet participants become active because they have personally “lived” the scenario and can see how conceptual tools change their results. For me as a faculty member, the simulations serve as powerful assessment tools as well: they reveal not just whether participants know concepts, but how they apply them under time pressure and ambiguity.​

Overall, the combined use of “To Pay or Not to Pay” and “Order Ops” has significantly strengthened the practice orientation of my courses and programmes. They help achieve learning objectives around platform operations, data-driven decision-making, and execution discipline, while making the classroom experience immersive, reflective, and directly relevant to participants’ organizational realities.