Our Story

We are Andy Page and Patricia Smedley, former teachers and the creators of Business on the Move.

Our game aims to excite the curiosity of 9 to 99 year-olds about business and global supply chains.

Following extensive trials with nearly 600 young people aged 9-19, logistics managers and HR staff, the first edition of our educational board game, Business on the Move, was launched in the summer of 2014. You can see a video clip of young people and logistics professionals playing and talking about Business on the Move in the Videos part of our website.

How the game works

The basic concept of the game is that players run a logistics business moving different products from one side of the world to the other by land, air and sea as quickly, profitably and environmentally responsibly as they can.

Players must make the same decisions businesses make every day. How do I deliver? Will I make a profit? How should I grow? How can I cut my carbon footprint?

As teachers, we recognised Business on the Move would need to be extremely versatile, relevant to different subjects and sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of widely differing learners. In fact, so positive has been the response from trainers within the logistics industry, that Business on the Move can now be played at different levels, including at the higher end such aspects as palletisation, reverse logistics and cash flow.

A platform for learning

Two-thirds of our first edition games have been distributed, free of charge, into schools and colleges nominated by our fifty business sponsors. Business on the Move is also being used as a training tool for use with apprentices, graduates and other new recruits as well as existing staff. In partnership with our sponsors, we have also created a portfolio of learning activities for classroom use after playing the game. The exercises highlight what our sponsors do and provide young people with a realistic insight into supply chains and business as a whole.

Our aim is to provide teachers, trainers and their young people with a variety of versatile exercises that enrich learning across the curriculum and celebrate the diversity of the logistics sector at one and the same time. Business on the Move is therefore much more than a fun board game. It is a flexible platform for learning for young people of all abilities from the age of nine upwards.

Our business model

We are most grateful to both the 50 business partners that collectively sponsored our first edition and the 42 sponsors that now support our Global Edition. Between them, they truly represent a cross-section of UK and global supply chains including SMEs, household names, professional/trade bodies and multinationals. For more details visit our sponsors page.

Their support initially enabled some 2,000 games to be distributed free-of-charge, many with training and our personal support, into some 400 schools and colleges across the UK. The remaining stock, along with access to the associated bank of learning activities, have been made available to purchase through the online SHOP page on our website.

Our aim has been to generate sufficient sales revenue to finance, along with a new round of sponsorship, a second production run and thereby sustain our social enterprise’s work to excite young people about the world of business.

Because of the international interest in our first edition ~ despite the fact that gameplay is UK-centric and denominated in £s ~ it was a ‘no-brainer’ for our second game to be a Global Edition. We are proud to record that this aim was achieved during 2018 and the ‘Global’ page of this website explains more!