What is a business simulation?
Business simulations don't teach people about business. They give people the experience of running one.
Imagine being asked to take over a business with a small group of others. Over the next few hours (or days) you'll make decisions, compete with other teams and see what happens.
You’ll make decisions. Your competitors will too. Staff will respond, customers will choose and the results will reflect it all. Some decisions will work out as you hope. Many won’t. Either way, you'll try to understand what happened and why, decide what to do next and try again.
By the end of the programme, you're thinking differently from when you started.
That's a business simulation.
How does it feel?
The simulation starts and you've just been given a document describing the business you're taking over. There's a lot of information. Too much really. But somehow, not enough.
And there certainly isn't enough time to analyse everything properly before you need to start agreeing some important things with your team. What matters? What can we ignore? How are we supposed to get a shared understanding of all this, let alone come up with a plan?
You're supposed to know this stuff. Or some of it, at least.
And it feels difficult. And uncomfortable.
Eventually, you get there. It was rushed, but the decisions went in on time. Everyone agreed with them. Well, nearly everyone. And they make a reasonable amount of sense.
Definitely could have been worse.
Then the results arrive.
Wow. Sales are almost exactly what you hoped for. Great job, team. But hang on. What's happened to the profit? Where's it gone? And where's that loss come from? Oh, but look at cash. At least that's not awful. But why are our staff unhappy?
What felt difficult, and then briefly felt better, is now worse than before.
Some relief comes with the review. The immediate questions get answered. You begin to understand a little of what happened and why.
And you go again.
But now there are more things to think about. Lots more. And it feels even worse, even more difficult. But you make another set of decisions and get another set of results. More consequences. Still some surprises. Another review.
The cycle repeats several times. But something changes as it does.
The fog lifts a little. You start to see how the parts connect. You know what information matters and what to look for. Decisions that felt overwhelming at the beginning become easier and quicker to make.
And it becomes more fun. You can see the progress you're making. And that feels good.
You're still running the same business, but it feels different - simpler, clearer and much more like yours.
What will I learn?
It depends on the programme. Business simulations are remarkably flexible. The same simulation might be used to develop commercial acumen, financial understanding, leadership, strategic thinking or decision making. And the same programme might aim to develop a number of these capabilities at the same time.
Business simulations aren't primarily designed to teach knowledge. But they’re a great environment to practise and apply newly acquired knowledge, or explore how people think or behave. They encourage people to think differently, to become better at recognising what matters, to anticipate more of the consequences of their decisions and to become more confident making decisions when there isn't a perfect answer.
Is it like a computer game?
While some simulations can be, ours aren’t. The participants don’t interact with the computer program. The software simply provides a realistic commercial environment and calculates the consequences of those decisions.
The learning happens around the table. Teams discuss information, weigh options together, make decisions and try to understand why the business has responded in the way it has. It's the conversations, disagreements, surprises and reviews that make business simulations such powerful learning experiences.
Do I need to know finance?
Our business simulations use financial statements, ratios and other business information. This information is there to tell the story of each team’s performance and our role as facilitators is to help ensure it speaks to them… and that they understand what it’s saying.
No prior understanding is needed.
Why do organisations use them?
Organisations use business simulations because they create experiences that are difficult to recreate in everyday work. Participants make decisions. They experience realistic commercial consequences. They reflect on what happened. And over time, they develop a better understanding of how organisations work. Business simulations are powerful because they compress years of experience into hours or days.
If you'd like to explore why they work, how we design our programmes and the thinking that's shaped our approach over the last fifty years, we've put that together on our Business Simulations page.
Who takes part?
We've worked with participants from graduate trainees to management teams. The programme is designed around the participants and what they're trying to achieve.
How long do they take?
This depends on the objectives and constraints we’re given, but our simulations are relatively complex and rarely run over less than a day with two days being typical and some programmes running over longer periods.
How are our simulations different?
We've never believed that a great business simulation is enough on its own.
The simulation matters.
But so do the programme design, the commercial realism, the facilitation and the structured reflection that surrounds it.
Over fifty years we've gradually refined each of these elements and the way they work together. If you'd like to understand the thinking behind our approach, we've explored it in more detail below.
Want to know more?
If you'd like to understand why business simulations work, how we design them and the thinking that's shaped our approach over the last fifty years, we've explored all of that in more detail on our Business Simulations page.