Business Strategy Simulation: Strategic Thinking and Impact

“Everyone gets something different out of this business strategy simulation. If you work with purchasing, you learn about brand image, and if you’re in marketing you learn about finance and strategy.”

Simon Eade | Senior Leadership Development Specialist | Volvo Car Group

Description
This proven and highly experiential Business Strategy Simulation can be delivered live or virtually. It immerses leaders in the complexities and implications of strategy design and strategy execution. Participants experience realistic business outcomes based on their choices of running an enterprise in a competitive and ever-changing environment.

The goal is to effectively build and sustain shareholder value by strategically acquiring new clients while simultaneously expanding and retaining current accounts.

Teams of 4 compete with other teams for the same clients in the same markets. Leaders learn how to offer the right product or service mix and how build a profitable and high performing organization with the right talent supported by efficient processes.

Leaders must make high stakes strategy decisions to help their company stand out in a competitive market, be willing to adjust when circumstances change, and embrace data to meet changing client demands. The highly experiential simulation allows participants to see the big picture of their organization and understand how to make a greater business impact.

Objectives
In this proven business strategy simulation, participants elevate their business, operational, and financial acumen for commercial strategy by:

Targeting and selling to preferred ideal target customers.
Developing and maintaining an attractive and profitable product portfolio.
Investing in people and processes for optimal strategy execution.
Creating a strong and sustainable brand.
Communicating company strategy.
Building a common understanding of the big picture in each employee.

Target Audience
Available in over 10 languages, this proven business strategy simulation is for high potentials and leaders (e.g., Directors and above) who want to enhance their business strategy skills, decision-making capabilities, business acumen, and financial acumen.

Business Strategy Simulation: Improve Strategic Thinking and Business Results

Key Concepts
Customized to meet your unique situation, typical decisions participants face involve understanding and applying concepts related to main business drivers such as:

Business Area	Key Topics
Customer Behavior	Purchase decisions Customer needs, values, and preferences
Customer Segmentation	Targeted customers Market positioning and brand value
Business Finance	Income statement and key financial indicators Cash flow and the cost of capital
Key Performance Indicators	Balanced scorecard Capacity utilization and benchmarking
Strategy	Unique value proposition and pricing Disruptive technologies, plus red and blue oceans
Intangible Assets	Knowledge management Shareholder value
Operations Efficiency	Good and bad costs Optimization
Forecasting	Product lifecycle Rolling forecast
Growth and Profitability	Creating long-term value Building investor confidence

To speak with an LSA Expert and learn about business strategy simulation program customization and delivery options onsite at your company, please contact us.

Related Information

Thank you to LSA Global for their partnership and support in helping us to design and roll-out highly needed and valuable leadership and management development programs that fit our unique situation.

I personally have partnered with LSA Global at four of my previous companies. It continues to be a delight.

We look forward to partnering with them for a long time to develop our managers and leaders.

Suzanne Kinner
VP Human Resources

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA custom designed an impactful management curriculum to help upskill our key managers and leaders.

We consider LSA to be our trusted learning and development partner and a valued extension of our team as we rapidly scale. Thank you LSA!

Lisa Bruun
SVP Human Resources

LSA’s action-learning leadership approach has been very beneficial to me, our leadership team, and the entire organization.

The balance of development and results has been excellent.

We have made huge progress, and I was also able to identify 2-3 high potentials while having the extra benefit of people stepping up to carry key strategic projects forward.

The experience was better than anticipated. I could not be more pleased.

Heather Feltman
President & CEO

We turned to LSA to help us custom design and deliver a action leadership and management development curriculum to help drive performance across the company.

They have done an excellent job diagnosing the business situation, designing an approach that fits our unique culture, and delivering first class solutions. Thank you!

Sally Buchannan
VP Human Resources

LSA helped us design and deliver blended leadership solutions for our key leaders to help drive our growth plans in a way that aligned with our unique culture and values.

LSA understood our business, had deep expertise in the content areas, customized the leadership development programs to fit our specific needs, and delivered great results in alignment with our strategic priorities, culture, and performance management systems.

I highly recommend them to anyone looking to take their leaders and the performance of their teams to the next level.

Beth A. Taylor
Vice President of Human Resources

Thanks for your incredible patience and passion working with our leadership team to create alignment.

Your leadership and executive coaching services have been one of the most effective I’ve ever known.

Debbie Von Raesfeld
Director and HR Business Partner

We consider LSA Global the top outsourced learning and development partner.

We work closely with LSA to customize leadership and management development programs to meet our growing business needs.

I would highly recommend LSA to any company wanting to deliver high quality and practical learning solutions for their leaders and managers.

Terri Wright-Scheer
Vice President Human Resources

We reviewed the top Leadership Development offerings and selected LSA’s 12-month Leadership Program based upon the value and systemic approach.

The feedback on the program, approach, and results was phenomenal. While other programs may be better known, the other options were more theoretical and did not compare in terms of LSA’s practicality, quality, and results.

We could not be happier.

Stacey Porter
Senior Manager Learning and Development

It was a challenge to find a consultant with an approach to performance improvement that fit our unique performance culture and style. We were pleasantly surprised to discover LSA’s depth of expertise in the fields of motivation, developmental coaching, performance management, and measurement.

LSA seamlessly integrated those components without our folks feeling like the intervention was forced. They understood what we were trying to accomplish, helped us clarify our objectives, and created a solid, refreshing approach that quickly got us moving and engaged at all levels across the organization.

Overall, I couldn’t be happier that we found a true strategy and implementation partner in LSA.

Doug Hansen
President and Director

I’ve been associated with LSA for the last 8 years and have found them to be extremely professional and client-focused.

I’ve participated in a number of solutions ranging from Performance Management to Leadership Training. I’ve found the quality to be superior.

They are always well prepared and have definitely done a considerable amount of pre-work in order to customize to our unique culture and goals.

Duane Schroeder
Human Resource Manager

Thank you so much for being the right person with the right experience and expertise to lead our Executive Team in re-examining our approach to change leadership.

I’m grateful for how you engaged and challenged us with so many “holy crap!” insights and realizations that we needed.

Jeff Nally
Chief Coaching Officer & CHRO

For our go to training outsourcing partner, LSA provides exactly what we want and need – which is not an easy task.

As always, they design and deliver outstanding leadership development results and high quality management training programs that totally align with our unique business and talent strategies!

Elizabeth Siebert
Director, Organizational Excellence & Development

LSA worked with our Executive Leadership Team to help create strategic clarity and alignment as we look to increase our growth rate and unlock innovation. They masterfully handled very complex, challenging, and high stakes leaders, decisions, and cultural nuances to help us identify what matters most and move toward one unified direction.

Their practical, straightforward, and client-centric approach to strategy was refreshing. I highly recommend them to any executive team looking to get aligned to create even higher performance. They are lights out awesome!

Patrick Resk
Chief Financial Officer, Partner

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

The customized leadership program was very practical and achieved our goals. LSA adapted very well to our group and the situation and helped us build trust and awareness of successful leadership styles. We look forward to the next steps.

Erik Okholm
Director of Software Development

FAQs

A business strategy simulation is an experiential learning exercise where participants manage a virtual company and make strategic decisions in areas such as pricing, marketing, operations, finance, product development, and investment. As market conditions and competitors respond, participants experience the business consequences of their decisions in a realistic, risk-free environment. Unlike traditional classroom learning, simulations accelerate strategic thinking by allowing people to practice making complex business decisions under competitive pressure.

Business strategy simulations are ideal for executives, directors, managers, high-potential leaders, cross-functional teams, sales leaders, finance professionals, operations managers, and anyone responsible for making decisions that affect business performance. They are especially valuable for organizations seeking to strengthen strategic thinking, improve business and financial acumen, break down functional silos, and help leaders understand how decisions in one area affect results across the enterprise.

A business strategy simulation helps participants build the practical skills required to make better business decisions. Participants strengthen strategic thinking, financial and business acumen, competitive analysis, cross-functional collaboration, risk assessment, resource allocation, and data-driven decision making while experiencing the real-world consequences of their choices. Because they actively apply these skills in a realistic competitive marketplace rather than simply learning concepts in a classroom, participants retain the lessons longer and gain greater confidence in leading their organizations to stronger business results.

Traditional strategy training often focuses on concepts and frameworks. A business strategy simulation requires participants to apply those concepts by making real-time decisions in a competitive marketplace. Teams experience how changes in customer demand, competitor actions, operational constraints, and financial performance interact over multiple business cycles. This immersive approach helps participants connect strategy to execution while building confidence in making complex business decisions.

When aligned with business objectives, a business strategy simulation can help organizations improve strategic alignment, increase financial literacy, strengthen cross-functional collaboration, accelerate leadership development, increase accountability, and improve the quality and speed of business decisions. Participants leave with a broader enterprise perspective, a deeper understanding of value creation, and practical experience balancing growth, profitability, customer satisfaction, and long-term competitive advantage.