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 3 or 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

Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans. First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

Then they helped facilitate the design of a strategic growth plan that is clear, compelling, believable, and implementable. We now have 100% commitment from an aligned leadership team and key stakeholders going forward.

I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

Erik Arvesen
Vice President, General Manager

LSA has been a tremendous asset at my current company and my past company.

As an HR leader, I am always looking for ways to find external resources that can provide impactful leadership and management development expertise. LSA consistently does that for me.

The tools and practices are crisp, business relevant, and easy to apply on the job.

Ken Boehm
VP of Human Resources

We have had a very beneficial partnership with LSA. Their recent Leadership Development Program helped us to identify, develop, and retain top leaders. It was instrumental in helping take our company and our key people to the next level. I would recommend them to anyone looking to truly develop and retain top talent.

Steve Janowsky
Vice President of Operations

Over the years, both at 3Com and now at Redback, I’ve found LSA Global to be a valuable partner. The recent management programs that they delivered for Redback’s executive and management teams was the right solution, of the highest of quality, and customized to fit our unique business and culture. I would highly recommend LSA to any company looking for top quality solutions.

Gina Fulton
Vice President of Human Resources

As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue. In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture, and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

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

After a difficult search to find a partner that could address a very specific leadership development need, we chose LSA Global. They were responsive to our needs and created a highly customized solution that we continue to see results from. It is nice to know we have access to their expertise with a simple phone call.

Valerie Blackburn
Director of Business Operations

At the onset of our engagement with LSA, I was skeptical that an outside firm would be able to understand and dissect our organization’s highly complex and technical business challenges.

However, through the leadership team interview and strategy retreat processes that LSA utilized, they provided a fresh, innovative, and practical perspective that created tremendous strategic value and focus for our executive leadership team.

As a result, I would highly recommend LSA Global to any leader struggling with building the strategic alignment and high performance teams necessary to generate sales growth, in a way that fits their unique corporate culture.

Robert Laudati
Managing Director

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

LSA consistently delivers for me and my team. Recently they demonstrated the criticality for executives to look beyond current ethics topics and focus on applying fundamental values in everything they do to demonstrate true leadership. They successfully delivered in two hours what most leadership development facilitators would spend an entire day trying to communicate.

Nick Voyvodich, SPHR
HR Manager

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant. The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

LSA’s approach has certainly brought value to Knight Ridder Digital. They were laser focused on our goal and determined to meet all of our Leadership development program needs. Their flexibility and commitment were keys in making our program successful.

Dipik Rai
Director of Marketing

At a time of change in our marketplace, LSA Global did an exceptional job helping our executive team create strategic clarity by helping us to define, clarify, and prioritize our corporate vision, mission, values, differentiation, target clients, strategic priorities, success metrics and key roles.

They beautifully navigated a very difficult and fuzzy situation, respectfully cleared out all of the cultural elephants, and shared impactful insights and leadership development theories along the way. They have transformed our business.

Laurie Sewell
President & CEO

The strategy and alignment work with our leadership team was absolutely transformational. The decisions we made combined with the transparency, communication, and accountability were exactly what we needed. Thank you!

Dr. Raphael B. Merriman M.D
Medical Director, Liver Transplantation

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.