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

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

LSA is an excellent sales and leadership outsource partner! They listen to our needs, are responsive, and work at a pace that keeps up with our rapid speed.

We have found LSA to bring strategic, innovative, and practical solutions to meet our business priorities by partnering effectively with our key staff. I consider them to be an important external extension of our team.

Thank you!

Wendy Chinn
Sr. Director, Global Sales Enablement

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 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 with leadership development by designing a solution to match our unique needs and culture.

It was a huge success. I would highly recommend LSA to help take leaders and managers to the next level.

Karen King, SPHR
Manager, Human Resources

The quality of LSA’s Leadership Training Programs and facilitators is always top notch. We recognize and appreciate the hard work LSA always goes through to align to our unique culture and meet our specific requirements. Thank you for regularly going above and beyond. Your support and dedication, both on the strategic and tactical side, have been outstanding!

Anna Meyer
Leadership Development

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

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

LSA’s approach and ability to bring the right leadership and management expertise and approach to eBay has been a great asset.

They really focus on helping us succeed in any way they can and definitely lifted up our leadership and management development capabilities.

Mike Normant
Learning & 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 continue to be impressed by the level of leadership development training and management expertise and quality of advice and facilitation that LSA has to offer.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help assess and develop high performing leaders.

Tracy Esposito
Director

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

LSA has a tremendous ability to distil complex, multilayered challenges into meaningful, impactful, and clear strategies and action plans.

The time we invested as a leadership team to get aligned was well spent in gaining laser focus and identifying ways to prioritize what was meaningful individually and as a team. The facilitation and leadership style was direct, firm, and compassionate.

LSA provided the high level thinking and support for our team to co-create in a rapidly scaling business.

Bindu Garapaty, PsyD
VP, Talent and Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity

We contacted LSA to help us design and deliver customized management development programs. LSA worked with us to meet our exact needs. We started at the top with our executive team. It was such a great success that we rolled it out company-wide. We look forward to a long-term partnership with LSA Global and their team of experts.

Barry L. Byrd, SPHR
Human Resources Manager

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

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.