Financial Business Simulation: Business Acumen Decision Making

“After years of personally working with LSA around finance for non-financial managers, our company engaged LSA to do an experiential financial business simulation.

Very crucial to the success of this program was the work done upfront to discuss our needs and to interview key members of our organization so that the program specifically met our goals.

Wonderful job as always.”

Frank Abbott | Chief Financial Officer | Community Health Group

“This financial business simulation successfully supports our efforts to establish a value oriented culture among all employees. That’s what will make the difference in performance in the marketplace!“

Chief Financial Officer | Siemens

“The feedback from the financial business simulation was fantastic.

It perfectly demystified the fear of finance, increased financial confidence, and greatly raised people’s understanding of the financial, operational, and business impact of decisions and investments.“

Mark Davis | Finance Director, Global Supply Chain | Spirax-Sarco Engineering

Description
This proven financial business simulation teaches both managers and individual contributors to understand the big picture of business operations, cash flow, and how individual decisions and actions impact profits over 3-4 simulated fiscal years — thereby increasing financial business acumen.

It is not a lecture. It is a “hands on” and experiential financial business simulation in which participants work through a variety of exercises focused on:

Key business drivers
Business acumen
Financial literacy
Cash management
Operational decision-making
Working capital
Capacity utilization
Collaboration

They get to deal with critical issues — such as which activities add value for customers, reducing cycle time and inventory, supplier relations, investment in new technology, efficient utilization of resources, and the impact of different business strategies on revenues.

After participating in the 4- to 12-hour financial business simulation, participants understand the fundamentals of business finance and how capital circulates throughout the company.

Target Audience
Managers, individuals, project leaders, teams, and salespeople who will benefit from developing a solid business sense that can help guide their decisions in everyday work. 8-24 participants per facilitator in teams of 4.

Live or Virtual Financial Business Simulation Versions Available for:

Manufacturing
Service
Manufacturing — Sales
Retail
Healthcare

Financial Business Simulation for Business Acumen and Strategic Decision Making

Participants are able to interpret financial reports, understand financial ratios, and appreciate how their daily actions and decisions impact profitability. And they have a better overall understanding of business and of how their company makes money.

Sales participants will be able to apply the same principles to their customers’ businesses and will gain a competitive advantage by demonstrating their ability to improve profitability.

By actually moving capital around the simulated company and dealing with real business issues, participants acquire:

An understanding of the circulation of capital and how this impacts profitability.
The ability to read and interpret financial documents such as income statements and balance sheets.
An understanding of important financial ratios (e.g., return on assets, return on equity, profit margins, economic value added, etc.).
An understanding of how the utilization of resources at varying levels of efficiency directly impacts profitability.
An appreciation for various business strategies and how successful implementation of these strategies impacts a company’s financial picture.
The realization that every day they make many different types of financial decisions.
New ideas on ways to positively impact the bottom line and the ability to estimate the dollar value of these ideas.

Customize the Financial Simulation for Your Business
Every organization operates differently. Before delivery, LSA works with key stakeholders to understand your business model, strategic priorities, financial drivers, and learning objectives so the experience reflects the realities your participants face every day.

The result is a highly relevant simulation that builds financial confidence, strengthens business acumen, improves cross-functional decision making, and helps people make smarter decisions that drive measurable business performance.

Ready to build stronger financial and business acumen across your organization?
Contact an LSA expert to explore how a customized financial business simulation can help your people make smarter decisions, improve cross-functional collaboration, and drive stronger business results.

Related Information

I had been working with LSA for many years across a few different companies.

Currently, I’m with a company who hadn’t done much new manager training. LSA designed and delivered exactly what we needed at this stage in our life cycle.

Our managers are excited, talking in the halls about the great experience, and applying what they learned.

LSA makes things easy and practical for us. Thank you!

Phyllis Moracco
HR Director

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of LSA’s expertise in leadership development, and management development.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent in a practical and results-driven manner.

Thank you LSA!

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

LSA exceeded all my expectations.

We interviewed 7 potential training and consulting partners and selected LSA due to their expertise, flexibility, and breadth and depth of leadership solutions.

We were able to design a highly customized, focused, and relevant management training program that fit our unique needs.

Our leaders and managers galvanized as a team and are better prepared for the rigors of a leading their teams in a very competitive and fast-changing market.

Mitch Mandich
CEO

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

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 understands our business, has deep expertise in content areas, and customizes their approach to deliver great results.

The facilitator was extremely knowledgeable about working virtually across cultures. The passion, practices, and tools made the session interesting, fun, and highly valuable.

I highly recommend LSA Global to any company that has global partners or offices.

Glenn McGillivray
Human Resources Business Partner

We have worked with LSA Global for our learning and development needs and have always had great success.

They helped us recently with targeted and customized Management Training Workshops to fit our unique situation, and they were fantastic.

I highly recommend LSA to anyone that is attempting to help take their leadership and management talent to the next level.

Mary Johnston
HR Manager, BU Radiology Informatics

LSA helped change our entire culture around meetings, making them more effective and efficient, thus enabling our leaders, managers, and teams to concentrate on driving more business.

Thank you!

Terry Wassman
VP of Human Resources

Avon’s success is dependent on strong relationships among our Customers, Representatives, Associates, and outside resources we hire to help us meet our business objectives.

We were very pleased with the results from working with LSA Global to design and facilitate a custom management training program for our events management team focused on decision making and delegation.

LSA demonstrated responsiveness, flexibility, and a highly innovative approach to working with us.

Deanna Rudnitsky
Senior Manager, HR Destiny Sales Region

LSA has become the gold standard for team building and management training programs at Genomic Health!

I have not found companies that come close to their level of customization, impact, expertise, and experience.

Emily Couey
Director of Human Resources

We have been able to utilize LSA’s extensive expertise to leverage our investment in employee development.

The result has been the cost effective and highly effective delivery of high quality management training programs.

Thank you!

Steve Feller
Vice President, Human Resources

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

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

Our company engaged LSA to do a specialized business presentation skills and a “train the trainer” program.

They outdid our exceptionally high standards.

The upfront work to interview key members and customize everything to our unique situation made all the difference. Thanks to everyone!

Frank Abbott
Chief Financial Officer

LSA’s customized Effective Presentation Skills program has helped us elevate our presentation skills to the next level. I personally now have a much greater self-awareness of my presentation skills and can leverage my strengths while working to improve upon other areas.

I definitely recommend LSA Global to anyone for whom presentations are an integral part of their job.

Jim Elliott
Senior Marketing Manager

FAQs

A financial business simulation is an interactive learning experience that helps participants understand how business decisions impact financial performance. Through realistic scenarios, teams practice managing revenue, costs, cash flow, profitability, and strategic tradeoffs in a risk-free environment. Simulations make financial concepts more practical, engaging, and directly connected to real business outcomes.

Financial business simulations are valuable for leaders, managers, sales teams, high-potential employees, and cross-functional groups that influence business performance. They are especially effective for non-financial managers who need stronger business acumen and a deeper understanding of how operational decisions affect profitability, growth, and shareholder value.

Participants strengthen critical business capabilities such as financial acumen, strategic thinking, decision-making, forecasting, budgeting, resource allocation, and cross-functional collaboration. Simulations also help teams better understand financial statements, key performance indicators, pricing strategies, and the operational drivers behind sustainable business success.

Traditional finance training often focuses on theory and terminology, while simulations immerse participants in realistic business situations where they actively apply financial concepts. This experiential learning approach improves engagement, accelerates learning retention, and helps participants connect financial decisions to operational and strategic outcomes in a more meaningful way.

Yes. Every delivery is adapted to your organization’s needs. In most cases, this means adjusting the facilitation, discussions, and examples to align with your business, culture, and target audience — an approach that covers the needs of about 90% of our clients. For deeper customization, we can also add tailored exercises or fully custom versions of the simulation. We’ll help you choose the right level of adaptation for your goals.