Sample program · Business acumen for directors
Five years of decisions in two days. Then they had to defend them.
45 directors at a global technology manufacturer ran competing companies through five simulated years, then explained their calls to an analyst panel. Here is the whole program: the agenda, the rules the client set, the results, and what the client got.
- 45directors, senior directors and managing directors
- 10companies, five per session
- 5simulated years of decisions
- 2days per session
- 8 minper company in front of an analyst panel
What it was like
Decide, see what happened, adjust, decide again. Then defend it to a panel.
In teams of four or five, the directors took over a company in Capstone, a Capsim business simulation where every team starts from the same position and competes in the same market. Each round of decisions was one year. Results came back after every round, and Capsim’s facilitators debriefed them with the room before the next.
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Day 1
Strategy, then three years
The program opened with a walk-through of the simulation. Then each team had thirty minutes to settle its strategy and how it would work together. Three rounds of decisions followed, each debriefed before the next began.
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Day 2, morning
Two more years, one of them a shock
Each team evaluated another team’s company. Then came the fourth and fifth rounds. The fourth was the year the market turned, and no one knew it when they made their decisions.
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Day 2, afternoon
The analyst panel
After thirty minutes to prepare, each company had eight minutes in front of an analyst panel. They covered the strategy they chose and what they decided not to do, their product roadmap, their results in their own words, the case for their stock, and what they’d take back to work.
Four minutes of questions from the panel and from competing teams followed. Then each panelist made one call: buy, hold or sell. The calls didn’t count toward the scoreboard. Then the final standings were revealed, one place at a time.
Dr. Chris Harben, Capsim’s lead facilitator, chaired both panels. At the second session, two of the client’s vice presidents sat on the panel.
How it was scored
Four measures, chosen by the client before the first decision.
The client’s L&D team chose what every company would be scored on and how much each measure counted. The scoreboard was on screen from Day 1, so every team knew the rules of the game they were playing. The standings stayed sealed until the afternoon of Day 2.
- Cumulative profitProfit added up across every year on the books.
- Market shareThe company’s share of industry revenue, averaged over the years.
- Return on salesProfit as a share of revenue.
- Return on assetsProfit as a share of everything the company owns.
On every measure, the best result in the room earned full points and the others scaled against it. A negative result earned nothing.
The results
Same starting point. Ten different results.
Both sessions ran the same market: the same demand year by year, the same interest rates, the same five rounds. Ten companies started from one identical position and finished between −$51.0M and +$39.9M in cumulative profit.
Average company profit by year
| Session | Lowest year | 2031 |
|---|---|---|
| Session 1 | −$3.4M (2028 and 2029) | $7.8M |
| Session 2 | −$10.0M (2029) | $4.4M |
2030
The market shrank 3.6%, and neither session was told it was coming. Combined revenue fell from $723M to $678M in the first session and from $708M to $668M in the second. Both sessions posted their best year in 2031, with the simulation’s built-in rebound in demand behind it.
- Session 1 winnerChester · 100.0 points
First on all four measures, with $39.9M in cumulative profit, the largest at either session.
- Session 2 winnerBaldwin · 100.0 points
First on all four measures, and the only company in its session whose cumulative profit never went negative.
Both sessions ran the same market, so their results aren’t ranked against each other.
The course gave me thought on why our team performed the way it did. To me, that is the most valuable lesson.
What the client got
Four objectives. What the results show.
The client wanted four things from the program. A scoreboard doesn’t measure those, so here is each one beside where the two days put it into practice and what the simulation recorded.
- 8 of 10companies kept more of each sales dollar after direct costs than when they started
- 10 of 10companies ended with a more productive workforce than they started with
- 10 of 10companies shortened their R&D cycle time
- 4.61 / 5for “Insights I can apply,” across both sessions
An enterprise mindset
Where the two days practiced it
Each team ran a whole company, R&D through finance, where every decision touches every function. Each debrief started with the whole company before working back to the parts.
What the results show
By the close, all ten companies had a more productive workforce than they started with (a productivity index of 107.5 to 115.8, from a start of 100), and all ten had shortened their R&D cycle time.
Strategic decision-making
Where the two days practiced it
Teams chose a strategy in the first thirty minutes, then defended, adjusted or abandoned it over five rounds. Another team evaluated it on Day 2, and the team argued it to the analyst panel that afternoon.
What the results show
Ten different paths from one identical start. Eight of the ten companies kept more of each sales dollar after direct costs than when they started. That number comes from pricing and cost decisions, not from how much the market happened to buy.
Financial acumen
Where the two days practiced it
Results came back after every round, read the way an investor reads them: income statement, balance sheet, cash flow.
What the results show
“Insights I can apply” scored 4.61. Emergency loans are the simulation’s penalty-rate financing for a company that runs short of cash. The second session went from three companies needing one in 2029 to none in 2031. The first session still took two in its final year.
Leading through change
Where the two days practiced it
An unannounced 3.6% contraction in 2030, with the prime rate cut to soften it.
What the results show
Profitable companies went from one to three in the first session and from two to three in the second, with the built-in 15.4% rebound in demand behind the final year. Two companies whose share price had fallen to the simulation’s $1.00 minimum recovered within a year.
These numbers come from the simulation’s own reports and the client’s survey. What the directors do with it back at work is something this report can’t see.
What they asked for next
They left asking for more of what the two days made them do.
The survey’s last question asked what topics would help in future sessions. Many answers named work the program had just put in front of them: weighing every factor in a decision, reading its financial impact across the business, and presenting it to executives.
Strategy and critical thinking
More on strategy, strategic decisions for technology development, the business model
Finance
Corporate finance, the financial impact of decisions in every area, more simulations like this one
Markets and operations
Marketing and business development, competitive analysis, supply chain
Leading and communicating
Presenting to executives (asked for in both sessions), negotiation, managing and developing teams
Two respondents also asked for a pre-work review before the simulation starts.
The survey
What the directors said at the close.
The client ran the same four-question survey at the end of both sessions. 32 of the 45 directors answered, plus one executive from the analyst panel. Of the 132 ratings, 131 were Agree or Strongly agree.
What every program ends with
Two days, five simulated years, one report on what happened.
Every Capsim program ends with a report like this one. It covers the program as it ran, the scoreboard and how each company got there, each of your objectives beside what the simulation recorded, the survey, and what participants asked for next. It’s built from the simulation’s own reports and your survey, so you can send it to the people who weren’t in the room.
- The design
- The results
- Objectives against results
- The survey
- What’s next
Want a program like this one?
Tell us your objectives and who’s in the room. We’ll show you how the days would run and what your report would show.