Case Study

From a blank slate to a fully simulated global business challenge

An eight-phase business simulation with live gamification — built from nothing — that replaced a fragmented management development programme with a rigorous, decision-driven leadership experience.

Client
Leading Consumer Goods Organisation
Sector
Consumer Goods / FMCG
Timeline
Five months
At a glance
8
Simulation phases — each a real leadership decision point
97%
Post-programme readiness confidence across all participants
0
Source content at project start — entire curriculum built from scratch
1
Coherent simulation — modular SCORM architecture, phase by phase
The challenge

Managers being asked to make senior decisions without ever having practised them.

The organisation was expanding rapidly into Southeast Asia and needed mid-level managers ready to operate at business unit level. Most of them had never owned a P&L, negotiated with a CFO, or designed a route-to-market under real pressure. They had the potential. They just had not had the experience.

Classroom training had been tried. It produced knowledge — not capability. What they needed was for managers to actually experience the complexity of senior decision-making — not read about it.

  • No source content existed — just a high-level competency framework and a list of behaviours the organisation wanted to see
  • The programme had to work both as a development experience and as an assessment — with data HR could actually use
  • The business context had to feel real enough to be challenging, but fictionalised to avoid any competitive sensitivity issues
  • The build team was spread across three time zones, so everything ran on tight asynchronous sprints
  • The programme had to serve both first-time cohorts and re-deployment groups seeking an advanced-level challenge
The approach

An eight-phase business simulation — each phase a real leadership crucible, with gamification engineered to sustain intensity and competitive energy across 32 hours of programme runtime.

01
Market Entry Analysis
Teams analyse a $4.2B market opportunity, assess competitive dynamics, and make an entry recommendation against a 40-minute clock.
Strategic Thinking
02
Competitive Intelligence
Deep-dive into two dominant incumbents using curated market intelligence. Teams must identify exploitable gaps and build a differentiation thesis.
Analytical Rigour
03
Financial Modelling
Build a three-scenario P&L, stress-test assumptions live, then defend the financial model in a Board Challenge with a sceptical CFO.
Financial Acumen
04
Stakeholder Negotiation
Reach alignment with four stakeholders — each with conflicting agendas and specific levers that must be discovered and deployed in real time.
Influence & Persuasion
05
Operations Design
Design the supply chain, distribution architecture, and operating model for the new business unit within fixed cost and lead-time constraints.
Operational Thinking
06
Risk & Compliance
Navigate three live regulatory scenarios — including an unexpected policy change mid-phase — while keeping the launch timeline intact.
Risk Management
07
Go-to-Market Launch
Execute market entry. Allocate budget across channels, respond to a competitive counter-move, and hit Q1 milestones under Board scrutiny.
Commercial Execution
08
Performance Review
Teams present full business unit performance to the Board, connecting every prior decision to the final P&L outcome. Nothing is forgotten.
Accountability & Reflection
↑
Decisions compound — consequences cascade
Unlike simulations that reset between modules, this one carries your decisions forward. An aggressive market entry in Phase 01 creates tighter margins in Phase 03 and a harder CFO challenge in Phase 07. Everything compounds.
Live team leaderboard
Four competing teams accumulate points across all eight phases. Rankings update in real time, creating genuine competitive tension that sharpens every decision.
Achievement badge system
Six unlockable badges reward behaviours beyond correct answers — speed, collaboration, precision, and consistency — ensuring engagement at every level of capability.
Summative assessment gates
Each phase locks until the assessment is cleared. Progression is earned, not assumed — creating the psychological weight of real-world accountability at every stage.
The design insight
The problem we solved

Building a complete curriculum from a competency framework alone

The client had no source content at all. No case library, no documented processes, nothing. Every scenario, decision node, and stakeholder persona was built from scratch through six intensive SME workshops over three weeks — before a single screen was built.

The turning point A working prototype of Phase 01 was built in week two — before any content was finalised — so the client had something real to react to. That decision turned out to be the right one. It sparked the best content conversations of the entire project and dramatically accelerated the SME sessions.
What made this work

Simulation designed around real leadership decisions, not theory

Instead of teaching commercial leadership as a set of frameworks, the simulation put participants inside the actual decisions. Every phase recreated a real trade-off, a real pressure, a real consequence — from building a P&L under board scrutiny to a negotiation where the CFO's approval was not a given.

The full simulation arc was presented at the outset and revisited at each phase gate, reinforcing the mental model of the complete leadership challenge even as participants worked through individual stages in depth.

Programme in action
Programme overview and eight-phase simulation map
01
Programme overview & eight-phase simulation map
Gamification reward dashboard — live leaderboard and badge system
02
Phase entry — gamification reward dashboard
Market entry analysis simulation screen
03
Market entry analysis — team decision screen
Financial modelling — P&L build and board challenge
04
Financial modelling — P&L build & Board challenge
Stakeholder negotiation — four-way alignment challenge
05
Stakeholder negotiation scenario
Summative assessment and phase completion screen
06
Summative assessment & phase completion screen
The outcome

Managers entered their next role faster, sharper, and with decisions already banked.

The organisation reduced the average time-to-promotion for high-potential managers by 14 months, attributing the acceleration directly to the programme. It replaced a 12-month stretch assignment process that had previously been the only way to build that level of readiness.

360-degree feedback at six months showed a clear improvement in financial confidence, stakeholder communication, and strategic thinking — the three areas the simulation was designed to develop.

"For the first time, we had a programme that changed behaviour, not just knowledge scores. Our managers came out of it ready to make the kinds of calls we'd previously only trusted directors to make."

— Chief People Officer, Leading Consumer Goods Organisation

97%
Post-programme confidence All participants expressed readiness for increased responsibility at programme completion
8
End-to-end leadership coverage Every critical commercial leadership challenge simulated within a single coherent programme
↑41%
Internal promotion rate Increase in promotions among programme participants within 12 months of completion
100%
Facilitator credibility rating All facilitators rated the simulation content as highly realistic and commercially credible

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