Business Simulations

Businesses, like animals, evolve. Darwin showed that animals which adapt and change survive. He also recognised that a changing environment determines the direction and the pace of evolution. A rapidly changing business environment, such as a market downturn or credit crunch, poses major threats. The challenge is not whether to adapt but what, where, when, why and how - and that's where simulations can make a unique contribution.

Bespoke simulations address time-critical, commercially sensitive issues such as decision support on major strategic acquisitions. These are extremely powerful tools but the heavy demands in both cost and management time throughout the development and testing phases render them unaffordable for all but the largest organisations.

Generic simulations are designed to raise awareness of fundamental business principles and basic cause-and-effect relationships. Applications range from team-building to creative problem-solving. While these can be just as expensive and time-consuming to develop and test, their wider range of applications allows these to be amortised over a much larger number of events over a longer period, making them highly cost-effective.

Specialist business simulations focus on a specific aspect of a business, such as marketing strategy or project management.

Holistic simulations reveal how decisions in one area produce secondary consequences in another..

New Dimension’s on-site and on-line business simulations are both generic and holistic. A typical challenge is to turn round an underperforming company in a highly competitive market, with several years’ experience condensed into a few hours. The economic climate is unpredictable, just as in real life.

Each management team determines its own strategy and sets its own policies. The more diverse the background, personalities, skills and cultures in a team, the more likely it is that assumptions will challenged and that new answers emerge. Initially, the will to win motivates adaptability. As successes accumulate, the process of seeking continuous improvement becomes a deeply-embedded commitment.

As simulations eliminate the delay between decisions and consequences, the rate of acquiring knowledge and experience is dramatically increased. Since each individual has just one internal set of behaviours, the initial response in a simulation is identical to that displayed in real life.

Pilots are not born with an ability to handle emergency situations in a calm, methodical and professional manner. They learn, mostly in flight simulators. Business simulations provide exactly the same opportunity for those with responsibility, authority and accountability for policy decisions.

To see a dramatic example of simulation-based learning from the world of aviation click here.