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“It’s Accrual World”
Not surprisingly, a big part of working in finance is about being efficient and accurate. To paraphrase comedian Bob Newhart, “getting within a few bucks of it” isn’t usually good enough. Hence all the late nights if you work in the department. But it’s also about being effective and adding to business results. And that…
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The Rocket-Fueled Business Simulation Agenda – Covering It All in Just 2-Days
When running a simulation as part of a business-acumen training class, time really is of the essence. Besides the three or four 2-hour decision-making rounds within the simulation there are also business concepts, including strategy and finance, that need to be adequately covered. But holding a 10-day class so that all the content can be…
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Action Planning – Applying Course Concepts to Real-World Challenges
The real value of learning comes when the concepts taught are actually used in the real world. However, simply presenting a concept and exhorting an audience to apply it in the business world is not enough. Learners need to practice with course concepts using real-world data and scenarios that resonate for them on a personal…
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A Shell game in oil (but at Chevron, not Shell…)
Imagine the sting of going to your boss and saying, “We need an $11 billion write-down on those investments I made…” Which is what the CEO of Chevron, Mike Wirth, announced to shareholders (aka, his actual bosses) in December. A write-down typically reduces earnings on the Income Statement and asset-value on the Balance sheet, both…
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Tariffs and Other Things That Go Bump in The Night
The eventual outcomes of the current global tariff and trade convolutions are yet to be fully known. But regardless, developing contingency plans for supply chain issues and business interruptions is wise – notwithstanding your company’s specific exposure. Your supply chain and your business are vulnerable to much more than just tariffs, which are essentially taxes…
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Should participants go through a Business Simulation multiple times? – Third Times a Charm!
We’ve been building business simulations since 1994. We have long-term clients who we’ve worked with for 5, 10, 15, and 20 years. In several of our clients we are used for 101, 201, and 301-level curriculums that build business, financial, and leadership acumen. When we have a longer-term client “relationship,” occasionally individuals will show up…
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Silver Pens and Motivation
At the conclusion of PriSim’s business simulation exercises, we recognize the winners of the competition with a prize. Our trophy of choice for the winning team is an inexpensive solid silver magic levitating pen. But is this simple prize what motivates participants to stay focused over multiple days of number crunching, lectures, decision making, and…
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Special Weapons And Tactics of SWOT Analyses
At PriSim, we always include a SWOT exercise (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) as part of our business simulation classes. SWOT is a simple yet powerful framework to assess the current “as-is” condition of a company, forming the foundation for future “to-be” strategic planning. So what could possibly go wrong with such a timeless, well-tested…
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Leadership Amid Chaos
If you thought business decision-making was already hard, how about decision-making when there is no actual solution – yet a decision still has to be made? Yes, that’s VUCA again, tying back to our blog post last month about a “VUCA world” (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). In the book Leaders Make the Future, author…
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VUCA Rising
The pace of change in today’s business world is moving at hyper-speed. Add to that rising complexity and unpredictability, and it can feel overwhelming. The military coined a label for such a world, calling it “VUCA”: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. The business world has adopted the term and many books and articles have outlined…