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Case Studies

A cross section of organisations that have used our business simulations is below. Please click on the links to read the case studies.

  • Environment Agency
  • Ernst & Young
  • Heinz
  • Kimberly Clark
  • Lloyds Bank
  • London Business School
  • McKinsey
  • Mitsubishi
  • Royal Bank of Scotland
  • Scottish & Newcastle
  • Scottish Power
  • Shell
  • Thames Water
  • Unilever
  • Vodafone


AAH Pharmaceuticals

A leadership development programme that results in real and lasting behaviour change is no mean feat; there are invariably many challenges, not least of which can be the sourcing of both credible material and facilitation.

At AAH Pharmaceuticals we took an internal approach to the design and development of our Leadership that Delivers Programme; this said however, Paul Wright, Wright Solutions, ensured he stayed up to speed with what we were doing which meant that when asked, he was able to recommend with some certainty a relevant business simulation provider.

Paul introduced us to Harvey Sykes, Simulation Training, which proved to be a very successful element of our leadership development programme. Harvey used his personally developed simulation tool and took us through a credible, sophisticated and flexible exercise that enabled us to explore our approach to business strategy and specifically our decision making behaviours. He developed an understanding of our business in order to inject some relevant challenges to the simulation and facilitated three separate exercises, all of which received very positive reactions from participants.

Harvey delivered exactly what we had agreed with professionalism and confidence; I would not hesitate to work with him again and hope that we have the opportunity to do so as and when our development needs can be met by his area of expertise.

John Richards
HR ∓ IT Director
AAH Pharmaceuticals Ltd

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Management Training Partnership's use of Bissim with Unilever

Management Training Partnership (MTP) are a well established independent firm who provide tailored management training programmes to a wide variety of blue chip companies. Our core specialisms are Finance, Marketing and People Development Skills. Where possible we try and integrate these areas to provide cross functional programmes.

A programme on which we use Bissim is the Regional Financial Programme for the Central and East European Business Group of Unilever (one of our major clients). The course is designed to reinforce the professional skills (primarily financial) of young accountants (three to four years in the business) who work for companies within that Business Group and to ensure that they have the full range of techniques available, use them in the context of the businesses they work for and be aware of the business implications of decisions made. Typically the course runs for three one week modules during a year and some 30-40 participants from a variety of countries attend. MTP have run the course since its inception four years ago.

Bissim is run over the last two and a half days of the final week of the programme and is intended to put the learning acquired into the context of the full range of decisions made in a business (e.g. Marketing, Distribution etc.). Five groups of participants compete against each other over the duration of the simulation.

The activities that participants engage in involve initially setting the strategy and objectives of their business, trading for six rounds (years) and evaluating their performance at the end of the simulation. During the simulation participants also prepare marketing strategy presentations, team evaluations and a final stake-holder presentation. The tutor's role is to provide coaching and support to the teams during each round, provide round by round evaluations and some inputs where necessary (e.g. on what is a mission statement?) and finally to adjudicate on the simulation overall.

Bissim was chosen because it is complex enough to challenge a group of intelligent, motivated participants, robust enough not to have problems running it, competitive enough to stimulate enjoyment and broad enough to bring out a wide range of potential strategies, business decisions and learning points.

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Lloyds Bank

Lesley Wan, General Counsel Corporate Real Estate, Lloyds Banking Group on the business simulation developed and delivered with Addleshaw Goddard.

"The Simulation Programme designed by Addleshaw Goddard is innovative and exciting as it brings a fresh perspective to educating and training clients. It is interactive, challenging and intellectually stimulating and creates healthy competition between the participants.

The Simulation was tailored specifically for my property colleagues with an emphasis on the recessionary market conditions and taking them through to recovery. It was focused and carefully considered and engaged the right stakeholders at the outset (including property experts from our business support team) to ensure that Addleshaw Goddard was producing a training programme that was relevant and practical for our business.

The simulation was timely given the recent challenges of the integration process between our two heritage banks and has enabled colleagues from both parts of the business to work together as a team, with credit/risk colleagues as well as external valuers and lawyers from Addleshaw Goddard's team.

The Simulation was client friendly and focused and took my colleagues out of their comfort zone and forced them to participate in a live and realistic business transaction that had gone awry, but from their customer's (i.e. the borrower's) view. My colleagues were required at different stages to assimilate large amounts of information and then make decisions as a team under extreme time pressure. This is unique and really opened the eyes of my colleagues to understand what our borrower's have had to deal with and how the decisions my colleagues make can impact on the borrower. It opened their eyes to coming up with dynamic solutions for the borrower.

The Simulation as a concept has really added value to our business and created insight in a number of respects; namely, it has challenged and stimulated the thinking of my colleagues and provided a platform in which they could work together as a team and be free/have the confidence to express ideas, taking them outside of their comfort zone; it has assisted the Bank in the integration process by bringing colleagues from 2 heritage banks to work together and bond; it has enhanced my colleagues understanding and given insight to business challenges faced by our customers in a recessionary market; it has improved the relationship of my colleagues with our lawyers from Addleshaw Goddard through bonding and enhanced Addleshaw Goddard's understanding of our processes and how we work.

Due to the resounding success of the initial Simulation, I have agreed with Addleshaw Goddard to run the Simulation for all my property colleagues throughout the country, with full support of the business heads, as part of our training programme for 2010."

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'Real world' learning for ABBEY GRADUATES

Objective

To provide genuine development of both soft and hard management skills for the 100 graduates of Abbey's intake.

Solution

SIMPACT was delivered together with Impact International, combining the power of experiential learning with the business focus of a rigorous computer simulation.

Inputs on competitive and strategic analysis, culture and values, empowering staff, creativity and innovation, allowed the graduates to experiment and make a difference to their team's performance with new knowledge, thus making it real and immediate.

Result

The graduates found the experience both challenging and rewarding. The experiential nature provided a stimulating and powerful learning experience.

"We were delighted with the way Impact worked in partnership with us to produce some exciting results in relation to improving commitment, skill and motivation."

Liz Dean
Management Development & Education Consultant
Abbey

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Using 'bissim' at Arcadia Group Ltd

Introduction

We used 'bissim' to support the personal development of selected middle managers within the company, who had been identified as having the potential to take on a larger role.

How

It was used as part of a 'Strategic Thinking in Action' programme the aim of which was to:

The programme ran over a few months, consisting of 1 full day, 12 hours of facilitated time and a final presentation to senior management on what participants had achieved by the end.

Results

Some of the key learns from participants were:

Participants also fed back some months afterwards, on the positive differences in performance that their line managers had noticed e.g.:

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Addleshaw Goddard

Jim Hever article for The Lawyer

One of the challenges facing business lawyers, whether in-house or in private practice, is how they can position themselves to be perceived as real business players. Mere legal advice is easily outsourced and will become an ever cheaper commodity.

In truth, lawyers must manage a difficult balancing act faced by few others. There's a a real tension between being independent officers of the court and, being truly commercially minded. Their training has emphasised the former role which creates a mindset of searching for flaws. In the May edition of the Harvard Business Review, leadership guru Warren Bennis compares the ineffectiveness of MBA programmes and business schools to that of law schools. He argues that both fail to prepare people for business roles because of their overly academic emphases. As lawyers know only too well, picking flaws is relatively easy. Creating solutions is more challenging.

To be perceived positively in business, lawyers are advised to enhance their commerciality. Providing commercial advice is regarded as including but going beyond compliance and legal risk management. In the many mature markets of Europe and the US, competitive advantage consists in innovation throughout the business, new products and services and, speed to market. This is most evident for example, in the Financial Services market. Government's appetite for regulation drives lawyers, quite rightly, to emphasise compliance. The skill of thus advising the business while at the same time enabling innovation and speed in bringing new products to market requires aligning with the agenda of internal clients whether they be Marketing, Bankers, Procurement, Commercial, and so on.

For many, this requires both a shift in attitudes and developing a business management skillset. It is why Addleshaw Goddard, turned to Simulation Training when we sought to develop a unique business simulation programme for lawyers. We also enlisted the help of eight FTSE 100 heads of legal and five experienced partners. Our confidence in Simulation Training was such that we were willing to involve them with our most prestigious clients.

The programme demonstrates the impact of business legal decisions on an organisation's bottom line. Teams are thrust into a competitive and unpredictable business environment. Lawyers put themselves in the shoes of a managing director, a finance director, a sales director, a production manager, and so on, and have to trade their company competitively for four simulated years.

Working with their coaches participants explore what they need to do differently at work, how they will align themselves with business units and become champions of staying close to their clients to be perceived as real business partners. It is doubtful if that kind of role can ever be outsourced.

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