THE FOUR HOUR WORKSHOP: Commercial Awareness
We offer a four-hour version of the simulation that focuses mainly on commercial awareness – how the decisions that we take within a business flow through into its financial performance.
In this format, teams receive simplified accounts (they get a Profit & Loss but there's no Balance Sheet or Cash Flow). There's lots of marketing data, much of it in graph form, and they guide their pub over four quarters (instead of five).
The facilitator provides a thorough introduction, quarterly updates on the state of the game and a full review at the end.​​
Between the rounds of the simulation, we:
Explain the Profit & Loss Account from first principles (unless the audience doesn't require it).​​
Introduce key ratios to demonstrate that a business’s financial performance can be broken down into these mini-contests:
Increasing customer numbers
Maximising spend per customer
Managing gross margins
Controlling overheads
Minimising cash tied up in the business
Reveal how each decision taken by the teams in the simulation impacts each of the financial outcomes, encouraging people to understand that any decision has not just one financial impact but several.
The half-day event is a great way of developing business acumen, giving insight into how companies make money (or don't) as they seek to deliver what the market wants in a profitable way amidst lots of competition. It's an engaging and memorable learning experience (but shouldn't be seen as a complete finance course - we need a full day for that!)
The four rounds of the simulation can be run back-to-back over a half day, or can be spread over a one-day or two-day company event. But if your date is fixed, we’ll need plenty of notice. As with all out programmes, it can be run online or in-person.
Extra components make the event just a little bit more competitive.....
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(click to enlarge)
This version features random pearls of wisdom from Chad, the village's favourite barman. Every team member will receive different snippets of unsolicited advice which they may (or may not) want to introduce into the team's deliberations....
View from the Bar
Random thoughts from the village's favourite barman...
Want a guided tour of the Virtual Village Pub Simulation?
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Click HERE to leave your details and we'll find a time that suits you.