There’s a question I hear occasionally about the use of Income/Outcome for teaching fundamental business concepts: “But would it work in other countries?” That’s like asking if the Periodic Table of elements applies on other planets. The answer is Yes. … Read More
To a lot of people working in large (and not so large) businesses, the word “Finance” means one of two things: the whole time-consuming, confidence-threatening mess of numbers associated with budgets, plans or – argh! – ratios (or even worse … Read More
The lexicon of the Financial Times defines business acumen as “keenness and speed in understanding and deciding on a business situation.” It goes on to clarify: “In practice, people with business acumen are thought of as having business ‘sense’ or business ‘smarts’.” … Read More
Good decision-making is impaired by two things: limited information, and by the decision-maker being too narrowly focused – especially when events or conditions are abnormal, or outside the decision-maker’s experience. This is confirmed by a study published in April 2012 … Read More
Lots of people have ‘fear of finance’… students, investors, even business owners (we have met a suprising number of entrepreneurs who let their accountant manage the finance portoin of the business). In the past few months we have worked with … Read More
As I mentioned in my last post in this Gotchas Series, there are at least 12 ways a business acumen simulation can go wrong. At the top of the list is closed decision making — and here’s why. Especially if … Read More
The usefulness of the Company Board is that it presents financial information in a visual manner. For people who do not enjoy looking at long columns of small numbers, this may make the information more accessible. It can also clarify … Read More
This is becoming a recurring theme for us, in both the academic and corporate sectors; and our experience highlights the value of using a business simulation as a tool for finance skills training. At Coles College of Business, Dr. Alison … Read More
A joke I’ve made (but which sometimes gets me into trouble from which, I often try to extricate myself with the help of a Davenport attorney) is about how different departments in a company drive the company car. The Finance … Read More
For the past 10 years, we have talked about ‘aha! thinking’ and ‘overnight learning’ and tried to express how our learning continues beyond the simulation. Over the past year we have come up with a phrase that describes a lot … Read More