Building Resilience – War Gaming

War Gaming is a decision-making tool to stress-test and evaluate plans, to expose unidentified risks and to identify potential opportunities. It provides structured but intellectually liberating ‘safe-to-fail’ environments that support decision making and planning, improve resilience and create competitive advantage, at relatively low cost.

Business Gaming is used to test planning assumptions and anticipate potential outcomes of actions. It can help to:

  • Identify risks, impacts and opportunities
  • Improve agility and efficiency throughout the company
  • Prepare for emerging third party challenges
  • Create resilience
  • Strengthen team cohesion
  • Make strategy more likely to succeed

Our Business Games are tailored to the specific requirements of each client and range from half-day games, based on simple but realistic pre-defined scenarios, to complex live games, that involve open-ended scenarios actively challenged by a ‘red-team’ role playing stakeholders and potential opposition.

Delivery of a Business Game

  • On completion and agreement of the six preparation steps the exercise will begin with a briefing from the control team, the ‘White team’.
  • The ‘White Team’, controls, manages and adjudicates the game
  • Participants, observers and control staff all contribute to the data capture, analysis and review process. Analysis occurs both during and on completion of the game
  • The client participants, the ‘Blue Team’, work through the developing scenario; decisions are made and communicated, plans are enacted and participants face the consequences of their, and the opponent ‘Red Team’s’ decisions.
How a Business Game works

Deliverables

In addition to a thoroughly researched, structured and fully assessed Business Game we deliver a post-game summary report. The summary report records lessons identified, observations, insights arising from the game and recommendations for the implementation of lessons into future commercial plans, policies and strategies. The report identifies potential opportunities and risks in order to:

  • Assure the client’s leadership that the Company’s strategy is sound and/or
  • Identify risk(s) that need to be addressed and outline plans to mitigate them
  • Identify/recommend key lessons that can be taken forward to improve individual, team and company effectiveness
  • Above all, minimise risks and achieve a greater likelihood of success

CASE STUDY – COMMODITIES BUSINESS GAME

CHALLENGE

A major global commodities company wished to test their strategic resilience to changing geopolitical risk, specifically focusing on supply and demand threats in their regions of greatest exposure.

SOLUTION

Strategia applied its business gaming methodology to test the company’s strategic resilience. Working together with the client our team of seven subject matter experts designed and developed a range of challenging scenarios, incorporating geopolitical, economic, reputational, cyber and other risks, to test and assess the client’s executive level strategy and decision-making processes. Two business games were played out in a series of phases over a three-month period.

OUTCOME

The executive leadership team felt they had been rigorously tested. Potential vulnerabilities and opportunities were identified and important lessons were learned about strategic decision making. Strategic resilience has been enhanced and value better protected. As a result, the client feels they are better placed to face future strategic challenges.

“Strategia’s Africa specialists conducted a bespoke ‘360’ risk assessment of AWF operations across Sub-Saharan Africa together with a detailed security review of our Head Office operation in Nairobi. Risks which affected our strategy were identified, followed by clear and incisive recommendations. Strategia’s deep knowledge of the geo-political space we operate in, combined with their unparalleled on the ground practical experience gave us a unique opportunity to review our approach to risk.”

Tom Ogilvie-GrahamCEO Africa Wildlife Foundation

Contact Us

To find out more or to speak to us about any of our services,  please contact us by email info@strategiaworldwide .

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