Level 1: Entrepreneurial Challenge (Learning Objectives)

In the Entrepreneurial Challenge® business simulation, the goal is for each participant - whether he or she is a front line worker, a manager, or an executive - to grasp essential financial concepts and tools such as:

  • The difference between cash and profit
  • Fixed versus variable costs
  • The impact of inventory build-up
  • The need to control working capital
  • Income statements and balance sheets
  • Standard measures (operating income, net income, ROA)
  • Your company's specific financial measures

In about four hours of experiential learning, they build business acumen including a big-picture understanding of:

  • Investing, generating profits, and posting losses
  • Maintaining financial statements
  • Deciding strategic direction in the marketplace
  • Implementing change and measuring results
  • Monitoring cashflow, receivables, and inventories
  • Using operating income to compare results to competitors

Participants get immersed in the competition, form lasting friendships with teammates, and also take improved decision-making skills back to the office. Among other things, they:

  • Know how they impact the financial reports
  • Make better choices in everyday activities leading to reductions in costs, inventories, and working capital
  • Help build shareholder value day-to-day
  • Build beneficial relationships with customers and suppliers
  • Recognize the value of a customer
  • Better serve internal and external customers
  • Understand how actions impact other areas of the company

And the whole organization benefits from the results, including:

  • Employees understand the needs of the business
  • Visualize strategic alternatives
  • Better able to implement directives
  • Communicate issues impacting business results
  • Increased respect for management decisions
  • Greater engagement in financial planning 
  • Buy into the budget (and budgeting process)

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Essential Financial Concepts

Workforce development workshop

In Entrepreneurial Challenge, participants move pieces (see example above) on a table-top game board as they make key business decisions.