“Invite people to think like business owners – so they can base their future decisions on sound business thinking.”

Celemi Apples & Oranges® brings financial statements to life through its simple, profound model of a company. Participants form the incoming management team of A&O Inc. – an established company that is facing some tough challenges. The company is losing market share and there are increasing demands from suppliers and customers. A&O Inc. needs a new, disciplined financial strategy.


Teams learn how to monitor cash flow, make resource utilization improvements, and measure results in the balance sheet and income statement.

Participants of all experience levels are able to gain new skills or build on prior experience to:

  • Read and interpret financial statements.
  • Identify critical elements affecting profitability.
  • Analyze financial ratios and key performance

indicators, and make priorities accordingly. Your people will explore the cause-and-effect relationships that govern a company’s financial statements – and develop an intrinsic business sense that will govern their future decisions in every day work.

What clients say

“Everyone is thinking like business owners. That means future decisions will be made based on sound business thinking, which should improve the financial picture much quicker.”

– Internal consultant, Principal Financial Group

“Apples & Oranges surpassed our expectations by a wide margin. [It] not only gives us a foundation to build on – it also creates enthusiasm and gets people involved. These are essential components for us as we launch our development program.”

– Personnel manager, Volvo Bus Corporation

“In one of our factories we came up with £1 million worth of potential improvements as a direct result of the Celemi business simulation.”

– Manager, GlaxoSmithKline

Business finance for everyone

Key results

Companies using Celemi Apples & Oranges® can benefit by:

  • Creating a common vision throughout the organization.
  • Building a shared baseline understanding of financial and management concepts.
  • Communicating key messages during times of organizational change.

Participants win through Apples & Oranges by:

  • Knowing how their business generates profits today, and how it will need to generate profits in the future.
  • Understanding how their daily decisions impact the company strategically and financially.
  • Continuously identifying improvements in the business operations.

Key concepts

  • Stakeholder value
  • Cash flow
  • Return on assets
  • Return on equity
  • Profitability
  • Operating costs
  • Margin
  • Capacity utilization

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.

Number of participants
From four to several thousand participants. Participants are grouped in teams of 3-4. One facilitator for every 25-30 people.

Participants
Employees at all levels.

Time required
6-8 hours, corresponding to 3 years of operation.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi.

 


“Preparing people for the challenges of project work.”

A company has just completed a large project and, in hindsight, it did not deliver as much business value as was originally expected. There were budget and time overruns, and neither the project sponsors nor end users seem too satisfied with the result. Participants are asked to go back in time to see if they can identify the hot buttons and deliver a better result.

“They say that you learn from your mistakes. That is true only if you understand what happened.”

Participants diagnose signs and symptoms of potential problems, and mitigate them using limited resources. The storyline loosely follows a typical IT implementation of a new business system. However, the challenges are universal and easily recognized,
such as:

• Key stakeholders are not engaged… get their attention or trust your own judgement?
• New insights arise… revise the scope or stick to the plan?
• Project team is overloaded… take quick action or make systematic changes?
• Actuals are not in line with budget and timeline…adjust figures or adjust ambitions?

Participants quickly recognize that you cannot please everybody all of the time. The art to project work is to balance the needs of key stakeholders – sponsors and steering committee, the project delivery team, and the end users of the organization – in order to create maximum business value.appened.”

What clients say

“Very good way of looking at project management capability. Much more useful than just listening and watching slides! Recommended for real project teams.”

– Project manager, Global pharmaceutical company, Sweden

“Very good! I particularly liked the discussions after completing each phase, since it allowed us to connect the game’s problems with the reality of our particular company.”

– Regional manager, Car Manufacturing Firm, USA

“Never having completed anything quite like this, I found it stimulating and thought-provoking, especially the “knock-on” effect of our choices, and the importance of group-work and communication.”

– Team leader, Local County Council, United Kingdom

Securing project success

Who benefits?

Celemi CayenneTM is suitable for all types of companies and projects. The storyline is built on an IT system implementation, but is suitable for all projects of similar magnitude. 

Cayenne targets everybody involved in, or concerned by a project – not just the project manager.

Typical uses:

  • Kick-off a new project – to create a common understanding and preparedness among everybody involved and secure a successful outcome.

  • Get an existing project back on track by reallocating resources or re-establishing
    communication.

  • Create good conditions for successful joint projects between system suppliers and their clients.

  • Build a common vocabulary and understanding between specialists and generalists.

  • Complement general project management training courses focused on administrative or operational aspects.

Key results

Celemi CayenneTM is a valuable preparation for the challenges of project work. Participants emerge from the experience with:

  • Better ability to balance the needs of different stakeholder groups.

  • Identification and utilization of key performance measures.

  • Heightened ability to read signs and symptoms of potential pitfalls in projects.

  • Better awareness and preparedness of the conditions for ongoing projects back on the job.

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.

Number of participants
Teams of 3-4 participants. Multiple teams can run the simulation simultaneously.

Participants
All project members; project managers, business executives, content provider consultants, experts and end users as well as support personnel.

Time required
6-8 hours.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi.




“Making key people understand how and why their decisions influence the entire organization.”

Six capital-intensive companies are competing for customers in a highly competitive, rapidly changing marketplace. Participants take on the role of the management
team – comprised of finance, production, marketing and corporate intelligence. Their challenge is to make the right investments at the right time – and to get the required return.

Teams manage the strategic, operational and financial variables that will help lower costs and penetrate new markets.

Tough investment decisions lie ahead:

  • Invest now…or later?
  • Pursue all markets… or just a few?
  • Take the lead… or be an early follower?
  • Build efficient assembly lines… or flexible flow shops?
  • Borrow money… or earn it first?
  • Stick to the basics… or pursue the cutting edge?

Teams learn to better utilize financial statements and financial ratios as planning tools to boost productivity and profitability over a 10-year period. Working together, they increase their awareness of the complex nature of inter-departmental financial relationships. And in the process, they understand what it takes to pull in the same direction – as well as how to bring their new skills and insights into reality.

What clients say

“You know the program is effective when people from manufacturing, sales and marketing become sensitive to each other’s needs and understand how the other operation works.”

– Manager, 3M

“We found Celemi Decision Base® to be profoundly valuable. By experiencing the positions of senior management, our sales people gained a newfound appreciation for what our customers experience in their jobs and developed a greater ability to talk the
customer’s language.”
“We required every Oracle USA sales representative to take this training. It was exceptional.”

– Sales manager, Oracle

“I better understand my personal impact on financial results and hope to find ways to make things better…I hope everyone takes this. It’s good material for developing increased understanding of financial terms and interactions in the business environment.”

– Participant, Hewlett Packard

Pulling in the same strategic direction

Who benefits?

  • All personnel with financial responsibilities in manufacturing, production or other capital-intensive companies can build cross-functional insight and align with a common vocabulary of performance measures.
  • Sales people, service providers and consultancies gain a better understanding of their clients’ business conditions.
  • Companies that are implementing new IT architectures can use Celemi Decision Base® to identify hot buttons.
  • Business schools, corporate universities and academies can use this as part of their management development track to introduce and apply strategy, business economics and finance competencies.

Key results

  • Improved productivity through better teamwork, communication and coordination.
  • Alignment around the “big picture” and a deeper level understanding of strategy and tactical initiatives.
  • Better decisions for optimal allocation of limited resources.
  • Increased responsiveness to internal and external customer needs.
  • Heightened business literacy and financial acumen.
  • Deep understanding of the overall business impact of financial decisions.

Key concepts

  • Market share
  • Profitability
  • Return on capital employed
  • Cash flow
  • Cost of capital
  • Return on investments in markets, products and production
  • EVA™ (economic value added) optional
  • CVA™ (cash flow value added) optional
  • NPV (net present value) optional
  • ABC (activity-based costing) optional

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.

Number of participants
Six competing teams, 12-24 participants in total.
Multiple seminars can be held simultaneously.

Participants
Managers and other employees in decision-making positions.

Time required
2-2,5 days, corresponding to 10 years of operation.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi.




“Attracting and retaining targeted clients in extremely competitive markets.”

Four retailers are in tough competition for the same customers in a growing market. The overriding challenge is to build and retain a profitable customer base. Who will emerge as the market leader?

At the start, the four retailers are “all over the place”. They soon learn that their company cannot be everything to everyone, and that competitive positioning is critical. Which current customers should they keep? Which prospective customers should they target?

“To be successful means to build a strong market position and develop the ability to defend it.”

The management team needs to decide on a desired market position and capture it in the most cost-effective way. Teams analyze baseline market research to help them make tactical choices:

  • Go for the high end of the market… or the low end?
  • Pursue a unique niche… or attack a competitor’s stronghold?
  • Build capacity in advance… or wait for the demand to grow?
  • Compete on differentiation… or on price?
  • Defend your achieved position at all costs… or move to another?

Through this, teams learn what it takes to be “glocal”
– to adopt a global framework of a corporate strategy and make it successful in local market conditions.

What clients say

“We can count on success only if our dealers earn money, so it makes sense for us to help them to do a good job in their local markets, and to make good use of the things we do at headquarters, like marketing campaigns, etc. For work of this kind, Celemi LivonTM is an outstanding tool.”

– Sales manager, Toyota Sweden

“I believe it was a useful reminder to all of us that every customer represents many years of business. In fact, it is both simpler and less costly to keep a customer than
to replace one that has gone somewhere else. Thank you for an interesting and useful experience.”

– Participant, IBM Australia

“This helped me immeasurably in understanding market share, competition, and other areas not usually affiliated with store operations.”

– Product manager, leading manufacturer in the US

Differentiate or die

Who benefits?

Celemi LivonTM is designed for all employees who are expected to help sales and distribution organizations coordinate market investments and resources and promote
a precise, consistent identity for the company.

  • Any organization looking to reinforce its competitive advantages and capture greater market share.
  • Business leaders who need to create a strong alignment between franchise, retail or other operations and the central sales and marketing strategy.
  • Managers of local or regional markets who want to explore how to adopt and adapt a global strategy.
  • Smaller, independent companies looking to identify or strengthen their market niche.
  • Companies wanting a simple demonstration of what it means to be “customer-driven”.
  • Business schools and corporate universities to deliver the big-picture framework on marketing concepts, market segmentation, consumer behavior, or strategic alignment around a central vision.

Key results

  • Develop effective marketing plans and strategies that are consistent with overall company positioning.
  • Use powerful marketing tactics to meet local customers and competitors.
  • Manage and allocate scarce resources to remain competitive and profitable.
  • Select competitive advertising and pricing.

Key concepts

  • Market share
  • Competitive attributes
  • Marketing investments and resources
  • Promotion
  • Profitability
  • Pricing
  • Consumer behavior
  • Market segmentation
  • Customer profiling and targeting

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.

Number of participants
Four competing teams, 12-16 participants in total.
Multiple seminars can be held simultaneously.

Participants
Sales and marketing staff.

Time required
1 day, corresponding to 5 years of operation.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi.




“Inspire people and help them realize your company’s marketing strategy.”

Celemi Livon Lite™ is the fast track to a basic understanding of the principles of marketing and branding. At the starting point, four companies are fiercely competing in a narrow segment of the marketplace. There is little differentiation, causing a restless
customer base with little loyalty to their respective companies.

Teams need to decide on how to best use their limited resources on attracting a selection of customers.

There are some big issues to discuss:

  • How will we attract and retain a steady customer base?
  • What are our strengths – and how can we leverage them?
  • What type of market profile do we want – and how will we communicate it?

Customers’ perceptions and preferences change as an effect of how they are treated over time. As a consequence, more or less of the potential market share is captured.

Teams assess their performance:

  • Were they able to select a position in the marketplace and hold onto it?
  • Were they able to attract their customers of choice?
  • Were they able to maintain the price level they wanted?
  • Did they spend more money than necessary to maintain the operation?

What clients say

“Very fast and exciting way to learn about our marketing strategy. To compete with your colleagues forces you to do your best. Thank you!”

– Sales Manager, Multinational industrial company, Russia

“Good for large audiences to understand marketing fundamentals. A couple of well spent hours!”

 

– Training and Development Director, Insurance group, Middle East


“Fun and informative at the same time!”

– Management Consultant, Sweden

The power of the customer

 

Who benefits?

  • Those responsible for planning and communicating the launch of a new product or service.
  • Sales and marketing staff on the corporate, centralized level can become more aware of the challenges on the localized level (and vice versa).
  • Companies facing a merger or acquisition, where there is a need to fuse together differing brands and build a shared understanding of the new profile among key employees.
  • Managers of franchise businesses who want to ensure consistent profiling in all locations.
  • Marketing professionals who need to communicate the results of market research and its implications for the future.
  • Sales people become better attuned to customer targeting, customer behavior and getting their priorities right.
  • Marketing consultancies who offer the seminar as an added educational benefit to their own clients.

Key results

  • Alignment around the “big picture” and a deeper understanding of marketing strategy and tactical initiatives.
  • Better decisions for optimal allocation of limited marketing resources.
  • Increased responsiveness to customer needs and preferences.
  • Deep understanding of the overall business impact of their decisions.
  • Inspiring glocal (local within global) performance

Key concepts

  • Customer purchasing behavior
  • Market positioning
  • Customer segmentation
  • Brand mapping
  • Pricing strategy
  • Image tracking
  • Budgeting

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.

Number of participants
From four to several thousand participants at any one time, or at simultaneous seminars. Participants are grouped in teams of 3-4. One facilitator for every 25-30
people.

Participants
Sales and marketing staff.

Time required
4-6 hours.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi




“Inspire team members to apply business concepts that help put your strategy into action – fast.”

Success is a moving target. How do you get all your people behind your strategy in a marketplace that is rapidly changing? In the Celemi Enterprise™ business simulation, six companies compete for the same customers in a dynamic marketplace. Participants take on the roles of the management team – comprised of Marketing and Sales, Development and Services, Planning and Delivery, Finance and Control. The main challenge is to build, and successfully execute a strategy that leads to winning results.

Teams embark on a business adventure with promises of risks and rewards where they have to be on their toes and think strategically to succeed.

Celemi Enterprise challenges participants to deal with uncertainties and balance short-term results with long-term value. The teams need to:

  • Decide on a desired market position.
  • Target and sell to preferred customers.
  • Meet customer demands by developing an attractive and profitable product portfolio.
  • Deliver with excellence by getting the most out of people and processes.
  • Create strong, sustainable brand value.
  • Keep track of financial results – both short and long term.

The certified facilitator uses a software program to perform a detailed yearly analysis and comparison of the teams’ performances along a range of objective factors. This leads to intense discussions and links to participants’ experiences in their own business
life.

At the end of the simulation, there is a next-step exercise where people are invited to draw conclusions about their own areas of responsibility. This ensures that the simulation experience results in sustained, useful knowledge.

What clients say

“It’s the most interactive training I’ve ever attended. Key points are highlighted with practical demonstrations that every participant can see and feel.”

– Jan Reznicek, call center manager, Customer Care Department, Ceska Pojistovna a.s.

Who benefits

  • Senior and middle managers at large enterprises with a product and service offering can use the simulation to put strategy into action – fast.
  • Co-workers gain a common understanding of the big picture as well as of how they as individuals can contribute to the company’s competitiveness.
  • Managers responsible for training can use the simulation for hands-on, interactive education, and for communication of company strategy.

Key results

  • Participants gain a common frame of reference of the overall business situation, which they absorb and understand quickly.
  • Offers a mental model of how the business works, what the priorities are and how to move forward.
  • Encourages people to explore and discover the key value drivers of the business and their relative impact on the organization.
  • Helps participants identify potential for improvement and how they can contribute to strategy via their own role in the organization.
  • Inspires people’s desire to make a difference.


Key concepts

Attracting the right customers

  • Customer needs, values and preferences
  • Customer segmentation

Using resources wisely

  • Tangible and intangible assets
  • Knowledge management
  • Shareholder value
  • Financial indicators, good and bad costs

Prioritizing based on the right information

  • Product lifecycle
  • Rolling forecast
  • Balanced scorecard
  • Capacity utilization
  • Benchmarking

Staying competitive in a changing market

  • Value propositions
  • Pricing and product portfolio
  • Positioning and branding
  • Operational efficiency
  • “Red and blue oceans”
  • Market intelligence

Facts

Material
Board-based business simulation.
Computer-based debrief support.

Number of participants
Four-six competing teams: 12-30 participants in total.
Multiple seminars can be held simultaneously.

Participants
Senior managers, middle managers, entrepreneurs and
others with marketing, sales, business and financial
responsibilities.

Time required
1.5-2 days.

Facilitator
Facilitators certified by Celemi.

 


 

 

Apples & Oranges
Cayenne
Decision Base
Livon
Livon Lite
Enterprise