A man stands on a stage presenting to an audience seated at tables in a conference ballroom.

Compete: a business competition simulation for leaders

Strategy, pricing, and financial acumen in a live market

Compete is a fast-paced, immersive simulation for emerging leaders and high-potential talent. It is written for learning and development managers who need a practical way to build commercial judgement, and for the senior leaders sponsoring that development. Teams run rival businesses in one shared market, so every pricing and strategy decision affects the others.

Participants will:

Align pricing and operations with a market-driven strategy
Understand financial KPIs and P&L performance, building financial acumen
Navigate the balance between competition and collaboration

A male facilitator stands at a round table in a conference room, speaking to seated participants who are looking up and listening.

How Compete can help your business

In Compete, participants lead a business in a competitive market where each team’s decisions directly affect the others. They must identify market gaps, craft differentiated strategies, and make fast, informed decisions to stay ahead, all while understanding when to compete and when to collaborate.

This simulation develops core business capabilities across three dimensions:

Strategic thinking

Building strategy based on market needs and positioning
Reacting to market shifts and competitor moves
Aligning pricing, operations, and decision-making with strategic goals

Financial acumen

Interpreting a realistic P&L and key financial indicators
Understanding cost structures, margin, and profitability
Making pricing and investment decisions with financial impact in mind

Collaboration

Recognising when collaboration is more powerful than competition
Distinguishing between win-lose and win-win outcomes
Balancing individual team goals with market-wide performance

At a glance

Duration: Compete is played over 2–3 hours
Scenario: Participants run businesses in a lively market where every decision shapes the competitive landscape. With limited time and evolving conditions, teams must think strategically, analyse financial data, and adapt fast to outperform their rivals or collaborate for mutual gain
Skillsets: Strategic thinking, financial acumen, collaboration

Where Compete fits

Compete is one of our simulations for financial acumen and strategic thinking. If your group needs to run a whole business, look at Acuity, which covers a global B2B business over four years, or Acumen, which puts participants in charge of a global B2C company. For working alongside rivals as well as against them, try Consortium, or Dilemma for decisions that mix strategy, finance, and collaboration.

If your business has its own market, products, or terminology, we can build a tailor-made simulation around it.

Talk to us about Compete

See how Compete sharpens financial and strategic thinking in a live market.