GiladWarGames.com: Business War Games, Competitive Intelligence Wargames, Strategic Wargaming

Business War Games
How They Work

Short and productive

The vast majority of our games are one-day affairs, to minimize cost and spare the time required for managers to take away from business. So these games are highly intense and extremely productive.

Concise preparations

Preparations for the game involve either an in-house or an external assembly of competitive intelligence under our specific guidelines. Outside vendors of intelligence take about 4-6 weeks. Inside collation of available competitive information takes on average 2 weeks only. The information needs not be elaborate, highly detailed or very specific. We don't need rims of statistics. If you have very specific information about competitors' plans, you don't need to run a war game.

Two stage game

During the game day, teams role playing the competitors and the host "battle" it out by first, creating deeper understanding of competitors' perspective on the market, and developing predictions of their most likely moves using three rigorous frameworks. Second, pressure-testing various practical options against competitors' expected reactions.

You can see why the games are so productive: we don't waste time on hypothetical assumptions, we don't make up hypothetical moves; we aim at realistic assessments of the competitive landscape. To see why the games are intense, read our methodology.

All war games must answer two difficult questions:

1. What will competitors do?
2. How can my plan outsmart them?

Our proprietary methodology answers these questions with unparalleled realism

Our war games are based on three principles, tested since 1991:

1. to be realistic, games must be based on real market intelligence, not management guesses, statistical distributions or random number generation
2. the most effective method of predicting competitors' moves is actually understanding competitors through multidisciplinary role playing principles and cutting edge competitor analysis methodologies
3. superior strategies depend on standing out in a crowded market

In making predictions about competitive dynamics, we are the only ones capable of combining three methodologies:

1. Industry imbalance and strategic early warning
2. Blindspot analysis™
3. Competitors Made Real™ role playing

Industry imbalance

Traditional economics models (neoclassical, game theory, decisions under uncertainty) assume industries are generally in a state of equilibrium or strive to get there ("stable" state solutions). Our methodology follows the Schumpeterian theory of market disequilibrium and the Kirznerian models of continuous presence of entrepreneurial opportunities. Instead of looking for stable solutions, we look for opportunities and risks emanating from subtle industry imbalances. While some models call for finding "blue oceans" (uncontested markets), we look for early signs of risks and opportunities in hotly contested markets, where most of our clients compete. Industry's attractiveness depends on continually shifting balance of power among its major players, both internal and external. Industries are always in some imbalance, one way or another, but these imbalances are not obvious. Our war games identify early signals of growing imbalances before competitors take advantage of them. Our strategic early warning methodology sets the stage for the next two analyses: identifying blindspots in management thinking, and answering the question: how would competitors fit in the new, evolving market structure? This is the most relevant examination of the competitive landscape with which your plan must attain external consistency. This methodology is fully described in Gilad's Early Warning™ book. For example, a strategic early warning analysis performed on the Pharmaceutical industry back in the early 2000s, identified Pharmaeconomics and Genomics as two areas where a specific Pharma company was most vulnerable, and where signs pointed to greater government and patient groups' involvement, as well as a European competitors' advances. Another war game identified a weak signal in the ready-to-eat breakfast market pointing to the growing disequilibrium opportunity in health expectations vs more traditional revealed taste preferences, a decade before that change became apparent to all players in that market.

Blindspot Analysis™

Our proprietary Blindspots Analysis tests management's conventional assumptions against market imbalances revealed through the previously analyzed changes in the market structure. A sizeable chunk of management assumptions about the market and its major players (including buyer's preferences, competitors' capabilities, etc) maybe between 2 to 15 years old, depending on the tenure and career paths of the managers involved. Several of these deep-rooted beliefs are implicit and untested. They lead to ignoring emerging risks and opportunities embedded in a growing industry imbalance. Our blindspots analysis goes through three distinct steps performed by the teams themselves. In addition to exposing the host's own blinders (so called "elephants in the room"), this analysis enables the teams to point to competitors' blinders. The methodology is fully described in Dr. Gilad's book, Business Blindspots. For example, in a war game in 2005, a company identified a competitor's inability to focus on green technology due to massive commitments in a different technology. The war game allowed the company to draw a plan for superior strategy based on real differentiation. The competitor announced an intent to get out of this field and put its division up for sale after a year.

Competitors Made Real™

At the core of predicting competitors' moves and countermoves is our Competitors Made Real™ role playing methodology, which borrows from strategy analysis (Porter's models), Neuroscience (cognitive processes), behavioral analysis (decision biases) and a few basic acting "secrets" of creating a credible character. As teams take on the character of the competitor they role play, their predictions of moves narrows down to the real moves based on competitor's limitations, biases, blinders, drivers, creed, and internal pressures. Combined with real market intelligence briefing, this methodology is far superior to hypothetical and restrictive mathematical assumptions.

Putting your strategy to test

Portraying competitors realistically allows management to pressure test various ideas in a mock "market battle" situation which approximates the real market better than any hypothetical model, and where teams can share intelligence and real experience. Here our model calls not for complex strategies that are then never followed through, but for

• Practical ideas that can improve a plan
• "insulate" a launch,
• defend against a new aggressive competitor,
• penetrate a market by taking market share from competitors or
• roll out a regional or global strategy which has a chance to win in very different markets.

We eschew fuzzy "creativity" for a superior activity-chain encompassing distinct supply chain, marketing, sales, route-to-market, product and service offering. We steer clear of complex hypothetical events favored by Pentagon contractors in favor of practical ideas based on superior understanding of the opponents' perspectives as favored by the Israeli commandos who raided Idi Amin's Uganda in 1976 and freed 200 hostages. Standing out in a crowded market is hard work, not rocket science. Superior anticipation of market reactions gives it a significant boost.

Learn more...