Business Wargames
Your strategy almost certainly assumes the competition stands still while you execute — and it won’t. The moves that look strong on a slide are the ones that collapse the moment a stronger rival responds, and you find out after the budget’s committed. A business wargame proves it first: a facilitated simulation where teams role-play your company, your rivals, and the market, then run moves and counter-moves across rounds — so you see how a competitor actually reacts before the market makes you learn it the hard way.
Pressure-test the plan before the market does.
The weakest part of your strategic plan is the part you trust most: the competition section, usually a thin SWOT chart that quietly assumes your rivals do nothing while you execute. They won’t — and the cost of that assumption is a plan that looks airtight until a stronger competitor responds, by which point the budget and the time are already spent. A wargame buys that knowledge back early. It pressure-tests your strategy against intelligent opposition, surfaces the counter-moves and blind spots a normal plan never accounts for, and points you to a position you can actually defend. We do it by building a facilitated simulation from real competitive intelligence — teams role-play your company, your key competitors, and the market, running moves and counter-moves across rounds so the opposition behaves the way the market actually would, not the way it’s convenient to assume.
It’s the most direct expression of what this firm is about. Asymmetric competition means finding where a better-resourced rival is strong, where they’re slow, and where a sharper smaller player can take a position they can’t easily protect. A wargame is how you find those seams deliberately — by making someone in the room think like the incumbent and respond. It’s a planning discipline our founder practiced long before applying it to business, and it earns its place here because it answers the one question most plans dodge: what does the other side do next?
An engagement is structured work, not a brainstorm. We start by setting the objective — the decision or strategy the game exists to test. We assign teams and roles, including the rivals whose response matters most. We build the scenario from real competitive intelligence, so the opposition behaves the way the actual market would, not the way it’s convenient to assume. Then we facilitate the rounds, capturing every move, counter-move, and second-order consequence as it surfaces.
The output isn’t a transcript of the game. We synthesize what happened into a sharper thesis: the moves that held up under pressure, the ones that collapsed the moment a competitor responded, and the defensible position the exercise pointed to. You leave with a strategy that has already survived contact with intelligent opposition — and a clear-eyed view of the risks you’d otherwise have met for the first time in the market.
Frame, build, run, convert.
Frame
We start by defining the decision the game exists to test — the strategy, the move, or the bet you’re about to commit budget and time to — because a wargame that tests everything tests nothing. Together we name the specific question on the table and set the win conditions that tell us, unambiguously, whether your move holds up or collapses. You bring the real decision you’re wrestling with; we sharpen it into something a simulation can actually resolve. The output is a framed objective and a clear bar for success, and it matters because the rest of the engagement is only as useful as the question it’s built to answer.
Build
Then we assign the teams and roles and construct the scenario from real competitive intelligence, so the opposition behaves the way the market actually would — not the way it’s convenient to assume. We cast someone in the room as each rival whose response matters most, especially the incumbent, and we brief those roles from a genuine read on how those competitors are positioned, priced, and incentivized. You contribute the market knowledge you have; we supply the competitive research that makes the rivals respond like themselves rather than like strawmen. The deliverable is a playable scenario grounded in fact, which matters because a wargame is only as honest as the opposition it puts in front of you.
Run
We facilitate the rounds, running your move against the competitors’ counter-moves and then the counters to those, capturing every response and second-order consequence as it surfaces. This is where the assumption breaks: the slide-strong move meets a rival who reacts, and you watch in the room whether it survives or unravels. You and your team play it live — making the calls, defending the position, absorbing the responses — rather than reading about it afterward. The output is a full record of what happened across the rounds, and it matters because seeing your strategy fail in a simulation costs a facilitated session; seeing it fail in the market costs the budget.
Convert
Finally we synthesize the game into a sharper thesis — not a transcript, but a decision. We separate the moves that held up under pressure from the ones that collapsed the instant a competitor responded, identify the defensible position the exercise pointed to, and name the risks you’d otherwise have met for the first time in the market. You leave with a strategy that has already survived contact with intelligent opposition and a clear-eyed view of where it’s exposed. The deliverable is a written thesis you can act on and the seams a larger rival can’t easily protect, which matters because the whole point was to buy that knowledge early, while there’s still time and budget to adjust.
What you walk away with.
A defensible position to take — the kind of seam that grew Venturi Restoration from one location to 18+ by out-positioning entrenched incumbents, and turned category confusion into an opening Citrus America claimed outright.
The competitor counter-moves you’d otherwise meet for the first time in the market, surfaced while there’s still time and budget to adjust.
A strategy that has already survived contact with intelligent opposition — won on position, the way our selected work was, rather than by outspending the field.
Where this has paid off.
Each of these was won the way a wargame is meant to find it — on position, by reading where a stronger or more entrenched rival was vulnerable, rather than by outspending the field.
Selected work
Won on position in an incumbent-heavy category
Venturi Restoration
Out-positioned entrenched incumbents in a fragmented category to grow from one location to 18+ — finding the seam a larger field couldn’t defend.
Read the case study →
Out-positioned the category confusion
Citrus America
Turned the market’s confusion around a European partner brand into an opening — and claimed the category instead of competing inside it.
Read the case study →
Out-positioned, not outspent
Doudlah Farms
Beat marketplace-native incumbents on position rather than budget — taking share a better-resourced rival assumed was safe.
Read the case study →
Wargame engagements run $15,000–$45,000, scoped per engagement. Cost is driven by the objective in play, the number of competitors and market forces modeled, and the depth of competitive research behind the scenario.
Frequently asked questions
What does a business wargame cost?
Wargame engagements run $15,000–$45,000, scoped per engagement. Cost is driven by the objective in play, the number of competitors and market forces modeled, and the depth of competitive research behind the scenario.
What exactly is a business wargame?
A facilitated competitive simulation. Teams role-play your company, your key competitors, and the market, then run moves and counter-moves across rounds — so you see how a competitor actually reacts before the market makes you learn it the hard way.
What do I walk away with?
Not a transcript — a sharper, written thesis: the moves that held up under pressure, the ones that collapsed the moment a rival responded, and the defensible position the exercise pointed to, plus the competitor counter-moves you'd otherwise meet for the first time in the market.
Tell us what you need.
Two minutes. Five fields. Describe what you’re looking for and we’ll get back to you within one business day with a sense of scope, timing, and next steps.
/services/capabilities/business-wargames/ · Capability 08