Recently, Celemi’s highly renowned business simulation Celemi Tango™ went through a major update, released in January 2013. As one of the best-selling simulations, Celemi Tango is designed to help knowledge-intensive companies with issues such as talent management, project efficiency, resource allocation, meeting intense competition, and winning the right clients. New features include a business culture focus as well as IT- and R&D aspects. Kjell Lindqvist, CEO of Celemi, tells more:
Q: What was the reasoning behind deciding to update Celemi Tango so profoundly?
Kjell: Since the first Celemi Tango release in 1994, the business world has changed dramatically. The importance of IT and automation has had a significant impact on the way people work and perform today, which in turn has impacted required work skills. These changes also require you to answer new questions in how you optimally manage and run a knowledge intensive organization. In addition, a new generation of people – with new demands – has entered the marketplace in the last 20 years. It became more evident than ever that the corporate culture and personalities of people – companies’ most valuable resources – play an eminent important role in a company’s success; internally, as well as externally when providing services to customers. The current market has put people and what you do to attract, grow and retain talent at the very forefront of competitiveness. All these factors have been integrated into the new version of the simulation.
Q: What makes Celemi Tango so successful?
Kjell: The success is in the profound learning points, the complexity and the level of fun! Thousands of participants have benefited from gaining a good understanding about the importance of managing not only the financial side of a business, but also the various intangible assets: people, intellectual properties, processes and alike. It is not the product or service in itself that makes a strong brand and competitive advantage; it is always dependent on the leverage of the intangible assets as well. In Celemi Tango, participants dive into a scenario where six companies intensely compete in winning employees and customers that align with their strategy. The discussions, the complexity of the decisions making, the success and drawbacks they experience at the market, resembles reality so closely that everybody learns hands on and gains valuable insights, immediately applicable back in the workplace. As part of the simulation experience we connect the learning points directly to the participants company’s own challenges and the learners will come out with a clear set of next step actions in how to improve their own performance. We strongly believe that with the new features, we further strengthen the value that the simulation brings to our clients.
Q: How can companies benefit from Celemi Tango 2.0?
Kjell: The simulation highlights the importance of forecasting, attracting and retaining key employees, winning the right customers, and satisfying their needs – all while balancing investments in tools, processes, monitoring KPIs, creating profitability and brand value. The simulation gives participants a chance to practice real life challenges. Back at work, participants find themselves better prepared to handle everyday issues. In the highly dynamic and competitive 1-2 day seminar, participants take on the role of the management team of their simulated company, executing up to 7 years of business operations. As long-term Celemi Tango client HP testifies: “We found that we could identify and manage the highly critical success factors in a knowledge company and actually quantify the results of our decisions. Celemi Tango is a great learning laboratory that had a very positive impact on our business management.”
Q: Any indications of how Celemi Tango 2.0 is received in the market so far?
Kjell: In January 2013, we started selling the new version, and it immediately picked up in sales in several countries. This tells us that we are filling a demand in the marketplace with this new business simulation, and that the quality is outstanding. This, as we in the development process of the new version, integrated feedback and comments from existing clients, such as ABB, HP, Cap Gemini, Johnson Controls, JP Morgan, KONE and Siemens. Our worldwide partner network also played a crucial role in the development and testing process as true experts of having used the tools in close to 70 countries around the world over the years. We also ran several “pilot sessions” in order to have the new features undergo real life testing.
We are very proud of the new and updated version that provides companies with serious fun and impactful learning experiences and most importantly new and improved ways of working that translates into taking organizational performance to higher levels.