Bizzbuilder: how to sustainably grow a professional services business

Bizzbuilder is applicable for managers of consultants, lawyers, tax experts, accountants and other highly educated professionals who offer their services to large companies. 

Participants experience a high pressure simulated environment in which key tactical and operational decisions need to be made about maintaining focus, developing clients, building a strong and motivated team and developing collaboration with other teams in the firm. 

The hidden secrets of success

The game allows participants to experience and understand the forces that govern the long-term success and growth of a professional services firm. Many of the hidden dynamics of these businesses can otherwise only be learned “the hard way” through trial and error during years of experience. Bizzbuilder offers a safe, fast and challenging environment to learn together with colleagues what it takes to succeed. 

Simply doing a good job does not give you the “edge” to build a strong and sustainable business as a senior manager, director or partner in a large professional services firm. That requires consciously and actively investing in client relationships, developing and growing great people and building high-trust win-win relationships with peers within the firm. 

But delivering quality and investing in relationships at the same time is easier said than done. How do you put that into practice? Where do you find the time? How can you inspire your clients and colleagues to search for synergy together? The Bizzbuilder game was developed to let participants experience which choices and actions lead to sustainable growth and which ones lead to failure in the shorter or longer term.

Bizzbuilder lets participants explore how to set the stage for sustainable growth without upsetting the fragile balance involving:

• quality
• customer satisfaction
• new business opportunities
• business focus
• available resources
• competences
• team motivation
• peer relationships
• rate of growth 

If any of these vital components are underestimated or misaligned, small issues start to arise. If these issues in turn are not dealt with effectively, a domino-effect can occur which ultimately may put the business itself at risk.  

Participants discover the positive effects of dealing with client relationships actively and selectively, collaborating with colleagues and making client-specific investments in line with the business focus and available competences. 

While playing the game, they encounter how a proactive approach with existing clients can lead to more customer satisfaction, repeat business, information and active referrals to potential new clients. 

By receiving direct and clear feedback, participants get a clear and realistic impression of the consequences of their decisions. Are they winning new business, or losing clients? While playing the game, they develop strategies to better serve their clients. The results are shown in real time. 

This enables them to get hands-on experience about the effect of their choices on the success of their business. This experience can be transferred to building their business in real life and help them to understand the less visible and long-term dynamics that lead business units to failure or success. 

Bizzbuilder helps participants understand the dynamics of their business and see that many events, both positive and negative can be linked to decisions they made, instead of being caused by luck or coincidence. 

Participants learn that sustainable growth is only achievable if they truly understand and manage the whole system. Only balanced, well thought through actions will lead to long-term positive outcomes. 

Bizzbuilder helps to build trust between important players in the organisation in an area that is critical to success and shows them that collaboration opens business opportunities that would otherwise be hidden.