A global manufacturing organization was facing an urgent cash challenge.
The company needed managers across the business to move beyond a traditional focus on profit and develop a stronger understanding of working capital, cash flow, and capital tied up in daily operations.
The goal was clear: help managers understand how their everyday decisions affected cash.
This included decisions around inventory, receivables, payment terms, production flow, purchasing, sales, and operational priorities.
The target group included approximately 3,000 managers across production, operations, supply chain, finance, sales, and other business functions.
Many sessions were held directly at plant locations, making the learning closely connected to the realities of manufacturing operations.
The timeline was ambitious. Managers needed to participate quickly as part of a broader business performance initiative, and the organization needed a solution that could scale fast without losing practical relevance.
The organization partnered with Celemi to deliver CELEMI Apples & Oranges™, a business simulation that helps participants understand how operational and commercial decisions affect profit, cash flow, and long-term business performance.
Two factors were especially important to the success of the rollout.
First, the initiative had strong executive sponsorship. Participation was clearly prioritized, and managers were expected to attend as part of the company’s urgent effort to improve cash performance.
Second, each program was supported by a local finance leader. Celemi facilitators connected the simulation to the client’s business reality, while the local finance leader added further depth, urgency, and credibility by relating discussions to current priorities and answering highly specific questions from participants.
This combination made the learning both practical and immediate.
Celemi and certified Celemi partners facilitated the sessions. The rollout required extensive coordination and project management. Around 200 sessions were initially scheduled with named and booked facilitators. Sessions with low sign-up were consolidated, and participants were moved to alternative dates.
In total, 108 sessions were delivered locally across 22 countries, reaching approximately 3,000 managers.
In several locations, facilitators delivered multiple consecutive sessions on site, creating an efficient rollout model while preserving the strength of the face-to-face learning experience.
After each simulation year, participants connected the experience back to their own financial reality, often supported by the attending finance leader. This helped turn the simulation from a general finance learning experience into a direct conversation about the company’s urgent cash priorities.
The program reached approximately 3,000 managers across 22 countries through 108 locally delivered sessions.
The full rollout was completed in three months, with the first session delivered only three weeks after contract signing.
Because the initiative moved quickly, some participants arrived frustrated by the short notice. However, this often shifted during the session as participants saw the practical value of the experience.
The program helped managers understand:
Participant feedback was strong, and the client later stated that the initiative had a material effect on the company’s cash situation, although the financial impact was not disclosed publicly.
Beyond the immediate cash focus, the program also helped create stronger alignment across functions and locations. Managers from production, operations, supply chain, finance, sales, and other areas developed a shared language for discussing cash, working capital, and business performance.
This helped turn financial acumen from a finance topic into an organizational capability.
For the organization, the value was not only that managers learned finance concepts.
It was that they experienced how daily decisions affect cash, discussed those consequences together, and connected the learning directly to urgent business priorities.
The result was a fast, large-scale business acumen initiative that helped managers shift from profit awareness to cash discipline.