Welcome to the REAL Virtual WORLD

It is no wonder that the American Federation of Scientists has called for the use of virtual reality technology for education and training. And it is no surprise that VR technologies are being used more and more by industry, medicine and the military. Recent research by IBM indicates that a virtual reality experiential approach to professional training yields far more consistent and better results than either traditional classroom or online techniques.

So, welcome to a world of industries, markets and organizations, products and people that are clones of the real thing. In this training, you will be immersed in the action of several companies in the U.S. and some international markets. Most of your learning will take place as you rotate from department to department in a company we call Central Products. This company is closely patterned on a leading manufacturer in its industry. Central Products has a much bigger footprint and market share than you might imagine a manufacturer with just 500 employees could have. Its products, management, marketing, and customer care are the envy of many in the industry and admired by those in other industries. Nonetheless, everything isn’t perfect at Central.

During your time at Central Products, the company will be implementing a business growth plan that will put great stress on every department. Central faces unprecedented opportunity and will either double its sales and profitability or crash and burn. Your work will help to determine which, so you, too, will be under pressure to perform.

WHY this setting?

The industries, markets, companies and people in this virtual world were selected because they provide the best possible mix of management, marketing, human resources, information systems, finance, production, international business, strategy and leadership opportunities. The managers, employees, vendors, customers and competitors where chosen because they represent all of the backgrounds, personalities, competencies and character you encounter as you try to grow in your career.

This approach to professional training and education does not have much in common with classroom lectures or online courses. For one thing, there is no place to hide. You will be given work to do and rarely enough time or resources to do it (sound familiar?). No one will be telling you, "Now don't forget, there is a test at the end of the week," because your performance will be evaluated constantly and in many ways. You will be given more to read than you can handle and sometimes never hear another thing about those assignments. At other times you will be required to immediately apply what you have learned when a customer or vendor or competitor presents you with a problem.

You can expect this training to be engaging and fascinating, but it will also be academically and professionally rigorous. If you have heard that online courses are easy, they were definitely not talking about this training. We take your career seriously.