Virtual enterprise, a management training tool

A Virtual Enterprise is a virtual environment where participants can use management applications to improve enterprise performance. The environment emulates an organization with five positions occupied by individuals. The production operations are simulated by a model receiving the actualized data. After model runs, results are used in a balanced scorecard indicating how key performance indicators were affected with the changes made. After completing the training cycle, participants mentioned how difficult was at the beginning to be involved in order to achieve the challenge of improving profitability, but after well understood the production process, with a well communication system among them, and analyzing the key indicators, they could find the causes of low productivity and improved it. In this way, they were able to understand how strategies help to improve profitability. Considering this tool as a serious game, it is expected to reach an approach to situated learning in management field.