The Fresh Connection (TFC) is a team-based, cloud simulation that puts participants in executive roles inside a virtual juice manufacturer in crisis. By forcing cross-functional trade-offs—procurement vs. operations vs. sales vs. supply chain—the game turns abstract theory into hard-edged decisions with financial consequences. Properly facilitated, TFC develops strategic alignment, S&OP discipline, working-capital fluency, and resilience under uncertainty. This article gives you a complete, practitioner-grade view of how the simulation works; the competencies it builds; how to deploy it in higher education and in-company programs; how to assess learning; what pitfalls to avoid; and how to extend it with local regulatory context (including a Saudi Arabia VAT/e-invoicing module) and with complementary simulations such as Let’s Chain It to strengthen finance–operations literacy.
1) What The Fresh Connection Is—and Why It Matters
TFC is a simulation-based learning environment where teams of four (sometimes five) assume executive roles (VP Purchasing, VP Operations, VP Sales, and VP Supply Chain; some providers add a project/finance role). Each round, teams analyze shared data, align on a plan, make decisions in their own function, and then see the system-level impact on KPIs such as service level, inventory days, costs, and ROI. The central design principle is that every local optimization has a global side effect—so silo thinking is punished and end-to-end alignment is rewarded. Authoritative descriptions of TFC emphasize its role-based design and end-to-end scope across the value chain. InchaingeTransformance Advisors
Three realities make simulations like TFC not merely “nice to have” but essential:
Modern supply chains are tightly coupled. A promo without capacity is a disaster; a capacity plan without reliable suppliers is theater; a low-cost supplier with unstable lead times is an own goal. TFC collapses these truths into visible, quantified outcomes each round.
The learning curve is unforgiving in the real world. Companies don’t have the luxury of letting new leaders “learn by failing” on live customers and cash. In TFC, failure is allowed—then analyzed—without reputational and financial risk.
Collaboration is a skill, not a memo. Teams must negotiate trade-offs under time pressure: pricing vs. service levels; safety stock vs. cash; overtime vs. lead time; supplier risk vs. cost. TFC makes those negotiations unavoidable and measurable.
2) The Pedagogical Spine: How TFC Teaches What Textbooks Can’t
TFC achieves deep learning by combining four elements:
Experiential cycles. Participants make choices, observe consequences, reflect, re-plan, and iterate. This implements Kolb-style learning in a rigorous, data-rich setting.
Shared incentives. Team KPIs (not individual ones) drive success. Misalignment is visible in the P&L and balance sheet proxy reported after every round.
Contrived scarcity. Limited cash, constrained capacity, vendor options with trade-offs, stochastic demand, and penalty costs force prioritization.
Narrative stakes. The company is “in trouble.” The mission is to turn it around. This narrative urgency prevents the common classroom failure mode of passive analysis with no consequences.
3) Roles, Decisions, and Typical Conflicts
VP Sales. Owns demand shaping: customer prioritization, service levels, pricing architecture, promotions, and customer agreements (e.g., penalties, minimum order quantities). The trap here is over-promise/under-deliver—selling what the chain can’t supply, or buying volume at the cost of margin and working capital.
VP Purchasing. Chooses suppliers, contracts, lead times, reliability, and cost tiers. The trap is “cheapest wins”: picking low-cost vendors with poor reliability, which forces downstream expediting, safety stock bloat, and service erosion.
VP Operations. Sets capacity, sequencing rules, changeover policy, lot sizes, overtime, maintenance, and quality levers; allocates finite resources to a volatile plan. The trap is local efficiency (e.g., long runs to maximize OEE) that inflates cycle stock and delays high-margin orders.
VP Supply Chain. Integrates the plan: S&OP cadence, inventory policies (safety stock, reorder points), logistics modes, and priorities when demand > supply. The trap is “average thinking”: using blunt inventory targets or blanket expediting that destroy cash and profit.
Finance/Project (optional). Ties the decisions to ROI, EVA, cash-to-cash, and project portfolio choices. The trap is short-termism: starving critical capability investments that would unlock margin/service later.
Those conflicts are not bugs—they are the learning engine. Participants must reconcile them through an S&OP discipline: shared data → one set of numbers → one plan.
4) The Ten Learning Solutions and What They Actually Build
The official TFC portfolio is structured around ten learning solutions, each with specific objectives. You can run one focus end-to-end or stack multiple in a capstone program. Representative pillars include strategy alignment, S&OP, working capital, risk management, sustainability, customer centricity, operational excellence, finance integration, leadership/collaboration, and resilience/agility. These are not standalone lectures—they are different emphasis lenses on the same system. Inchainge
Here’s what that means in practice:
Strategy Alignment.
Map corporate strategy to supply chain posture: cost leadership vs. differentiation vs. responsiveness. Translate into practical policies: supplier portfolio (cost–risk), service tiers, postponement, and decoupling points.S&OP Mastery.
Run a disciplined monthly rhythm: demand review (statistical forecast + sales intelligence), supply review (rough-cut capacity), pre-consensus (scenario trade-offs), and executive S&OP (one set of numbers). The competency is not “meetings”—it’s conflict resolution with math.Working-Capital Management.
Balance service and cash: inventory segmentation, cycle vs. safety stock, MOQ tricks, supplier terms, and payables/receivables interplay. Participants see directly how “just in case” inventory silently taxes ROI.Risk & Resilience.
Model dual sourcing, flexible capacity, and time-to-recover. Build playbooks for supplier failure, demand shock, and logistics disruption. Learn to price resilience and avoid paying for redundancy you won’t use.Sustainability.
Quantify carbon and waste implications of sourcing and logistics choices. Challenge the myth that sustainability and economics are enemies; in many SKUs, reduced waste is reduced cost.Customer Centricity.
Stop treating all customers equally. Design differentiated service policies that protect gross margin and allocate scarce capacity to the right demand.Operational Excellence.
Tackle constraints, changeover discipline, small-lot logic, and flow. Measure true cost-to-serve, not just unit conversion cost.Finance Integration.
Make operations fluent in finance: P&L, cash-to-cash, ROI levers. Many teams “win volume, lose money”—TFC makes that visible and correctable.Leadership & Collaboration.
Practice principled negotiation, decision logs, and RACI discipline. The hard part isn’t the math; it’s getting humans to agree under time pressure.Agility.
Embed rapid scenarioing. When forecasts miss (they will), teams with pre-rehearsed responses outperform those that argue about blame.
5) The KPI Stack: What to Measure and Why It Matters
TFC scoreboards typically include a short list of brutally honest indicators: service level, late order cost, inventory days of supply, throughput/capacity use, total landed cost, and a financial yardstick such as ROI. Inventory Days of Supply (DoS), for example, is a practical lens on how quickly you would run out if replenishment stopped—a useful stress-test proxy in disruption-prone environments. Inchainge
Opinionated guidance: Resist KPI sprawl. Pick five: (1) service level, (2) OTIF, (3) DoS by segment, (4) contribution margin, (5) cash-to-cash. Teach participants to trace every decision to these five numbers.
6) Anatomy of a Round: From Signals to Decisions to P&L
Each simulation “month” runs like this:
Intelligence. Teams review demand signals, backlogs, supplier reliability, and capacity constraints.
Hypotheses. Each function drafts a plan (e.g., Sales promotion X; Purchasing second-source Y; Operations overtime; Supply Chain raises safety stock for the priority family).
Negotiation. Trade-offs get priced and logged. The plan is tightened to one coherent hypothesis.
Commitments. Parameters are entered; orders placed; service targets set.
Outcome. The engine simulates the month. Teams inspect KPIs, cash, and service outcomes.
Retrospective. What worked? What was luck? What was policy? Adjust the mental model; plan the next round.
The key is discipline. Keep a decision log, hypothesis per change, expected KPI movement, and owner. Without that artifact, teams relapse into opinion contests.
7) Curriculum Designs That Actually Work
For Higher Education (Undergraduate/Graduate)
3–4-week module (most common).
Week 1: Supply chain strategy + intro round (sandbox).
Week 2: S&OP mechanics + first scored round.
Week 3: Working capital + risk scenarios.
Week 4: Capstone round + executive report-out (10 minutes/team).
Assessment mix.
Team performance (20–30%).
Individual reflection memo tying decisions to KPIs and literature (30–40%).
Peer evaluation (10–20%).
Final executive brief with data appendix (20–30%).
Artifacts required.
Decision log, S&OP deck, KPI tracker by SKU family, and a one-page “what we would do differently” after each round.
For Corporate Training (Managers to Senior Leaders)
Two-day intensive or four half-day sprints spread across a month (to allow data digestion).
Pre-work. 30-minute e-learning on S&OP, inventory segmentation, and basic finance.
Coaching. Facilitator shadow per team, rotating “CEO for a round” to force accountability.
Transfer. Each team drafts a 60-day real-world action plan: one policy to start, one to stop, one to change—tied to actual metrics.
8) Facilitation: Make or Break
A weak facilitation turns TFC into “fun chaos.” A strong one turns it into career-changing clarity.
Golden rule: never answer with “it depends” without pricing the dependency. “It depends on lead-time variability” → show the cost of unreliability vs. a second source.
Cadence: time-box rounds (e.g., 60–75 minutes) and retros (15–20 minutes).
Playbooks: give teams a laminated S&OP playbook: questions to ask, data to check, trade-offs to price.
Escalation: allow one “executive override” per team per day—forcing them to decide what’s truly existential.
Debrief: don’t just celebrate who “won.” Surface the causal chain: which two policies moved ROI and service the most.
9) Common Failure Modes—and How to Prevent Them
Promotions without capacity. Sales wins applause, operations inherits a backlog, and customers churn. Prevent with constrained S&OP: no promo gets approved without a capacity check and a plan for the incremental load.
Cheapest supplier syndrome. Purchasing saves 4% on price and costs the firm 12% in expediting, lost service, and inventory bloat. Prevent with total cost of ownership dashboards.
Inventory amnesia. Teams add safety stock as an emotional hedge. Prevent with segment-specific logic: set safety stock only where forecast error × lead time × margin justify it.
OEE worship. Long runs maximize local efficiency and system-wide delay. Prevent with flow-first logic and an explicit cost for lateness.
KPI spaghetti. When everything is measured, nothing is managed. Prevent with a ruthless KPI shortlist and a weekly causal map.
10) Evidence-Backed Scope of TFC
Official and partner materials consistently present TFC as an end-to-end value-chain game used by universities and companies worldwide, with participants stepping into VP-level roles and experiencing the system consequences of their choices. This positioning—as a world-leading value-chain simulation anchoring multiple learning solutions—is well established across the publisher’s learning portfolios and partner descriptions. Inchainge+1Transformance Advisors
11) Extending the Simulation: “Let’s Chain It” and Saudi Arabia Tax/E-Invoicing Context
Many organizations in the GCC pair TFC’s operational depth with Let’s Chain It (LCI)—a simulation/bootcamp format that emphasizes reading financial statements, end-to-end value creation, and decision-to-P&L impacts. When run together, TFC develops cross-functional operating discipline, and LCI hardens finance literacy for non-finance leaders. That pairing is especially powerful when local regulatory realities are embedded into the exercises.
Why embed local tax/e-invoicing?
Because pricing, contracting, sourcing, and cash-flow decisions live under regulatory constraints. In Saudi Arabia, two levers reshape operations daily: Value-Added Tax (VAT) at a standard rate of 15% and E-Invoicing (Fatoora) requirements, implemented in phases and progressively integrated with ZATCA systems. Using official ZATCA resources and market summaries, facilitators can confidently model these constraints in a hands-on way. ZATCA+1ClearTax
VAT (KSA) in brief for simulation purposes
Standard rate: 15% (effective since July 1, 2020); certain supplies may be zero-rated or exempt per ZATCA guidance. ZATCA+1ClearTax
Operational implications: price builds; input tax credit timing; impact of supplier terms on cash; export treatment; and the effect of MOQ and safety-stock decisions on VAT cash exposure.
E-Invoicing (Fatoora)
Two phases: Phase 1 (generation) and Phase 2 (integration with ZATCA), with Phase 2 rolled out in waves from Jan 1, 2023; invoices must meet technical standards (including cryptographic controls/QR). ZATCA+1
Operational implications: ERP/POS integration, invoice timing discipline, penalties for non-compliance, and the need for reconciliation controls.
Withholding Tax (WHT) for cross-border services
Applicability: payments from KSA residents to non-residents for certain services are subject to WHT; domestic rates commonly cited include 5% (dividends/interest), 15% (royalties), and up to 20% depending on service type; filings and payment timelines are fixed by ZATCA. PwC Tax SummariesZATCA+1
How to simulate these constraints inside LCI/TFC
Pricing & Quoting: Sales must present net-of-VAT vs. gross pricing; promotions must reflect VAT and margin after discounts.
Supplier Choice: Purchasing evaluates domestic vs. foreign vendors with WHT factored into the total cost (after tax).
Cash Discipline: Supply Chain and Finance quantify VAT cash exposure from inventory builds; Operations times production to avoid ballooning month-end tax liability.
E-Invoicing Readiness: Teams “integrate” (mock) their invoicing, with score penalties for non-compliant invoice attributes or timing mismatches.
Outcome: Participants stop treating tax and compliance as “accounting’s problem” and start designing supply chain policies that are economically and regulatorily coherent.
12) Implementation Blueprint (Step-by-Step)
Before Day 1
Stakeholder alignment. Clarify program objectives: Do you want S&OP discipline? Working-capital wins? Risk playbooks? Pick two—not ten.
Data primer. Distribute a 10-page TFC primer: roles, constraints, KPIs, and the “rules of the system.”
Tech checks. Ensure all participants can access the platform; assign teams and roles in advance.
Day 1
Kickoff. State the mission: “You are an executive team. You own one P&L.”
Sandbox round. Let teams break things safely; make them predict outcomes before running the engine.
S&OP mini-lecture. One set of numbers. Decisions must be costed.
Day 2
Round 1 (scored). Teams lock a strategy (responsive vs. efficient vs. hybrid).
Debrief. Show which two policies most moved ROI and service.
Working-capital clinic. Teach inventory segmentation, total cost of ownership, and payment-term tactics.
Day 3
Risk round. Inject a supplier failure; force a dual-source decision; introduce expedited freight trade-offs.
Debrief. Measure resilience premium vs. wasted redundancy.
Day 4 (capstone)
Executive S&OP. Each team runs a final round with a 10-minute board presentation: “Our strategy, our two biggest bets, the numbers.”
Transfer workshop. Each participant writes a 60-day action memo for their real job.
13) Assessment That Drives Behavior
Team Score (20–30%). Weighted composite of service, margin, and cash.
Decision Log Quality (15–20%). Are hypotheses stated? Are trade-offs priced?
Individual Reflection (30–40%). Two pages: what causal beliefs changed and why.
Peer Review (10–20%). Detects social loafing and role imbalance.
Executive Brief (10–20%). Concise, data-rich, jargon-free.
Rubric tip: reward causal clarity over lucky scores. A mediocre KPI with excellent causal analysis beats a lucky win with no idea why.
14) Case Vignette: From “Promo First” to “Plan First”
A consumer-goods team began with aggressive promotions. Service cratered, expediting spiked, and cash vanished into inventory. In the retrospective, they confronted the math: the promo uplift exceeded short-term capacity and supplier reliability. They pivoted to an S&OP gate that required capacity signoff before any promotion. They also introduced a second supplier for a critical raw material despite a higher unit price; total cost fell once expediting and lost sales disappeared. ROI rose, service stabilized, and inventory DoS dropped from 65 to 32. The lasting lesson: alignment beats heroics.
15) Practical Playbooks You Can Hand to Participants
Promotion Gate: No promo without capacity and raw-material availability signed off.
Supplier Policy: Maintain a strategic mix: one low-cost, one reliable/fast. Price reliability explicitly (late-order penalty × probability).
Inventory Segmentation: Differentiate A/B/C items by margin and variability; set safety stock only where it pays.
Flow Discipline: Shorter runs + smarter sequencing > maximal OEE in volatile demand.
KPI Diet: Track five; kill the rest. Review weekly with a causal map.
16) Digital & Data Readiness (Don’t Skip This)
Even in a simulation, teach “good data hygiene”:
Master data sanity checks: lead times, yields, BOMs, MOQ, and contract terms.
Baseline demand model: simple statistical forecast + sales intel, reviewed monthly.
Scenario templates: “Supplier down 30 days,” “Demand +15% family X,” “Port delay 14 days.”
Reconciliation: tie operational decisions to financial outcomes every round.
This prepares organizations for the real digital stack (ERP, APS, EDI/API, and analytics) without vendor zealotry.
17) Cost–Benefit for Corporate Sponsors
Costs: licensing, facilitation time, and opportunity cost of leaders in training.
Benefits:
Faster time-to-competence for new managers.
Fewer “local wins, global losses” in live operations.
A common language for trade-offs across sales, operations, and procurement.
Immediate, implementable policy shifts (e.g., promo gating, supplier portfolio rules) that usually pay for the program within a quarter.
If you can’t trace two policy changes from the classroom to the shop floor within 60 days, the program wasn’t facilitated with enough rigor.
18) Quality Bar for Facilitators
Insist on facilitators who can:
Coach S&OP as an executive decision process, not a calendar ritual.
Quantify risk/resilience in money, not adjectives.
Translate tax/compliance (e.g., KSA VAT/e-invoicing) into operational behaviors. ZATCA+1
Enforce disciplined retros and decision logs.
19) Frequently Asked, Answered Briefly
Q: Can we add finance/accounting depth?
A: Yes. Pair TFC with a finance-for-non-finance layer (e.g., cash-to-cash lab) or run it alongside Let’s Chain It to practice reading financial statements and tying operational moves to P&L and cash.
Q: Does TFC cover sustainability?
A: It can—if you turn on the sustainability levers and require carbon or waste metrics in KPIs. It’s a lens on the same system, not a separate game.
Q: Is it useful for non-manufacturing sectors?
A: Yes. The logic of constrained capacity, variable demand, supplier risk, and working capital applies to distribution, retail, and even services with inventory analogs (slots, time, bandwidth).
Q: Can we reflect local regulations in KSA?
A: Absolutely. Build a VAT/e-invoicing/WHT overlay with simple rules and penalties; use ZATCA’s official guidance to set assumptions and checkpoints. ZATCA+1PwC Tax Summaries
20) What “Good” Looks Like After the Program
Teams that “get it” exhibit five habits:
They speak in scenarios, not slogans. “If vendor A slips 7 days, we shift 30% to B and cap promo on family Q.”
They price everything. No decision escapes without a dollar (or riyal) estimate on service, cost, and cash.
They align first. One plan, one set of numbers.
They trim KPIs. Fewer metrics, deeper causal analysis.
They implement two concrete policy changes in 60 days. Otherwise training decays into trivia.
21) Quick Reference: Sources for Facts Cited
Official learning-solution framing and role structure for TFC and its end-to-end scope across the value chain are documented in Inchainge’s portfolios and partner descriptions. Inchainge+2Inchainge+2Transformance Advisors
KPI concepts such as Inventory Days of Supply are described in the publisher’s knowledge base. Inchainge
KSA VAT standard rate and e-invoicing phases (Fatoora) with Phase 2 integration are set out in ZATCA resources and market summaries. ZATCA+1ClearTax
Saudi WHT concepts and rates are detailed in ZATCA channels and reputable tax summaries. ZATCA+1PwC Tax Summaries
Conclusion: Why You Should Use The Fresh Connection Now
If you need leaders who can think across the chain, price trade-offs, and align quickly under pressure, classroom lectures will not get you there. The Fresh Connection will—provided you implement it with discipline. Start with a clear objective (two capabilities max), run structured S&OP rounds, keep KPIs few and causal, and add a local realism layer (e.g., KSA VAT/e-invoicing) so that the lessons transfer on Monday morning. Pairing TFC with finance-centric experiences like Let’s Chain It turns operational savvy into financial results.
The payoff is not a certificate. It’s a company that stops paying the hidden tax of misalignment—and starts compounding the benefits of decisions that cohere.
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