Over the past few months, we've noticed an interesting trend. More organizations are beginning to shift portions of their learning portfolios back to virtual delivery. Unlike during COVID, this isn't being driven by health concerns. It’s most likely being driven by economics.

Travel costs continue to rise. Airfare, hotels, meals, and meeting expenses have all increased significantly over the past few years. Add in continued global economic uncertainty, and many organizations are tightening travel budgets or asking learning leaders to accomplish more with fewer resources.

I don't believe we're headed back to an all-virtual world. Face-to-face learning still has tremendous value, especially for strategic planning, leadership development, and team building. What I do believe is that organizations will become much more selective about when they bring people together. That creates an opportunity to rethink how virtual learning is designed and delivered.

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Every year, organizations invest hundreds of thousands, and often millions of dollars, bringing people together for leadership summits, national sales meetings, annual kickoffs, functional conferences, and customer events. They reserve hotels, book flights, bring in keynote speakers, and spend months planning every detail.

Those meetings are designed to communicate strategy, launch new initiatives, celebrate success, and align the organization around what's next. Those objectives are important, but I believe many companies are overlooking one of the greatest opportunities these events provide.

If you're investing in bringing people together, don't miss the opportunity to develop them while they're there.

Most corporate meetings are built around presentations. Executives share the vision, business leaders provide updates, and subject matter experts introduce new products, initiatives, or processes. While those sessions are necessary, they're often passive experiences for the audience.

Imagine replacing just one presentation with an interactive business simulation.

Instead of listening to someone describe a business challenge, participants experience it. They analyze information, debate alternatives, make decisions as a team, and immediately see the impact of those decisions. The conversation becomes richer because participants have applied the concepts instead of simply hearing about them.

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Wasted energy, resources, time, or cash will eventually destroy even the best business strategy.

Every dollar spent on unnecessary work, every hour lost to poor coordination, and every decision delayed by incomplete information creates friction inside the organization. Over time, that friction compounds, reducing profitability, slowing innovation, frustrating customers, and ultimately diminishing shareholder value.

The antidote is operational efficiency.

When most leaders hear the term "operational efficiency," they immediately think about cost reduction. They picture lean operations, lower headcount, tighter budgets, and squeezing expenses wherever possible.

But the most successful organizations understand something different.

Operational efficiency is not simply about lowering costs. It is about creating a system where people, processes, technology, and resources work together to deliver maximum value to customers. When done well, operational efficiency improves quality, accelerates innovation, strengthens customer relationships, increases profitability, improves cash flow, and creates sustainable competitive advantage.

In other words, operational efficiency is one of the most important enablers of business strategy.

And today, artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful tools available to improve operational efficiency across the enterprise.

Based on our recent work helping organizations build business acumen and leadership skills in the age of AI, here are five practical ways AI can improve operational efficiency while supporting the execution of business strategy.

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This is now the first question asked at nearly every business acumen simulation workshop we deliver for our global clients, regardless of industry, geography, or leadership level.

"Are we allowed to use AI?"

The answer surprises people.

Yes.

And no.

For context, our business simulations are not connected to AI. Participants never have access to the underlying simulation engine, the algorithms, or the calculations that determine the business results. They cannot ask AI for the "right answer" because the AI has no access to the actual simulation model.

Participants can copy and paste information from reports, dashboards, financial statements, market research, and operational data into an AI assistant to request guidance, coaching, recommendations, or explanations.

In other words, AI can help them think. But AI cannot do the work for them.

At least not yet. What has fascinated me over the past six months is watching how different teams use AI and how dramatically the outcomes vary. Some teams become smarter, faster, and more strategic. Others become dependent, disengaged, and surprisingly ineffective.

The experience has convinced us that the real question is not whether AI should be allowed in learning environments.

The real question is whether people know how to use AI without surrendering their own judgment.

Based on what we have observed and measured across hundreds of participants, here are five reasons to allow AI into business simulations…and five reasons to be cautious.

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I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your Q2 results are already screwed.

Most of the reasons why are probably out of your control. Your cost of goods sold has increased due to geopolitical issues affecting supply chains. You’ve “taken price” as much as you can without losing customers. You’ve already cut costs to the point that you are starting to alienate both your customers and your employees.

It’s not a pretty picture.

And that’s the dangerous moment. Because when leaders feel margin pressure, the instinct is to squeeze harder. Cut another role. Delay another investment. Reduce another service level. Push suppliers one more time. Stretch employees just a little further.

At some point, you have to ask, “Is this worth it?”
Or more importantly, “Am I cutting into the bone past the point of no return?”

Obviously, there is not much you can do about past margins. But there are absolutely things you can start doing today to build future margins while protecting your key customer relationships and employee morale.

Here are five things leaders should be doing today to improve the margins of tomorrow.

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