Welcome to 2026 and Happy Business Acumen!

In my opinion, there are a few recent corporate stories that offer as many business acumen lessons as what has happened to Kraft Heinz, which I think you will find fascinating and will get your brain back on the business acumen track.

In our business acumen workshops, we teach participants to understand three foundational elements of any business:

• Strategy – How the company chooses to compete and win
• The value proposition – Why customers choose one product or brand over another
• Financial management – The scoreboard that ultimately measures revenue growth, profitability, free cash flow, and shareholder value

Many of our award-winning business simulations are intentionally grounded in reality. They are not abstract exercises; they are built from real companies, real industries, and real leadership dilemmas.

One of the most classic and challenging scenarios embedded in many of our simulations cuts across industries:

How do leaders manage a large, legacy business when competitors are nipping at their heels?

When you are the incumbent, the choices are rarely simple. Do you defend margins or invest for growth? Cut costs or reinvest in innovation? Protect scale advantages or disrupt yourself before someone else does? Every option carries risk, and none come with guaranteed outcomes.

The Kraft Heinz story is not about a single bad decision. It is about years of small, defensible decisions that compounded into strategic drift. That is exactly why it is such a powerful business acumen case.

From this story, I see five critical lessons that apply far beyond packaged products and should resonate with leaders in almost any industry:

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It’s only the last week of August and Starbucks is already in full marketing mode with the early launch of its popular menu of Pumpkin Spice Lattes items (apparently the cool folks just call them PSLs so that’s what I will use in this blog).

Think about this: In 2024, people on vacation at the beach can Uber Eats their PSL drinks directly to their portable cabana. Who would have thought it?

The PSLs are a significant part of the Starbucks seasonal line up and given the recent organizational and Wall Street turmoil surrounding the surprise exit of the CEO after less than 2 years, the company is counting on big-time revenues in an attempt to turn around its sagging stock price performance. While Starbucks doesn’t publicly release individual product sales data, there are many analyst reports out there that indicate the PSL portfolio will account for up to $2 billion of the overall $36 billion of top-line revenue.

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The annual ATD (Association for Talent Development) conference is a highly anticipated event for professionals in the training and development field. In addition to the diverse range of workshops and sessions, the expo floor is always one of the biggest highlights of the show, especially coming off the pandemic. While the show ran last year, this year was different. There was a buzz. There was energy. There was pent-up demand for new and innovative ways to learn in the new normal of work. It was back to the traditional size of nearly 10,000 people who were ready to explore.

As part of Advantexe’s presentation at our trade show booth, we hosted an engaging business simulation challenge for conference participants. The Advantexe Paws and Claws Simulation Challenge was a micro business simulation designed to be completed within 15 minutes. It allowed participants to experience the flexibility of our simulations while emphasizing the importance of developing business acumen skills.

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As the United States heads into the 4^th of July holiday weekend, the storm clouds of recession and inflation are dancing on the horizon tantalizing business leaders with a strong need to respond as they plan for the second half of 2022 and beyond.

For the first time in more than a decade, rampant inflation has become a critical business issue and something every level of manager is facing directly or indirectly.

It is impossible to predict how long this cycle will last but a majority of the experts believe it will last for several years. One indicator of the length of this cycle can be found in the meeting notes of the Federal Reserve where they continue to raise interest rates in an effort to cool off the inflation. From their actions, it doesn’t look like this is a short-term thing.

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If you have started to get reacclimated to what you thought was the “normal world” before the COVID pandemic, you are in for many surprises. The new normal is not the old normal. Things are very different and many of the things you took for granted, like basic customer service, are mere ghosts of themselves.

One of the first places you will find things very different is airports. During the past several weeks, as I’ve been flying again to visit with clients and to deliver the live portions of our blended business simulation-centric learning solutions, the lack of customer service in the ticket lines, the restrooms, and the restaurants is astounding. This week alone I tried to eat dinner at a higher-end (not fast food) airport restaurant only to find it impossible. The first time I had to wait almost 40 minutes and my meal never came. The second time it took more than 45 minutes and I had to have my salad packed as a to-go meal.

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