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2010 AED Future Leaders Conference

The AED Future Leaders Conference took place July 16-18, 2008 in Boston, Mass. Titled "Test Drive," the conference promised participants "a unique virtual business experience to equip your company's next generation of dealer executives."

Test Drive featured DealerSim, a state-of-the-art dealership simulation program created by PriSim Business War Games. Facilitators Jeffrey R. Lefebvre, Ph.D., founder of PriSim Business War Games, and co-owner David Semb, broke the participants into four teams for the competition, each of which ran its own distributorship. Teams planned and managed the business’ sales, parts, service, rental, and human resources functions using PriSim's sophisticated DealerSim software application.

Test Drive participants completed four rounds of decision-making in their simulated dealerships representing two years of elapsed time. Between rounds, workshop-style mini-lectures focused on business strategy, marketing, financial, and leadership concepts. Each team's performance was measured across several indicators including gross profit and margin, operating profit, customer satisfaction, lifetime customer value, and employee attrition. The winning team was the team who was able to dominate the marketplace on the performance indicators they chose to be measured on.

When asked to name the best aspect of the course, participants said they enjoyed the interactive nature of the course and the ability of the course to portray dealership operations in a realistic manner. Further, participants said they enjoyed the conference for the competitive nature of the simulations and for the resulting networking between team members. Many also noted the course helped them better understand financial practices and motivated them to improve their current communication between individual departments in the dealership.

Check back in March 2010 for more information on the next Future Leaders Conference.