As 2026 looms, businesses face an ample dose of uncertainty, including continued concern about the effect of tariffs, the specter of layoffs that could undermine the economy, and the increased adoption of artificial intelligence, to name a few.
Of course, there also is an ever-persistent menu of economic or industry disruptions that can't be foreseen. Such conditions are why the adage about the "best laid plans of mice and men" has stayed with us for more than two centuries.
But plan we must, although businesses don't need to be handcuffed by traditional planning methods. An alternative option is to mimic what the military has done for ages — conduct "war games" where you test how to react to potential changes so you are better prepared when they actually happen.
How can you get started with constructing your own war games that can put you on more solid ground if 2026 starts to unravel around you, your business, or your industry?
Corporate War Games and How They Work
Corporate war games, as you might imagine, are not quite the same as a military war game. You aren't rehearsing a bombing mission or an invasion.
War games for business purposes instead are engaging analytical exercises that can lead to creative solutions — in this case solutions that could help you take on the uncertainties and challenges that might emerge in 2026.
At their most basic, corporate war games are structured role-playing workshops used to generate insights to help develop and refine strategy. They aren't just dress rehearsals or strategy plans, but are simulations of your competitive market in a controlled, safe, internal environment where you can explore different dimensions.
Ultimately, you build strategies based on actual data points versus going out and spending millions of dollars and learning the hard way that a strategy is not going to work.
Challenging Assumptions, Hearing More Voices
Beyond that, corporate war games also are very different from traditional planning.
Traditional planning addresses a linear timeline and a stable market everyone involved is well familiar with. This type of planning is essentially based on the world as we know it and doesn't take into account the possibility of significant surprises.
War gaming, on the other hand, addresses the uncertainty of a changing market, or the what-ifs that traditional planning can't account for.
As an example, tariffs certainly caught many businesses off guard this year, leaving business leaders confused and frustrated — especially since the tariffs were on again, off again, and the amounts changed by the moment. It seemed few if any business leaders had prepared for the "what ifs" of the scenario they faced.
That confusion could continue in 2026, so you might use war games to plan for a variety of alternatives for what might happen with tariffs in the near future. Consider questions such as: How would your decision making be affected if tariffs are eliminated? How would it affect you if they are increased? What would it mean for you if a country you export to greatly increased its tariffs overnight? You can play out scenarios, consider steps you would take, and explore what the repercussions would be for your decisions.
Another way war gaming differs from traditional planning is that in traditional planning decisions are handed down by one or more stakeholders. Input isn't sought from all of the key stakeholders. This makes it difficult or impossible to execute the plan, as the leadership hands it over to inexperienced managers, or managers who do not buy into the plan. In war gaming, all the key people are actively involved.
A final difference is that in traditional planning, the executives might have inherent biases, be in denial, or be ignorant of the external world. But they proceed unchallenged, which can be disastrous for the organization. War gaming invites challenges to leadership's assumptions.
4 Benefits
For businesses, war games have four main benefits:
- They create an environment where participants can openly discuss their company's assumptions around the competitive environment and get alignment with their own assumptions.
- They help engage various stakeholders in the decision-making process to collectively achieve buy-in, identify gaps in market knowledge, and create a defensible business strategy.
- They highlight the assumptions that market players have about the competition, the market, and themselves, as well as highlight the key differences between the company's and others' assumptions.
- They help assess and anticipate potential changes in markets so that a company can predict what other key players are likely to do.
A Clear Plan to Move Forward
With war gaming, you can make quick decisions and execute on the fly because you've taken limited, uncertain information and turned it into something far more certain.
Companies that war game risky decisions test their assumptions within a safe environment and make a clear plan to move forward.
By testing your hypotheses, you can mitigate risk, as this gives you greater certainty. Based on the outcome, you can move fast with your playbook and buy-in from key stakeholders.
Beyond all the scenario setting and problem solving, war-gaming strategy also has one final benefit for your company's culture that is worth noting.
It is just plain fun.
About Arjan Singh
Arjan Singh, author of Competitive Success: Building Strategies with Corporate War Games, is an expert in helping companies develop data-driven strategies through war games, strategic and competitive analysis, scenario planning and building business early warning systems that deliver significant impact. He has advised 72 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 list in building winning strategies. Singh is an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Global Consulting at Southern Methodist University (SMU) COX School of Business.
