Cut 10%: a cost cutting simulation for managers
Every saving shows up this quarter. The damage, if there is any, shows up later. Count the damage still on its way before you choose.
- Eight cost lines, each with a cheap first slice and a dear second slice
- Revenue damage arrives one to three quarters after the cut, as in real life
- Decide what to tell your team, and whether you can keep that promise
- New hidden costs every play; a credential at a score of 80 or more
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
What is a good simulation for practising cost cutting decisions as a manager?
Cut 10% from Bodhih Arena is a 15-minute cost cutting simulation in which you run a software business unit that must save $4.8M a year from a $48M cost base over three quarters. You choose cuts across eight cost lines, what to tell the team and where to commission analysis, then see the delayed damage.
What is Cut 10%?
Cut 10% is a single-player business simulation about reducing costs without destroying growth or trust. You run Fleetwise, a fleet-software unit inside Vantorra Group with $60M of revenue. The group wants 10% taken out of its $48M cost base by the end of quarter 3. Each quarter you allocate cuts across eight lines, from field sales to training, and may buy a finance deep dive. Savings show at once; lost revenue arrives one to three quarters later. The server scores savings, growth kept and team trust.
Cut 10% at a glance
| Format | Micro-sim, single player |
|---|---|
| Length | About 15 minutes per play |
| Players | One person; every play is a new seeded scenario |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Scored on the server out of 100, with sub-scores and a debrief |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 micro-sim credential at a score of 80 or more, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Commercial Acumen (SPN.4.5), Systems Thinking (SPN.4.4), Leading Change (SPN.3.5) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | $12 |
| Price per seat | $12 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
The target is clear. The cost of hitting it is not.
Ten per cent from everyone feels fair and works badly
A flat cut across every budget is easy to announce. It also takes the same share from the travel habit nobody needs and from the support team your renewals depend on.
The spreadsheet shows savings, not consequences
Cutting sales, marketing or engineering looks fine at the end of the quarter. The lost deals, churn and slower releases appear two or three quarters later, when the plan has already been called a success.
People hear the story before they see the numbers
Say nothing and rumours fill the silence. Promise "one round only" and then cut again, and trust drops further than the cut itself would have taken it.
Here is the situation you walk into
You run Fleetwise, a fleet-management software unit inside Vantorra Group: $60M of revenue, a $48M cost base, a 78% gross margin and a plan to grow about 3% a quarter. It is losing a little money.
The group CFO has told you to take $4.8M a year out of the cost base by the end of quarter 3, and the board still expects growth. Your organisation can absorb about $2.6M a year of new cuts each quarter before it stops working, and no line can lose more than 40%.
In front of you: 64 account executives, a marketing budget nobody is sure about, an engineering team building next year's release, a support desk answering 9,000 tickets a month, 31 contractors, three office floors about 60% used, travel, and a training budget everyone notices. Before any cut, you must decide what to tell the team.
3 decisions, one debrief
- STEP 1
Quarter 1: the promise, the first cuts and a deep dive
You tell the team one of three things: one round finished by quarter 2, a phased plan over three quarters, or nothing yet. You allocate up to $2.6M a year of cuts across the eight lines, and you may ask finance for a deep dive on one line, which estimates its cheap slice and the revenue each dollar saved really costs.
- STEP 2
Quarter 2: news changes the picture
Something happens at the start of the quarter. It might be your biggest customer wobbling over support response times, a rival trying to hire your engineers, a landlord offering to waive a break fee, or a group-wide hiring freeze. You see revenue against plan, trust from your pulse survey and the savings locked in, then cut again and may order a second deep dive.
- STEP 3
Quarter 3: finish the job, or break your word
Your last chance to reach $4.8M. If you promised one round and cut again now, the team will feel it. Contractor savings may be leaking back as overtime. Then a fourth, results quarter shows the delayed effects still arriving, and the debrief opens.
Who Cut 10% is for
- Business unit heads and senior managers. You may be handed a cost target this year. Practise hitting it while protecting growth and the people who deliver it.
- Finance business partners and FP&A. You build the savings plan. This shows how a deep dive changes a decision, and why the first and last dollar from the same line are different questions.
- HR and change leaders. A quarter of the score is trust. The simulation makes the cost of an unclear or broken message visible in numbers a CFO respects.
- MBA and management students. A compact exercise in delays between cause and effect, the marginal cost of a decision and the politics of a cost programme.
Who should skip it
If you want to rehearse redundancy conversations or employment law, this is not that: it is about which costs to cut, when, and how to explain the plan.
What changes in your next cost conversation
After the debrief you will have seen the cheapest route to $4.8M with hindsight beside your own, line by line.
Look for the cheap slice first
Idle space, habit travel, short-term contractors and campaigns that produce no pipeline. You will find them before reaching for the lines that bring in revenue.
Think in delays, not just totals
You will ask when a cut will start to cost revenue, not only how much it saves. That is systems thinking applied to a budget.
Buy information before an irreversible move
You will commission the analysis before cutting a large line deeply, because an estimate is cheap next to a dollar of revenue lost for every dollar saved.
Tell a story you can keep
You will share one honest plan with an end date you can meet, and finish early enough that the business can settle.
Defend the plan to a sceptical CFO
With savings, growth kept and trust on one page, you will be able to show the trade-off you chose and why, which is what commercial judgement looks like in a review.
Learning goals
- Find the cheap first slice of each cost line before the dear one
- Allow for the delay between a cut and the revenue it costs
- Protect trust with a clear plan, and buy information before cutting deep
Skills practised: Cost management and budgeting, Systems thinking about delayed effects, Decision making under uncertainty, Leading change and communicating a plan, Strategic thinking about growth versus savings, Using analysis before irreversible decisions.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- How much you cut, how much really stuck after contractor leakage, attrition and break fees, against the $4.8M target
- Revenue running below plan by quarter 4, and the total damage still to arrive from the cuts you made
- Your most expensive cut, what you promised the team and where trust ended
- The hidden truth for each line (cheap slice and revenue lost per dollar), the cheapest route with hindsight and the key concept: marginal cost of a cut
Marginal cost of a cut
What the next dollar of savings from a line really costs you in lost revenue, customers or people. It rises as you cut deeper, so the best plan takes the cheapest slices across many lines rather than the same percentage from every line.
Use Cut 10% with a team
Seats are $12 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
A leadership workshop before a cost programme
Run it with the managers who will deliver the savings. Compare who protected support, who broke their promise and whose plan looked best in quarter 3 but worst in quarter 4.
Pre-work for a budgeting or change programme
Add it as a stage in a Bodhih pathway so everyone arrives having felt the delay between a cut and its cost.
A senior assessment centre exercise
Sub-scores map to Commercial Acumen, Systems Thinking and Leading Change on the Bodhih Competency Spine. Hidden costs change every play, so it measures judgement rather than recall.
An LMS assignment
Launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L Brightspace through LTI 1.3 and receive the score in the gradebook.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $10.80 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $9.60 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $8.40 | Quote |
Cut 10% or a case study?
| Compared on | A case study or slide-based course | Cut 10% |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Read how another company cut costs and debate whether it was wise. | Choose the cuts yourself across eight lines and three quarters, within a capacity limit. |
| Time and delay | The whole story is told at once, so delayed effects are explained, not felt. | Savings arrive at once and revenue damage arrives one to three quarters later, on your chart. |
| People | Morale is a paragraph in the narrative. | Team trust is measured each quarter and moves with your promise and your cuts. |
| Replay | The same case, the same ending. | Hidden costs, the quarter 2 news and contractor leakage change every play. |
| Evidence | Discussion quality, judged by the facilitator. | A server score on savings, growth and trust, mapped to three Spine competencies. |
| Where a case study is better | Real company context, industry detail and many voices. | One invented unit, kept simple so the mechanism is clear. Use both if you can. |
What to pair with Cut 10%
The Annual Budget and Variance Kit
Turn the lesson into your real budget: a 16-sheet budget and variance workbook to track whether savings stick and revenue holds.
See the kit →Pro KitThe Expense Policy and Approvals Kit
Travel and spending habits are the cheap first slice; this kit gives you the policy, approvals and red-flag checks to take it properly.
See the kit →Online courseAI for Finance course
For finance partners building the savings plan: driver-based forecasts, budget-to-actual bridges and a decision memo, done faster with AI.
See the course →Trainer ToolkitLeadership trainer toolkits, including Change Management Essentials
Trainers can wrap this simulation in a full programme on leading change, so the trust lesson gets practice time.
See the toolkit →AssessAll assessmentCritical Thinking & Problem Solving assessment
Measures the rigorous thinking on ambiguous problems that a good cost plan needs, before or after the simulation.
Take the assessment →Bodhih TrainingLeadership workshops by Bodhih Training
A facilitated session for the leaders who will deliver a real cost programme, with this simulation as the shared experience.
Talk to Bodhih Training →Related simulations
How much does Cut 10% cost for an individual?
$12, paid online, for your own access to this simulation. It is sold on its own.
How is it priced for teams or companies?
Per seat, at $12 list price, with volume tiers as the seat count grows. Up to 25 seats can be bought online. Larger groups, facilitated sessions and institution licences are by quote, paid offline, and we activate the seats.
How long is a play?
About 15 minutes for three quarterly decisions and the debrief.
What is included?
The simulation, a score out of 100 with sub-scores for savings, growth kept and people trust, a debrief with your own numbers, the hidden costs of every line and the cheapest route with hindsight.
Can I replay it?
Yes. Each play is a newly seeded scenario: how big each cheap slice is, what deeper cuts cost, how much contractor saving leaks back and which news lands in quarter 2.
Is there a credential?
A score of 80 or more earns a micro-sim credential (Open Badges 3.0) with a public verification page and an Add to LinkedIn button.
Do I need finance knowledge, and which devices work?
No specialist knowledge is needed; terms such as run-rate are explained on screen. It runs in a web browser; a laptop or tablet shows the charts best.
Can it run inside our LMS?
Yes, via LTI 1.3 from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L Brightspace, with grade passback. It can also sit as a stage in a Bodhih pathway.
Who is it designed for?
Business unit heads, senior managers and finance business partners facing a cost target, change and HR leaders, and management students.
Why use it instead of a cost reduction case study?
Because the effects of a cut are delayed, and a case tells you the ending in one sitting. Here you watch revenue fall behind plan quarters after your decision. A case study still gives richer context, so many programmes pair them.
Who can see my results?
They are stored in your Bodhih account. If an employer provides your seat, its admins can see results within that organisation only. See bodhih.org/privacy.
Are refunds available?
The refund terms are at bodhih.org/refunds. You can also try the free 3-round Price War first, without signing up.
Hit the target. Keep the growth. Keep your word.
Three quarters, eight lines and a team that is watching. Play Cut 10% before your next budget round and see what your instincts would really cost.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- Play it as often as you like for 12 months: every play is a new scenario
- A debrief after each play: what happened, why, and what strong players do
- A verifiable credential when you score 80 or more
- Scored on the server, mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first, no sign-up.
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