The first version of the Virtual Village Pub simulation was developed in 2000 and was devised and written by David Maxwell (pictured), a chartered accountant specialising in demystifying the world of finance.

Its original purpose was to form the central core of a two day ‘Finance for Non-Financial Managers’ programme and this training solution has become the first choice in this area for organisations like the Nationwide, Musgrave Budgens Londis and Yorkshire Water. This original version, where teams work intensively on printed data from the game, is delivered by David’s consultancy DWM Financial Training

Recognising that the simulation’s scope was broader than just training finance and that it was also a highly effective medium for developing general business acumen, David set up s8 Virtual Village Pub Limited s0 in 2004. With the arrival of new technology, the company has been able to successfully migrate the simulation to the internet, allowing it to move through its stages more quickly and thus enable delivery within one day. A ‘light’ version has also been developed for clients needing something more intensive, whilst a remote version is available for those who are not able to muster a whole group or cannot bring them all to the same venue.

The two day financial training version is delivered by David Maxwell, whilst the shorter versions are run either by David or by one of a small team of experienced facilitators. These versions can also be facilitated by appropriate in-house staff in order to reduce the cost of delivery. The company does, of course, provide full training and support to any in-house facilitators.

The company has engaged one of the UK’s leading internet companies to host the simulation on their state-of-the-art Dell servers, housed in a temperature-controlled, secure environment in the Midlands (pictured). The servers are Dual Quad Core Intel® Xeon® 3.16GHz with 2X6MB Cache, (which sound good to us).