The principle of training via a simulation is based on the fact that management rarely has an opportunity to err on serious strategic decisions and survive. Yet, successful management is largely based on personal experience. In the INDUSTRAT simulation the individual is allowed to take risks and experiment with new approaches, while adverse repercussions are only "virtual". Living through "years" of an industry's evolution, provides managers with a perspective which they rarely have in their normally short-term oriented working style.

INDUSTRAT provides live experience in strategic industrial marketing management by placing competing teams of managers in the midst of simulated, yet realistic, and dynamic industrial environment. It involves participant in the actual application of modern technique and concepts developed in recent years. Executive training, allowing an easy transition from the class room to the field, has become invaluable in strategic marketing.

Computerized simulations of actual operating environments have proven a most effective vehicle to satisfy this need, as in the high risk professions, such as pilots, fire fighters or surgeons. They provide direct experience with various scenarios.

The INDUSTRAT simulation was designed to build on experience of such educational technology and aim at decision makers in industrial, or business to business, marketing. This pedagogical tool allows executives to experience, first hand, the use and value of strategic market orientation concepts. It mirrors the complexity of the industrial marketing environment, including the dynamics of supplier-customer relationships and the continual evolution of product technologies and applications.

Participants in the exercise actively employ ideas, analytical approaches and marketing research techniques, which have been developed in recent years by the marketing profession. As the nature of the exercise is competitive, it is intense and highly motivating. The participants must bear the consequences of their own decisions, unlike in other training methods, which is a most effective way of learning.