Tailored Fit — Greenfield Custom Programs & the Helvetia Global Academy

A four-round, advanced professional-services simulation set inside Greenfield Custom Programs, the bespoke executive-education arm of a leading North American business school in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USD 52M revenue, 110 faculty, 32% target gross margin). On 12 October 2026 Helvetia Industrial Group — a USD 14B Swiss manufacturer — signs a brief to develop 600 high-potential managers across five regions (Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East, Asia-Pacific) on one 'lead the transformation' journey that must feel locally tailored everywhere. The catch: Helvetia pays a fixed USD 4,500,000 (about USD 7,500 a head), the dean has imposed a non-negotiable 25% gross-margin floor, and the marquee faculty Helvetia wants are already booked above 80% utilisation with two threatening to step back. Last year four over-customised flagships delivered NPS 74 and a 9% margin — delighted clients, money lost. As Managing Director you (1) qualify the brief, separating genuinely Helvetia-specific content from generic leadership material and real regional difference from 'tailoring theatre'; (2) classify every module across the off-the-shelf / configured / bespoke spectrum, concentrating bespoke spend where it differentiates and exploiting the high-leverage configured middle; (3) stage a 12-month, five-region rollout that respects the marquee-faculty utilisation cap, extends the bench via regional faculty and train-the-facilitator cohorts, and clears the 25% margin floor; and (4) lock a balanced scorecard across NPS, gross margin, faculty utilisation and on-time delivery, then pitch Year 1 of the USD 13M three-year academy. The math rewards a strong common core with a thin, high-impact configured local layer and punishes the five classic errors — accepting the brief whole at full bespoke, over-standardising into a generic course, over-booking the marquee bench, missing the configured middle, and single-KPI optimisation. Final KPIs track Client NPS, Gross Margin %, Marquee Faculty Utilisation and On-Time Delivery against a fixed USD 4.5M budget and a 70 faculty-day cap.