Mentor – new support for students in business

Making business decisions is one of the key parts of working with a simulation. Students analyse data, set prices, plan activities and respond to results, learning that every decision has consequences. Sometimes, however, a single mistake can seriously disrupt the rest of the game. A price set too low, overestimated salaries or a misguided investment and the team loses profitability, along with the motivation to keep going. As a teacher, you can see the problem, but you do not always have time to sit down with every team and analyse exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. That is why we are introducing Mentor, a new module that supports students directly during the simulation.

What is Mentor?

Mentor is a module that helps students better understand the consequences of their business decisions while they are still making them before they are confirmed and affect the company’s results.

It does not provide ready-made answers or do the work for students. It works at a specific moment: when the system detects a decision that clearly differs from market realities, the student receives a short hint.

Just enough to pause, rethink the situation and make a more conscious decision.

How does Mentor support students?

Mentor helps students learn not only after a round has ended, but already at the moment of making decisions. This allows them to notice potential problems more quickly and understand why a given decision may be risky.

The module supports students in several areas:

Correcting decision-making mistakes – when a student sets prices, salaries or other key parameters in a way that clearly differs from market realities, Mentor signals the problem.
Understanding economic mechanisms – students see how their decisions affect profitability, costs, sales and the company’s position.
Making more thoughtful decisions – instead of acting randomly, students learn to analyse the consequences of their choices.
Maintaining motivation – when students avoid mistakes caused by lack of awareness, their company has a better chance of developing more steadily. They see the effects of their decisions, understand what works and why, and do not lose motivation halfway through the simulation.

Learning through decisions with safe support

Business Simulations still remain an environment where students learn by doing, experimenting and observing the effects of their choices. Mentor does not change this logic. It does not take control of the game or tell students which decision to choose.

Its role is to stop the student at the moment when a decision may be particularly risky. It is similar to a short comment from a teacher or trainer: “Check once again whether this decision makes sense in the company’s current situation.”

As a result, students still make decisions independently, but they do so with greater awareness.

Full teacher control over gameplay with Mentor in Revas Business Simulations

Mentor will be available by default in new games, but the teacher remains in full control of how it is used.

The module can be turned on or off at any time, depending on the group’s level, the aim of the class and the expected level of difficulty.

If you want students to work with additional support, Mentor can help them understand the consequences of their decisions more quickly. If, however, you want to run the simulation in a more challenging mode, you can turn off the hints and work exactly as before.

Why are we introducing this feature?

It is a response to a specific problem that we observe together with teachers. Students often lose motivation when their company’s results start to decline and they do not understand why. It is difficult for them to independently connect a specific decision with its consequences and explaining this during a lesson, while working with several teams at the same time, is simply challenging.

That is exactly why we decided to take this step. The new module is another element in the development of Revas Business Simulations – a step designed to make working with simulations even more engaging and practical for both students and teachers.

We want students to finish the simulation with a real sense that they have learned something valuable, not only that they achieved a good ranking result, but that they genuinely understood how business management works. Students who see the meaning behind their choices and understand their consequences are more willing to analyse data, draw conclusions and step into the role of real managers – rather than simply click through the next rounds.

The goal is to help them think and act with greater awareness. Because good business education is not just about winning the game. It is about understanding why a given decision leads to success or to problems.