In my view the game needs an improvement in the progression system. Have shorter-long term goals, spend more money, investigate, and that things have more value when it comes to progressing in the game. I know it’s a bit of a big change, but I’m here to leave you my ideas for this rework.
1- Research: This consists of starting with certain blocked content, starting from a simple business, you will need to earn money, invest this money in a work team or yourself, who is dedicated to investigating new market opportunities, businesses, new zones to buy your lands, functions such as marketing, promotions etc. These investigations would cost X amount of money, and would unlock in X amount of time. As long as you continue to maintain and improve your small business. To be able to investigate and change to a larger business or another type of business. (Basically a research system, it forces you to set certain objectives, have certain money savings and wait a certain time to progress or improve your career)
2- Studies: This can help us to study certain areas, businesses that are trending right now, which is what our clients in X area demand the most. What is the best selling product in the competition or the top product. What would our customers like us to have for sale in our businesses, customer satisfaction surveys? (These studies, like the investigations, would cost X money and would be done in X time)
3 - Stress, sick leave: Employees may suffer stress, sick leave, etc. This would force us to hire new employees to cover the leave of these employees, or it would force us to give vacations in certain periods to our employees to reduce stress, etc. (This would imply an additional expense to our business)
In short, there are many ways to improve progress, and have more short-long term goals. You can also comment on more ways to improve progress. I read you.