Business Essentials Simulation
Recommended for: Introduction to Business, Business Essentials, Small Business Management, Principles of Management
Main Decision Areas: Management, Marketing, Operations, Accounting, Incidents (mini-cases)
Level: Introductory
Competition Type: Direct and/or Benchmark Competition
Duration: Up to 13 periods (simulated weeks)
Authors: Stuart W. James, Michael Deighan
The Business Essentials simulation, BizCafe, provides students the opportunity to experience the importance of the fundamentals of business by running a small, college-town coffee shop. At startup, teams choose equipment, furniture, and a name consistent with the image they want to project. As the Business Essentials simulation progresses, students encounter all the facets of running a business at a basic level. They gain experience with financial statements, the difference between cash and accrual accounting, handling staffing issues, operations management for a small service business, marketing and promotion, and the importance of customer satisfaction. Growing sales, maximizing profit and managing the daily operations of a café will help them understand the ins and outs of operating a customer service oriented business.
Our Business Essentials simulation is a great way to learn about running a business. It is designed to help your students learn about the challenges and rewards of making good decisions in a small, service-based business.
The main objective of the Business Essentials simulation, BizCafe, is provide students an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of business by running a simple start-up enterprise. Student teams will function as a “real-life” company competing in a dynamic and evolving industry. With direct-competitive play, students’ stores all compete with each other, their decisions affecting each other.
BizCafe is designed with the following goals for your students:
Write a business plan
Monitor implementation of plan
Calculate break-even point
Project staffing requirements
Decide on employee pay rates
Calculate total cost of compensation
Manage employee turnover
Identify the 4Ps of marketing
Set pricing for multiple products
Calculate gross margin
Project impact of promotion
Create advertising copy
Project purchasing needs
Manage inventory
Set shop hours
Maximize customer satisfaction
Distinguish cash and accrual accounting
Create and analyze income statement
Create and analyze balance sheet
Calculate return on an investment
Allocate responsibilities fairly
Complete assigned tasks on time
Communicate problems and plans
Collaborate with other team members
The Business Essentials simulation and assignments give you the opportunity to assess students’ understanding of business concepts and their ability to apply their knowledge in a dynamic simulated business environment.
We suggest a combination of quizzes, individual and team assignments, along with simulation performance to ensure an equitable assessment of student performance.
Business Essentials simulation comes with a set of “incidents” (mini-cases) that occur one per period, and challenge students to consider a variety of issues related to running a business. These incidents all have outcomes that affect the team’s performance. They make great discussion topics in addition to covering important aspects of managing a business.
These incidents cover the following topics: Staffing, Marketing, Operations, Ethics, and more!
Example:
Simply fill out the Request a Demo form and we’ll gladly send out your information within 1 business day. With a Faculty Access, you will be able to demo the simulation and review all of the resources that come with the simulation.
We’ve found the best way to determine if a simulation is a good fit is to do a walk-through of the simulation with us. We will gladly set up a live walk-through-just fill out our Request a Demo form.
Simply fill out the Request a Demo form and we’ll gladly send out your information within 1 business day. With a Faculty Access, you will be able to demo the simulation and review all of the resources that come with the simulation, which include:
Get a personalized walk-through of the simulation with us:
We’ve found the best way to determine if a simulation is a good fit is to do a walk-through of the simulation with us. We will gladly set up a live walk-through of any of our simulations-just fill out our Request a Demo form.