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Business Essentials Simulation

BizCafe

BizCafe is a business essentials simulation that provides a great way to learn about running a business. It is designed to help you learn about the challenges and rewards of making good decisions in a small, service-based business. You will learn about management, operations, marketing, and accounting by running your own coffee shop for up to 16 simulated weeks.
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Price

Academic $29.95 USD per student

Recommended for

Introduction to Business and Principles of Management

Duration

Up to 16 periods

Teaching Resources

Manuals, assignments, online quizzes, and more!

Competition Type

Direct and Benchmark Competition

Customizable

Multiple scenarios and simulation settings

Support

Fully administered simulation event

Special Decisions

Real-life situations common to the industry

CASE SUMMARY

In a college-town, a local successful business professional wants to help college students learn about business by operating their own company. Each team in BizCafe represents a group selected to receive a $25,000 start-up loan at 10% interest to manage their own coffee shop for a year as an independent study for credit. At startup, teams choose equipment, furniture, and a name consistent with the image they want to project. As the 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. As a business essentials simulation, BizCafe offers a full experience for students to learn the fundamentals.

Business Essentials simulation case
Business Essentials simulation dashdoard

OBJECTIVES

As a business essentials simulation, BizCafe provides 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:

  • Planning & Analysis

    Write a business plan
    Monitor implementation of plan
    Calculate break-even point

  • Staffing

    Project staffing requirements
    Decide on employee pay rates
    Calculate total cost of compensation
    Manage employee turnover

  • Marketing

    Identify the 4Ps of marketing
    Set pricing for multiple products
    Calculate gross margin
    Project impact of promotion
    Create advertising copy

  • Operations

    Project purchasing needs
    Manage inventory
    Set shop hours
    Maximize customer satisfaction

  • Accounting

    Distinguish cash and accrual accounting
    Create and analyze income statement
    Create and analyze balance sheet
    Calculate return on an investment

  • Teamwork

    Allocate responsibilities fairly
    Complete assigned tasks on time
    Communicate problems and plans
    Collaborate with other team members

KEY DECISIONS

Initially students have several important start-up decisions: name, furnishings, and what equipment to buy for producing their product. Beyond those, weekly decisions must be made in the following areas:

  • Management: Hiring of managers and servers (setting wage, hours)
  • Marketing: Pricing (coffee), Advertising/Promotion, and Creative Design (of cups, ads, logo, etc.)
  • Operations: Shop hours, Coffee purchase, and Cup purchase (inventory)
  • Special Decisions: A variety of “incidents” are available (mini-cases), for instructors to add additional depth to the simulation.
Business Essentials simulation decisions
Business Essentials simulation results

ASSESSMENT

Instructors need to assess students’ ability to apply their knowledge in a simulated business environment, and both our business essential simulation and assignments will give you the tools to do so.

  • Comparative results report with several performance measures such as Revenue, Net Income, Customer Satisfaction and more, as well as instructor-weighted score card
  • Quizzes
  • 17 assignments to choose from!
  • 16 incidents (mini-cases) to choose from!
  • Online peer evaluation
When you request a demo of our  Business Essentials simulation, BizCafe, you will be given instructor access!

Once you receive it, you can view sample games and access teaching resources.

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