BizCafe Simulation Guide [2023-2024]
Update Guide and Tips to Win BizCafe Simulation
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BizCafe Simulation Guide
Update Guide and Tips to Win BizCafe Simulation
For personal support
FREE Support for Rouund 1 and Round 2
Emaiil: bizcafeguide@gmail.com
Blog: https://bizcafeguide.blogspot.com/
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Five decisions you need to make every week: price, advertising, staffing, wages, and supplies
Revenue - Expenses = Profit
Sales Volume * Price --> Revenue
Volume is affected by price
Advertising --> volume --> expenses
If you advertise well, you can charge more
Supplies --> expenses
Supplies can affect volume if you get it wrong
Staffing --> expenses --> volume
Good staffing can help you charge more
Wages --> expenses --> volume --> price
Happy employees can better serve customers
Furniture -- do you want to be Starbucks or Coffee Time?
Equipment -- small espresso maker or large?
Each week: decisions for the week:
Quantity and quality of coffee
Hours to open
Advertising/promotion
Online
Radio
Product price
Special decisions
Reports to use:
Decision Summary, Cash-Budget Analysis, and Break-Even Worksheet for making weekly decisions
Under "Company": check book, daily receipts, income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement
Market: local labor report
Recommended: Use a spreadsheet to calculate and forecast
Here are the major strategy points we adopted from this site:
Go with the high-capacity espresso maker
Avoid the cheaper, used furniture
Keep wages above industry average and raise them as the average increases
Start with higher prices and adjust downward
Buy the cups at the maximum bulk level, and pay less per cup
Don't bother with coupons
Maximize hours
Ordering too much coffee is more expensive than ordering too little
Buy the insurance for period 1's special decision
Higher price, highest quality coffee, maximize customer satisfaction
Pay your managers generously
Raise brand awareness quickly by advertising heavily
Read the other cafes' menus; pay attention to local labor market figures
Pay attention to the results page
They also recommended investing in the more detailed customer survey when it becomes available. That option didn't come up in our game.
In their game, there was a fire, and if you didn't buy the insurance, you had to replace your espresso maker. That didn't happen in our game, but I still feel buying the insurance is the better decision.
One thing about raising prices versus lowering prices... I had good results from reducing prices and boosting sales. But I also saw instances in our simulation where shops raised their prices and it didn't hurt sales. So don't be afraid to raise prices if you need to. Just make sure you're advertising and you have enough servers.
Start strong to finish strong
Cumulative net income for the top 4 teams in our game.
The top two teams did $2k better in week 1 net income.
That gap just got wider.Your startup decisions are very important. Especially in an 8-week game--it's a sprint. If you stumble out of the starting block, and another team has a better plan and gets off to a good start, there's a good chance you'll never catch up.
In our market, there were two shops that did significantly better than the rest during week 1 (we were one of them), and from then on, it was a two-horse race. The third-place team finished week 1 $2,800 behind. That means they would have needed to out-earn the first-place team by $2,800 the next week to catch up.
If you're not out-earning the first place team, you're falling farther behind.
Good teams learn from their mistakes, and therefore continuously improve. I'm also guessing that there are customer loyalty and word-of-mouth factors built into the simulation, possibly a function of brand awareness and customer satisfaction. This rewards the successful teams; the rich get richer. So it's very important to start strong.
Branding
Now, in our game, it didn't end up mattering what you named your shop, or if you made a logo and created ads, but I didn't know this at the start, so I figured: if the game gives you the option of doing it, do it. You never know what matters. Following are the logo (two variations), cup design, and ad I created.
Given that this game is played in business classes, you're probably going to get a better grade if you take branding seriously. In my class, at the end of the semester, we had to do Dragon's Den-style pitches, asking for investment in our business, and it helped my pitch to show that I had thoughtfully created a brand image that suited our offerings. Also, there was an award for the team who created the best logo (another team won that). So I'm glad I invested a few hours in developing creative.
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BizCafe Simulation Guide [update for 2023-2024]
Update Guide and Tips to Win BizCafe Simulation
For personal support
FREE Support for Rouund 1 and Round 2
Emaiil: bizcafeguide@gmail.com
Blog: https://bizcafeguide.blogspot.com/
