The BizCafe

In order to provide you with a realistic hands-on opportunity to manage a business, the BizCafe simulation will be used. This simulation requires you to make decisions pertaining to operating a coffee shop. At the end of the semester you will submit a report describing and summarizing your work on BizCafe.

The BizCafe assignment is handled as follows: First you will obtain a welcome e-mail from the simulation provider (interpretive.com) with your user ID and password. (If you do not receive this by the 2nd class, let me know ASAP!) You will then go to the simulation website noted above and click on the log-in tab to enter your individual user ID and password. You will follow the on-screen directions to complete the registration process. You will pay a fee. I will be informed on a regular basis about who has not yet registered and paid or played the simulation. Failure to get started by the 4th week will begin to cost you points on the grade that you will receive for the BizCafe written report and for your overall business professionalism. Before you start playing the game for real, you will have access to a practice session. You will each be playing as an individual not as a member of a team, and you will be playing in the benchmark mode against the computer rather than competitively against other students in the class. You will advance at your own pace through 10 actual decision periods after the practice session. In each decision period you will be asked to make 6 decisions (two in management, two in marketing, and two in operations). You will be informed about your business results at the end of each decision period.

After you have completed playing the game you will be ready to write your BizCafe report. This report should indicate and explain how you played the game, what your decisions were and why you made the decisions the way you did, your results at the end of each session and at the conclusion of the simulation. You should indicate what you learned from playing BizCafe and what you would do differently, and why, if you could play the game again. Your report should also have an interesting introduction that discusses what BizCafe is and what its purpose is, and an interesting conclusion.

Your written report is typed, double-spaced, with a recommended length of 4-5 pages.