What we learned from winningatbizcafe.blogspot.com

Important thing to do before you start playing BizCafe: learn from the team who wrote http://winningatbizcafe.blogspot.com/. Read it in its entirety if you haven't done so already.

I want to make an important distinction--in the BizCafe game described at winningatbizcafe.blogspot.com, their winning conditions involved earning the highest score on a balanced scorecard. In our game, the winner was determined by which team had the most cash in the bank at the end of the game. This may influence how you need to play. I have no idea how their balanced scorecard was calculated, but the game dynamics they described applied well to our situation, and helped us to run a very profitable shop.

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.