Mike's Bikes

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by Brendan Ruckdeschel1 view·Updated Dec 12, 2020
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  1. right. One of the required semester long assignments for The
  2. View s for 50.
  3. Capstone was Mike's Bike's Advanced, a State of the Yard
  4. Internet based business simulation of a bicycle industry.
  5. This simulation enabled students toe learn by doing as well
  6. as practicing a wide range of business strategies and skills
  7. in a responsive simulated environment.
  8. Through using the this business simulation, I learned to understand
  9. core business functions.
  10. Thes interactive exercises enabled me to visualize a business, analyzed
  11. data, practice the skills required to manage an industry and
  12. to develop the skills for effective management of my business
  13. via decision making skills.
  14. Over a 10 year period, all of the students in
  15. B. U S for 50 competed against each other to
  16. test their decisions to see who would run the most
  17. successful firm.
  18. At the end of the simulation, my company reached a
  19. shareholder value of $66.29 and acquired 51.6% of the global
  20. percentile. Over the course of the simulation, there were only
  21. two years of my company's profit actually decreased.
  22. My shareholder value was on a steady increase every year,
  23. except from 2024 to 2025 when it decreased.
  24. Okay, my vision is to sell as many bikes as
  25. possible to as many people as possible in order to
  26. achieve the highest market share of the bicycle industry.
  27. My initial strategy was toe enter every bike segment in
  28. orderto have the highest possibility at bike sales.
  29. My thought was that I would sell more bikes as
  30. I diversified by offering as many different types of bikes
  31. for consumers to choose from as possible.
  32. I would also in corporate strategies aimed at significantly increasing
  33. brand image because people prefer to buy from recognized names.
  34. Another strategy was to maximize my total production time by
  35. increasing my spending on set up time reduction in order
  36. to get the machines running quicker between each batch produced.
  37. Along with this, I gradually increase the batch size to
  38. 1500 so he could produce more bikes before the machines
  39. had to be reconfigured and run again.
  40. I also prioritize supplier relations, so the suppliers of my
  41. raw materials would have a more steady delivery of the
  42. goods needed to keep producing our bikes and then I
  43. maxed out the raw materials inventory to five weeks so
  44. that we would have an even lower chance of running
  45. out of the materials needed in our business.
  46. My final strategy having to do with selling as many
  47. bikes as possible was increasing my support toe.
  48. All store types to the max in orderto have as
  49. many stores stock my bikes as possible toe have the
  50. highest chance of bike sales.
  51. Some key issues in my business was that I was
  52. unable to meet the high demand of my butt of
  53. bikes each year.
  54. I was focused mostly on increasing the S C U
  55. of my factory while slowly increasing the workforce.
  56. I didn't realize the extent that the amount of workers
  57. has on the actual SC you created by the factory.
  58. If I had realized this sooner, I believe my company
  59. would have had much greater success in increasing our shareholder
  60. value. Another key issue with my company was that it
  61. was bought out by another firm.
  62. I didn't realize that we could buy other firms in
  63. the simulation.
  64. If I had noticed there was a bid on my
  65. company, I would have attempted to make a higher bid
  66. in order to remain an independent company at the same
  67. time when my company was bought.
  68. I looked around at the other companies to see if
  69. there's a company that I could acquire.
  70. But at that time, the only companies that I was
  71. able to bid on, we're not making any profit, so
  72. they would have just hurt my own company.
  73. I could not buy a company making a profit because
  74. it would have been more than 50% of the market
  75. share, and the simulation would not allow this.
  76. I learned a lot about a lot of things that
  77. management needs to invest in and watch if you want
  78. to have a successful company.
  79. If only I had noticed this part of the simulation
  80. earlier, I believe things would have turned out very different
  81. from my company for the future of my company.
  82. First and foremost, I would try to buy enough of
  83. my own stock toe, have the majority so that I
  84. could have complete control of the company and make all
  85. the decisions again, including the financial decisions that only the
  86. firm owner could make.
  87. Then, after losing the sale of 1800 bikes on the
  88. last year due to the lack of employees to make
  89. them, I would substantially increase the number of employees at
  90. employees at the plant, enabling me to manufacture enough bikes
  91. to meet the demand.
  92. I would also increase advertising proportionately as well, increasing all
  93. other areas, especially building a strong product image to increase
  94. my brand awareness to humans of all ages, wants needs
  95. and desires.