Business Students Take Café Wars to the Next Level
"Running the cafe event allow us to learn as much as the high school students participating in the event! They learn how to run a business and we learn how to organize a successful event!" - Katia R., Business Management student
On April 7th, a team of Humber Business Administration and Business Management students hosted 15 teams composed of 90 grade 12 business students from high schools across the GTA for an exciting opportunity to learn about small business management.
The high school students formed teams to compete in Café Wars using BizCafe, an online business simulation to run a coffee shop.
The Cafe Wars competition was planned, organized and managed by Business Management students as part of their placement course, BMGT 399 – Social Entrepreneurship. Professor Jeff Short developed the Social Entrepreneurship as an alternative to the traditional business placement.
“The Social Entrepreneurship in Action course places students in leadership roles and appeals to those who blend an aspiration to succeed with a desire to make a positive difference. Students apply the classroom knowledge gained over previous years of study and develop teamwork, leadership and communication skills that can only come from real life experiences.” - Professor Jeff Short, Business Management Program Coordinator
The Learning Experience
Café Wars is an event that provides students with the opportunity to run their own coffee shop in a fairly competitive environment. In the simulation, students strategize and make business decisions related to the operation of their shop versus those run by competitors (i.e. the other students in the class). Examples of decisions include start-up investments, hiring and training employees, coffee bean quality, supplies, advertising, and selling prices.
Each period within the simulation represents one week. The games’ programming also reports the outcomes of the student's decisions relative to their rivals. Feedback includes data such as cups sold, revenue, net income, customer satisfaction, and even details about how happy or stressed employees are.
Senior Business Administration and Management students organized the Café Wars event in a manner allowing high school students to experience 9 weeks of head-to-head competition in 2 1/2 hours. It offered students an excellent opportunity to learn about the impact of rivalry and strategy as well as the challenge of generating profit while managing employee and customer satisfaction.
"This was an amazing event I got to run alongside my colleagues. I've learned a lot about organizing and planning an event, and the high school students got an insight on being entrepreneurs and running a small business." - Akshay B., Business Administration student
