Single Player Reflection Report: MikesBikes Intro Simulation Analysis

This report is a single-player reflection on the MikesBikes Intro business simulation, where the student, Akanksha Karki, took control of a bicycle manufacturing company. The report details the student's decision-making process, including product marketing strategies such as pricing, advertising, and distribution, with a focus on increasing shareholder value and market capitalization. It includes figures illustrating financial performance, market trends, and the impact of decisions on retail sales, profits, and branding. The student reflects on the importance of effective marketing, risk analysis, and market capitalization, and concludes with action points for future group work, emphasizing the need for a strong marketing strategy and risk assessment. The report also includes references to business simulation concepts and resources.

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 1
University
Single Player Reflection Report
Akanksha Karki
Date
Professor
Course
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 2
Executive Summary
Business simulation is a very important aspect that every business owner should consider
looking into. With business simulation, the extent to which certain decisions can impact a
business can be tested. I conducted a business simulation using the MikesBikes Intro simulation.
My experience during the simulation was quite eventful, and an important learning path.
MikesBikes Intro simulation has helped me gain a much clearer picture of the activities that take
place within a business. After the simulation, I came up with a few action points which I believe
will help me in future group works.
Introduction
Business simulations are emerging as one of the best ways to analyze the structure of a
business and all the risks that may be associated with the running of the business. Business
simulations help improve the business and predict possible results that may arise as a result of
various actions. I term business simulations as powerful tools that can be used to organize the
structure of a business through learning and development. Through simulation, one is able to
align the decisions and actions taken by a leader to corporate objectives (Lai). Business
simulations provide an effective platform that can be used to align activities and personnel based
on strategy and improve the operations (Celemi.com). Mikes Bikes is an online business that
operates in the sale of bikes. On the other hand, MikeBikes Intro is a simulation that enables one
to take over the control of bicycle manufacturing company and make real-life business decisions.
The simulation presents one with quite a number of options that can easily be accessed in real
life companies. It begins with a single player mode where one makes individual progress and
proceeds to multiplayer mode where it engages multiple players. Options incorporated in the
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 3
simulation include product development, pricing and promotion, efficiency, and distribution.
Upon the successful completion of the simulation, one can generate action points which will, in
turn, assist in the multiplayer mode.
Individual Reflection
Being a real-life online company, I already expected that Mikes Bikes operates through
all the relevant business functions in order to prevail. These functions include marketing,
management of a proper supply chain, product promotion, and distribution. In order to
experience the management of operations at MikesBikes, I signed up on the website presented by
Smartsims. I played the single player simulation twice in order to analyze the best decisions
based on my risk-based judgments. The site presents the reports for the current years in line with
the business operations that have been performed. These reports are presented using key reports
and additional manuals and videos. The industry benchmark report for the year 2019 includes the
shareholder value, share price, and dividend per share. Key competition is between Akanksha
Inc. and Mountain Top Cycles who have quite impressive financial results for the year 2019. In
order to overcome this competition, I increased the shareholder value as a way to increase the
market capitalization consequently. I undertook my actions critically with serious decision
making in order to increase the value of my market shares. This information is presented in
figure 1 below.
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 4
Figure 1
Product marketing is a very important aspect for the success of any business. I had to
launch my products in a not so low value but reasonable enough to attract the clients’ eyes.
Being a retail business, my retail price had to be profitable enough so I placed them with a profit
of at least 10%. I set my retail price to $700 with an initial forecast of up to 18,000 units. The
forecast for the retail sales ranged from 12,000 to 14,400 as shown in figure 2 below. I chose my
main mode of advertising as the internet through ads as I believe that most traffic exists on the
internet. Internet ads are not as cheap but are very effective in generating orders from clients.
Other modes of marketing I used are TV and newspaper publications as presented in figure 3
below. Internet, TV, and magazines also presented a very influential way of gaining public
relations. My public relations budget is shown in figure 4 below. The results from the
comparison between the current year and the next years have an observable increase in
forecasted sales.
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 5
Figure 2
Figure 3
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 6
Figure 4
The reports for the year 2020 projections show an increase in retail sales and profits as
shown in figure 5 below. The shareholder value between Akanksha Inc. and Mountain Top
Cycles shows the gap has narrowed down. The financial reports for the end of the current year
show that there is up to 20% increase in shareholder value since the end of the previous year as
shown in figure 6. The number of shares and market capitalization have also increased
significantly. Great profits have been projected since I changed the retail price to $700 and
increased the number of units to 18,000. With great marketing, I expected the sales to increase,
hence, great profits will result after tax. The next figures, figure 7 and 8, show distribution and
branding respectively. Due to the increase in the number of units, I had to increase the number of
bike stores in order to distribute as many units as possible. Therefore, the margins for the three
channels, including discount stores, increased significantly. I think the branding was quite okay
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 7
for me. After a critical analysis of the possible risks of changing the current branding, which
includes loss of current clients and unnecessary expenditure, I decided to leave it unchanged. A
comparison for the performance of the firm between 2018 and 2019 has been presented in figure
9.
Figure 5
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 8
Figure 6
Figure 7
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 9
Figure 8
Figure 9
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 10
In the forecast results report overview as presented in figure 10, an increase in profits has
been projected for the current year but a drop for the next year. In the year 2021, there is
expected to be an increase in shareholder value and retail sales. Competition between Akanksha
Inc. and Mountain Top Cycles remains stiff, where Akanksha Inc. has a greater value of shares.
Figure 11 shows an increase in retail sales and gross margins in both Akanksha Inc. and
Mountain Top Cycles in the year 2020. This means that the increase in units that I imposed is
working to my advantage. The market performance for the same year is also promising as shown
in figure 12 hall of fame. I changed the retail price to 725 due to the increase in demand for
products. This was after analyzing the risk that may result from distributing huge amounts of
products with the same price such as increased shipping. Also, taxes are also expected to
increase. I increased the budget for marketing and maintained the Internet as the main market
driver. The means of establishing public relations remained the same. However, due to the
projected increase in demand, I increased the units to 20,000.
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 11
Figure 10
Figure 11
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 12
Figure 12
As expected, I increased the three margins of distribution and left branding the same.
With the projected increase in the profit margins for the following years, I decided to pay all
debts owed by the company. The actions I took led to a projected increase in shareholder value
as shown in figure 13. Based on these moves, the industry benchmark report and market
summary for the year 2019 are as shown in figure 14. In the development section, I added more
specs to the RC_RockHopper. This promised increased profits, better performance, and
efficiency from a 1.5 million investment. I expect the financial reports for the year following
years to be very high with an increased shareholder value, high sales and more profits. Figure 15
and 16 show the product summary and the balance sheet for the current which was very
impressive. Figure 17 and 18 is a represented of the current decisions that I made within the firm
for the year 2019 and 2020 respectively.
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 13
Figure 13
Figure 14
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 14
Figure 15
Figure 16
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 15
Figure 17
Figure 18
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 16
Conclusion
The single player simulation mode has been a very great learning experience. It enabled
me to generate strategies that will improve my performance in the multiplayer mode. Due to the
impact of the various decisions I made during the simulation, I came up with some action points
which I believe will be very useful in the future of my group work performance. Firstly, I need to
focus more on market capitalization. I need to increase market value by increasing the number of
shares. Secondly, it is important to have an effective marketing strategy that can advertise
products effectively. I think advertising is a major component for the success of any business and
I will focus more on it. Finally, risk analysis is a major issue in any business. To this effect, I
resorted to handling my decisions with effective risk analysis techniques.
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458

SINGLE PLAYER REFLECTION REPORT 17
Reference List
Celemi.com (2018). What is a Business Simulation?. [online] Celemi. Available at:
https://celemi.com/business-simulations/what-is-a-business-simulation/ [Accessed 8 Apr.
2019].
Lai, D. (2017). Deep Dive Business Simulations: a Key Tool for Strategy Execution. [online]
Bts.com. Available at: https://www.bts.com/blog-article/business-insight/deep-dive-
business-simulations-for-strategy-execution [Accessed 8 Apr. 2019].
AKANKSHA KARKI STUDENT ID: 11701458