Mike’s Bikes Simulation | A Step by Step Guide

With the ever-increasing literacy rates around the world, most students have access to education. However, this also creates the challenge of numerous students not being adequately prepared to face real-world challenges. Not to despair, yet, courtesy of the technological revolution, learning has never been more practical and exciting at the same time. Through business simulation games such as Mike’s Bikes simulation created by smartsims, students can access career-shaping instructional methods.

By using Mike’s Bikes simulation, students can run a virtual bicycle manufacturing company. This experience of running a virtual company provides them with essential skills such as financial and critical marketing decision-making.

The overall objective of the game is to develop globalized, efficient businesses operating in highly competitive environments. While Mike’s Bikes simulation is arguably the best business simulation service for students, another tremendous strategic management simulation they can try is Virtonomics.

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What is business simulation?

Business simulations are powerful tools used by organizations and individuals alike for purposes such as analysis, training, and education. They can be scenario-based or numeric-based. These simulations enable organizations and individuals to properly align themselves with the required strategies while developing their business financial skills and business acumen overall.

Mike’s Bikes simulation is an excellent example of this. By choosing to enrol at smartsims, students can make use of Mike’s Bikes simulation to enhance their business financial skills. What they learn from using Mikes Bikes simulation is great in supplementing everything they learn at school. Needless to say, this goes a long way in preparing students for real-world situations.

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Benefits of using Mike’s Bikes simulation

Regarding business assignment help, business simulations are excellent learning aids. While it is easy for some people to underestimate their usefulness due to its gamification approach, Mikes Bikes simulation is quite useful in honing real-world skills. It also exposes students to market situations essential for grasping market concepts. Other benefits students can derive from Mikes Bikes simulation include:

Enhanced decision-making skills

By using Mikes Bikes simulation, students can fully assess and enhance their business decision-making skills. Students get positioned in virtual bicycle manufacturing companies where they get to make the most effective decisions for the organization at the least cost possible.

By training this way, learners can quickly adapt to typical working environments. By encountering risks and tackling them in simulated business environments, learners become more useful in real business settings.

Improved teamwork

While some people may be comfortable working alone, most organizations recommend the employees to work as a single, coordinated unit. Similar to business assignment help, Mike’s Bikes simulation has its way of enhancing teamwork among learners.

It teaches learners to interact and work in a group setting whenever they are making decisions. This spirit of teamwork reduces the chances of lower output and discourages time wastage.

Enhanced realism

Mike’s Bikes simulation has undergone rigorous testing to prove its effectiveness in replicating market environments. Through MikesBikes simulation, students experience virtual business situations only available to real employees.

Therefore, from the word go, students learn how to make viable decisions under a significant amount of pressure. Learners view their simulated businesses as real-world entities. This is particularly useful since a huge chunk of learning is achieved through hands-on experience.

Enhanced time efficiency

Generally, experiences at Mike’s Bike simulation are a lot tougher than real-world experiences. How you may ask? Unlike in real-world situations, the time allocated in Mike’s Bike simulation is often limited.

Learners have minimal time to arrive at decisions. While this may seem gruelling on the students, it teaches them to think clearly under pressure. Not only that, but learners also learn how to make profitable decisions when limited on time.

Navigating through Mike’s Bikes simulation

Now that you understand the whole concept of business simulations and the potential benefits, we take you through Mike’s Bikes simulation. Read on to understand this simulation betterand what you may have to do during the four-year period.

Starting at Mike’s Bikes simulation

To get started at MikesBikes simulation, head over to smartsims and sign up. Their website is very straightforward, easy to access and navigate around. Once you login to the platform, you will be able to access manuals, videos, PDF guide materials, and MikesBikes simulation intro.

In their intro, you will find two phases, i.e. single-player and multiplayer. There are different decisions to enter each of these phases. Below is a walk-through on what you will encounter during each phase.

Single-player

In MikesBike simulation, this is the basic phase designed to help learners practice and challenge themselves against controlled computer competitors. Decisions made in this phase are not final. To test decisions, learners in this phase are allowed to roll over into future years or roll back into past years.

To beat the controlled computer competitors, learners can roll over or back in case their decisions were not optimal. Unlike the multiplayer phase, learners here only compete with one competitor. This phase is particularly important for beginners as it enables them to maximize their shareholder value i.e. SHV. It is essential in equipping learners with the right decision-making skills to tackle the mikes bikes advanced multiplayer phase.

Multiplayer

Unlike the single-player phase, learners get exposed to real competitors at multiplayer. Here, students get to challenge themselves against other student groups or colleagues. In finance simulation games, for instance, winning teams/individuals can only be identified through high shareholder value.

The core objective in the multiplayer phase, therefore, is making the most optimal decisions to stand out from the competition. During this phase, however, rolling over to future periods is very automated and entirely depends on the dates scheduled by instructors.

The results for each period of the financial simulation game become available after all competitors have made their decisions as well. It is, however, important for all competitors to hand in their decisions before their respective deadlines elapse.

Arguably, one of the greatest reasons why many learners fail to meet mikes bikes objectives is because they take the single-player phase very lightly. Without a doubt, the financial simulation game’s multiplayer phase is the most challenging.

It is advisable for students, therefore, to set high standards in making feasible, proficient decisions. This is particularly important since at any given moment learners compete with students that may make decisions better than theirs.

Offline multiplayer

Dueto unavoidable circumstances, we may sometimes encounter difficulties in getting a reliable Internet connection. This is perhaps why part of mikes bikes strategic plan allows for an offline multiplayer mode. In this mode, students can explore great ideas to implement during the online multiplayer phase.

The offline multiplayer is very similar to the online version, with the only difference being that any decisions made never reflect in the final decisions. Students that make prudent decisions during the offline mode can always transfer them to the online mode whenever they launch it.

Courtesy of this offline mode, learners can gauge their decisions in comparison to those made by competitors. The benefit of this is users can find decisions profitable to their shareholders, which they can then apply when they go online.

Online multiplayer

Unlike the offline mode of mikes bikes simulation, students here have to be very cautious. It is imperative for students always to double-check the decisions they make before any submissions. This is because all decisions ultimately reflect in the final decision.

Double-checking the decisions made is particularly important whenever students seek to roll over to the next. After gaining a solid understanding of the components in Mikes bikes simulation, it is time to go over the subtleties of each decision period.

The Importance of Shareholder Value (SHV)

At Mike’s Bikes Simulation, learners get taken through four years of making critical business decisions. The ultimate goal for all students is enriching their shareholders. Users can achieve this by providing good returns on investment in their respective companies. Each company’s success, therefore, is measured in its respective Shareholder Value compared to competitors’ Shareholder Values.

While achieving this is certainly no walk in the park, it can be possible by following tips such as:

• Minimizing shareholder investment
• Ensuring all debts are kept as low as possible
• Remembering to pay out dividends
• Selling more to scale up company profitability by limiting losses and wastages

From the perspective of a competitor, always remember that profitability is key to winning over other competitors. A basic business concept to follow is maximizing profits by increasing revenue via sales while limiting overall costs. Some great ways of increasing business revenue include:

• Using competitive ways to optimize retail prices
• Scaling up company production
• Periodically launching new products to the market
• Using competitive marketing strategies to attract new customers. For best results, these strategies should always align with the prevailing market information derived from various products within the simulation.

Effective strategies

An excellent way of being successful in the simulation is by developing effective strategies that reduce production and operational costs. A quick search through forums such as mikes bike simulation reddit can reveal how numerous students attain low Shareholder Value. The prime reason for this is resource misappropriation.

To effectively win over other competitors, students have to develop proper strategies. Such strategies should focus on lowering overall costs via minimizing wastages, reducing inventory, focusing on profitable products, and reducing each product’s prime costs.

In a nutshell, participants should limit their spending on the least desirable products. Instead, they should invest the vast majority of their resources in the most profitable products that consume the least amount of resources.

Viable Strategies for Improving Shareholder Value

In case you run into any problems when improving your company’s shareholder value, you can always model better strategies. Rather than giving up, try and implement mikes bikes hacks such as:

Performing Situational Analysis

By performing situational analysis, you can gain meaningful insight into why shareholder value has been on the decline. A good place to start is assessing the extent to which competitors’ decision-making affects your results. Also, look into why consumer preferences do not favor your decisions.

To get a clearer picture of what you need to do and what to avoid, check the market information report. Other useful resources to consult are the industry benchmark report and the market summary.

Concentrate on Efficiency

In the simulation, your results should speak for themselves. It is, therefore, crucial to ensure that all functional decisions are profitable for your company. As a rule of thumb, the company’s overall costs should never exceed 30% of realized wholesale revenues.

In a nutshell, put your spending in check. Spending should especially prioritize on developing, distributing, and producing company products.

Consult the Provided Videos and Manuals

Whenever you make costly decisions, always consult the provided learning materials for proper guidance. Take the time needed to read and fully understand the provided player manuals. Also, watch the tutorials provided as they are essential smartsims mikes bikes cheats.

In case of further assistance, take advantage of Mikes Bike’s team that is experienced and always willing to help. They are a useful resource for students seeking to improve their SHV. Oftentimes, this becomes the distinguishing factor between successful and unsuccessful students

Use Cash Injections

Businesses whether virtual or real are all about risk-taking. Whenever you face tough situations during the financial simulation, never shy away from borrowing cash. No matter what happens, never allow your business to reach insolvency. Borrowing, however, should be proceeded with caution.

Aim at Other Goals

In business, there is often no such thing as impossible. That is whenever you get into periods of stagnated or declining SHV, it is possible to set new and relatively achievable objectives.

Most importantly however is focusing on raising the company’s profitability. A good company profitability index ultimately reflects on the company’s shareholder value.

Decision periods

During the first two years of the simulation, learners are tested in their abilities to arrive at sensible marketing decisions. The final two years, on the other hand, introduce students to more financial and operational decisions. Read on for our comprehensive analysis of the things you should expect during each period.

Rollover: This term refers to movement from the current decision year to the next. When rolling over, decisions entered are processed to deliver the results needed for the next period.

Rollback: This term describes how a user moves back to previous decision years. Oftentimes, students rollback when they realize the decisions they made are not the most optimal, especially compared to competitors’ decisions.

First Year: Sales and Marketing

During the first year, students need to market their bicycles on Mike’s Bikes. The marketing is free for any localities, e.g. mikes bikes California. Once a student sets relatively reasonable prices for the products, they should proceed with creating awareness via public relations and advertising.

Before arriving at any marketing decision, students ought to refer back to market information, market summary, and product summary. Thoroughly studying these reports is key to figuring out the reactions of each product to various marketing decisions.

For instance, road bikes are generally less sensitive to advertising compared to youth and mountain bikes. Similarly, youth and mountain bikes are less sensitive to public relations.

Therefore, it is imperative that students practice proper planning. Proper planning will go a long way in preventing overspending that may have negative financial ramifications on the business during the third and fourth years. A solid understanding of how different products react to different marketing approaches will be useful in rolling over to future decision periods.

Second-year: Distribution and Branding

Similar to how businesses in the real world operate, students in the simulation have a platform for product distribution and branding. Distributing and branding products is an essential part of expanding the company’s customer base.

Distribution however largely depends on the variety of bikes the company deals with. For instance, companies selling mountain bikes should often consider distributing their bicycles to sports and discount shops. On the contrary, companies that choose to produce road bikes should make a budgetary allocation for investing in distribution to bike shops.

In that regard, students cannot downplay the importance of studying customer shopping habits. After figuring out the distribution bit, companies should then focus on increasing their awareness through branding. Successful branding is a key asset that greatly comes into play when launching new products into the market.

Third-year: Operations and Finance | Debt

In the third year, students get to make manufacturing decisions based on factors such as quality, efficiency, and factory capacity. Of greater importance in year three, however, is how students get tested on their financial decision-making aptitude. These financial decisions often involve controlling long-term debt.

A useful trick for succeeding in the third year is referring back to market summary and industry benchmark reports. Proper guidance during this period is key to avoiding costly mistakes that haunt the company in the long run. Another crucial thing to focus on during the third year is product improvement.

Improving the company’s sales department enables it to achieve more sales. Depending on the costs at play, higher sales volumes mean higher profits which ultimately get reflected in the SHV. Always increase capacity when you expect a rise in demand or when launching new products.

Even though counter-productive to Shareholder Value, it may be advisable to sell capacity. Selling capacity directly boosts company revenue. Also important is increased efficiency for instance by minimizing wastage. Before heading to the capacity planner, students must get their facts right.

Financial management

Financial management entails raising or paying back funds facilities the company’s operational and production activities. In the simulation, borrowing is key to affording large expenditures such as product development or enhancing factory capacity.

Users are only allowed to borrow when they expect very impressive returns. Otherwise, to increase Shareholder Value learners have to repay their debts. With this in mind, it is worth noting that all businesses in the simulation start their journey with a debt of USD1 million.

It is advisable that you assess the financial performance of the companies before making any debt payments. By checking pro forma reports on financial health indicators, you can determine whether your businesses are healthy financially.

After conducting financial health assessments and being satisfied with the findings, it is time to roll over. Rolling over to the fourth decision year should not be difficult. However, in case of any confusion, navigate to the ‘debt’ area and payback or raise funds for the company.

Fourth Year: Finance and Product Development | Equity

This marks the last decision year. Similar to the third year, the fourth year requires students to handle financial decision-making. What makes the fourth year different however is the introduction to dividends, equity, and product development.

Product Development

During product development, learners need to conduct product modification. Students have to make a choice from the four options the simulation provides them. Some of these options include; reduce cost, improve product specs, reduce cost, and improve specs and make no changes.

Since product improvement costs money, only improve products when you expect to achieve higher returns. Otherwise, it would not be prudent to spend money on dismal improvements. In the simulation, learners have at their disposal a procedure for determining whether their products need any product development.

Equity

Next, students should consider issuing or repurchasing shares. This is accessible at the equity area. It is worth noting that issuing shares helps the company raise more funds when needed. However, this should be done carefully since it negatively impacts the company’s Shareholder Value.

On the contrary, when the company repurchasing shares from the public a positive impact on shareholder value is achieved. This happens since the EP i.e. earnings per share rise. The only downside to this approach is how expensive publicly purchased shares tend to be.

Dividend

Finally, students need to issue dividends to their shareholders. This is accessible at the dividend decision screen. It is advisable however that students only proceed with dividend issuing when they have enough cash flow and profit to cover capital and daily expenses

Similar to repurchasing shares, issuing dividends is beneficial to the company. Shareholder value improves significantly when issuing company dividends to the shareholders.