A fast paced, dynamic and highly thought provoking business simulation with a focus on customer relationship management.

Program outline

Remember when there were just two kinds of coffee… black or white? Now, as with everything in life, things are more complicated and there are many more choices to be made. Coffee is a ‘must-have’ lifestyle accessory and consumers have an ever-expanding range of flavours and options available, from an increasingly competitive choice of outlets and brands.

This has made the business of coffee trading a lively place to be. From Kenya to the Caribbean, and from Brazil to Borneo, to succeed in the coffee business takes excellent market intelligence and fantastic service, combined with the ability to respond quickly to ever-changing consumer trends and tastes.

In the Bean Around the World challenge, teams take the role of coffee traders in providing the supply chain from producer to outlet, and finally to the ever-fickle consumer. This competitive game really captures the essence of new economy teams and focuses on issues such as, short-term success versus long-term strategy, risk management, win-win negotiation, managing supplier and customer needs within a complex supply chain, and the power of good information.

Bean Around the World is a dynamic and thought-provoking trading game that will stimulate and energise any conference programme and generate fresh ideas and approaches to business. Add a review and analysis session and you have the perfect conference pick-me-up that can build extra-strength commitment and customer focus. What better way could there be to introduce a coffee break than an energetic team building exercise?

Learning and development outcomes

This team building intervention has been carefully constructed to break down silo mentality and ensure collaboration between teams working to a common goal. Participants experience changing market forces, build supply chains ,and develop their understanding of customer requirements. Bean Around the World clearly reveals the importance of information gathering, adaptive behaviour and understanding markets and commodity values. Teams are both buying and selling to maximise their reward, experiencing both sides of the customer equation.