Identifying your Costs

All business people need to be able to identify their business costs, and then work out which of these costs are variable, i.e increase with the amount of work that you do, or are fixed, i.e you have to pay them regardless of how busy or quiet you are.

This seems simple, and at the beginning we make it simple, because things like insurance and road tax are all included at start up, however as your business grows you need to think about how to spread the costs of your buildings, mortgages, and tax across the individual jobs, how to work it into the pricing of your jobs.

Planning your delivery routes - How to compete?

Managing Staff

The game gives you the opportunity to hire temporary employees, or take on full time drivers and admin staff.  You have to choose your employees, be careful about the type of person that you employ, if you make a mistake it could end up costing your business money.

How do you stop good employees leaving, you need to look after them, and sometimes that's not just about pay levels.

And what happens if you employ  an unreliable employee, what do you do?  Do you sack them?  But beware, maybe they consider you to be a bad boss, and then take you to employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.

Staff are unpredictable things, and managing staff is a tricky thing to do.  The world's biggest and most profitable companies have hundreds of staff devoted to keeping the workforce content and happy, and making sure that their company is seen as a good employer.  How good will you be?

Reaching Capacity, Expanding and Growing.

When you start your fantasy courier business you'll be a one man band, not only will you be running your business, pricing and bidding for jobs, but you also need to be out there in your virtual van, picking up, delivering, fighting the traffic and dodging the speed cameras.

This means that there is only so much that you can do.  You'll reach the point where you've got too many jobs, and not enough hours in the day to do them.

So what do you do?  You can hire a van for a day, or a week, and hire some temporary drivers.  But temporary drivers and vans are much more expensive than taking on permanent.

But will you have enough work to sustain extra drivers and vans every week, week in week out.  Because if you need to sell a van you'll probably loose money on it.  And you can't just sack an employee, you have to give notice and go through procedure.

And then, if you've got several vans you're going to need an office to co-ordinate them out of.  And if you have got an office you're going to need office staff, so even more overheads.

Expansion strategies are a key skill to running a business, there are many many businesses that go bust because they try to grow too fast, take on too much work too quickly.  Duncan Ballantyne calls it Overtrading.  However, are you brave enough to let these jobs go to your competitors.... ?

Managing Your Money

As in all businesses, you'll get paid when the job's complete, and you'll have incurred some expenses along the way that you'll have paid out at the time, but remember the other expenses that will need paying later on, your mortgage, your wages, even the tax.  Don't spend all your money at once, remember the bills at the end of the month, and the tax at the end of the quarter.

Cashflow Problems

When you can't pay your staff's wages, if there is nothing left in the bank to buy fuel with, what are you going to do?  If it's a temporary problem for a bit of a shortfall, many entrepreneurs top up the business bank account from their own personal funds.  If it's a bit more of a problem, but you think an injection of cash will see you over a short-term problem, then lots of businesses go to the bank and ask for a loan.  If your business has got terminal cashflow problems you may want to consider selling it?  It's all up to you - you're the boss!

External Influences, Economics, Politics and War

No Matter how hard you work, and how right you get it, you are running a business, and this means that your business and therefore your profits are impacted by people, organisations, government and politics all over the world.

If you'd had read this statement a year ago you may have called this exageration, however everyone has now seen the collapse of international established companies, the biggest banks in turmoil, the motor industry and with it some of the oldest manufacturing companies in the world, all laying off staff, begging for rescue packages, and facing corporate failure in the face.

The unprecentented, and some would argue, unjustifiable fuel price increases of early 2008 saw couriers, road haulage and other logistics firms go bankrupt in staggering numbers.  Large established companies such as Ramage Distribution and Amtrack.

In Fantasy Couriers, the game price of fuel is benched to that of the real world, increasing, and reducing, weekly.  So you're going to need to keep a close eye on the business, economics, and international news.  Because the American Recession, Russia declaring war, and the middle eastern politics are all going to impact on your results in the game.