Business and Marketing
Overview
- Powercat Motorsports is more than just engineering! We need as much help as possible with business and marketing too! Each year the Business Sub-Team is responsible for processing receipts, assist in creating a budget, provide cost analysis, aid in communication with sponsors, and establish fundraising events to ensure the health of the club. As the car is built during the year, our available funds steadily decrease. So the Business Team provides their perspective on what is most important to allocate our funds towards, keeping in mind we must have enough funds to travel to the competitions in May and June. In respect to competitions, we calculate the travel cost of taking the COE's truck and trailer per mile, hotel accommodations, and other travel costs.
Competition
At competitions, 18% of the team's overall score comes from the Presentation and Cost Report events.
- The Presentation event tests the team's ability to develop and deliver a comprehensive business, logistical, production, or technical case that will convince outside interests to invest in the team. Scoring of the event is based on the speakers' physical appearance, how they speak, powerpoint visuals, and the ability to respond to various questions the judges ask. The contents of the team's presentation are determined by the concept given by the Formula SAE rulebook, which is a new concept each year.
An example of the 2019 Presentation Concept is as follows (From the Formula SAE Website):
Teams that place among the Top 3 in Presentation get to show off their presentation to all the teams at the Awards Ceremony Saturday evening.
The Cost Report is as follows:
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- Throughout the year the team has to consider budget, production methods, and efficiency of production as an integral part of the design process. At competition, we present a detailed report of the total cost. During the event, a real case scenario is given by the judges as well. Then scores are based off of overall cost, real case scenario cost, and the quality of the presented report.