DECA high school members will be able to participate in all eight Virtual Business Tracks (VBC) of this event – VBC Entrepreneurship, VBC Fashion, VBC Accounting, DECA Hotel Challenge, VBC Personal Finance, VBC Restaurant, VBC Retailing and VBC Sports. Each track encourages DECA members to test their skills within its particular Virtual Business environment – individually or as a team of up to three members. Team registration begins on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.
Watch a Short Video on How to Register:
The DECA VBC Entrepreneurship event encourages DECA members to test their entrepreneurial skills. Participants will spot opportunities, conduct market research, and open their business. They will raise finances, build a team, acquire resources, organize workflow, determine risks, and develop marketing strategies. The competitors will analyze market data, interpret financial reports and apply critical thinking and decision making skills in order to make their entrepreneurial venture as successful as possible. DECA members will be challenged to earn the highest net worth possible while running the simulation for a specified period of time.
The Virtual Business – Fashion Track of the DECA VBC encourages DECA members to test their skills at managing a simulated fashion business. Participants will conduct trend research, design garments, promote via social media, select retail locations, and more. For each round, teams will be ranked based on their fashion business’ highest cumulative profit after running the simulation for two virtual fashion seasons.
The Restaurant Track of the DECA VBC encourages DECA members to test their skills at managing a simulated restaurant. Participants will design menus, develop dining & kitchen layouts, organize staffing, purchase ingredients, consider market research, and more. For each round, teams will be ranked based on their restaurant’s profit after running the simulation for one virtual year.
The DECA Hotel Challenge is presented by the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation and it encourages DECA members to test their skills at managing a simulated hotel. Participants will schedule banquets and meetings, set room rates, bid on group sales, book advertising, monitor customer service, determine housekeeping needs, and more. Participants’ scores will be based on a balanced scorecard that includes profitability, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. For each round, teams will be ranked based on their balanced scorecard.
The Sports Track of the DECA VBC encourages DECA members to test their skills at managing a football franchise. Participants will manage concessions, book events, analyze players, choose ticket prices, organize staffing needs, coordinate parking logistics, and more. For each round, teams will be ranked based on their franchise’s total profit after running the simulation for two virtual football seasons.
The Personal Finance Track of the DECA VBC encourages DECA members to test their financial literacy skills. Participating teams will be making personal finance decisions for a simulated person. Participants will pay bills, use online banking, apply for credit cards, file taxes, monitor their credit score, choose a career path, determine scheduling needs, and more. For each round, teams will be ranked based their person’s net worth after running the simulation for four virtual years.
The Retailing Track of the DECA VBC encourages DECA members to test their skills at managing a retail convenience store, a sporting goods store or an electronics store. Participants will merchandise their products, determine purchasing levels, price their items, determine staffing needs, research store locations, and more. For each round, teams will be ranked based on their store’s cumulative profit after running the simulation for five virtual years.
The VBC Accounting event encourages DECA members to test their accounting skills. During the two qualifying rounds, there will be three mini-challenges per round.
The dates for the mini-challenges for the first qualifying round are:
October 16, 2024, 8:30 p.m. EST – October 17, 2024, 5:00 p.m. EST
October 21, 2024, 8:30 p.m. EST – October 22, 2024, 5:00 p.m. EST
October 23, 2024, 8:30 p.m. EST – October 24, 2024, 5:00 p.m. EST
The dates for the mini-challenges for the second qualifying round are:
January 15, 2025, 8:30 p.m. EST – January 16, 2025, 5:00 p.m. EST
January 20, 2025, 8:30 p.m. EST – January 21, 2025, 5:00 p.m. EST
January 22, 2025, 8:30 p.m. EST – January 23, 2025, 5:00 p.m. EST
During each mini-challenge, students will have to identify three accounting issues in a business, out of a number of choices. Once the three issues are selected, the submission is final. Teams will be ranked at the end of each week. Teams with all correct answers will be ranked in order of submission time (earliest first), followed by teams with one wrong answer (also by order of submission).
Awards
First & Second Challenge: (Top two teams from each region)
- Recognition under the DECA area at www.KnowledgeMatters.com
DECA’s International Career Development Conference
National Champions – 1st Place
- $1,000/team ($5,000 for Hotel*)
- Recognition at the Grand Awards Ceremony at the ICDC
- Plaque
- Recognition under the DECA area at www.KnowledgeMatters.com
2nd Place
- $500/team ($2,000 for Hotel*)
- Recognition at the Grand Awards Ceremony at the ICDC
- Plaque
3rd Place
- $250/team ($1,000 for Hotel*)
- Recognition at the Grand Awards Ceremony at the ICDC
- Plaque
*Awards for Hotel made possible by J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation
Recent Competition Winners
Personal Finance Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Daniel Tang, Greenway High School, AZ
2nd place $500 – Imran Abdullah, Kedar Panchal & Harun Syed, McNeil High School, TX
3rd place $250 – Landon Fluckiger & Shridhar Jayakumar, Round Rock High School, TX
Retailing Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Albert Zhang, Syosset High School, NY
2nd place $500 – Ethan Le, Richard Ni, and Joshua Zhang, Iroquois Ridge High School, Ontario
3rd place $250 – Alonso Soto, Fort Oglethorpe High School, GA
Hotel Winners:
1st place $6000 – David Zhou, Basis Independent Silicon Valley, CA
2nd place $3000 –Ryan Singh, Triangle Math & Science Academy, NC
3rd place $1,500 – Ibrahim Qayyum, Nathan Yan & Toby Zeng, St. Francis Xavier SS (Dufferin-Peel), Ontario
4th place $900 – Appala Raju Arisetty, Shivm Manrao & Brady Yang, Basis Independent Silicon Valley
Restaurant Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Nathan Ko & Anson Lam, Mission San Jose High School, CA
2nd place $500 – Sarah Cui, James Fu & Vincent Lin, Richmond Hill High School, Ontario
3rd place $250 – Brennan Chiu & Lam Tran, Round Rock High School, TX
Accounting Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Saaj Gumbula & Vishalraam Rajkumar, Round Rock High School, TX
2nd place $500 – Ryan Hsu, Aviram Jithesh & Aavyan Paramel, Washington High School, CA
3rd place $250 – Roshan Ramesh, Rishi Ranga & Rohan Ranga, Washington High School, CA
Fashion Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Jiya Goel, Kyxin Jiang & Emma Li, The Woodlands School, Ontario
2nd place $500 – Jacob Rolfe, Nate Rubin & Myles Wexler, Highland Park High School, IL
3rd place $250 – Hanny Ngo, Lake Travis High School, TX
Sports Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Kai Melant, Zakir Patwa & Zachary Wright, Cedar Ridge High School, TX
2nd place $500 – Aaron Jedrzejek, Josh Lisi & Owen Livesay, Carlmont High School, CA
3rd place $250 – Ryan Ben Lassoued, Evelyn He & Aaron Lim, The Woodlands School, Ontario
Entrepreneurship Winners:
1st place $1,000 – Alex Wu & Shawn Xu, Abbey Park High School, Ontario
2nd place $500 – Ashish Prabhune, Wilson Tu & Tao Wan, Round Rock High School, TX
3rd place $250 – William Tsang, Edward Xu & Leo Zhang, Great Neck South High School, NY
Dates & Details
DECA high school members will be able to participate in all eight tracks of this event – VBC Entrepreneurship, VBC Fashion, VBC Accounting, DECA Hotel Challenge, VBC Personal Finance, VBC Restaurant, VBC Retailing and VBC Sports. Each track encourages DECA members to test their skills within its particular Virtual Business environment – individually or as a team of up to 3 members. Team registration begins on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.
There are two qualifying rounds for each track of the event. All eight tracks will utilize online competition versions of our simulations (sims) for the first and second qualifying rounds. The online competition sims feature almost 100% of the functionality of the classroom simulation. Students who are currently using, or who have previously used one of our online simulations (Entrepreneurship, Fashion, Accounting, Hotel, Restaurant, Personal Finance, Retailing, Management, or Sports and Entertainment) may use their existing accounts to participate. Students who have not used our online simulations will be given the opportunity to create a new account free of charge.
Team registration for this event will begin on Tuesday, October 1, 2024. There will be two rounds (Challenges) held via the Internet during the school year. The first challenge round is October 15, 2024 – October 25, 2024, and the second challenge round is January 14, 2025 – January 24, 2025. All qualifying competition rounds begin at 10am Eastern Time on the start date, and end at 5pm Eastern Time on the final day of the round.
For all eight tracks of the VBC, DECA will send certificates of recognition for the winners of each state to the appropriate state advisor so that winners may be recognized at the state level during individual state meetings.
At the conclusion of the second round of the VBC for each of the eight tracks, the teams that qualified to compete in the live event at DECA’s International Career Development Conference will be listed on the VBC rankings pages. These teams must have their DECA advisor confirm their attendance and participation in this event by emailing vbccentral@knowledgematters.com, or by calling (413) 587-9917. Prior to confirming a team, the DECA advisor must notify and gain approval from their state advisor for the team to participate in the VBC event at the ICDC. To ensure a 16-team field for all tracks for ICDC, advisors must confirm their teams on or before March 7, 2025.
Competition sessions at DECA’s International Career Development Conference will be held LIVE in the exhibit hall. Unlike the qualifying rounds, competition sessions held at ICDC will be timed events. Scholarships will be awarded to the first, second and third place winners at ICDC.
NOTE: Participating in qualifying rounds at ICDC does not preclude students from participating in other events at ICDC.
Rules
ELIGIBILITY: High school members of DECA chapters are eligible to participate. All participants must have current dues on file at DECA prior to the submission of any VBC files to Knowledge Matters. A DECA chapter may have as many teams as it can support according to the team membership rules. All membership questions will be handled by DECA.
TEAM MEMBERSHIP: Teams must consist of one to three DECA members. All rankings and awards are based on the team and not the individual. A team member cannot be on more than one team per event at a time. No additional team members may be added once a team has registered. If a team member drops off a team or a team is to be dissolved, an e-mail from the team’s DECA advisor acknowledging the removal must be sent to VBCCentral@KnowledgeMatters.com stating the team name and the team member(s) to be removed. An acknowledgment from Knowledge Matters confirming the team member update will be sent back to the DECA advisor. If this acknowledgment is not received, it will be the responsibility of the team to resubmit the request via the advisor of the team. Once the acknowledgment is received, the individual is free to register a new team. All maintenance and compliance monitoring of the teams will be the responsibility of the team’s DECA Advisor. Team names must generally adhere to DECA’s code of ethics. Team names deemed inappropriate according to National DECA will be renamed with the name of their local chapter without notice. National DECA will have the ultimate authority to resolve team membership & name disputes.
CODE OF CONDUCT: Participants agree to compete by the Rules of Competition listed on this page. Participants further agree that all work submitted is work done by the participant or the participant’s registered teammates. Participants understand that any attempt to hack or cheat the simulation is grounds for removal from the competition and possible further actions. Participants agree to refer any questions on what may constitute a cheat to Knowledge Matters for a decision. Inquiries must be submitted through the Knowledge Matters’ support system, and must contain “Official Ruling Requested” within the title of the inquiry.
UPDATE: It has come to our attention that a former competitor may be offering assistance to teams via social media. As a reminder, it is against the rules of this event to accept or pay for assistance from anyone not a member of your team, including former Virtual Business Challenge competitors.
All participants agree to be bound by the following Honor Code: I pledge that all work submitted is that of me or my teammates, solely. I have received no outside help with the challenge. I pledge not to hack or cheat in any way and agree to report others that I am aware of who hack or cheat.
Additionally, because the VBCs are interstate competitions for prize money, participants who hack or cheat may be subject to penalties under federal, state or local cybercrime or anti-hacking laws.
DRESS CODE: If students qualify and decide to compete at the ICDC, they must wear DECA blazers during competition.
QUALIFIER RULES:A maximum of one team, per chapter, per round of competition is eligible to qualify for the ICDC. Teams that qualify for DECA’s International Career Development Conference (ICDC) during round one may participate, but will not be ranked in round two.
SCORES: A team’s actual numeric score will not be posted on the rankings page. Bars symbolizing a team’s score will be posted instead. Numeric amounts will not be released during the Challenge rounds. In the event of a tie, the team with the earliest file submission will rank higher, so it is important to get your files ranked early in the Challenge.
For the Accounting mini-challenges, in the event of tied total scores at the end of any mini-challenge, the team with the higher the rank in the most recent mini-challenge will be considered ahead of the other tied team(s).
ICDC LIVE EVENT: For VB Personal Finance only, the qualifying teams will be allowed to use the Texas Instruments® TI-30Xa Scientific Calculator during the competition sessions at ICDC. Knowledge Matters will provide a calculator for each team to use. Teams must use the provided calculator.
Support
Entrepreneurship, Fashion, Restaurant, Hotel, Sports, Personal Finance, Retailing, and Accounting
Due to the high volume of teams participating in the VBC, all questions regarding the VBC should be submitted via email. Please fill out this form and submit it to Knowledge Matters, Inc. Emails will be answered in the order in which they are received during Knowledge Matters, Inc. business hours which are Mon-Fri from 8:30AM-5:00PM Eastern Time.
Disclaimer
Each team and its members are responsible for having read all the guidelines. National DECA and Knowledge Matters, Inc. are not responsible for an entry that is late, lost, misdirected, or not received. Only entries that are received by Knowledge Matters, Inc. will be eligible for scoring and ranking. All technical issues should be directed to our support team as soon as possible for resolution. Because of the wide variation in computer systems, Knowledge Matters, Inc. assumes no responsibility for the performance of its software on participants’ computers. It is the team members’ responsibility to check this page for late breaking news or updates.
Contact
Technical Support Questions
Chapter Participation Questions
DECA Education Department
703-860-5000
education@deca.org