June 23, 2016
A bunch of Kingaroy State High School students now know a lot more about running a small business – and a fair bit about manufacturing and marketing coffee machines – after completing a three-day ECOMAN Program this week.
The 17 students from Year 11 and 12 were divided into four teams and presented with a business scenario: Beatin’s Coffee Machines have been on the market for 10 years but sales are falling, costs are rising and dividends are down.
The students had to prepare a business plan, make forward projections, balance quality against input costs, and juggle bank loans, staff numbers, training, marketing and the cost of renewing infrastructure in a bid to turn the business around and keep their shareholders happy.
The scenario began running on Monday.
Each team input their decisions into a laptop as they progressed, compressing four years of business trading into three days of school work.
The business simulation program running on their laptops tossed up different market conditions as time progressed.
At the end of the three days, the teams presented their results at an AGM to their “shareholders” … invited businesspeople from the Kingaroy community.
The four teams competing in the coffee machine marketplace were: HCM, Barista’s Paradise, MACC and CM Coast To Coast.
We’re happy to report that each managed to deliver a healthy return to their shareholders despite trading through a “recession” in the third year of their business turn-around and facing off against a foreign competitor.
Each had hard decisions to make, cutting staff at one point, selling off old machines, installing new technology and then investing in new staff and training.
And one team was also shocked when a fire unexpectedly destroyed their “inventory” and they discovered it wasn’t insured due to poor decision-making by the former Beatin’s Coffee Machine directors!
The “shareholders” had the opportunity at the end of each presentation to quiz the students on their marketing plans, labour relations and projected expansions.
This enabled the students to explain why they made certain decisions, and how these affected their business outcomes.
The ECOMAN (ECOnomics MANagement) course was originally developed in Switzerland.
In Queensland, it is promoted by the Queensland Private Enterprise Centre (QPEC), based at Griffith University, and has been running since 1995.
