June 28, 2018
A group of 15 Kingaroy State High School students now know a lot more about running a small business after completing a four-day ECOMAN Program this week.
The Year 11 and 12 students were divided into four teams and presented with a business scenario: take over a failing coffee machine manufacturing business and turn it around in the space of four years.
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.
The four teams – Barista Bros, Creating Heaven, Hype Coffee Co. and The Daily Grind – had to input their decisions into a laptop as they progressed, compressing four years of business trading into four days of school work.
The business simulation program on their laptops tossed up different market conditions as time progressed.
At the end of the four days, the teams presented their results at an AGM to their “shareholders”, who turned out to be invited local businesspeople and parents.
The four teams competing in the coffee machine marketplace this year all managed to deliver a healthy return to their shareholders despite trading through a “recession” in the third year of their business turn-around, as well as facing down a new competitor in their market.
Each had hard decisions to make, including paying down debt, cutting staff, selling off old machines, installing new technology and then investing in new staff and training.
The “shareholders” had the opportunity at the end of each presentation to quiz the students on their marketing plans, labour relations and projected future expansion plans.
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 for Holcim, a Swiss-based global building materials and aggregates company, to help train their management staff.
In Queensland, it is promoted by the Queensland Private Enterprise Centre (QPEC), which is based at Griffith University.
The Ecoman challenge has been running at Kingaroy State High School since 1995.
KSHS Principal Ashley Roediger believes it provides students with a unique opportunity to test their understanding of business.
