High school in business gear

NOOSA District State High School (NDSHS) has successfully hosted Australian Business Week for the 12th straight year, and their appetite for the program hasn’t waned.
Australian Business Week (ABW) offered students the opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to run a company.
In an exciting one-week intensive program, students experienced what it is like to run a multi-million dollar company and make decisions which have real outcomes as they worked as part of a team managing their own business.
This year, students ran a consumer electronics retail store, and with the help of a business and teacher mentor discovered the variety of skills needed to be part of a successful business in the 21st century.
Over the week, students performed tasks in teams ranging from forming a company, assigning roles and responsibilities in the company and reviewing key business areas. They had to make decisions about price, product, their target market, staffing and training. This year’s 15 teams also developed a marketing strategy and mounted a trade display complete with promotional material and produced a 30 second commercial featuring their business.
Finally, each team prepared a written company report explaining decisions made and the outcomes and the impact on their company’s performance and delivered an oral presentation to an audience of business people, teachers, students and parents.
It made for a full week, but left each participant with some valuable skills for their careers and the courage to make a difference in their chosen field. This year, the team named Switched On Electronics were crowned Grand Champions.The winning team’s appointed CEO Finn Neville said the ABW experience had not only benefited the Switched On team, but all who took part.
“We’ve learnt so many valuable lessons this week – how to work together and consider everyone’s opinions,” Finn said.
“We were thrilled to have been given this opportunity to develop our skills in business management even though most of us haven’t had business studies as a course. We’re especially thankful to our mentors, John Masterman and Clifton Sim, who gave their time to guide us and advise us.”
Without the support of parents, students and teachers, ABW simply wouldn’t be the success it’s become, but it’s the support from local businesses that has seen the program develop in recent years.
One such business is the Cooroy Community Bank branch of Bendigo Community Bank. Having just completed sponsoring ABW for another year, Cooroy branch customer relations officer Karl Doss said the Community Bank would be proud to support ABW again in 2016.
“This is our eighth year as the major sponsor of ABW, and the relationship gets stronger as we become more involved in each facet of it,” Karl said.
“The mentoring process during ABW is all about giving the students help where they need it, but it’s mostly about watching the groups apply their great ideas with their endless energies and talents. One of our Community Bank board directors Fred Broomhall was also on hand to assist during the week of mentoring, and we’re both delighted to add this to our financial assistance to the program.”