College team beats national companies in business game

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 648, 6 August 1996, Page 1

College team beats national companies in business game

A team of Ruapehu Colege pupils have beaten the likes.of New Zealand Post and Phillips NZ Ltd in a national management game. Thanks to sponsorship from King Country Energy, Ruapehu College has been able to enter a team in this year's National Business Review Management Game. Team members are Seventh Form students Amy Smith, Megan Lind, Tony Stewart, Tonia Lumsden and John Laurenson (Teacher). The competition is entered annually by businesses throughout the country and about 50 secondary schools have also entered this year. Teams are split into five teams per group. The game simulates a manufacturing business with each team representing the executive of that business with the responsibilTurn to Page 2

College team beats national companies

From page 1 ity of managing it over a number of trading periods. Facts and figures about the companies' production costs, stock levels, market sizes and trends, competitors' prices, storage, cash

situation and so on have to be taken into account. Each two weeks a new set of decisions are made that represent one year's trading. Six of these decision rounds make up a game.

In the first round of 1996 teams were marketing a renewable fuel source call Beethane which came in 100 litre disposable canisters, which fit into existing vehicles through an inexpensive valve used for alternative fuels. There were four local markets and two export markets, one to India and one to Australia. A further market was also available once a level of total quality management was shown. Various spot contracts and forward contracts were also available. Throughout the game companies whose strategy involved large marketing campaigns, successfully captured more customers. Aussie competitor Mid-way through the game an alternative Australian home-grown product called Roothane had a major effect in both Australian and New Zealand markets. At the start of the game each team had total retained funds of $3,937,991. At the completion of the first game Ruapehu College had increased its retained funds to $10,219,997, slightly behind Petrocorp Exploration on $ 10,307,079

but ahead of New Zealand Poston $5,427,798, Phillips NZ Ltd on $5,850,628. Of the 220 entries there were only 16 companies that achieved a higher retained earnings total and only one of these was from a school team. Ruapehu is currently working on its second round game where they have been teamed up with 4 other qualifying teams from

Round One. Namely Allflex NZ Ltd, Alliance Textiles, Telecom NZ Ltd and Ericsson Communications Ltd. This should prove to be a tough round, said team coach John Laurenson. The team will be running a fictitious novelty brick company which has successfully delivered all the inscribed bricks for the 01ympic Village which led to large retail saies in America.