RRHS duo get down to serious business

By Ken Johnston
Editor

It is a feat of no small proportions. Two students from Rainy River High School nearly won a big business competition at the end of April.
Grade 12 accounting students Anders Moen and Vince Scott teamed up as did the rest of the class in pairs to participate in the online annual Sprott Business Competition hosted by Carleton University in Ottawa. There were 1,127 teams of two competing in it from February 20th to April 20th. Moen and Scott finished 5th, narrowly missing the top spot.
Teacher Dan Mack was really excited when he learned that two teams under his instruction made it to the semi-finals which saw the 1,127 teams weeded out to 99. His other team was a team from Atikokan which he was teaching via video conference link every day. Out of the 99 Scott and Moen finished 12th but were first in their grouping which vaulted them into the finals. The Atikokan team finished 9th overall but not at the top of their grouping and hence did not make the finals.
The way the competition works is all the teams work on the same type of product. This year they were using iPods. The goal is to have the highest owner’s equity at the end of the competition. To do that teams determine product price, how much advertising to do, how much research and development to do, plant and equipment purchases/costs, how much sales support to provide, how much human resources to use and how many units will be produced.
The teams input their projections via the internet and a computer algorithm calculates how each firm does.
During the semi-finals the teams man a computer from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. inputting new figures every ten minutes. The top teams then moved onto the finals which saw Scott and Moen move on to.
The finals were the same 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. format and for most of the day the RRHS team was in fourth. “We tried some last desperate measures to catch the leaders, but they were too far ahead,” said Moen. They ended up in 5th overall.
Both Moen and Scott said they chalk their miss of the top three; all of which received cash prizes, to lack of experience. “Had we done this before we think that the outcome would have been even better.”
Mack said he is hoping to start kids doing the competition in grade 9 next year and have them do it every year like other schools competing in it have been. “That will give them the experience necessary to be right at the top with all the same knowledge as others.”
Mack said that he was very impressed with Scott and Moen’s performance considering it was their first time and many of the other teams competing are from business preparatory schools. Of the top three 2nd and 3rd went to teams from such a school where they learn business all day long. “We have three business courses here,” said Mack.
Both Scott and Moen really liked the hands on approach to business rather than the traditional learning debits/credits and on paper business models.
“It was fun and I would like to see how it relates to what business people do in real life,” said Scott.
Moen noted that there are some glitches in how real the competition can be. “It does not account for human spending habits like Christmas spending.”