Putting in the time, effort and teamwork needed to manage a business is no small task. This is something secondary-school students learned firsthand as they participated in the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business’s Secondary School Business Simulation Competition.
Running from October 4-November 6, the competition challenged participating students to manage a virtual business as they competed with each other from the top places.
Business Day spoke to the second, third and fourth-place winners at the award ceremony on November 15.
SWAHA Hindu College cops fourth place
For SWAHA Hindu College, the competition was a first. So, having placed fourth overall out of 35 schools, participating student Kimberly Mohammed expressed pride in her team’s performance.
"We believe we did it really well. It was something very new to us, and you know you wouldn’t see this in a textbook. You wouldn’t see this in the POB (principles of business) or MOB (management of business) textbook. It was like it was real life, and for us to have made it so far, first of all, we have to thank God."
For her and her team, the competition was not an easy one, as they were tasked with managing many of the real-life aspects of a business, including profits and sustainability.
"It was a challenging, complex competition, and I liked that about it. It wasn’t a simple thing. We were anxious to see results, wondering if our decisions made sense, if we focused on sustainability enough and if our profits were enough."
Her teammate Rahul Ramdeo had similar views as he spoke about the technical challenges of the competition.
"The interface at first was really confusing. There were a lot of numbers and a lot of metrics that we were not aware of. Yes, we did economics and POB – but it was very different in the simulation itself."
The group credited its success to teamwork and learning from past mistakes.
"We really worked through it. The first round was the test round, and we really worked and got through it," Ramdeo said. "The team effort really and truly helped. Everybody put in their input somewhere and we understood better through collaborative effort."
Mohammed said her biggest takeaway from the competition was learning how to adapt to the endless changes of the business world.
"Being able to adapt to anything that hit us, being able to adapt to negative profits when we didn’t expect to get negative profits – and that’s really important about this competition. Because in the business world everything changes, nothing is ever static, and that is something that I think we as business students should be aware of.
"You will never win everything. You can’t have it all. But you have to be able to pick yourself up even when you fall...in business and entrepreneurship."
Fatima College wins third place
No strangers to the competition, Fatima College placed third for the second consecutive year.
With its practical approach to business education, participating student Sterlin Russell said the simulation was better suited to his
