Gentry entrepreneurship team takes first

Submitted Photo Derek German, Braxton Gunneman, Kyle Killgore and Clay Wills, students in the entrepreneurship class at Gentry High Schhol, show the certificates and awards they won in the Business Opportunities for Success project at the North Arkansas College in Harrison on Nov. 18. The team took first in the competition against 15 other schools with its simulated business model.
Submitted Photo Derek German, Braxton Gunneman, Kyle Killgore and Clay Wills, students in the entrepreneurship class at Gentry High Schhol, show the certificates and awards they won in the Business Opportunities for Success project at the North Arkansas College in Harrison on Nov. 18. The team took first in the competition against 15 other schools with its simulated business model.

GENTRY -- A team of four Gentry High School business students recently brought home three first-place awards at a stockholders presentation day at North Arkansas College in Harrison on Nov. 18. The students are in the entrepreneurship class, a new class added this year at Gentry High School which is taught by Joni Wilson.

Wilson said the new class is similar to the "Jr. Executive Training class that she taught years ago," and that "students participated in the BOSS (Business Opportunities for Students Success) project."

According to Wilson, the BOSS Project is a $40 million dollar business simulation called Foundation Business Simulation provided by Capsim, Inc., located in Chicago, Ill. BOSS is hosted by educators from Ozark Unlimited Resource Educational Service Cooperative and Instructors from the North Arkansas College Business & IT Division in Harrison.

"The BOSS Project is a state-wide initiative to educate students in business acumen and decision-making skills," Wilson said. "It helps students meet or exceed Common Core state standards for mathematics and literacy, specifically in terms of problem solving and presentation skills."

"Each school's BOSS team of students competed against other BOSS teams in their industry for market share and profits," Wilson said

Each team had to make business decisions to run a cell phone manufacturing business for eight weeks or rounds, with each week simulated to represent one year of business operations, Wilson explained. Each school operated the business simulation company in two market segments: "low-tech market cell phone" and "high-tech market cell phone." Students began the simulation with one product but could develop up to five different products, Wilson said. Students had to make operating and capital budgeting decisions for each round of the operations.

At the end of the project, North Arkansas College Business & IT Division hosted a stockholders presentation day to allow middle- and high-school students present their business team's performance for the semester. The BOSS teams competed for awards in their stockholders' presentation, balanced scorecard percentile ranking and overall profits.

Gentry's team took the simulated 40 million dollar company and in eight weeks reached the high profits of $159 million.

FedEx is the sponsor for the awards each semester, and the teams compete in front of FedEx executives. The Gentry team came out on top in all three categories for the fall semester.

According to Wilson, the students said they learned a lot through the simulation and plan to compete again in the spring.

General News on 12/09/2015