Getting into the Business@Xinmin

SWOT analysis, EBITDA, earnings ratio, profit and loss statements, projected income, management reports, market awareness, business plans, branding – not quite the latest teenage jargon, but these are terms that have become part of everyday conversations between 18 Sec 3 Xinmin Secondary School students. They’re attending the Business@Xinmin elective enrichment course, where such concepts pepper their weekly training sessions to develop financial and business savvy.

“The school decided to introduce entrepreneurship among our Sec 3 students because elements of economics, including financial literacy, are very important in today’s world,” explains Chemistry teacher Mr Jason Chew, who with the Subject Head for Humanities Mr Nicholas Wong, is in charge of Business@Xinmin course. It’s part of the school’s Talent Development Programme, where students are given the opportunity to further develop their interests outside the formal school curriculum.

Business@Xinmin has been running for three years now, and Mr Chew has no lack of examples when it comes to enumerating its benefits.

“Obviously the students have an understanding of business, as compared to their peers who did not attend the course. In addition, they are better at analysis, and can quickly discern the main points in a presentation or discussion,” says Mr Chew. “They’re also very confident and can deliver a speech or share their thoughts in a concise manner during lessons.”

Developing a mindset for business

The business course comprises three 10-week phases culminating in a competition among the four participating schools – Xinmin Secondary School, Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, Raffles Institution and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent). It’s a Business@School educational initiative by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), aimed at building bridges between business and schools. BCG consultants impart real-life business know-how and skills to students, with the support of their schools.

Phase 1 of the course was a challenge for the students as they had to pick up sufficient process skills and content knowledge to analyse a publicly-listed company of their choice. In Phase 2, they applied their know-how to a private company.

The teams are currently in Phase 3, where they have to develop a business idea with a start-up capital of S$50,000. This competitive round will see the Xinmin Secondary School teams pit their ideas against each other, as well as against other school teams. The overall winner in Singapore gets to travel to Prague to compete against the winning teams from other schools worldwide that are also participating in the BCG initiative.

BCG provides the schools with resources and the course structure so that the teachers-in-charge can imbibe knowledge and guide students in their projects. Students have to pick up a gamut of business skills – not just understanding the individual financial terms, but also how to make sense of an executive summary or management statement of an annual report, or the significance of each contributor in a value chain, performing comparative industry and trend analyses, and interpreting census and financial analysts’ recommendations. At the end of each phase, each team presents its findings to a panel comprising two business experts and a BCG business consultant.

Applying what they’ve learned

The 18 Business@Xinmin participants this year were selected after two rounds of interviews. When asked why they had applied for the course, most cited a desire to find out more about the world of business. “The Sec 3 level is really the crossroads of our lives, and the only buffer time we have to discover if business is our cup of tea before we start preparing for our ‘O’ levels,” explains Claudia Lim Shi Yi of team Asterisk.

Now that they’ve had several months to get into the swing of things, how do they feel about the world of business? For the girls from the team Elight, when they now look at a display – be it a shopfront or webpage – they ask themselves if the products or services can be better presented to reach their target audience. “We are more aware of the importance of branding and awareness-building, and how to use advertising to push a product,” says Yow Hui Feng.

Collins Abraham of team Kreativität appreciates that the course has demystified the business world. “When I read the business pages of the newspapers, I understand the terms used. I can evaluate the performance of different companies and figure out which is doing better.”

Beyond content knowledge, the experience of Business@Xinmin has also given them a taste of other business-related opportunities out there. As Collins’ team-mate Fu Zi Yue points out, “I hope that this course will give me a headstart in life. Everything in the working world is related to business!”