Armstrong Students Take Real World Retail Challenge

For Wenshi Zhang and Kevin Gerber coffee filters were a good investment.

Maybe it wasn't a real one, but in the real world simulation of buying and selling products like tea, coffee and coffee filters, the students learned some valuable lessons.

"Success was determined by inventory management," Kevin said.

The two worked together every day for around a month to work on their team's project for the sixth annual DemandTec Retail Challenge, an online math scholarship contest. Target Corporation teamed up with DemandTec to bring the challenge to the Minneapolis area.

This is the first year Armstrong participated in the challenge and a total of 50 students or 25 teams were tasked with consumer product merchandising and marketing or selling and buying a certain product through an online simulation program. Students worked hard to determine how to make the most profit off of different coffee brands, coffee filters and tea.

"I learned about making business decisions, working with someone and disagreeing and thinking about multiple things at one time," said Hang Nguyen, 17, of Plymouth. Hang and her teammate Hannah Weber, 18, of Golden Valley came in second place right behind Wenshi and Kevin.

The challenge included three stages, each designed to encompass math and science education for high school seniors as they work through real world situations.

Students learn to appreciate many skills vital to the workplace  including teamwork, problem solving, creativity and effective communication.  Students were be able to receive online mentoring through Facebook and 30-minute conference call sessions to ask questions directly to a DemandTec Retail Challenge mentor.

On Nov. 17, three final teams advanced to the semi-final round in which they made a presentation of their challenge results and more. Target employees were on hand to be the judges and as first-place winners Kevin and Wenshi have an all-expense paid trip to New York City for the final round. 

Kevin's family works in business and influenced his interest in it.

"Being around them I picked up on their attitude toward business," Kevin said. "Doing this challenge I learned about understanding relationships like pricing versus volume and other ones I didn't know as well before."

Wenshi said he learned more about analyzing statistics and break-even analysis.

"Having a simulator was really fun with this challenge," Wenshi said.

Hang and Hannah said the decision making process was a fun part of the challenge.

"Everyone is involved with business in some way at some point in their lives," Hang said. "Learning about it as much as you can helps you in life."

Kevin said he wants to start his own business someday after college and Wenshi wants to go to college for engineering and one day be his own boss. Hang is looking at pre-med in pharmaceuticals and Hannah hopes to be a food scientist to provide healthier food options for people and open her own bakery.

At finals in January, Wenshi and Kevin will present their data and results along with other students, and each student from the winning pair will receive a $5,000 scholarship.  The grand champions will also be able to ring the closing bell at the day’s NASDAQ session.