The 14th National Student Business Plan Competition is now underway – testing the flair and entrepreneurship of students preparing for a career in community pharmacy.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s 2021 competition was launched on Monday 25 January during the Annual NAPSA Congress; this year presented in a virtual format due to COVID-19.
The Guild hosted the “Where are they now?” panel session, which highlighted the career journeys of four previous winners of the competition.
Each of the panellists praised the competition for providing them with the networking opportunities, knowledge and insight to grow their business acumen and develop their pharmacy management skills.
Each of the past winners has enjoyed career opportunities across Australia. From the beaches of the Whitsundays to the paddocks of rural Victoria, the competition winners are driving local health outcomes and achieving their management and ownership goals.
Guild National President George Tambassis also addressed the students at the congress.
Mr Tambassis spoke about the future of community pharmacy, ePrescriptions, COVID-19 vaccinations and community pharmacy careers.
“The world is a different place to when we spoke with you last year; the community pharmacy landscape looks a little different, but as always we are at the frontline, accessible and ready to serve the health needs of all Australians,” he said.
“You are the key to your success, get involved now. Primary healthcare, and the role of the pharmacist in service delivery is here to stay and your communities, your patients want your expertise.”
The competition aims to encourage student teams to use their ideas, talents and energy to create innovative new business ideas that create a community benefit through the development of competitive business plans.
The competition guidelines and webpage were also launched at congress, the timeline for the competition is below:
The competition, which commenced in 2006, has been designed to encourage innovation among pharmacy students who will be the future owners of Australian and New Zealand community pharmacies.
In 2021, the focus on innovation will continue to be greater than ever to ensure that tomorrow’s owners look for highly differentiated services that they can provide to the Australian and New Zealand markets.
The National Student Business Plan Competition is open to all students studying pharmacy in Australia and New Zealand and will provide $15,000 in cash prizes to the finalists (top three teams), in addition to registration, flights and accommodation for the winners to attend APP2022.
The competition is an initiative of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and is sponsored by EBOS (major sponsor) and foundation sponsors, Gold Cross Products and Services, and Pharmaceutical Defence Limited (PDL).
