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Indian Institute of Management Calcutta's management festival Intaglio 2008 was off to a rollicking start on January 4.Day 2 saw plenty of action with management games on strategy, operations, marketing and more. MBAUniverse.com, the Official Management Portal of IIM C Intaglio, presents a run down on Day 2. Olympus (Quest for the Best Leader) Final Round Olympus, the flagship event of Intaglio, was the longest drawn out event of Intaglio, spanning across the 3 days of Intaglio � 4-6 January 2008. It was an interesting battlefield of leadership where the six candidates (one from each IIM) battled it out for the highest honour, and handsome prize money of Rs. 150,000.In the run-up to Intaglio, aspirants from the 6 IIMs applied to get a chance to represent their institute at this prestigious event. Their CVs and essays were reviewed by industry experts and 3 candidates from each institute were initially shortlisted. This gave Olympus a first set of three candidates from each IIM who had to prove their abilities to their peers as well as the experts. These 18 candidates were interviewed by a top international management consulting firm. Their interview scores along with the results of online polls, which involved a lot of campaigning by these candidates, in the 6 IIMs determined the final list of the 6 accomplished young men/women, one from each IIM.
The 6 chosen finalists were:
IIM Ahmedabad - Kaushik Mukherjee
IIM Bangalore - Neetu Chitkara
IIM Calcutta - Kedar Naik
IIM Lucknow - Arjun Myne
IIM Indore - Rajat Hooda
IIM Kozhikode - Anshul Gupta
These finalists represented their institute at Intaglio 2008. They went through a series of structured activities over the 3-day period. In the process they were evaluated by peers, industry experts and the students of many b-schools in the country through an online poll. The final round, which drew a huge audience, was conducted in the auditorium of IIM Calcutta. It was drawn out into 2 stages.
The first stage was a debate. The judges for this stage were Mr. Ashwani Parashar, Senior HR Executive, Reliance Industries Limited and Mr. Giri Balasubramaniam, an eminent quizzer. Prof. Debashish Bhattacharjee of IIM Calcutta moderated this stage. The motion was "Indian democracy precludes meritocracy". The representatives from IIM Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Kozhikode were asked to speak for the motion while the representatives from IIM Bangalore, Indore and Lucknow were required to speak against the motion. The six participants first spoke as a team and then individually. Soon a debate broke out after which the floor was thrown open for the audience to ask questions from any of the candidates. There were some high-powered exchanges between the esteemed audience and the participants.
Three candidates out of the six were screened out at the end of this stage. The candidates who got through the first stage were Kaushik Mukherjee from IIM Ahmedabad, Rajat Hooda from IIM Indore and Arjun Myne from IIM Lucknow. In the 2nd stage, the 3 chosen candidates were individually interviewed by a panel of judges which consisted of Prof. Leena Chatterjee, Professor, IIM Calcutta, Nidhi Razdan, Anchor, NDTV, Mr. Parashar and Mr. Balasubramaniam.
After the grueling round of interview, Rajat Hooda of IIM Indore walked away with all the glory and the grand prize of Rs.150, 000.NDTV "Indian of the Year" and Panel Discussion Show.
NDTV conducted two panel discussions to be telecasted on national TV. Huge number of students, not only from IIM Calcutta but from numerous other colleges, turned up for what was one of the most awaited events at Intaglio this year.
The first discussion was the regional round of the popular NDTV show "Indian of the year" anchored by Monideepa Bannerjee. People voted to choose their Indian of the year from among a selected set of elite nominees.
The elite panelists comprised
1.Jimmy Tangree, Singer and Radio Jockey
2.Anjan Chatterjee, Entrepreneur and Founder, Oh Calcutta restaurant
3.Ranadeb Bose, Budding national cricketer
4.Soumitra Ray, Lead singer, Lyricist, Composer of popular band Bhoomi
5. Pradeep Kakkar, Environmentalist and Former Director of Lintas, and former faculty member of IIM Calcuttap
The nominees were from various categories like sports that included the popular cricketer MS Dhoni as well as girl tennis champion Sania Mirza, Political leaders where President APJ Kalam emerged as the favorite of the audience as well panelists, Music where AR Rahman ruled the hearts, Corporate leaders which threw mixed results, Global Indian where IIMC alumnus Indra Nooyi was the first choice of the audience and finally Cinema where Shahrukh Khan was the undisputed winner. The event thoroughly enjoyed by audience and panelists equally with everyone throwing interesting points in favour of their chosen one.The second panel discussion which threw more arguments and counter arguments was on the topic "Building Brand India" anchored by Nidhi Razdan. The panelists this time comprised of:
1.Mohammed Salim, Senior Politician and Lok Sabha member
2. Harsh Neotia, Industrialist and Managing Director, Ambuja Realty Group
3.Pradeep Kakkar, Environmentalist and Former Director of Lintas, and former faculty member of IIM Calcutta
4.Ashish Bhattacharya, Senior Professor at IIM Calcutta
The discussion was more of a debate that touched upon various aspects like, India being a brand in various categories but lacking overall, India being a brand without a brand manager and whether bollywood is a representative of brand India on a global platform.
The discussion evoked a variety of sentiments from audience and panelists alike. The questions from the enthusiastic audience continued long after the run time was over.
Sarthak Behuria, Chairman IOCL says, "PSUs have a major role to play in the India growth story"
Mr. Behuria, who is also the Chairman, SCOPE (Standing Conference of Public Enterprises) elaborated on how Public Sector Enterprises have played a major role in India's stupendous growth in the recent times. With increased autonomy in capital expenditures, PSUs are increasingly becoming competitive on par with private enterprises, he said. He also stressed on the importance of Public-Private partnerships.
Talking about energy security, he said IOCL is actively pursuing research in alternate fuel technologies including bio-fuel using jatropha seeds. Bio-diesel would become a major fuel source in less than 50 years, he added.
The event was well attended by academicians, and students from various top B-schools in the country.
Bangalored, the E-commerce Game.
Bangalored was a game, which offered participants the opportunity to delve deep into the world of e-commerce. How do you develop the right business model? How do you set up financing and logistics? How do you ensure steady revenue streams, based on advertising or otherwise? With whom do you compete and collaborate? All these and many more are the questions that teams must think over in order to come out on top. The eliminations covered a wide-array of aspects related to e-commerce.
The event was conducted in two rounds. Both the rounds were conducted in the form of an interactive online game where the participants could log in and lock horns with the competitors. The first round was a quiz on e-commerce in which 140 teams from various b-schools participated. A large number of teams represented the various IIMs, SPJIMR, IIT-VGSOM, MDI and FMS (Delhi).
The best six teams made it to the second and final round - one team each from MDI, FMS (Delhi), IIT Kharagpur - VGSOM and 3 teams from the host institute IIMC. The second round was a simulation of real market conditions. It was drawn into 3 stages. The first stage was designing an e-commerce venture based on various dynamic parameters. A venture could consist of a maximum of three websites. The second stage involved developing a marketing strategy for the venture designed in the first stage. In the last and the most interesting stage the teams could go for inorganic growth by acquiring other websites or sell their own to make windfall profits. The teams with overall highest net profits were declared the winners.
The 1st prize winner was the team "Torpedo" from IIT Kharagpur - VGSOM represented by Sachin Mehta and Aditya Mishra. The team from MDI, "Mandarians" represented by Nikhil Bhatia and Gautam A stood 2nd while the IIM Calcutta team "Dmitry & Danians" represented by Srinivas and Vikas Sahu received the 3rd prize. The event was sponsored by Cognizant Technology Solutions.
State of Affairs: Operational Decision Making game.
The 'Optimum' expo of Intaglio 2007-08 kicked off its proceedings with 'State of Affairs', a game based on the concepts of Operations Management. The two-round event, both of which were held on campus, had a very good response from students of different B-schools. Round one (January 4, 2008) of 'State of Affairs' was designed to test the participants' logical and analytical skills, which are the hallmark of a competent operations manager. Eight of the best performing teams were shortlisted for the final round. Four teams from IIMC and one each from IIT Kharagpur, MDI Gurgaon, SPJIMR Mumbai, JBIMS Mumbai.
The final round on January 5, 2008 was an exciting affair where the teams had to choose specific tasks in the operations of an industrial city, and obtain optimal solutions. The participants had a variety of problems to tackle, like scheduling, cost optimization, resource allocation etc. An interesting aspect was that the teams were always aware of their relative positions and were given the liberty to choose an appropriate level of risk. Though all the teams were equally matched in their skills, one of the teams from IIMC was unstoppable, and deservedly won the first place. The teams from MDI Gurgaon and SPJIMR Mumbai finished second and third respectively.
Murphy's Laugh: Project and resource management game.
Murphy's Laugh was an online project management simulation game. The objective of the game was to expose the teams to some of the complex interplays inherent in a software project.
The event draws relevance given today's emerging information technology scenario, with almost every company going online with expanding its internal operations.
This event saw enthusiastic participation from the top B-Schools and corporates all over the country and across the globe. In the first round, about 340 teams with 2 members each participated. The international contingent of the participating teams was led by National University of Singapore, Asian School for Business Management, EM Lyon and American University in Cairo. The event also saw corporate participation in the form of PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP Labs and Modelytics Inc.
In the first round, given the details of various projects, as well as the various constraints in terms of infrastructure, the teams had to decide which projects company should take up and then maximize efficiency by strategic allocation of resources. The market is assumed to be static and predictable. All the required information viz the projects and resources are provided to the teams, and they had to act as a consultant to the company and design a project allocation schedule so as to maximize the profits. A project has three phases and considered complete when each � Requirement Gathering, Analysis and Design, Coding and Testing is complete. Teams have to make allocation schedule considering all the constraints, mandatory requirements and penalties. Response sheet and cash dashboard, to picture cash reserves and revenues is provided to each team.
Top five teams post the elimination stage included teams from IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and ISB. The teams contested in the final round held at IIM Calcutta campus. The second round comprised 3 stages. Each stage had teams bidding for 15 projects given resources and constraints. In the first stage the teams had to bid such that the lowest unique bid wins the project. The second stage was a Sealed � bid second price auction, also known as a Vickrey auction. In this the winning bidder pays the second lowest bid rather than their own. This is very similar to proxy bidding system used by ebay. The third and the final stage was a Sealed � bid first price auction.
The total prize money for Murphy's laugh was Rs.50000 with the first prize won by IIM Ahmedabad, second by IIM Calcutta and third by IIM Bangalore winning Rs 25000, Rs 15000 and Rs 10000
The event was conducted in association with Cognizant Technology solutions. Ad-dict: Advertising contest
The Marketing enthusiasts who came to Intaglio 2007-08 had a special bonanza in store. The whole contest was played at a innovative level with lots of competition among the finalists. The finalists were selected on the basis of an Online elimination round that looked at various aspects of Marketing and asked for self made Advertisement in any format - Print /Audio /Video.
The format of the finals consisted of 3 rounds- A Phone in Sales Pitch round, a Sales Pitch to the Judges and market demonstration of the product. The Phone in Sales Pitch with the time limit of 2 minutes meant that the contestants had to think of novel ways of getting the product information across to the customers. Essentially all teams were trying to sell new products to the customers and the products for some teams were as esoteric as Popcorn with colloidal gold and silver as ingredients. What made the contestants ADDICTed to ADDICT was the fact that they could apply the principles of marketing that they learnt in classrooms in real life situations. To quote Mr. Vijay Nagarajan, a contestant from ISB- "What we learnt through 'Addict' was that it is one thing learning Concepts of Marketing in class and a whole different thing to apply the same concepts while selling your products.
The final day of IIM C Intaglio will see culmination of its various events. Stay tuned for updates on IIM C Intaglio on MBAUniverse.com.
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