“Business today is about strategy. No business can survive without an effective strategy. The geneses lies with war. Wars have since their inception relied on strategy to defeat tough opponents. Julius Caeser or Napolean, all have relied on strategy to overcome combatants. Today strategy is common parlance for many businesses around the world. Models, such as Porter’s five forces or value chain, or Robert Kaplan’s Balanced Scorecard deal with making businesses survive in a tough competitive world. Strategy, is something new to the business world but war isn’t. Businesses can learn much from past wars. Today there are terms like Guerilla Marketing and Price Warfare amongst business jargon. The effect of wars on businesses has been huge” states Sumit Verma, Lead Co-ordinator, Core Committee, Milestone 35.

Oiling the gigantic event are games which require thinking at levels like that required by industry giants like L N Mittal and Arun Sarin. Take for example the Battle of Sardis-a game on mergers and acquisitions. Teams would be provided with company details of an acquirer and three possible targets. Each team has to choose a target based on the financial valuation and future prospects. Also, the teams have to present the funding proposition to a panel of judges i.e. underlying how they will raise the money for the merger. “It’s going to be a war for supremacy out there, participants will have their mettle tested by industry experts, only after which can they rest in peace”, states Pravin Gaurisaria, a Chartered Accountant and a final year MBA student at IMT Nagpur, who is participating in the Battle of Sardis.

An event of the magnitude of Milestone 35 has not been without its share of efforts. “We have an event management team which looks after infrastructure requirements. Then there is the hospitality team which coordinates all functions of incoming guests including students and corporates who are not only going to engage in panel discussions and lectures on management but also judge competitive events. There are also the logistics as well as publicity teams who perform their respective functions in close coordination with other teams. What we are learning here is the art of management, though this time it’s outside the classroom”, says Ankur Kale, Co-ordinator, Event Management, Milestone 35.