Prerana Day Three Report
The crescendo of excitement built over the last two days, reached a feverish pitch on the third and final day of Prerana 2005. The events scheduled on day three were the SCM Summer Project Contest, the Taktics SCM Case Study Contest, the ‘Law’Gistics’ strategy game and the ‘Billboard’ advertising game. In the evening, the NITIE lawns played host to the grand spectacle of the Prerana Business Quiz – a corporate versus students business quiz conducted by Parnab Mukherjee that carried a net prize money of one lakh rupees.
The first event of the day was the ‘SCM Summer Project Contest.’ The jury for the event included – Mr. Lars Sorensen, Managing Director Maersk Logistics; NITIE alumni Mr. R. Suresh, Managing Director, Stanton Chase; Mr. S. Viraraghavan, Head of SCM and Operations, Cargill Foods and Professor N. Sambandam, NITIE, Mumbai. Only 6 entries out of the 140 received made it to the finals. The six finalists were from IIMI, IIMK, NITIE and Sydenham Institute of Management, Mumbai respectively. The contestants presented really interesting projects from that addressed diverse challenges such as efficient components procurement for Maruti Swift, redesigning Diageo’s distribution network and charting a roadmap for six-sigma implementation in the shared services department of Dr. Reddy’s Labs. Saurabh Sharma from NITIE comfortably bagged first place for his project that involved developing a model for the novel concept of introducing intra-company SLAs between the SCM, Marketing and Finance departments of Nestle to enhance collaboration between these core function groups. Parag Shah from IIML came second. His project dealt with reducing inventory costs of ‘gold’ in Tanishq’s jewelry and watches plant. The summer project contest was followed by a panel discussion on the strategic role of SCM in brand building.
‘Taktics‘, the supply chain case study contest was swept by NITIEns. The five teams that made it to the finals were from Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research, NITIE, VGSoM – IIT Kharagpur and IIMA respectively. The first place went to Amit Dutta, the second prize winners were the team of Saurabh Sharma and P N Madhukar, all from NITIE. The case study dealt with redesigning the distribution set-up of a company in the post-VAT scenario. The jury members were Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, Bayer healthcare and Pharmaceuticals, Ramesh Singhal, CEO, i-maritime, Ravindra Tulsyan, CEO – Director Aakit Technologies and Head of IMRMI ( Institute of Manufacturing Resource Management of India) and Prof. K. Muthukrishnan, SCM faculty of NITIE.
The Red Herrings series of on-the-spot business games, threw two new challenges in the form of Bill Board and Lawgistics. Bill Board, an advertising game, was designed to align the contestant’s attitude with today’s dynamic markets for out of the box solutions. The game was held in three rounds, the first being an elimination round that tested the awareness of the teams vis-a-vis Indian and global advertising. The 7 teams that survived this round moved to rounds 2 and 3, which were evaluated by Mr. Abu Mallick, Strategic Planning Director, McCann Erickson India. Round 2 consisted of a print campaign aimed at promoting a social cause that had to be selected and presented by each team. Themes chosen in this round varied from saving the ozone layer to eye donation to AIDS prevention. Round 3 was based on developing a storyline for brands not based in India, or not having a strong presence here. Participants presented in-house productions and creatively thought out themes, such as linking the Vesuvius man for a Rolex ad, and using everyday life at NITIE to promote the Pringles chips brand. After a keenly fought contest, Team Zero of AICAR business school, emerged as winners for their campaign for CPA (print) and Rolex watches (Eric Clapton). Team Karma Chakra of ICFAI, Hyderabad was runners up, with their presentation for PETA (print) and BOSE QC2 headphones (story line).
The other Red Herring event of the day was, Law’Gistics. Law’Gistics tested the creativity of participants in dealing with issues concerning logistics and supply chain management. Teams that participated were from ISB, NITIE, S.P Jain, NMIS etc. Eight teams survived the elimination round to reached round two. The second round was a computer simulated strategy game where the challenge was to build a cost effective distribution network. In the final round the four teams that were short-listed from the second round faced a barrage of questions from Prof. Muthukrishnan. After four grueling rounds of quizzing the team of Kartik Shanker and Sameer Gunjal from NITIE emerged trumps. The team of Umang Kumar and Rohit Kapoor from ISB came second.
The post-lunch session saw people streaming in for the annual Prerana Business Quiz. This grand event which boasts of a net prize money of rupees one lakh, has always been a huge draw for corporates and students alike. The elimination round saw three corporate teams and three student teams make it to the finals. As the sun set on the NITIE lawns, the multi-faceted theater activist cum ace quiz master, Mr. Parnab Mukherjee took stage to conduct the quiz finals. Round after round of scintillating quizzing literally stretched the participants to their wits end!
As the curtains fell on Prerana 2005, the PGDIM batches on NITIE deserved a pat on the back for the brilliant execution of this fascinating three day journey called Prerana!