Prerana Day Two Report

The second day of Prerana, NITIE’s annual B-school fest, saw the campus go abuzz with a plethora of events. Participants from across the country battled for honours in the Summer Project Contest, the Srijan IT Case Study, ‘Finix’ the finance game, the best manager contest ‘Connoisseur’ and the strategy game ‘Stratagem.’ In the evening, the NITIE lawns played host to pulsating performances by Mumbai rock bands – ‘Orange Street‘ and ‘Vayu‘.

The first event of the day was ‘Technix – The IT Case Study Contest.’ The event, sponsored by MAQ Software, fielded a case study designed by Satyam. The case required participants to come up with a response to a Request For Proposal(RFP) floated by a large North American Bank which sought to ramp up its Shared Services Operations to address the challenges of globalization and growth. The judges for the event were Mr. Ram Mantrawadi, Head Technology and Transformation, Satyam; Mr. Vikram Kumar, Director of Program Management, MAQ software; Mr. Vinit Bahri, DGM and Head SAP implementation, HCL Technologies, and Mr. Mahesh Shah, Executive VP, Kale Consultants. The five teams that made it to the final were from IIMB, ISB, NITIE, NMIMS and SP Jain. The team of Akanksha Jerath and Vimala Veluchamy from S P Jain walked away with the first prize; the team of Rohit Kapoor and Umang Kumar from ISB came second.

The IT, HR, Finance and Marketing modules of the Prerana Summer Project Contest saw contestants from the IIMs, FMS, IIFT, SP Jain, TISS, NITIE, etc. go head on for glory. This event, one of its kind in the country, provides a platform for contestants to present their Summer Projects before a distinguished jury from the industry.
The HR module received 71 applicants from 15 premier B-schools, out of which 5 were short listed for the finals after rigorous scrutiny by a 3 member panel. The jury for the finals included Ranbaxy’s Sarthak Ray Chaudhuri, General Manager, Organization Development & Training; Wing Commander Surendra Malhotra, Reliance Head-CDMA Network; Ms J. Peters, General Manager, Human Resource Development ONGC. Ms Mridula Sharma from SCMHRD whose project was titled, “How to strengthen the culture of Innovation in Gillette,” was adjudicated the winner. She touched upon various aspects of innovations such as Big Bang, Incremental and continuous innovation. Ms Madhura Chatterjee From TISS whose project was on “Developing a Leadership Talent Pipeline” was adjudicated the runner-up by the jury.

The industry panel for the IT module of SPC comprised of Mr. Siva Visveswaran, Director, Global Technology Office, CTS; Mr. Arun Kumar Pande, Vice President IT, Colgate Palmolive; Mr. Pankaj Phatraphod, Group CIO, ABN AMRO Banking Operations; and Mr. Srinivas Hariharan, Principal Consultant, TCS. Sandeep Sinha from IIFT bagged the first place, second place went to N K Krishnan from IIML.

The Finance module had a high-profile panel composed of Mr. Anil Mavinkurve, Senior VP, JM Morgan Stanley; Mr. S Rangnathan, VP-Controller, Citibank; Mr. S Bharat, Assistant Director of Agency, Tata AIG Mr. Yogesh Kumar, Manager, Oriental Insurance; and Mr. Amar Merani, Assistant Director, Lazard India Limited. The first place went to Kanishka Garg from FMS, Delhi. His project titled “Reverse Mortgage Loans- Scope, market and implementation” was carried out at IndusInd Bank. Sudhanshu Duggal from NITIE came second. His project titled, “Building up Market Intelligence of global Newsprint Industry and fundamental analysis of key newsprint” was the outcome of a summer internship with Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.

The Marketing SPC jury comprised of Mr Shyam Motwani, VP Marketing. and Exports, Godrej Appliances; Mr. G Dhananjayan, Director , Sales and Marketing, Orange; Mr. V. Mani, VP-Delivery, Bristlecone and Mr. Vikram Kumar, Director, MAQ Software. The first place went to Sourajit A. Ghosh from IIMI for his project titled “Development of plan and strategy for Boost in the east.” Needless to say, his summer internship was at GSK.

The Red Herrings part of Prerana was kicked off by FINIX. FINIX was a finance game which tested the participants on the knowledge of corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. The elimination rounds had participants from 18 teams pitted against each other. Five teams made it to the finals. In the finals the participants had to go through 3 grueling rounds in which they had to bid for a company from a list of 12 companies; acquire it and then using project finance options to grow the company and increase its net worth. After six grueling hours of number crunching the team from ICFAI Hyderabad emerged as winners, while the team from JBIMS was the runners up.

‘Connoisseur‘ was a spot-the-CEO contest wherein a panel drawn from diverse industries grilled contestants in a one-on-one interview to select one candidate for the CEO’s post. The panelists were, Mr. S. Mohan, Executive Director (HR), BPCL, Mr. Dharmesh Karmokar, COO, Mocha’s and Mr. S. Kamlesh, MD, IMS Learning & Resource Pvt. Ltd. The first two rounds of the contest screened the IQ, EQ and business acumen of the contestants through written quizzes. The third round was a test of negotiation skills, wherein the 16 qualifiers were paired up into teams of two and given real life situations that demanded some smooth-talking. The final round was a one-on-one stress interview where the panelists fired questions at the contestants to test their level-headedness. At the end of the grueling four rounds, Varun Rana from NITIE, emerged trumps.

‘Stratagem‘, was a strategy game that tested the business prowess of the assembled B-school students. The elimination round was a case study where students where presented an economic scenario and were asked to make investment decisions. The final round saw teams from NITIE, FMS and Great Lakes Chennia face off for prizes. The judges for this event were Dr. (Ms.) Mani K. Mandala and Prof. V.B. Khanapuri from NITIE.
As the sun set on an eventful day, the B-school crowd that had gathered in the NITIE lawns boogied to numbers belted out by Mumbai bands, ‘Orange Street’ and ‘Vayu.’ At the end of the day the wiz kids at NITIE proved that management is not all work and no play; instead it is all about working hard and partying harder!!!