Day one saw plenty of action with contest, workshops and even some theatrics at the end of the say. MBAUniverse.com presents a run down on Day 1.
Consulting Knights
Consulting Knights (CK) was the premier strategy based flagship case study contest at Intaglio 2007-08, where some of the World's Best Business schools met head on to prove their mettle as the future consultants. The objective of the event was to give direct, hands-on experience in the intense, extremely competitive and mercurial scenarios that a consultant has to face in his/her career. CK was a two round event judged by an eminent panel that included Felix, Project Leader, Ruchir Goyal, Principal and Varsha Raman, Consultant, from the Boston Consulting Group. More than 300 teams (around 750 students) registered for CK, the icing on the cake being the participation from Ivy League Business Schools.
The top 5 teams were included teams from IIM Calcutta, IIFT Delhi, ISB, XIMB and an international team from NUS Singapore. The teams contested in the final round held at IIM Calcutta campus where they had to present their case analysis. The case required the teams to devise a strategy for a sportswear company to gain market leadership. Various options were suggested such as inorganic growth, rapid geographical expansion, grassroots marketing, acquisitions etc. The total prize money for Consulting Knights was
Rs.50000 with the first prize won by Zephyr from ISB, second by Vedanta from IIFT and third by The Alchemists from XIMB winning Rs 25000, Rs 15000 and Rs 10000 respectively.
Contact Singapore Seminar
A diverse crowd of 150 management students from all across the nation attended the seminar by Contact Singapore held during Intaglio 2007-08. Contact Singapore is an organization of the government of Singapore which promotes working and living in Singapore to overseas Singaporeans and foreigners. The seminar emphasized the various facets of Singapore and encourages students to work in Singapore.
The seminar was conducted by Mr Vimal Harnal, Area Director of Contact Singapore. He explained how Singapore aims to become a magnet for all talent and Contact Singapore is an organization made for facilitating this purpose. He also elaborated on the open door policy of Singapore which welcomes talent from all over the world.
He took his point further by telling the students about the growth potential in Singapore. It is expected that Asia will account for 40% of world GDP by 2020 and Singapore aims to play a very vital role in it. Singapore currently hosts more than 7000 multi-national companies, has very low personal and corporate tax rates, and is a knowledge based economy with GDP growth rate of 7.7% in 2006. Singapore has also been named the best place to work for Asian Expatriates by ECA International in 2006, and ranked 1st for quality of life in Asia by Mercer Human Resource in 2007. In summary he felt that Singapore is a great place to work for Indians and encourage students to make use of this opportunity.
Economatrix: Dynamic decision making environments
Economatrix, an event based on Economics was held as a part of the finance expo, Finesse. Economatrix was designed to test a participant's knowledge of Finance and Economics in a game format. The first round held online in the format of the popular game Monopoly, saw participation from 439 teams from B-schools all over the world. The final round was held at the campus on 4th January, 2008. Six teams – 3 from IIMC, 2 from IIMB and one from FMS, Delhi – were selected for the final round. The teams had to solve a business case that required them to have adequate knowledge of data handling, decision-making and game theory, besides the basics of Finance and Economics. One of the teams from IIMB was adjudged the winner of the event, while two of the teams from IIMC had to be content with the second and the third positions.
Electrisk: Trading across diverse instruments
Electrisk, a simulated trading game, saw participation from over 350 teams, with over 70 corporate teams registering for the event including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and CRISIL. The event also witnessed huge international participation including Wharton, AGSM (The Australian Graduate School of Management) and National University of Singapore. Initially a 4 day elimination round was held online to provided the participants a feel of the real-life situations and risks faced by fund managers at various mutual fund houses. In the finals, the eight short listed teams combated each other during Intaglio 2007-08 at IIM Calcutta.
Modulus: Data Modeling in Structured Finance
Modulus, one of the showcase events this year, in association with Capgemini, is a data modeling game that had the participants pit their wits against the best in the competitive arena of analytics and modeling. The event was conducted in two rounds. In the first round, held as a run-up to the on-campus round, the participants had to solve problems in three areas - Valuation, Risk Evaluation and Structuring. The first round witnessed participation from 391 teams with 2 members each including 25 teams from IIM Ahmedabad, 15 from IIM Bangalore, as well as institutes like ISB, FMS, IITs, SP Jain, XIMB, MDI and IMT. The international contingent of the participating teams was led by NUS, Asian School for Business Management, ESCP-EAP, Oklahoma State University, and Rice University. The event also saw corporate participation in the form of PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Infosys, Deutsche Bank, Oracle, ICICI Bank and Modelytics Inc.
The best six teams from the first round qualified for the final round held at the IIM Calcutta campus. These included 1 team each from IIMB, XLRI, FMS (Delhi) and 3 teams from the host institute IIMC. The winner of the event was the team "SubZero" from IIM Calcutta represented by Mrudula Dasika and Kasturi Dutta. The team from IIMB, "Eragon" represented by Nithya Balasubramaniam and Shruti Susan George stood 2nd while another IIM Calcutta team "The Idiots" represented by Saurav Anand and Rachit Sabharwal received the 3nd prize.
NERA Economic Consulting Seminar
The seminar on 'Competitive Policy in India' conducted by Dr. Fabien Curto Millet, Consultant, NERA Economic Consulting, UK saw good participation too. NERA is the largest economic consultancy firm in the world, according to Vault Guide's rankings. 'Given the recent increased involvement of Indian companies in international markets, the Indian competitive policy is interestingly poised', said Dr. Millet. With the Competition Commission of India expected to be fully operational by mid-2008, it's important for companies to adapt themselves adequately, he added. Presently, the Competition Act (2002, Amendment - 2007) of India concentrates on four major areas – anti-competition agreements, abuse of dominant positions, combinations regulation, competition advocacy. He also elaborated on the history of India's competition policies including the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices, 1969 (MRTP Act).
Empires of the Mind
'Empires of the mind (EOTM)' - a stimulating contest designed to test the understanding of the practicalities of Game Theory in real life saw six teams from top notch colleges were engaged in a battle of wits where the 'game' will be won not by how many resources you have but by how effectively you can increase your resources.
The finalists were selected on the basis of an invigorating eliminations round which was held online and consisted of puzzles of varying levels of difficulty.
Global Leadership in IT Systems Seminar
Intaglio this year presents its Seminar on Global Leadership in IT to be held in IIM Calcutta campus. Mr Sidharth, IT Secretary of West Bengal and Mr Milind Padalkar, Vice President, Patni Computers graced the occasion and shared insights. The main areas of the seminar were the challenges and opportunities for the IT industry, next generation Global Leadership in IT, new breed of global IT leaders and what it would take for organizations and individuals to contribute to the next generation of success stories.
Mr. Padalkar spoke on the emerging trends in the world of IT, the role of SOA in shaping the future, the new developments in the ERP space to take care of the new generation of services requirements. He highlighted the need of program management skills and not just project management, analytical and consulting skills, versatility and the need to continuously learn to stay abreast in a fast evolving IT environment. He also spoke of the opportunities coming up in the various areas like KPOs, business process re-design, education, etc.
Mr. Siddharth spoke on the present picture of IT deployment in India. He voiced his belief in the strong growth in IT outsourcing and software exports from India. Talking about the Indian IT environment he emphasized the need for quality and information security. While he appreciated the improvement in India's image in the developed world and the increasing number of IT jobs, he also expressed concerns about low employability of graduating students and poor infrastructure especially power, roads, ports, railways and airports. He also stressed the need for an ecosystem for fostering innovation. Lastly, he talked about the issues faced by the IT industry in India and some of the remedial measures that could be taken to ensure continued growth in the wake of increasing competition from the other developing countries.
KEAN – A Dramatics Performance
The student representatives of The Dramatics Cell, IIM Calcutta used the platform of Intaglio 2008 to depict that there is much more to an IIM Calcutta MBA than just studies in the most exhilarating manner possible during their play 'KEAN'. KEAN was a depiction of an actor who wishes to transcend the barriers of his stage performances. Kean, who has the whole of England heaping accolades on him wishes for a lady who would love him as a person rather than as an actor.
Directors: Arati Mishra, Saunak Basu.
Starring: Shehzad Kazi, Apoorva Bhattad, Shruti Bhatnagar, Gagan Joshi, Prashanta Bagchi, Sunil Natraj, Richa Meshram.
There is a plenty of action still left at IIM C. Stay tuned for updates on IIM C Intaglio on MBAUniverse.com.
