BMA Innothon 2019 Dandekar Trophy

“Only when you step out of the nest, you know how to fly!”

was the response of Ms. Sherin Philip, PGDM Student of GNIMS when asked about her experience at the “INNOTHON 2019 Dandekar Trophy” organized by Bombay Management Association. The event was held at Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association’s Institute of Management Studies (PTVAIMS) on 11th February 2019.

The Live Corporate Solutions Case Studies Competition comprised of 19 teams from 9 colleges around Mumbai competing against each other to provide a solution to real-life corporate problems faced by the companies. 6 corporates from various industries viz., SBI, Vedanta (HR), Vedanta (Marketing), Wockhardt, Barclays & US Vitamine India Ltd. provided the problems faced by them. All participant Colleges sent 2 Teams of 4 MBA Students with one of the colleges sending 3 teams. They were later provided with the problem statements by respective corporates allotted and a period of one month to find a solution for the same.

There were 2 Rounds in the competition – Qualifier and Final Round. In the first round each team had to present in front of a panel comprising of their allotted Corporate and external industry experts. After defeating the opponents, the qualified team had to perform in front of all the corporates and a different panel of experts.

SGPC’s Guru Nanak Institute of Management Studies (GNIMS) Team-1 won the 1st round of INNOTHON in a neck to neck competition against Welingkar’s We School and IES Management College and Research Centre and Team-2 won against St. Francis Institute of Management and Research and 2nd Team of IES Management College and Research Centre. In the Final round GNIMS Team-1 bagged the First Runner-up position with cash prize of Rs. 15,000/- and promised to get back with a stronger zeal next year to win the entire competition.

BMA Innothon 2019 GNIMS Students Felicitation by the Judges and Innothon Head

GNIMS Team-1 was made up of an ingenious team consisting Mr. Saurabh Patil (Team Leader), Mr. Swapnil Tembhekar, Ms. Shraddha Amdoskar and Mr. Amol Gadhave, who are currently pursuing MMS & PGDM program at the Institute. They were allotted State Bank of India (SBI) as their client who faced the problem of garnering KYC for catering to Mudra Loan Borrowers and needed a digital end-to-end solution.

The students made a thorough research and coordinated with mentor from SBI and other corporates to discussed on the various issues faced and their alternative solutions.  The final solution provided to SBI for financing MUDRA borrowers was through e-kyc & e-signing with the use DIGILOCKER (It is a digital locker service operated by the Government of India that enables Indian citizens to store certain official documents on the cloud). The team even developed a Mobile App for demonstrating the implementation of the solution. The Panel as well as the client was exhilarated with the solution & the live demonstration of the Mobile Application and were eager to work on the same.

When asked about their experience, they said that this competition helped them gain an insight into dealing with corporate people while improving their critical thinking and research skills. It boosted their confidence and motivated them to become proactive leaders while providing the organization they would work for in future with problem-solving abilities. Also, they learnt the essence of time-management while covering their entire presentation within the stipulated time frame of 15 minutes.

GNIMS Team-2 comprised of innovative students from MMS viz., Mr. Kevin Singh (Team Leader), Ms. Prachi Bagul, Mr. Jaskaran Singh and Ms. Sherin Philip. Vedanta (HR) was the corporate allotted to them who required a satisfying solution to their problem of rightsizing. After an intensive team based research work, the students came up with an apt rightsizing strategy for the company.

GNIMS Team 2 presenting in front of the panel

They covered their strategy in a comprehensive presentation, also citing the case study of Rightsizing in Anthelio. The graphical presentation helped the panel understand the situation faced by Vedanta and appreciated the efforts put by the students in elucidating the problems with the help of numbers and bar graphs. The students focused on each aspect of downsizing right from dealing with morale of exiting employees to handling the survivors’ syndrome.

The members of Team-2 were happy to gain an experience of presenting in front of corporate audience. Also, while working on this live project they found out the importance of Team-Work and Coordination. It was something more than academics and gave them a glimpse of corporate world they would be heading towards after graduating from their college. They enjoyed all the presentations and felt proud to have competed with such strong competitors.

Lastly, both the teams expressed their gratitude towards their mentors Prof. Kiran Yadav and Prof. Sushma Patil for entrusting them with such an exciting inter-collegiate event and for all the guidance and support they received along the way. Also, they felt great to have participated in Innothon 2019 and thanked Bombay Management Association (BMA) for organizing such motivational events and hope to participate in such promising events in future!