Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru hosted the 6th edition of Revelation 2018, the Annual Management Fest of SIBM Bengaluru. The Fest is an amalgamation of both management and cultural events. One of the management events was Pratishthan – The B-Plan Competition.
The event was judged by Kritika Murugesan – Director, 10,000 Start-ups, NASSCOM, Akshay Sasikumar, Business Head at Greenpool Carpooling, Alvis Lazarus, CEO at Hesol Consulting, SIBM Bengaluru faculty members - Dr T Viswanathan, Dr Vanditaa Dar and Dr John Ben. From 315 participants who took part in the online rounds, only 12 teams qualified to the national finals held in the campus. The finals included four rounds. The first round involved solving a case study. The case study was based on the respective team’s B-Plan. This was to see if teams could defend their ideas properly when put to the test. This also showed the thoroughness and clarity the teams had regarding their idea. This was followed by the elevator pitch round where each team got 90 seconds to pitch their idea to the judges. This was done to test how concisely yet clearly the students were able to express their plan. Post this was a fun round of quiz based on entrepreneurs around the world. This was to relax the contestants before another set of gruelling rounds.
The third round was the presentation of the Business Idea. The teams presented their full-fledged plans which included all the details including the amount of funding that would be required and the estimated revenues that the venture would generate. This was the heart of the competition. Impressing the judges here could potentially give the winners a head-start in their entrepreneurial life. This was followed by the Nestle Round where the contestants were tested on their sales and marketing skills. The teams were required to meet the onlookers and convince them to buy Nestle products. The teams and the onlookers had a lot of fun during the event. This concluded the event with all the contestants eagerly awaiting the results. By looking at the judges, it was clear that the decision wasn’t going to be easy.
After much deliberation and discussion, the judges finally came to a consensus. The winner of Pratishthan 2018 is Shashank Shekhar from SRM University, Chennai. He took home a Trophy, Rs. 12,000 cash prize and Zebronics goodies. The runner-ups are Lanvnya Sekar, Rushda Rahma, Sanjana Uppili from MOP Vaishnav College, Chennai. They took home a Trophy, Rs. 7,000 cash prize and Safe express goodies.
The contestants said that they had a great time and that they gained valuable insights from the esteemed judges which they would implement to embellish the plan further. The judges were amazed at the quality of competition and said that they too learnt a lot of new things. They also said that the innovative thinking shown by the contestants was commendable.
This concludes the Pratishthan for this year. SIBM B would take this opportunity to congratulate all the participants and winners and hope that at least some of the ideas presented here go on to change the country.