A smooth victory for ISB

It was close all the way as both teams were neck-and-neck in the jury’s books, but in the end, due to different interpretations of case figures, the team from Indian School of Business (ISB) won, narrowly beating the team from TA Pai Management Institute (Tapmi), Manipal.

The third semi-finals of the BusinessLine on Campus ’ Boardroom Challenge was held at ISB’s Hyderabad campus, and the team comprising Rachit Jha, Yash Bagani, Atul Agrawal and Vivek Chirania came up trumps. The runners-up were Nitish Pai, Zaid Akthar and Pulkit Tibrewala from Tapmi.

The teams presented their strategies on how a new entrant to the toilet soap segment could make a successful foray into a highly-penetrated market. The jury comprised Vishwadeep Kuila of Brand Vectors, who wrote the case for the competition; Sudhakar Rao, Group Director- Branding for ICFAI Group; and Gautam Gupta, CEO, Paradise Foods.

Speaking after the teams’ presentation, Sudhakar Rao said there is no clear solution to any case, as in the real world of business. A team will have to make its assumptions and defend it. He pointed out the emphasis the teams gave to digital media to promote their soap brands, saying that digital is not the panacea to everything. Marketers, too, have to be conscious of shopkeeper fatigue, given so many new product launches in the market.

Gautam Gupta said how one executes a plan is important. “The skill of execution is important.” He advised students not to make assumptions outside of the case and stick to case facts. Vishwadeep Kuila said that every case has a tilt, and students need to read and reread it to deeply understand it before preparing a solution. The deeper one goes into the case will the solution emerge was his advice. “Don’t repeat case facts, it leaves you little time to convincingly put your information on the table,” he added.

The next semi-finals will be held at St Joseph’s Institute of Management, Bengaluru, on August 20.

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