B Heard!

Vista

Vista is the annual international business summit hosted by IIM Bangalore. The summit spanning across three days can be defined as the ‘coming together of academia and industry’.

Vista 2013- Miebach Milestones, Can you optimize it?

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As students of business we are awed by buzzwords like intellectual capital, brand equity, proforma profit and loss statements and returns on invested capital. While these strategies are glamorous to talk and make presentations about, they are hardly tangible. As the saying goes, “It ain’t real unless the money is in the bank”. This is what operations is all about – bringing real impact to the bottom-line of companies. Operations’ events have been drawing large numbers to Vista traditionally and this year has been no different. Miebach, the global supply chain leaders, continued their association with Vista by sponsoring and judging the “Miebach Milestones” event this year.

The preliminary round attracted strong participation from B-school students across the country and consisted of a very interesting optimization case in the e-commerce industry. Five teams were chosen for the final, two of them from our very own B. The quality in store was evident as the sponsors started of the event by explaining that the solutions offered by the students in Round 1 were pretty close to the ideal solution that they expected. In the final round, contestants were given the chance to present their improved solution and the variety of thought in display was astounding. The judges who lauded the solutions given by the contestants corroborated this. It was also a great learning opportunity for the students. IIM A walked away with the honors of the winners of the operations challenge while our very own IIM B team came in a close second. The team from SJSOM came in a deserved third. But perhaps the greatest tribute for the event was the team from IIM Shillong who had taken a 60-hour long train to Bangalore.

Vista 2013- Trojan Horse, How to conquer the invincible?

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How to conquer the invincible? How to surpass the insurmountable? How to overcome the impossible? The answer to all lies in one word – Strategy. There is no better portrayal of the Art and Science of strategy than the centuries old narration of the Trojan defeat at the hands of the Greeks. This art and science was on ample display at IIM Bangalore’s Vista’s flagship event Brigade Trojan Horse.

The participants faced the challenge of dealing with a LIVE case, a never-done before opportunity to work on the Marketing strategy for one of the Top 10 developers in the country – Brigade Group. They came up with innovative strategies on how to improve its digital media marketing for its hospitality division. In the course of the event, they also got to interact with the senior Management at Brigade Group who also formed the judge’s panel. The chance to see the relevant strategies implemented and also internship/ live project offers for the winners acted as lucrative incentives for the participants and spurred them on to put their best forth and brainstorm innovative solutions to the problem at hand. But make no mistake- every suggestion was questioned, counter-questioned and had to be justified right down to the last assumption. A fair number turned up to witness the strategizing whiz-kids battle it out. The coordinated execution of the event bore testimony to IIMB and Vista’s commitment. In the end Team “Neo” from Christ University walked away with the grand prize followed by IIMB’s “Magnicient 3”.

Vista 2013- MarkGuru, Are you the marketing guru?

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“This is how our market can be segmented…these are our target customers”. Familiar words from a still fresh Marketing course roared back to life as in the MarkGuru finals arena. Present before were hardcore marketing enthusiasts, 6 of them (2 each from IIM – A, B, one each from IIMK and PESIT BANGALORE), each as determined as the other to follow Kotler’s steps (one team was even called Kotler’s Army!!).

This Vista Flagship Marketing Event required teams to design a go-to market plan for Atomberg Technologies – a company that operates in the field of remote monitoring and control. The teams had to develop target segments, positioning themes and also had to deliberate on the various applications they felt Atomberg Technologies should focus on, including a separate market study on Smart Water Meters. Each team chosen for the finals had the chance to interact with the company directly and improve the content they had presented for the prelims. The entries were then presented before a panel of judges from Atomberg Technologies.

Laced with marketing jargons and faced with tough questions, each team literally fought a battle to strike the right chord with their rationale. Finally one team from IIM-A and one from IIM-B came out scathed but barely alive to be adjudged the winners.

Vista 2013- Excelsior, Be firm to run your firm

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Strategy is easily one of the most important concepts that comes into play every day, yet goes virtually unnoticed. Right from making one’s ‘To-do’ list to taking multi-billion dollar business decisions, strategic thinking is crucial to the point of being inevitable. To commemorate its significance in business world, IIMB presented ‘Excelsior’ a game to test strategic thinking in the areas of finance, marketing and operations, given a firm to lead by yourself. The game witnessed 5 teams from IIMC, IIML, IIMK, FMS Delhi and IIMB, battling it out for the position of the ultimate champions (Excelsior meaning ever upward) in the battleground of Vista ’13. With each team armed with specialists from Finance, Operations and Marketing who were selected by an innovative bidding process, the event took off to a great start on its first day.

The teams represented different firms whose future lay in the strategies put forward by these players. On the 1st day of the event, the functional skills in areas of finance and operations were tested rigorously by three judges who were experts in investment banking, M&A and other areas of finance. The 2nd day of Vista holds in store, even more competitive rounds in marketing and general strategy. Being a two day event, Excelsior will come up with the overall winners and winners in each domain on its 2nd day. Imbibing the reach of strategy in every functional area, we must agree with what Leon Trotsky once said, “You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you”. Indeed.

Vista 2013 – Vidheyak, The public policy wars

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Let us begin with Vidheyak, the public policy competition conducted by Bharath Society. Apparently, the participants were supposed to talk about increasing the involvement of the common citizen in elections. It was an unusual concept as we minions are very clear on our agenda of blindly serving the ultimate master. However, it was a great experience to learn about the electoral process of your country, the current challenges it faces and more importantly, how they can be addressed.

All the 6 teams that presented showed a great level of maturity in their analysis of the problem. It was clearly evident that all of them had put in a lot of effort in the collection of primary data, secondary research and synthesis of their results. What was also heartening was the genuine interest the participants appeared to have in addressing the core problem.

At the heart of the analyses by all teams was a demographic segmentation of the Indian voter, an analysis of the motivations and barriers for each of these segments to vote and how these can be used to improve voter turn-out. These were followed by different ways of marketing the need for voting a leader worth following to power. While each team had a unique approach, some ideas like using Surf Excel advertisements to encourage voting tickled a few ribs in the audience. It was a great effort by both the organizers and the participants and we wish them the best. Just so you know, the team from IIMA was placed first while Team Chanakya from IIMB came in a close second just beating Team Squadron from NMIMS.

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