Yet another Milestone! IWSB’ians Bags 1st Prize at IIM-B in RMAI(Rural Marketing Association of India) Competition.

From the horse’s Mouth:-

The winning of a gold award in a competition organized by a prestigious organization Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI) at IIM, Bangalore was a great moment for us. The competition was organized for management students from across the country that did their summer trainings/ projects in rural domain, catering to the markets in rural domain. Our project aimed at setting up an enterprise in the rural setup, an enterprise that was setup to produce sanitary napkins by rural women, who were both the producers as well as consumers of the product. The concept of inclusive marketing was actually practiced in the project by including the consumers at every point in the value chain.

The competition was held on 23^rd September, 2010 at IIM Bangalore’s Management Development Center’s auditorium. The competition started at 10:45 a.m. with the Co-coordinator’s address. The initial presentation was given by the team from IIM Calcutta, followed by the team from SCMLD, Pune & GNIMS, Mumbai. In the tea break, which was immediately after these two presentations, gave us a chance to interact with the teammates of the rest colleges. It made us feel proud that we were competing with the top notch colleges of the country & were at a platform, where the name of our college was unheard of. Immense confidence was generated out of having come at a place where our unheard institute made the mark. Our presentation was scheduled at 6^th place, post lunch. Till lunch, 3 more presentations were given by SPJIMR, IIMI & IIMC. The post lunch session started with our presentation, when the chief guest (Prof. Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM-B) & eminent judges arrived. The final presentation was given by IIML. Post presentations came the most awaited moment, the award felicitation. Prof. Chandra delivered words of wisdom to all the participants, post which the awards were finally announced. The list came as: bronze- IIMI, silver-IIML & the gold winner is IWSB, Greater Noida. We were overjoyed with the results & it was like a dream come true for us, having won a competition, defeating the stalwarts of management education at their backyard.

The feedback & compliments given by the judges post ceremony were highly encouraging for us. Prof. Chandra said “I am really proud of you & would wish you both to take this project at national level. I would be very happy to help you people at every step of your journey in the project. Feel free to call me up anytime”. He gave us his card. Mr. Khurram Askari, the coordinator of the competition and CEO, Insight Outreach said, “Your project was the only project which was selected unanimously for first position by all the judges, though there were debates for the 2^nd & 3^rd positions”. A lot of positive feedback by rest participants & other eminent guests further boosted our confidence & gave us the strength that we must look forward on strengthening this project further. The whole competition was a moment of joy & confidence for us.

The details of the 7 participating teams:

1.) Nitesh Yadav  – IIMC

Title -Unlocking the rural opportunities in East India with focus on crackers & cookies category

2.) Angad Singh Uberoi & Kuldeep Singh –  SCMLD – Pune & GNIMS – Mumbai

Title – Study of haats as a marketing hub for FMCG companies

3.) Mohit  Sareen – S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai

Title – Strategic Business Plan for RUDI in Ahmedabad

4.) Sandeep Nair – IIMB

Title – Brand Revival of Asataf –  A National Rural Marketing Campaign

5.) Abhishek Mittal on behalf of Amit Chhabra & Tanvi Dhamija – IIM -Indore

Title – IT Enabled solutions for financial Inclusion

6.) Ankita Gupta & Shobhit Jain  – Indus World School of Busines(IWSB)

Title – Developing & executing a complete business model for an emerging enterprise Sahyog

7.) Ashish Sharma – IIML

Title – Understand and analyze the attitude and usage behaviour of rural consumers in Andhra Pradesh & Maharashtra and develop a marketing mix for the rural markets.

The panel of judges consisted of:

1. Mr. R.V.Rajan – Chairman of Anugrah Madison, Chennai
2. Professor Mithileshwar Jha – IIM Bangalore
3. Harish Bijoor – CEO Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, Bangalore

Mr. Khurram Askari, CEO, Insight Outreach Pvt. Ltd. was the coordinator for the competition.

Ankita Gupta

Shobhit Jain