The FINANCIAL — Group Chairman Cyrus P Mistry, felicitated the winning teams — XLRI Jamshedpur and Tata Motors — of the 13th edition of the Tata Business Leadership Awards (TBLA), at a ceremony held in Mumbai. The theme for this year’s competition was ‘E-commerce: Capitalising on the Potential, Driving Future Growth’. The challenge for the participants was to identify an innovative, sustainable, scalable and clutter breaking go-to-market approach for the Tata group’s e-commerce venture, thus tapping into the new market of online shoppers that has made the Indian online retail business attractive.
Launched in 2002, the TBLA is an annual business case competition aimed at recognising, promoting and encouraging future leaders from both, premier business schools (campus-track) and Tata companies (internal-track). This year, it received a record participation from more than 400 teams across both these tracks. An interesting addition this year was the introduction of Tata company-specific live business cases.
At the pre-final rounds, the teams were presented with real life cases on e-commerce from Tata group companies like Tata Global Beverages, Trent, Tata Value Homes, mjunction, Tata Capital and Infiniti Retail. The presentations made by the participants at the pre-final rounds were evaluated by leaders from the respective companies. The eight shortlisted teams from the campus-track and 11 shortlisted teams from the internal-track were then given a live group level case on e-commerce which they presented at the national finals to senior Tata leaders and academicians, according to Tata Sons Ltd.
Dr NS Rajan, member, Group Executive Council and group chief human resources officer, Tata Sons, said, “TBLA is a platform to develop future leaders through creative thinking on real life projects. The record number of participating teams indicates the enthusiasm of young talent and our progressive success in engaging with them. The competition aims to recognise talent and provide opportunities for them to actively interact and engage with the group leadership, thereby gaining key insights directly from thought leaders. We hope that this platform inspires today’s youth to think differently and generate innovative solutions.”
The campus-track of TBLA was won by Team Melancholia of XLRI Jamshedpur. Team Quadrangle from TISS Mumbai and Team Sons of Pitches from IIM Bangalore, were the 1st and 2nd runners-up respectively. The participants in the national finals also included teams from IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, FMS Delhi and SP Jain, Mumbai.
For the internal-track of TBLA, the title of national winners went to Team eLemontree from Tata Motors followed by Team Artictern from Tata Consultancy Services (1st runners-up) and Team Prudents from Tata Motors (2nd runners-up).
In both the categories, the TBLA 2015 national winners walked away with the TBLA rolling trophy and Rs2,00,000 cash prize while the 1st runners-up and 2nd runners-up received an attractive cash prize of Rs1,00,000 and Rs50,000 respectively. All the winning teams also walked away with a host of exciting gifts.
The national finals were adjudged by renowned academicians and Tata leaders including Dr Ranjan Banerjee, Dean, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research; Dr Mukund Rajan, member, Group Executive Council and brand custodian, Tata Sons; Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO, Tata Sky; Viresh Oberoi, MD and CEO, mjunction; Brotin Banerjee, MD and CEO, Tata Housing Development Corporation, and other Tata leaders.
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