Gurgaon, December 28, 2015: Great Lakes Institute of Management, a premier B School in the country hosted its two day Annual Management Fest ‘Crest- 5.0’. The fifth edition of the Crest was based on the theme ‘CHANAKYA NEETI – AARAMBH HAI PRACHAND’ (Beginning is Fierce).
The event started with the lighting of lamp by the honorary chief guest, Mr. Bharanidharan Viswanathan, CEO 91mobiles.com and Dr. Himadri Das, Director, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon in the presence of esteemed guests and enthusiastic students. The opening ceremony was presided over by Dr. Himadri Das, welcoming the gathering and highlighting the tradition of Crest. He also wished all the participants to perform their best and emphasized on the importance of proper planning and execution of skills needed in order to succeed.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Viswanathan said, “The Information Technology industry is undergoing an evolutionary change with a large number of start-ups blooming in our country. Students should be aware about the new age business and calculate measures in understanding the opportunities available before taking future decisions. He appreciated the eco system that the country provides for the growth of start-ups”.
The fest witnessed participation from around 300 enthusiastic management students from various prestigious institutes across the country including IIM Lucknow, MDI Gurgaon , Sri Ram college Of Commerce Delhi, BITS Pilani, MICA Ahmedabad, IP University Delhi, Christ University Bangalore, K J Somaiya Mumbai, Goa Institute Of Management Goa, IIFT New Delhi and NMIMS Mumbai among others.
The flagship event of CREST 5.0, Great Lakes Gurgaon was B-Plan and the event embraced creative ideas from various teams across different geographies of our country. This competition not only tests the calibre of the business plan but also of its alternatives, the PLAN-B. Six teams from top b-schools participated in the event. Each team presented their Business idea and they were drilled down with lot of questions and scoring was done based on the responses. The event was a great success with Siddharth Batra and Vidhi Batra of Indraprastha University bagging the first prize followed by Keshav Rai and Manish Karnatak from Satyug Darshan Technical campus. The panel had three judges from the industry – Mr. Praveen Bhaniramka – CEO-VizExperts, Mr. Darpan Jain – CEO-Rekha Technologies and Dr CK Tanneja – Cofounder and Director of Career Advisory.
This was followed by the event called “Crack Jack” where the participants had to solve a live challenge being faced by a company trying to enter the online education industry. The teams had to come out with innovative marketing strategies to overcome the problems and challenges faced. Team from Great Lakes Institute of Management which comprised of Mohit Kakkar, Shivasankar, Ishika Shrivastava won the first prize. The runner up was the team from MICA institute, consisting of Mr. Deepak Kumar and Ms Shailly Kalra. The event was judged by Mr. Suman Roy, Business Director at Brand Bazooka Advertising Pvt.
The third event of the first day was “Analytical Head”, an event which made the teams crunch numbers to analyse the financial and operational figures for MNC’s and come up with a strategy.
Varun Ranjan and Akshay Kirti of Great Lakes institute of Management won the first prize whereas the second prize was shared between teams from Christ University (Anusha Manjunath, Abhishek Dahiya, Jayanth Shekhar) and Great lakes institute of Management (Nitin Reddy, Purna Choudhary, Shashidhar Reddy. )
The competition was judged by Mr. Debabrata Das , Director & Professor (Business Analytics) Indus Business Academy.
After a series of serious events, the fourth event had some quizzing and fun. The Biz Quiz not only did ease a few nerves but it also allowed the audience to participate actively and win goodies throughout the event. The quiz was truly engrossing and had audio-visual rounds too!! First prize was bagged by Shashwat Goel and Chaitanya K from IIM Lucknow and the second prize was awarded to Deepak Kumar and Shailly Kalra of MICA institute from Ahmedabad.
The next event titled, “Energist” was focus on energy sector. The event gave many insights on the sector and students solved some critical challenges faced by the sector in our country. Mohit Kakkar and Shivashankar of Great Lakes Institute of Management bagged the first prize in this event while the second prize was awarded to the team from MDI Gurgaon consisting of Mr. Chandan Papneja and Kanishk Khanna. The Judge for the competition was Mr. Jonathan Mazumdar, Pipeline Development,Sangam Vx`enture Capital.
The day’s closing event and the most awaited event “Treasure Hunt” was the most exciting of them all. Participants not only had to crack tough questions from the novels of Harry Potter and solve mind boggling riddles to qualify for the final round but also had to delve into nook and corner to find out the hidden clues to win the event. At the end, the first and the second prize was won by teams from Great Lakes.
The second day began with the challenge “Marketing Mania”, Participants had to design a creative to promote their product which can be either a soft drink or an energy drink. Based on the shortlisted six posters or creatives, teams had to identify the cues of seven advertisements, which were not only interesting, but also engrossing and intriguing. Once the first round was over, the three judges for the event had to declare the top 2 teams based on the teams’ presentation skills, promotional strategies and video advertisement which they had prepared. The judges for competition Mr. Sushil Bhasin, Marketing Head at Aon Hewitt, Mr. Birinder Soin, Ex VP, Walmart India, Mr. Zairus Master, Business Head – Shina at Hindustan Times.
The next event was “Investomania”, a competition based on company analysis. The candidates were supposed to select a company in the pharmaceutical sector and perform fundamental analysis to take a long or short call with one year perspective. Students from top b-schools GLIM, Gurgaon, MDI Gurgaon, Christ University and IIM Lucknow participated in the event. The competition was judged by Mr. Rajat Sharma, Sana Securities(Equity Research Firm), Dr. Preeti Goyal, Faculty of Finance at Great Lakes Gurgaon.
Third event of the second day was OPRATHON – A test of the operational effectiveness. Teams brilliantly presented their ideas on the challenges faced in logistics and supply chain management. Mr. Rajiv GM, Operations and Quality, QH Talbros, Mr. Amit Head Operations, ITP Ind, Lt. Gen. D.V. Kalra, Retired (Supply Chain Specialist)
“Who wants to be a Finance Guru” was the theme for fourth event titled Finance Guru. The finance version of the amazing game show tests student concepts related to accounting, corporate finance and short term cash and credit management.
The fifth successful iteration of this event “Great Debaters” was all about the current hype in India about START-Ups , STAND-UP. Entrepreneurship is the need of the hour and innovation is an equal parameter of performance of a country as an economy. Speakers from top B-schools put forward their arguments and fought for what they believed in. Mr. J M Pant, Management Consultant & Trainer, JEMS Consultancy Services and Dr. Poornima Gupta, Faculty of OB/HR at Great Lakes.
The final round was MasterMinds the game started with this sprit of “Do you know who and what have featured out in the Forbes list? Are you aware about the cash balance in the richest Indian’s kitty? The participants were juggling and stressing up to find out the real solutions of these questions. All the high profile journals were revised may it be Forbes, Chronicles etc.
At the closing ceremony all the participants were awarded and encouraged to be a winner in every phase of life by Great Lakes faculty members.
Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon is a unique Center of Excellence in India focused on nurturing managerial and leadership talent for our Country, specifically in fast growing and dynamic sectors like Energy, Digital Commerce and Data Analytics. The Institute’s activities include full and part time post graduate management programs in Energy and General Management, corporate training programs, consulting services and independent research to enhance the intellectual capital and knowledge base in its areas of focus. The Post Graduate Programs seek to develop motivated management professionals equipped with comprehensive domain knowledge and capable of being productive from their first day of engagement with the corporate world. More details can be found at www.greatlakes.edu.in/gurgaon
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
