Mumbai: Teams from the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) walked away with top honours at the grand awards ceremony of the Tata Business Leadership Awards (TBLA) 2016. The theme for this year’s competition was Big Data: Achieving Competitive Advantage through Analytics. Praveen P Kadle, MD and CEO, Tata Capital, felicitated the winners at the ceremony, which took place in Mumbai.
An annual business case competition, TBLA is conducted across premier business schools (campus track) and Tata companies (in-house track), to engage with bright young minds and provide them with a platform to showcase their leadership and entrepreneurial capability. It is aimed at recognising, promoting and encouraging future business leaders. Launched in 2002, TBLA 2016 received 364 entries across both the tracks.
The campus track of TBLA was won by Team Serendipity of FMS, Delhi. Team Berserkers from XLRI, Jamshedpur and Team Webyte from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) were the 1st and 2nd runners-up, respectively. The participants in the national finals also included teams from IIM-Calcutta, IIM-Lucknow, IIM-Kozhikode, SP Jain, Mumbai, and TISS, Mumbai.
In the in-house track, Team Quicksilver from TCS won the top honours followed by Team TSK from Tata Steel (1st runners-up) and Team Big Dada from Tata Motors (2nd runners-up).
Speaking on the occasion, S Padmanabhan, Group HR, Tata Sons said, “It was heartening to see the future leadership of India Inc. find solutions to some of the most complicated business problems. TBLA has grown as a platform that marries the Tata group’s vast experience with fresh thinking. It nurtures the talent community by providing bright young minds a platform to showcase their business acumen and creativity by addressing critical live business challenges relevant to the Tata group.”
Besides the TBLA rolling trophy, the national winners in both the tracks took home a cash prize of Rs500,000, up from Rs200,000 in the previous editions. A direct pre-placement interview (PPI) with Tata Administrative Services (TAS), the flagship leadership development programme of the Tata group, has also been promised to the national winners. The 1st and 2nd runners-up in both the tracks received an attractive cash prize of Rs200,000 and Rs100,000, respectively. They have also been shortlisted for the TAS presentation round. All the teams also received a host of exciting gifts.
As part of the pre-final rounds, the participating teams presented business solutions to real-life business cases from group companies including Tata Capital, Tata Sky, Tata Steel, Tata Teleservices, Titan and IHCL. These presentations were evaluated by leaders from the group companies. Eight shortlisted teams from the campus track and ten shortlisted teams from the in-house track were then given a live Tata group level case on Big Data, which they presented at the national finals.
The national finals were adjudged by renowned academicians and Tata leaders including Dr ML Singla, Dean, FMS Delhi; Prof Dinesh Kumar, chairperson, executive post graduate programme in management, IIM Bangalore; Deep Thomas, CEO, and Hindol Basu, head – analytics, Tata insights and quants division; Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata Interactive Systems and Tata Class Edge; and Riju Saha, global head – analytics and EPM, Oracle Enterprise Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services.
