Friday, October 10, 2008

Bzzwings - The B-Plan Contest

One of Vista's trademark events - the Bzzwings contest was held on Friday. There were like three hundred and twenty teams who put all the fight in the world to get here...guess it's all the gleam NSRCEL adds to the place?

Anyway, eight teams have made it to the finals, where they have to present their plans to the judges through a presentation. They've been shortlisted by ENI judges by a plethora of criteria....company overview, products or services, market need, market potential, competitive advantage, management, financial forecasts and what not. Anyway its obvious all these guys have really been working hard. (The mosquitoes in Bangalore have been troubling them with lack of sleep too, say the team FaMouS from FMS.)

The IIMB teams stand up to the occasion by offering to present out of turn - which basically means that because other teams were not there, the IIMB guys were presenting first. Will that be an advantage, or will it work against them? Only time will tell.

The IIMB plans 
The first plan is from the Aarambh team at IIMB. Tandon, YoungestDML and MR are presenting something on seed distribution. Apparently inspired by a lecture on social entrepreneurship by Prof. Trilochan Sastry! Some people, you see, do listen in class. The next event is even more stunning. Pritam Sarkar runs a one man show with his team mate Smriti exchanging in France. It's on something called Professional Trainers, which intends to bring the world of wellness right at the door steps on every big condominium. The judges actually say there's nothing wrong with his plan.....if that's not a compliment, what is?

The other plans are quite interesting too. The guys from ISB Hyderabad have a plan that talks about allowing people to make railway reservations, using mobile phone credit. That should seriously reduce the people free riding on Bombay Trains eh? They're really ambitious with the way they aim to conquer 50% of the market in five years- and while that invites the judges' scepticism, it shows how ambitious things can get. 

The next team up for presentation is from SIIB Pune, with a B-plan that goes - "Let people make their own energy". They have created a mechanism whereby farmers can cycle water out of the ground, bullocks can walk round and round and generate power. That's so cool ! They've got extensive FSA done with allowances made for all sorts of items like Freight charges , and a billion of those financial jargon - methinks they'll win hands down in financial terms!!!

Other interesting plans of the day include the tourism company by X-cursionists,IIMA, B2B marketing based plans for health and wellness consultancy to IT/ITES companies and and DelhiSale.com, a website listing the sales / discounts of retailers across Delhi so people could see where sale was happening. 

The event was swept by IIM Bangalore, with Professional Trainers winning the first prize and Aarambh the runners up. 

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