Feature

The Battle ends………

Arif Ashraf Nayan

It was a lovely sight to see the students from both the public and private universities on the same platform competing for glory. For the first time non-business schools like BUET also participated in such a competition. However, the popular teams like IBA, NSU, IUB, BRAC, EWU and AIUB were looking pretty good and confident. The inspirational speech from the head of HR Mr. Q.M.Shahed at the beginning of the program boosted up the morale and confidence of the participants.

In the first round the teams were given a case on a theme park and the participants were asked to identify the problems in the case and come up with appropriate solutions. Teams were taken to a separate room and were assigned with a laptop and other necessary tools for solving the case within one hour. The most interesting part of the first round was the presence of a BAT trained assessor. The role of the assessor was to personally monitor and evaluate the activities of each member of the participating teams. Every minute details were taken into consideration such as who takes the leadership role, how the team members interact and how they setup their strategy for solving the case. The time given to solve the case was only one hour and a teams had little room for making any errors.

Panel of judges

The teams had to solve the case and prepare a power point presentation within the given time. It was indeed a tough job for the participants, as they have to come up with all sorts of creative ideas for solving the case. For the presentation, the teams were selected randomly from the eleven participating teams and the other teams waited for their turn. None of the teams were allowed to watch the presentations of other teams as it could give them more ideas on the case. After a team completed presentation the members had to take seat among the audience. The judges in the first round were top BATB officials including Akhteruddin Mahmud, S.M. Khaled and Ferdous Asif.

Mr. Golam Mainuddin, Deputy Managing Director of BAT, Bangladesh handing over trophy to the winning team -IBA, DU

However, after a nerve cracking first round five teams were qualified for the second round. The teams were: Institute of Business Administration, North South University, East West University, Dhaka University Department of Management and Independent University Bangladesh. In the second round, additional information were provided on the case and the teams were asked to develop a complete and comprehensive business plan for developing a 'Joy Land' within one hour. Each member of the team took separate roles in the presentation in the second round explaining their marketing plan, HR plan and financial analysis. In the second round the judges were Enamul Karim Nirjhar, Principal Architect & CEO of System Architect, Mr. Aly Zaker, Managing Director & CEO Asiatic Communications Ltd and Q.M.Shahed, Head of Human Resources, British American Tobacco Bangladesh.

Mr. Golam Mainuddin, Deputy Managing Director of BAT, Bangladesh handing over trophy to second runner up - NSU

The second round was truly a battle of minds as the warriors came up with innovative and feasible business plans. It was a great experience to witness so many 'baby-boomers' on the same platform presenting their case. However, before the second round started Mr. Q.M. Shahed presented a speech on the corporate culture of British American Tobacco Bangladesh. Along with the presentation a music video was also displayed that totally mesmerized the audience. After the informative presentation it was very clear to every one why BATB is a great place to work.

In the second round the judges asked a lot of critical questions to the participants and the warriors skilfully justified their points. It was really difficult to assess who is going to get the ultimate glory as each teams was equally impressive. However, at the end of the day the Institute of Business Administration snatched the trophy with Independent University Bangladesh securing the first runner up position and North South University the second runner up.

Mr. Golam Mainuddin, The Deputy Director of British American Tobacco handed over the crest to the winning teams. The winning team, Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka celebrated their victory by cutting a cake and the event was concluded by a grand dinner.