Business Case Competition at First India School of Business

The students at First India school of Business may be in the first semester of their MBA course, but they are already getting real life opportunities to be entrepreneurs.

They argued their business cases with confidence of a seasoned business leader at the ‘Business Case competition’ held at the institute on Sept 5. Each of the teams were given 30 minutes to present their business idea and the plan details including the need the idea fulfilled, what the proposed company stood for, the team and its financial, marketing, operational and organization plan. The students also presented cash flow details, funding requirements and sources, break-even time, key challenges and mitigation strategies. After the presentations, they answered questions on uniqueness, soundness and the viability of their ideas.

The business ideas varied from a ‘Health Food’ cafeteria serving organic foods with experience of a garden as well as a learning centre providing a very different customer experience to eco-friendly ‘budget business hotels’ with unique financial models. There were also ideas leveraging the power of arbitrage and those based on innovative hostel as a business.

As everyone waited for the results, the chief guest Mr. Atul Gopal highlighted the strengths of the ideas along with the work that needed to be done to make them complete business proposals.

Mr. Gopal, who completed his MBA from the renowned IIM, Calcutta in 1994 is a first generation entrepreneur himself and has started different business in the last 10 years. He is the chairman of the leading management test preparation organization Bull’s Eye. Unlike his corporate colleagues, Atul decided to be a job-giver rather than a job-seeker quite early in his career. Today, he feels he should have done it earlier.

In his address to the students, Atul highlighted the key considerations that venture capitalists have for any business idea including its financial viability, risk and potential rewards. He complimented the students on their mature thinking, passionate approach and detailed work. He further explained, ‘It is a little simplistic to explain entrepreneurship as being your own boss. Successful managers as well as entrepreneurs both need to have passion for their work, strong decision making skills, initiative, business acumen, accountability, problem solving skills and responsibility to stakeholders though risk appetite and an ability to start a business may be higher among entrepreneurs.”

Mr. Kamlesh Vyas, Director First India School of Business in his concluding remarks highlighted that managers need to have entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurs need to have managerial skills to be successful in their respective areas. He expressed the commitment of First India School of Business towards developing entrepreneurial skills among its students.
Mr Gopal presented the awards to the winning team of Ardhendu Shekhar Das, Ashtha Jaggi and Gitanjali Arora. After the second leg of the business plan contest, the students will get an opportunity to present to the venture capitalists.

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