NewZNew (Goa) : A three-member team of Goa Institute of Management (GIM) won the second place at the biggest Marketing Simulation Competition in the world, organized by ESIC Business and Marketing School, Spain. The competition was in its 19th edition this year.
More than 4,600 students, representing 800 universities from 80 countries, participated in the competition that tested participants on their knowledge and skills in a simulated environment over the period of three months. Out of the 1,500 teams that initially participated, 36 teams qualified for the semi-finals out of which six teams made the finals, of which two teams – Goa Institute of Management and Indian Institute of Management – were from India
The winning team comprised of Robin Garg, Disha Sharma and Devansh Baghel, students in their second year of full-time PGDM at GIM. The students have won themselves a prize money of 4,000 Euros. The first place was secured by Srinivas Praveen Mokkapati, Ravi Kiran Cheni and Kaustubh Nilesh Sathe, students of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) (India), while the third place was bagged by Elena Sardinero Piqueras and Pedro Solís Marín, students of ESIC and Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain).
The competition required the participants to take strategic decisions in all areas of an organization such as Marketing, HRM, Finance, Operations, and Customer Relationship Management and apply the theoretical knowledge taught in classrooms. The students had to start an automobile company from scratch and manage it in an online simulation medium. The finals were held in Madrid where finalists had to defend their business plans in front of a jury comprising professionals.
Talking about the win, an elated Devansh Baghel said, “I believe the concept of Return on Investment (ROI) in B-schools is flawed when one divides the job-package with the fees paid. The MBA ROI comes from learning and for learning you need exposure which comes from such competitions which are conducted by corporates. Such competitions help you to brush up all your management concepts by applying them in real time for someone’s business and that gives us the main motivation to take part in such competitions
“The competition gave us a lot of learning exposure. Right from the start, we needed to do our best as we were competing with some best minds in the world. We were able to bring the management concepts told in our class into practice. Also, we got a tremendous exposure of how an automobile company works in real life. In the finals in Madrid, we were able to meet the various contestants from different countries. We shared our strategies with other teams and also got to know how they decided their strategies which were followed in the competition and that gave us an altogether a different scenario”, added Disha Sharma.
The Team from GIM overcame teams from Novosibirsk State Technical University (Russia), Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain), Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (Peru), Major National University of San Marcos (Peru), and Catholic University of Guayaquil (Ecuador).
About Goa Institute of Management:
The Goa Institute of Management was started in 1993 by Fr. Romuald D’Souza supported by a team of professionals and industrialists and has risen to one of the finest management schools in the country. It is ranked among the top 10 private B-schools in India and among the top 20 business schools in the country.
