Candida Moraes

The Tata Business Leadership Awards (TBLA) endeavour to pick out the best business acumen and create awareness of the Tata brand among management students. This year the winner of TBLA 2007 was Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIML)

TBLA is easily one of the most awaited competitions among Indian business schools. The sharpest minds among the country's future leaders compete against each other to come up with a business plan that will win them the coveted trophy.

The annual awards, instituted in 2002 by the Tata Group, challenge students from top Indian business schools to come up with a solution to a strategic problem or situation relevant to the Group.

This year, seven B-schools were invited for TBLA 2007 – IIM Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Kolkata, IIM Lucknow, SP Jain Mumbai, FMS Delhi and XLRI Jamshedpur. Over 1,200 students, representing more than 300 teams, participated in the competition.

As per the established custom, teams of three or four students each were asked to come up with business plans centred on the theme 'New business opportunities for the Tata Group'. (Earlier themes have included 'M&A opportunities for the Tata Group' and 'Bottom of the pyramid opportunities for the Tata Group'.)

Seven teams made it to the final and presented their plans on January 10, 2007 at the Taj President in Mumbai, to senior managers in the Group. They stood up well to the rigorous questioning and put up a spirited defence of their position. The judges evaluated their presentation and defence on various parameters such as creativity, clarity, relevance and business value.

The panel of judges comprised eminent Indian professors and senior Group executives, including Tata Sons executive director R Gopalakrishnan, executive vice president – Group human resources Satish Pradhan, Tata Industries' managing director Kishore Chaukar, IIM Kolkata director Shekhar Choudhury, IIM Lucknow's Devi Singh and SP Jain Institute's ML Srikanth.

IIM Lucknow's business plan that sees the Tatas creating a new company called Tata Logistics, won the first prize. IIM Bangalore and FMS Delhi followed respectively as first and second runners up.

The winning team comprised Alok Bhagaria, Sidharth Bansal, Pratik Shukla and Rahul Khaparde. "We wrote the idea during the exams and worked out something fairly implementable. Given an opportunity, we would love to join the Tatas," said Bansal.

The TBLA has always served as a way by which the Group aims at connecting with today's youth. "It's about empowering young minds to think through innovation, as at times the senior managers can't pursue it," said Group Chairman Ratan Tata while addressing a 200-strong audience.

Commenting on this year's participation and the presentations, Tata Administrative Services (TAS) and sourcing head Rajesh Dahiya said, "The quality of work is also much better than what it used to be and the presentation skills are very impressive. Students today know far more about the Group and its activities than they did in the past. At times they are far more clued in than we can imagine." TBLA 2007 was managed by TAS senior manager Rahul Gangal.

TBLA has been a successful medium to reach out to young minds in various business schools across the country and has also helped the Group identify talent. Today, the awards are not just viewed as a business competition but also seen as a way by which students can get to interact with senior Tata business heads, and learn more about the Group and its various businesses. "The awards have also helped people get reacquainted with TAS," adds Dahiya.

TBLA is conducted by Tata Administrative Services (TAS) which is a premier recruiter at Indian business schools. The award underlines the commitment of the Tata Group towards promoting and encouraging future leaders and is an endeavour to create awareness among management students of the Tata brand.

Uploaded on January 17, 2007