The Accenture B-School Challenge is designed to give a chance to aspiring young leaders to build up their skills and learn from industry experts.
Accenture, the global professional services company recently announced top winners of the fifth edition of the annual ‘Accenture B-School Challenge’ focused on the theme of ‘Signals of Change: Discovering new opportunities in a disruptive world.’ As a part of the agenda, the Accenture B-School Challenge is aimed at identifying innovative ideas, and top talent for the digital economy.
Accenture works with clients, people & communities across the globe driving growth and challenging the status quo. The professional services company has been delivering on the promise of technology & human ingenuity by combining innovation, intelligence, and unmatched expertise. It has been part of numerous initiatives to drive new opportunities through market disruption strategies.
The Accenture B-School Challenge celebrates game-changing ideas and provides opportunities to aspiring students to build new skills and collaborate with industry experts. The knowledge acquired from such a challenge not only sparks innovation but also gives tremendous experience and business insights to management students. The fifth annual edition of the challenge witnessed the participation of more than 8500 students from 16 premier business schools of India in the month-long competition.
The participating premier business schools included Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, Indian Institute of Management Indore, Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Indian School of Business, Faculty of Management Studies, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Xavier School of Management, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Management Development Institute, National Institute of Industrial Engineering and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
The Accenture B-School Challenge aimed to ignite discussions on key changes sweeping across the business landscape, today. These changes must be on every leader’s radar to make sense of the disruption catalyzed by the pandemic and pave the way for reinvention and growth. The virtual challenge unfolded across four stages, starting with round 1 as a rapid-fire online quiz where 2800 teams participated with each team comprising three members. Followed by round 2 which identified 482 teams based on business simulation; where students stepped into the role of a CEO to make their company profitable.
In the next round, the shortlisted 160 teams made virtual presentations to the Accenture leadership team, and eventually, the top eight teams were chosen for the final round. They underwent a storytelling workshop to prepare for the final presentations and an in-depth industry masterclass to gain deeper business insights.
The grand finale featured eight finalist teams who were mentored by experts from Accenture. The winning team was from the Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur. The first runner-up was the team from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and followed by the second runner-up team from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. The finalists were evaluated by a jury comprising industry leaders from various Indian businesses as well as senior leaders from Accenture.
The jurors included:
• Piyush N. Singh, Senior Managing Director, Lead – India Market Unit & Lead – Growth and Strategic Client Relationships, Asia Pacific and Latam, Accenture
• Sanjay Dawar, Managing Director and Lead Capability Network – Global Strategy and Consulting, Accenture
• Dipti Vaishnav, Managing Director – Strategy & Consulting, Accenture in India
• Deepak Sharma, President and CDO, Kotak Mahindra Bank
• Karunakaran M, Chief Financial Officer, Shoppers Stop
• Anil Matai, Former Managing Director, Zydus Healthcare Limited
• Nagesh Basavanhalli, Chief Executive Officer, Greaves Cotton Limited
• Samrat Das, Chief Operating Officer, PNB MetLife
• Jayanta Banerjee, Managing Partner, ASK Pravi Capital Advisors
The Accenture B-school challenge is a one-of-a-kind learning experience. The students are enthused about learning how to work in a team, improving confidence and presentation skills. The challenge gives students an insight into the types of issues companies face and the process of problem-solving.
Accenture believes that opportunity lies at the heart of change. Accenture provides winning strategies backed up by insights from data and AI. It applies its technique with scale, speed, and certainty; co-innovate and co-create technological solutions that help clients improve their connection with customers, improve resilience and encourage growth.
STARTUP ROCKSTARS IN 2021
Sign-in to see our list of the most promising startups of 2021
Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of Accenture by Mediawire team.
