MISB Bocconi students amongst the top 5 finalists in the Global Marketing Competition

GMKC is the most important business simulation competition at the university level. The stats are 60000 students, 89 countries, 873 universities and business schools, 2000 companies, and 17000 Euros in prizes. The competition was about making strategic decisions across all business areas of an Automobile company. There were total 14 stages of the competition with strict deadlines running for almost two months. MISB Bocconi students Yogesh Mehra, Sagar Khandelwal and Alok Kaushik cleared Eighth-final, Quarterfinal, and Semifinal, step by step in order to secure a place among the five Global finalists who will be competing in Madrid, Spain on November 17, 2016.

Here is a snapshot of the 3 students sharing their experience about their journey to the finals.

Sagar: Given with the case study about automobile market scenario in North America, North Europe and South Europe, we had

to make strategic decision regarding all the business aspects including demand speculation, R&D, Production, Finance, HR, Marketing and Distribution in different regions.

For instance,
• Headquarter location
• Car segments, models, design and versions to be launched
• Investment in fixed assets like manufacturing plants, Equipment etc.
• Payment terms with suppliers, Financial investments and loans
• No. of shifts, labor staff, raw material, Production mix, production capacity
• Wages, Incentives for productivity increase
• Warranty, investment in EMS
• Pricing, Sales promotions, discounts
• Budget allocation to different advertisement tools such as Internet, Press, Magazines, radio, TV etc. for Brand and Model advertisement.
• Set up dealer network, no. of dealers in different regions, their HR, Advertising, Customer service, CRM, dealer’s margin.

Basically, we had to apply all the learnings during our first year of MBA at MISB to this competition.
Meanwhile, we were busy with our internships, academics and one more International competition ‘Zurich Enterprise Challenge’, so time management was of paramount importance. I would also like to share that we have secured place among the top 20 Global finalists of ‘Zurich Enterprise Challenge’ and results for finals are awaited.
When we started off with the GMKC competition, Yogesh and I were at the same location, while Alok was at different physical location for his internship. So coordination was a big challenge for us, but our determination paved the way for us.We were thrilled with joy when we qualified for the finals, the euphoria gave us adrenaline rush for quite a bit of period and later we celebrated the memorable success. I would like to add that we are grateful to our professors for the wonderful practical lessons throughout the MBA. Also, my automobile background helped me significantly during various decision making throughout the competition. Nevertheless, we are eager to compete and win the Finals to be held in Madrid.

Yogesh: It feels really great to work day and night for months and then get selected for a competition which is one of the most

prestigious competitions in management. Until the final round result we were close second in our group and we were making complex strategies to come at the top and when we saw the result we were laughing and jumping all over the place, it was one of the most gratifying moment in recent history.

Madrid will be the platform for us to showcase our strategy for the competition in front of esteemed judges and corporate professionals, we are both excited and determined to win this competition and make one hell of impact on the audience and carry the name of MISB to whole world.

Alok: The feeling was terrific and difficult to put in words! There are times when you feel low when you don’t see the fruits of hard work. This was like a booster moment for keeping the spirit alive and get us going!
Happiness is difficult to put in words of course! Now looking forward to win the challenge and make the trip more memorable forever for the three of us!

To know more about the competition – http://www.esic.edu/gmkc/