A team from Indian School of Business won the Accenture B-School Challenge 2023. Teams from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Faculty of Management Studies were respectively the first and second runners-up of the challenge. A team from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow was recognized with a special jury award.
The recently held seventh edition of the annual Accenture B-School Strategy Challenge 2023 focused on the theme of ‘Total Enterprise Reinvention.’ The annual challenge aims to discover, nurture, and empower the next generation of consultants who will help reinvent businesses and drive growth.
A record number of 9,800+ students from 16 top business schools in India participated in the two month-long competition. The participating 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 (XLRI), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Management Development Institute, National Institute of Industrial Engineering and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
There were four rounds to the challenge. The first round featured a rapid-fire quiz to test the participants’ critical thinking and analytical skills. This was followed by a round of interactive online simulation where students role-played Chief Operating Officers (COOs) and demonstrated decision making skills related to driving business profitability. Ten teams from each school were shortlisted at the end of the second round. Accenture organized storytelling workshops and industry-specific masterclasses for the selected teams to help them hone their presentation skills and gain deeper industry insights.
In the third round, the students presented solutions for specific business challenges across different industries such as consumer good & services, banking, energy, mobility, life sciences, communications and media among others. The top eight finalist teams were then mentored by Accenture leaders in preparation for the final round, wherein they presented their business strategy to the jury.
The finalists were evaluated by a jury that comprised of senior leaders from both the industry and Accenture. These included:
• Suresh Narayanan, CEO and MD, Nestle India Limited
• Ajay Seth, CFO, Maruti Suzuki India Limited
• Puneet Jain, CEO, Hindustan Times Digital
• Rajkiran Kanagala, President & Chief Business Officer. Transport Corporation of India (TCI) Ltd.
• Raghu Polisetty, Senior Managing Director and Lead – Strategy & Consulting Global Network, Accenture
• Sanjay Dawar, Managing Director, Lead – Strategy & Consulting Global Network, Accenture in India
• Divya Nigam, Strategy Lead, Strategy & Consulting Global Network, Accenture in India
Students from the top three teams from each of the sixteen participating business schools have received a pre-placement interview opportunity with Accenture. Additionally, the top three winning teams received prizes cumulatively worth INR 10,00,000 (10 lakh).
