After four months of rigorous coursework between February to May at IGTC, the months of June – July involved “going beyond the curriculum” for the IGTC Mumbai students.
‘Silega – An Expedition to Mount Everest’
Sumit Joshi of Silega Global
Sumit Joshi of Silega Global
Bayer, the founding partner at IGTC, decided to re-introduce a management simulation for the IGTC students, which was one of the highlights of the course curriculum in the decade of the 90s. Keeping pace with times, a Business Simulation Game ‘Silega – An Expedition to Mount Everest’ was organized by Bayer India at Bayer House, Thane.
Everest has always been the supreme symbol of man’s personal struggle to achieve excellence, no matter the conditions. Succeeding on Everest depends totally on spirit, discipline, and will. And as in real life, there are only two possible results: success or failure. Silega placed the IGTC students in a challenging and inspiring experience of climbing Mount Everest in order to win a prize offered by an eccentric millionaire. Time was crucial; students must reach their goal in just a month by working and competing in teams of 7 each. Students had to play one of the five different roles within the team of hikers attempting to summit the mountain. How well each team member shared information and made sound decisions determined if they could make it to the next camp and survive the climb.
Together they had to make decisions about how to work together, how to use their personal strengths, which route to take, what equipment to use, and what risks to run. They had to embrace challenges such as uncertain weather conditions, depleting oxygen levels and limited resources. These decisions affect speed, health, and ultimately the team’s success in summiting the mountain.
The day-long game taught the IGTC students some key lessons in the importance of how to create a common vision for success, evaluate and implement a business strategy, analyse risks and plan for contingencies, cultivate discipline in order to survive and thrive in difficult times, focus on efficiency and orientation towards results, manage tangible and intangible assets, improve interpersonal and inter-group communication skills, work and make decisions under stress and tight time constraints and achieve a flawless execution.
The students thoroughly enjoyed the learning process and reflected on the competencies honed during the day. As quoted by the winning team, Wind Changers “Silega, an expedition to Everest, was nothing in comparison to what we expected it to be! Our team started out at the very last since our strategy required us to wait out while others trooped ahead. The teams core strength was in accepting one another’s views and if need be altering plans to accommodate unforeseen difficulties. Come storm, snowfall or hail, the forecasting techniques adopted by the team saw us some challenges. The whole experience gave us good understanding on forecasting, backups on life and most importantly Team Work. All that we conclude with is ‘Together we can, together we will, and together we did!!”
IGTC remains indebted to Bayer for creating this special thrill and euphoria for the IGTC students.
Design Thinking
Bipasha Roy, Managing Director and Sameer Shah, Director of Mobius Space Consulting, Pvt. Ltd.
Mobius Space Consulting Private Limited conducted a day-long program titled design.FOUNDATION on ‘The Fundamentals of Design Thinking’ for the students at IGTC. The day-long workshop focused on giving students an insight into some of the methods of the Design Thinking approach. Students seemed to rediscover their creative confidence with the easy to remember frameworks and techniques for problem identification, problem framing and ideation introduced.
The workshop included hands-on activities for breaking fixed mind-sets and giving students new perspectives to reimagine the existing. Students engaged in groups through the day in teams of six to eight. They watched inspiring videos of best practices in design thinking from varied industries and worked on a few inspiring case studies.
Below are some of the learning outcomes of this workshop:
- What is Design Thinking and how to apply to practical problems?
- How to identify opportunities and understand human needs from a deep level of empathy?
- Ways to channelize the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration & foster a culture of creativity and innovation
According to the overall evaluation, most of the participants found the contents and structure of the program relevant and practical.
Experiential Marketing
Janak Vadgama, Director of Taal Rhythmic Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
There are so many products and services out there that companies need to market in a way that will grab consumers’ attention and stick in their minds. Experiential marketing is a form of advertising that focuses primarily on helping consumers “experience a brand”. It is typically a real-life event that the consumer can participate in thus creating an impression in the mind of the consumer.
The session is designed to introduce the students to the experiential aspects of brands, how do they think, experiential messages are consumed, and how can organizations use experiential marketing to connect with the target audiences of various brands. Using live as well as contemporary examples, the lecture engaged the students through all the senses and made them aware of the different aspects that constitute an experience.
Unleashing your creativity
Ashok Karnik, Founder and Creative Director of Spacebar Creative
‘Unleashing you Creativity’, an interactive session designed to give students a different aspect of the advertising industry today. It taught the student how to reach out to their target consumers based on the product and the brand being sold. It also gave the students an insight into the various changes in the advertisement industry from the kinds of advertisement being made to the modes of communication being used now days to communicate with the consumer.
After the brief on the innumerable innovations in the advertising industry, the students had to work on a group project where they were required to create an advertising campaign for ‘Mahindra SUV’ keeping in mind the consumer, the brand, and the various modes of communication which would be used. This had to be presented to him within a span of a few hours.
Current Trends in Human Resources
Dr. Anita Bandyopadhyay, Director, Talent & HR Solutions
No business can function without its people. Human Resources plays a very important role in this aspect to empower its people, engage them while keeping a check on the organization environment. The lecture gave the students an idea of the Current Trends in Human Resources. The lecture began with defining the current challenges faces by the Human Resources department in managing people.
he session included the Evolution of Talent Acquisition in organizations, various changes that have taken place on the Performance Management System in Companies, How companies are now moving away from the concept of Talent Management and moving towards the concept of People Management which ensures Empowerment of the people, Engagement of the People and the Environment. The current trends in Employee Engagement were defined and lastly emphasis was given on the importance of Human Resources as a strategic business partner in today’s world.
