Campus Buzz

The competing teams at BOM 2012.

Striding to Meet Challenges

Promiti Prova Chowdhury

How would you like entering a café where you can be surrounded by the movies, books and above all, music, carefully selected from the time when you were 13 years old? Entering that 'retroscape' you will be greeted by a well trained waitress who will guide you through the zone and assist you to pick your favourite pieces! And, of course, you will relax; lay back with a chilled drink,

shelving off all the stress of day to day life…

With an idea like this, team 'Work' from Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of University of Dhaka (DU), successfully secured the title of Battle of Minds, 2012, the final round of which was held on October 18, 2012, at the Grand Ball Room of Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel. The first and second runners-up of the competition were team 'Enroots' from North South University and team 'Beatles' from Islamic University of Technology (IUT) respectively.

The real-life business competition, Battle of Minds, popularly known as BOM, is organised by the British American Tobacco (BAT) Bangladesh. It provides a platform for final year students to display their entrepreneurial accumen. BATB has been organising it since 2004.

Battle of Minds 2012 hit the campuses on July 16 this year, engaging graduating students of business, engineering and agricultural schools. The applicants had to provide information, detailing their unique achievements and personal characteristics which add to their profiles. Apart from this, the candidates also had to take an aptitude test designed to measure their numeric and verbal aptitude. The popular competition, this year gathered a momentum with 1257 registrations from 16 universities.

This year, the challenge was to prepare a campaign model for the premium restaurant FLOOR 6 LOUNGE & GRILL situated at Banani, Dhaka. “Every year we organise this competition on any contemporary business issue. But since BOM has become one of our primary recruitment tools, this year we presented them with a real life business challenge so that they can be assessed more subtly,” says Anwarul Amin, External Communication and CSR Manager, BAT, Bangladesh.

The teams had to visit the restaurant, collect information, identify the problems and accordingly delineate their business plan and finally negotiate with the authority. They also had to negotiate with a creative agency and in this case it was Asiatic. Nayeem Alam, a member of the winning team said, “For the last two weeks we were either working at BAT or at Asiatic. It seemed like we had no social life or any other forms of entertainment for those hectic weeks. Our sole focus was to win. After working so hard we have gained this honour. I feel humbled. And through this journey we learned a lot from each other. Because, our team is made up of four people, that is, four different minds, and four different sets of skills.”

The adjudicators for the final round were Raihan Rahman, Head of Marketing, BATB, Anthony Yong, Director of Finance, BATB, and Rubana Rahman, Head of Human Resource, BATB. They scrutinised the teams based on how they represented the case, whether the ideas were objective oriented or not, how much were they relevant to the budget of the outlet owner, were all factors that needed to be considered.

At the gala event, Arun Kaul, Managing Director of BAT Bangladesh said, “I am highly delighted to see the commitment, enthusiasm, and the quality of presentations of the students. Battle of Minds has been one of the flagship initiatives of British American Tobacco Bangladesh. It aims to provide the potential students an experience of the corporate life.” Rubana Rahman, Head of Human Resource, BATB, said, “We have been organising this event for nine years. Over these years, we have got over 50 employees who got their initial entries to BAT through this competition.”

Participants from different universities, their parents, faculty members, and other BATB officials were present at the ceremony.

DID YOU KNOW?

Diego Maradona

Diego Armando Maradona was born on 30 October, 1960 (turning 52 today!) in Lanús, but raised in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, to a poor family that had moved from Corrientes Province. He was the first son after three daughters. He has two younger brothers, Hugo (el Turco) and Raúl (Lalo), both of whom were also professional football players. Maradona has Italian, Croatian and indigenous ancestry. At age of 10, Maradona was spotted by a talent scout while he was playing in his neighborhood club Estrella Roja. He became a staple of Los Cebollitas (The Little Onions), the junior team of Buenos Aires's Argentinos Juniors. As a 12-year-old ball boy, he amused spectators by showing his wizardry with the ball during the halftime intermissions of first division games. On 20 October 1976, Maradona made his professional debut with Argentinos Juniors, ten days before his sixteenth birthday. He played there between 1976 and 1981, scoring 115 goals in 167 appearances before his £ 1 million transfer to Boca Juniors. Having joined the Boca squad midway through the 1981 season, Maradona played through 1982 earning his first league championship medal. Whilst playing for Argentinos Juniors, English club Sheffield United put in an offer of £180,000 for his services but the bid was rejected. On 2 June 1979, Maradona scored his first senior international goal in a 31 win against Scotland at Hampden Park as a player of the Argentina National Team. He is the only player to win the Golden Ball at both the FIFA U-20 World Cup and FIFA World Cup, in 1979 and 1986.

Information Source: Internet