PepsiCo India, country’s leading food and beverage company, announced Nothing Official from ISB as the winners of the fifth edition of ‘Become Indra’s Advisors Contest’, a unique campus challenge that looks at talented young minds for the most innovative and out of the box solutions to the challenges that PepsiCo is currently facing. In this edition, over 200 entries were received from 17 premier B-Schools across the country. Students from JBIMS, Mumbai and FMS, Delhi finished as first and second runners-up respectively.
‘Become Indra’s Advisors Contest’ is amongst the most prestigious business plan contests in the country and attracts extensive participation. This engaging contest provides students with once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present their challenge solution to none other than PepsiCo’s Chairperson & CEO, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo’s Headquarters at Purchase, New York. The winning three-member team of Sunitha Subramaniam, Indradeep Das and Sameep Mendiratta walked away with the trophy after beating 5 other finalists for the opportunity to travel to New York and also bagged for themselves Pre Placement Offers (PPO) at PepsiCo India. The first and the second runners up received cash prizes of INR 2,00,000 and INR 1,50,000 respectively and Pre Placement Interviews (PPI).
The topic for this year’s competition was ‘Transforming Breakfast for Indian Consumers’. The participants were encouraged to deconstruct the opportunity to come up with relevant and impactful business solutions for the branded breakfast category in the country using the two globally powerful brands that already exist in PepsiCo’s portfolio- Tropicana & Quaker.
The finalists presented their ideas to PepsiCo’s leadership including Dr. Arindam Bhattacharya, Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group, India; Gautham Mukkavilli, SVP- Global Nutrition Group, AMEA, PepsiCo; Manu Anand, President & CEO, PepsiCo India; Praveen Someshwar, CEO, India Beverages – PepsiCo, and Varun Berry, CEO, India Foods - PepsiCo. The evaluation parameters used by the judges were Originality, Comprehensiveness of the Solution, Feasibility of the Idea and the Overall Presentation.
Speaking about the initiative, Samik Basu, Chief People’s Officer, PepsiCo India Region said, “We are delighted to have successfully completed the fifth edition of Become Indra’s Advisors’ Contest. This programme serves a two-fold agenda; one to engage bright young minds to come up with possible solutions for real business issues and opportunities; secondly to make them familiar with the F&B industry and how PepsiCo is poised in that space. We are committed to provide students with such opportunities to learn, grow, prove themselves and become a part of PepsiCo’s world of infinite possibilities.”
Nagina Singh, Director-Talent Acquisition, PepsiCo India Region, commented, “The uniqueness of this contest has been the key reason behind its success over the last five years. In the current edition, we received 211 challenge solutions as compared to 110 last year. PepsiCo India has always been a preferred company to work for and this contest has helped us further consolidate our leadership position among students of premier institutions.”
Commenting on their win, members of the winning team, Nothing Official from ISB said, “Our win at ‘Become Indra’s Advisors Contest 2011’ was a culmination of nearly two months of hard work. The situation provided to us pushed us to come out with our creative best, by thinking out of the box and challenging our intellect to come up with a concept that the jury would consider game-changing. We are thrilled to be able to meet Ms Indra Nooyi and share our ideas with her and thank PepsiCo for giving us this opportunity.”