NetElixir, a leading global online marketing firm is organizing Clix, a digital marketing case study contest among the top five BSchools in Hyderabad.

This will be the first time in India that a live e-commerce digital marketing case will be used. The contest requires the students to apply their creative, problem solving skills to come up with possible solutions to a “real life business challenge faced by a digital e-commerce marketer” in the United States.

The five B-schools participating are, The Indian School of Business (ISB), ICFAI Business School Hyderabad, Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) and Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management (GITAM).

Currently, the MBA curriculum in the country does not have any mentionable content or courses on digital marketing, ecommerce or online technology. According to a recently published study by the WPP Group, Global Digital Advertising spend in 2012 was $99bn and is expected to touch $113bn in 2013. 

Given the potentially booming nature of Digital Marketing, Clix aspires to generate awareness and interest about Digital Marketing among Business students. Through the (real) case studies, we hope to expose bright minds to the infinite potential offered by the digital world.

Digital marketing involves heavy data analytics. “The key purpose behind Clix is to provide the huge analytical talent pool in India, an avenue to do world class work in digital marketing analytics,” said Udayan Bose, Founder and CEO, NetElixir. He further added, “We plan to make Clix an annual event. Going ahead, we also plan to have a multi-city contest among the B schools in the country.”

Clix –the contest:

• The five B-Schools participating will have five teams of four members each for the preliminary rounds, from which one team will be shortlisted for the final round.

  
  

• The preliminary elimination rounds will be organized by the NetElixir team in each of the participating schools during the second week of July. 

  
  

• The final round will comprise a 45-minute presentation by each team on the case analyses and will be followed by a 15-minute Q&A session each.

  
  

• The contest will be judged by a panel of esteemed judges.

Professor G V Muralidhara, Dean of Case Research, ICFAI commented saying, “It is very important that students are educated on Digital Marketing because it provides more avenues for placement as it ensures good analytical skills and is also challenging and interesting. 

In addition it provides good scope with expanding companies such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and NetElixir. However, a constant and strong rapport with the industry is a must because there are not many text-books and the field is continuously evolving.”

Commenting on Clix Professor Kavil Ramachandran,Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor of Family Business and Wealth Management, Indian School of Business, said, “This is yet another great initiative of NetElixir that will create a unique opportunity for students to understand the dynamics of the emerging world of online marketing. There will be a lot of career opportunities in this space in the near future.”

The finals will be held on July 27 in Hyderabad. The winning team will be awarded a Clix Rolling Trophy along with a cash prize of Rs 100,000 from NetElixir.