Crafting the right strategies in business

Home to several flagship events, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) Business and Communications Club has been organising Corporiddlerz on an inter-university level for the past three years. In the fast-paced corporate world run by multinationals and local companies, Corporiddlerz has made its name as one of the most prestigious business competitions in Bangladesh.

Corporriddlerz 2018 sponsored by Sena Kalyan Sangstha (SKS) started its journey on 14th July with over 250 teams from 50 different universities all across the nation. As always, the competition sought teams to provide feasible strategies and solutions to actual corporate problems as they competed for recognition and a total prize money worth of 225,000 BDT. Roadshows were conducted by the organisers to encourage students to encounter a living-learning community where course-work and academics are all tied to our real life. Emphasising on the importance of the competition, Mahadi Billah, the President of BUP Business and Communication Club said, "With the ever-changing corporate dynamics, we believe that testing the strategic skills of students helps bring out their full potential. This also gives them an experience of the real world challenges. We believe that is what makes Corporiddlerz so popular amongst the students."

Structured into three phases, each of the cases introduced were multidimensional and were inspired by SKS and their range of products and services, in hopes of introducing students to real-time business models and test their strategic capacities. The initial round was carried out through an online case submission, where the teams had only 48 hours to strategise solutions to tackle the problems surrounding a product as highly undifferentiated as Sena Liquid Petroleum Gas.  Of the 250 teams, the top 48 qualified for the Project Launch Round where they had to launch/relaunch different Sena products through presentations followed by rigorous questions and answer sessions. From thereon, the lucky 18 teams went on to face an all-out two-day battle in the name of the third round. Whereas the first day called for planning an entire project from scratch with a given raw material- this time it was natural rubber, the second phase was more of a surprise as members of each team were swapped with members of an opposing team to test the teamwork spirit of the participants.

The six finalist teams who made it to the finals had five days of time to prepare their proposed plan to present it in the presence of guests and judges alike on the grandest stage of all. The teams were Team Last Minute, Team Fusion Dance and Team Type-A,from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Dhaka University (DU), Team One Last Time and 11th Hour from BUP and Team PowerMerge from North South University. They were assigned to strategise on a dormant industry relating to unemployment in Bangladesh. The task was to plan a strategic business model for employing unskilled and uneducated human resource with the use of progressive vocational training, and the idea was to transform the idle unemployed people into an efficient human resource.

The Grand Finale of SKS Presents Corporiddlerz 2018 was hosted at the premises of the campus on August 05 in Mirpur Cantonment, at the presence of the Chief Guest, Vice Chancellor of the Bangladesh University of Professionals, Major General Md Emdad-Ul-Bari, ndc, psc, and Special Guest, Brig Gen ASM Mahmood Hasan, ndc, psc all the way from Sena Kalyan Sangstha. The Chair of the Session was Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof. M Abul KashemMozumder, PhD.  The event held a series of pitches from the six finalist teams and was followed by the award-giving ceremony and finally concluded with a grand banquet.

Experienced and renowned names from the corporate sector were assigned to make the final judgment; they were Mr Rezaul Islam, head of marketing, British American Tobacco Bangladesh, Mr Neamul Mukit Ahmed, head of e-engagement and marketing, Banglalink, Mohammad Akher, head of sales, treasury and trade solutions, Citibank N.A, Mr Kazi Amirul Hoque, sales director, Marico Bangladesh Ltd. and Mr Shahriar Amin, national sales manager, Philip Morriswere invited.

The Team Fusion Dance from IBA, DU  became the champion of 'SKS Presents Corporiddlerz 2018'. Team Last Minute from IBA, DU became the first runner-up. And for the first time in the history of the business competitions, the second runner-up was a tie between Team One Last Time from BUP and Team Type A from IBA, DU. The winning teams walked home with glory and prize money worth of Taka One Lac, Seventy-five Thousand and Fifty Thousand respectively.

When asked about the experience, Nafi Tajwar, representing the champion team Fusion Dance of IBA, DU said, "Corporiddlerz has been an amazing experience all throughout. It has been a wonderful ride as we had to build strategies for products ranging from LPG gas to rubber all the way to vocational education. We got to learn a lot about how different industries work and how different strategies must be employed in the different industries. These tasks were all enjoyable as Corporiddlerz had twists like team swapping which was an entirely new experience for all of us. Overall, Corporiddlerz 2018 has been one of the best experiences of our lives."

Antara Raisa Khan and Tasmiah Rahman
The writers are currently studying at Bangladesh University of Professionals. They can be reached at [email protected]
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