IIM Calcutta & Tata
Chemicals Win Tata Business Leadership Awards 2008text
The Tata Group, India's
largest private sector conglomerate, announced the winners of the 7th Tata
Business Leadership Awards (TBLA). 'Tata Business Leadership Awards (TBLA)'
is part of the TAS programme - the Group's managerial development programme for
young managers. text
Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman,
Tata Sons, handed over the trophy and cash prize of Rs. One Lakh to the
winners. Team of Amit Mehta, Puneet Gandhi, Puneet Jain and Ritesh Saxena from
IIM Calcutta won the campus round, whereas the team of Amitabh Tapadar,
Anand Sinha, Madhur Vaghela and Mohammed Altaf S. from Tata Chemicals Ltd.
won the internal track, which was for group companies. text
The team from S. P. Jain, Mumbai,
was the first runners-up, while IIM Bangalore walked away with the second
runners-up title for the campus round. The first runners-up of the internal
track for the Tata Group companies were HV Transmission and TCS-USA were the
second runners-up.text
Tata Business Leadership Awards
has been successfully conducted for students from the country's top 7 business
schools in India for the past 6 years. This year, TBLA was also extended to the
employees of the Tata Group companies across geographies in which the Group
operates.text
The seven teams from IIM
Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, FMS-Delhi, S. P.
Jain-Mumbai and XLRI-Jamshedpur were short listed from amongst 239 teams who
registered for the contest. The 9 in-house teams which were short listed for the
finals from amongst 225 entries, were, two teams from Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS), USA, two teams from TCS, Chennai, TCS, Mumbai, Tata Steel, Calcutta, TCS,
New Delhi, HV Transmission, Jamshedpur and Tata Chemicals, Mumbai. text
The participants of the Tata
Business Leadership Awards 2008 were invited to vie for the top honours on the
theme of "Globalization: Identifying Global Growth Opportunities for the Tata
Group". The teams were given the challenge to present a business case on
the opportunity for the Tata Group to grow globally. This could be organic or
inorganic growth, involving introduction of new product ranges or acquisitions.text
The jury for the national finals
for the B-school campuses consisted of: -text
Alan Rosling, Executive
Director, Tata Sonstext
Ishaat Hussain, Finance
Director, Tata Sonstext
The internal track for Tata Group
companies was judged by: -text
Kishor Chaukar, Managing
Director, Tata Industries text
S. Padmanabhan, Executive
Director & Head, Global Human Resources, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) text
Satish Pradhan, Executive
Vice President, Group Human Resources, Tata Sons text
Speaking on the occasion, Mr.
Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons, said, "It is a very pleasant moment
to be here at the end of such a session, and more so because it's wonderful to
see an organization of this size reacting to the call for greater innovation
than we have had in the past. I am extremely pleased that we are moving in a
direction of encouraging innovation. The Tata Group in years to come will look
back and find many new areas, which we have entered, or many new processes or
products that we have undertaken or enterprises that we have nurtured, have
infact, had the foundation in an exercise such as The Tata Business Leadership
Awards."text
Mr. Satish Pradhan,
Executive Vice President, Tata Sons Ltd., said, "TBLA is the most eagerly
anticipated competitions in the Indian business school arena. This year, we have
extended the competition to the employees of the Tata group. It gives them
opportunities to sharpen their business acumen and interact face-to-face with
the senior management and the Chairman of the Group. Also, it is an initiative
to unify the talent pool of the Tata Group across companies and geographies and
focus on innovation, leadership and achieving excellence." text
On winning the Tata Business
Leadership Awards 2008 trophy, Amit Mehta from IIM Calcutta, said, "Having the
opportunity to showcase our ideas to the senior management and receive the award
from legend like Ratan Tata, himself was an experience I'll never forget. What
moved me the most was that the senior leadership of the Tata Group was there,
not just to evaluate but to help us develop our ideas further. It was a
thrilling experience to receive inputs on what can be done with the endeavour we
had in mind!' text
The participating teams came up a
gamut of interesting of business ideas ranging from public water management for
the metro cities across the world to global fast food chain of Indian cuisine.
Acquiring a Chinese jewellery retail chain and bringing solar power to the world
were also some of the proposed business opportunities for the Tata Group. The
Tata Business Leadership Awards 2008 culminated with the awards function at Taj
Mahal Palace & Tower, Mumbai. text
The Tata Business Leadership
Awards is conducted by the TAS, a premier recruiter at Indian business
schools. TAS has been the flagship recruitment programme for the Tata Group
aimed at developing young leaders for the Tata Group for the past 50 years.
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