 "BS Southern Region corporate quiz")
It was after six challenging rounds and after 35-40 questions that the Sai Mitra Constructions team from Hyderabad won the trophy as well as a gift cheque of Rs 25,000 in the Business Standard Quiz: Southern Region Finals.
The quiz was held on Saturday at Vels University in Chennai. The main sponsor was global watch brand Victorinox and Vels University was the associate sponsor with Coca-Cola being the beverage partner. Hair and beauty salon chain Naturals, silk saree manufacturer and retailer RmKV and Cookie Man were the gift sponsors.
The winning team bagged Rs 25,000 and the first and second runners-up, both from Infosys, received Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000, respectively.
Naveen Kumar and Phani Mahesh, the duo from Sai Mitra, said they faced a tough fight from the first runner-up team, comprising Vivek Venkatesan and Senthil Kumar P K from Infosys.
In total, 82 teams from 61 colleges and 21 companies, from the four southern states have participated in the quiz. Each team had two representatives.
The participants included an interesting mix of educational institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Management -(Trichy and its Chennai campus; Kozhikode), Indian Institute of Technology (Chennai), Great Lakes, Bharathidasan Institute of Management, SRM, Veltech, and LIBA, among others, and corporates such as Infosys, TCS, Caterpillar, India Cements, HSBC, ICICI Bank and Indian Overseas Bank.
Quizmaster Gaurav Sri Krishna, who is the leader for Asia-Pacific, India and MEA (Middle East and Africa) region in TCS, was at his best as he challenged the teams with the best of his questions, said one of the participants.
One question that stumped all the finalists was: As an individual contributor, to whom can one submit a BION and what does it mean? While nobody on the stage answered it, one of the participants off-stage came up with the right answer: It is a Believe It Or Not (BION) story sent to Ripley Entertainment Inc. The staff at Ripley's world headquarters is always searching for new stories of the odd and unusual. Every day, they receive dozens of phone calls, hundreds of posted letters and thousands of emails from people with incredible stories of outlandish feats, amazing works of art, or unexplainable phenomena. It is owned by the Jim Pattison Group, which is Canada's largest privately-held company.
The first runners-up team from Infosys said it was a googly with a simple answer while they were suspecting it as something associated with the digital currency, bitcoin.
The winning team said that all the questions were impressive and of good quality. "We have been waiting for the Southern Quiz to happen from the time we heard about the BS Quiz which was held in Mumbai," said Kumar of Sai Mitra.
The quizmaster said the teams were very good and experienced, which could be seen from their performance.
He added the tough question according to him was: This company in the early 1900s undertook every imaginable means of unfair competition, in all probability including physically assaulting competitors' employees. Its field force consisted of Knockout Salesmen who fanned across the US selling machines that were copies of competitors' machines, but did not work. Finally in 1913 its top executives were indicted for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and were sentenced.
However, before he could finish reading the question, which appeared on the screen, the winner team came up with the answer: National Cash Register (NCR). The quizmaster explained that its founder John H Patterson and Thomas J Watson (Sr) who was the sales head were two of two-dozen executives of the company who were indicted and sentenced to a year in jail.
K Sekhar, vice-chancellor of Vels University, said the event has improved in several notches and it was evident from the performance of the teams. "Seeing the corporate participants contesting in the event would also motivate our students to come," he said. R Mathialagan, registrar of the university, added: "This gives us a good platform to connect with the corporates."
The second edition of Business Standard quiz is one of the largest quiz competitions held in this part of the country. The first edition was held in Chennai last year in association with Vels University.
In this year's quiz, 82 teams representing various colleges from all disciplines and corporates from the four southern states participated. Participants travelled from various corners of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Around 300 students from the Vels Institute of Business Administration, Vels University and faculties from other colleges have witnessed the Quiz.
Business Standard also conducts written rounds of BS Quiz in various colleges across all disciplines.
