 "(from left) Rajat Gupta, Sanjay Singh, Ajit Balakrishnan, Nishi Vasudeva, Hasit Joshipura, Rajesh Dahiya and Sandeep Chandola at the jury meeting for the Business Standard Best B-school Project Awards 2015 in Mumbai, on Saturday")
Six best entries were short-listed out of the top 10 projects in Business Standard Best B-School Project Award 2015 by a power-packed jury on Saturday. These will compete for the coveted award in the final round to be held on January 23.
The jury includes Ajit Balakrishnan, chief executive officer and founder Rediff.com (chairman of the jury); Rajat Gupta, director, McKinsey & lead, McKinsey's Energy and Materials Practice in Asia; Nishi Vasudeva, chairman and managing director, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation; Sandeep Chandola, director, Deloitte Support Services; Sanjay Singh, executive vice-president and global head - human resources, Crompton Greaves; Rajesh Dahiya, group executive, Axis Bank; and Hasit Joshipura, head (corporate centre) at Larsen & Toubro.
The shortlisted projects include a project on discovery of artificial intelligence start-ups for automating business processes relevant to the information technology services sector by Balaji Venkatesh of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras; a project on cost benefits of Six Sigma implementation by Pranav Bora of the Indira Institute of Management, Pune; and a study on supply chain of ITC lifestyle retailing business division to assess product development phase lead time and suggest ways to reduce it by Sourav Kumar of National Institute of Industrial Engineering Mumbai.
The other three projects that made the cut include a case study on the road map to success, a viewpoint on construction industry in Yangon by Pallav Angrulla and Karan Sharma of the Department of Management Studies, IIT Roorkee; XLRI student Vasudevan L's project on blueprint for career management platform and School of Management, Gautam Buddha University student Sagar Juneja's project to study sales returns and fulfilment at Jabong.com.
The criteria used by the jury to shortlist the projects included the quality of research and analysis, problems or issues being addressed practicality of the solution and how innovative it is, apart from the problem being addressed.
Jury members also looked into whether the business would benefit from the solutions offered and the tools used to arrive at a solution. The jury applauded the efforts of students who had the courage to tackle big problems, which were often unconventional.
"In management education, there is no way in which management students can make themselves visible. The awards are a platform where they can showcase their talent. A good thing this year is that students have had the courage to tackle a wide variety of problems across geographies," said Ajit Balakrishnan, jury chairman.
Business Standard received 193 projects for evaluation in 2015. The field was then narrowed to the final 10 shortlisted by Business Standard's knowledge partner Deloitte Support Services.
Each of these winners will make a presentation to the jury members at the awards function and finally the top three would be picked.
Business Standard instituted these awards in 2007 to honour excellence among students from India's best B-schools.
A national-level competition, the award is an opportunity for B-schools to nominate one project done by their students as part of their academics. And, only the best get nominated for this prestigious honour.
Around 7,500 students from the Indian Institutes of Management and other B-schools vie for the Business Standard Best B-school Project Award. With each passing year, Business Standard has raised the level of the competition.
Starting with 68 entries in the first year, the number of projects has steadily grown to exceed 193 entries this year.
