Great Lakers make a clean sweep @ DHL Simulation contest in Germany

Students from Great Lakes won all the prizes on offer at the DHL Fast Forward business simulation contest in Germany. The objective of the business simulation contest was to make a virtual logistics company the world leader by means of forward-looking management decisions, and to secure world quality leadership. The contest was launched in April 2008 under the patronage of German Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The event had over 8500 participants from 120 countries.

Starting from an initial pool of over 8,500 participants, 46 participants from 12 countries made it to the final round, where they competed in 10 international teams. 5 of these 10 teams had a Great Lakes student as a member. Prasanna Joshi, Oza Rutvij Siddharth, Rohit Menon, Parth S Bhimani and Adarsh Nand Bahadur flew to Germany to take part in the final round that consisted of two highly realistic cases studies, and were judged by a jury of highly placed experts. The teams competed live for two days at the Post Tower in Bonn, Germany. At the end of the grueling contest , Prasanna Joshi’s team – that consisted of a German, a Turk , an American and an IIFT student- bagged the top prize worth 25,000 Euros.

While all of the finalists demonstrated a very high skill level, the strategic approach, creative ideas and very professional presentation delivered by Team ARBOCADON(the winning team) made a particularly favorable impression on us

noted Walter Scheurle, Board Member for Personnel at Deutsche Post World Net.

 

Team ARBOCADON(the winning team)

 

 

Rutvijj’s team (consisting of a German, an American, a Mexican and an ISB student) won the second prize worth 15000 euros while Rohit’s team (consisting of a couple of Germans, a Filipino and an IIM-C student) got the third prize worth 10,000 euros.

- Muralidhar S
Class of 2009

Montek addresses Great Lakers

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning commission, addressed students from Great Lakes during his visit to Chennai on January 8, 2009. Prof Bala V Balachandran, our founder and honorary Dean (fondly called Uncle Bala) set many tongues wagging by introducing Dr. Ahluwalia as the future finance minister of the country!!! In his welcome address, Uncle Bala recalled his close association with Dr. Ahluwalia dating back to the days when they both worked to set up the executive program at MDI, Gurgaon.

Mr. T.N Seshan, the former chief election commissioner and currently a full time faculty at Great Lakes, was delighted to play host to his old colleague and was as eager as the students to listen to the Oxford educated bureaucrat.

Dr. Ahluwalia after paying glowing tributes to Mr. Seshan and his culinary skills ( Dr. Ahluwalia broke the news that Mr. Seshan is a great cook!!), delivered an eloquent and a succinct lecture on the Indian economy, the global credit crunch, the efforts taken by the government to mitigate the crisis and his thoughts on overcoming this tough period. Dr. Ahluwalia strongly felt that investment in infrastructure and agriculture are extremely crucial for the long term competitiveness of the Indian economy.

Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia with Great Lakers

When the floor was opened for questions, Dr. Ahluwalia handled the volley of questions from students with panache. It took all of Mr. Seshan’s efforts to slightly rattle Dr. Ahluwalia with a couple of incisive questions. The national media that covered the event lapped up the lively exchanges and captured every moment of it on their cameras. In just over 40 minutes, Dr. Ahluwalia was done and the media converged for an impromptu press meet.

I found the press meet to be simply fascinating. This was the first time I was physically present at a press meet and I must add that the vibrancy of the journalists was contagious. The entire battery of media persons wanted to grab a sound byte on the Satyam saga, but , much to their disappointment, Dr. Ahluwalia cautiously ducked all questions (the story was still emerging and the full details weren’t known at that point in time)

I left the venue star struck picking up lessons not only in economics but also on how to handle a super charged media!!

- Muralidhar S
Class of 2009

Admission Update : Deadline extended till Jan 30,2009

There is good news for applicants. The deadline for submitting applications to enter the class of 2010 has been extended to January 30,2009. Forms will be available at IMS centers and at Great Lakes office till Jan 24,2009. The online forms will be available till Jan 30,2009.

For more details and to apply online, visit: http://www.greatlakes.edu.in/pgpmHowToApply.php

- Muralidhar S
Class of 2009