In a first of its kind, IMI Delhi, IMI Kolkata and IMI Bhubaneswar students jointly participated in an event, held on the IMI Kolkata campus, with live participation from all three campuses, on January 20. The event, Marketing Marathon, was organised by the Marketing Clubs of IMI Delhi, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar campuses.
In the inaugural session, Prof Arindam Banik, Director, IMI Kolkata, said such events will gradually pave the way for the IMI family to derive more synergies from among its campuses on multiple platforms such as joint research and conferences, faculty exchanges, shared library resources and joint alumni meets. He shared a brief history of IMI Delhi and his role as a faculty there in its initial days.
Prof Sarojakshya Chatterjee, Synergy Faculty-in-Charge, IMI Kolkata, highlighted the importance of the concept of Synergy, which has come to hold its own as an important stream thanks to the efforts of Prof Banik, Prof Himadri Das, Director-General, IMI Delhi, and Prof Ramesh Behl, Director, IMI Bhubanswar.
Prof Mohua Banerjee, mentor to The Marketing Club of IMI Kolkata, said that though the spirit of competition would prevail and one team would eventually emerge as winner, the event would mark the goodwill that ensured the bonding transcends individual campus boundaries. Participants from IMI Delhi were Aashanaa Bothara and Harsh Gupta. Participants from IMI Bhubaneswar were Archit Sahay, Vishal Chaudhary, Gaurab Biswas and Coordinator Atisha Tayal. Participants from IMI Kolkata were Deepali Dinesh Singh Chauhan, Shreya Sultania and Tania Jindal.
The events of the day were split into three rounds. The first part witnessed a Quiz, where the three teams were tested on their marketing concepts and their knowledge of global marketing trends. The second round intensified the competition as the students applied their analytical and strategic powers in a simulated marketing problem situation. And the third session was a presentation based on the second round in the presence of a panel of judges comprising Dr. Sunil Kunamaneni and Dr. Alfred Chinta of Leeds Beckett University, UK.
Dr. Chinta congratulated IMI Kolkata for hosting such an event across the three campuses in a short span of time and compared it to the huge feat of involving students from five different MBA programmes of Leeds Beckett University, of which he is Course Director. IMI Bhubaneswar was adjudged the grand overall winner, with IMI Delhi and IMI Kolkata being the runners-up. The students from IMI Delhi and Bhubaneswar left with an eagerness to reciprocate and carry forward the initiative in their campuses. The Marketing Marathon provided them the opportunity of being the harbingers of good cheer across the three IMI campuses and building a future together as one entity across varying diversities.