RPG Blizzard Reinvents B-School Competitions; Goes Digital this Year

RPG Blizzard, one of India’s most sought-after business school contests backed by RPG Group, has set a new record with 2,790 participants from 11 select schools across India for the 2019 edition. This year’s RPG Blizzard also included a digital contest for the first time, generating unprecedented interest and excitement among premier B-school campuses across India.

Harsh Goenka, Chairman, RPG Group with RPG Blizzard 2019 participantsTo qualify for the finals, all participants had to go through a variety of intellectually stimulating activities on a digital platform. The finalists, eighteen individuals in nine teams, were flown to Mumbai to attend a Grand Quiz earlier this month. All finalists spent a full day at the RPG Headquarters interacting with the Group’s Management Board Members.

The three winners of the Grand Quiz had a special prize waiting for them: a private audience with RPG Group’s Chairman Harsh Goenka for a full afternoon over lunch.

While case study competitions are common in B-school campuses, RPG Blizzard has been an exceptionally popular contest on account of unexpected surprise elements introduced every year. “At any time, there are close to 50 case study competitions running in each campus and we at RPG Blizzard wanted to do something completely different that stands us apart from the crowd,” said Vinayak Talwar, who runs all Campus engagements for RPG. The final rounds in the last two years were hosted with iconic pop themes: Game of Thrones and Marvel Superheroes in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Supratik Bhattacharyya, Chief Talent Officer at RPG confirmed that the Group’s business leaders at the highest levels stay continually involved in all campus initiatives of the group. “That’s our way of adding real-time perspectives to the students and enhancing their business understanding, supplementing what they study in their curriculum. Such efforts, for example, have led to even the Harvard Business School capture the Digital Transformation journey of our Group Company Zensar through a case study,” Bhattacharyya said.

When asked about why they changed their competition format, Bhattacharyya said, “When you are convinced that you only want the best and the brightest to join you, you need to take that step that not just differentiates you from the rest, but also create something that truly tests their mettle.”

RPG is a premier recruiter at the country’s best business school campuses; including the top-tier IIMs, FMS, XLRI, IIFT, ISB, NITIE and MDI. Every year, the group hires about 70 students under its Group Management Resource (GMR) program. All recruits are able to gain experience in different functions and group companies and are groomed for future leadership roles within the group.