ABG Stratos 2019 Grand Finale - Diving deep into the health insurance sector

A rainy Mumbai morning marked the dawn of the finale of ABG Stratos 2019. Aditya Birla Group’s flagship competition, Stratos is built on grounds of stimulating the participant’s thought process. A business simulation competition, it was designed to make contestants navigate real-life scenarios, providing a flavour of both, ideation and execution.

Spanning across four rounds, the door to registrations flung open on 12th July and closed on 25th July, giving about 15 days to register for the competition. Students from an elite list of 15 B-Schools of the country were eligible for ABG Stratos 2019. The teams for the four rounds had to go through a simulation game, a case study, a powerpoint presentation and the grand-finale. Providing food for thought, ABG Stratos judged the candidates’ mettle on grounds of knowledge, creativity and their performance in each round.

The first preliminary round of ABG Stratos started on 26th July and went on till 29th July. The second phase of the competition, i.e., the campus round, was held on 4th August while detailed presentations for the third round, Deep Dive, were to be submitted latest by 18th August. The fourth or the final round was the Grand Finale which was held on 6th September, in Mumbai.

10 teams out of 1286 reached the top, witnessing a rainy start to the day of the grand finale on 6th September. StratX and B-raiders from ISB, Skyfall from IIM-A, Dreamers from FMS Delhi, Stellaris from IIFT Delhi, The Unknowns from IIM-C, DEcrypt from IIM-K, Kratos from ISB, Blizzard from FMS Delhi and The Time Machine from MDI were the top 10 finalist teams.

Evaluated on 3 primary parameters, namely, Feasibility of Idea, Reach and Impact and Innovation, the Grand Finale required each team to deliver a 12-minute presentation on a case study which revolved around the Health Insurance domain. Getting introduced to a sector which they weren’t familiar with, by means of a case study, intrigued the participants and instilled fresh enthusiasm within them. This was to be followed by an 8 minute Q&A session by the Jury.

Eminent personalities marked their presence on the Jury panel. Mayank Bathwal and Shikha Bagai, CEOs, Aditya Birla Health Insurance, along with Darshana Shah, Head of Marketing and Anuradha Sriram, Chief Actuary, graced the occasion with their presence.

Towards the end of the Finale, a panel discussion on Evolution of Health Insurance took place. Shedding light on the aspects of Health Insurance Landscape, Digital Landscape - Sales & Customer Experience and the Future of Health Insurance, esteemed guests from Aditya Birla Health Insurance honoured the occasion as panellists. The panel was graced by Tapan Bhatia, AVP, Customer Experience; Harish Dayani, Head - Learning; Saurabh Miglani, JVP & Head - Product Development; Rupa Mogaveera, JVP - Operations & Policy Management and Saifuddin Ahmed, Head of Digital & Digital Sales, Aditya Birla Health Insurance.

The Grand Finale came to a close with the felicitation of the top 3 teams along with the remaining 7 finalists. Ear to ear smiles captured in a group photo clicked thereafter marked the end of the Finale.

One of the few Indian corporations who share the League of Fortune 500 Companies, Aditya Birla Group, ABG, has laid a strong foundation on grounds of stakeholder value creation. With Stratos 2019, ABG stands at the forefront in the list of corporate competitions, giving the students a riveting experience throughout.