J&J QUEST Season 8 Grand Finale, all you need to know
A B-School competition to end all competitions - J&J QUEST Season 8 blended heart, science and ingenuity for profoundly changing the trajectory of health for humanity. Spread over a period of 9 months, J&J QUEST Season 8 recently marked a successful closure with its Grand Finale on September 17, 2020. The Live Business Case competition invited the electrifying talent of the first-year MBA/PGDM flagship programs from 12 colleges across the country. J&J QUEST has set new milestones and benchmarks along the way with more than 1500 participants in season 8 and an increase in the application by 5% from QUEST season 7 and 23% growth in registration from QUEST season 6.
Kickstarted in November 2019, the participants brought unique perspectives and innovative solutions to key business problems faced by different businesses of Johnson & Johnson. J&J QUEST Season 8 consisted of 5 stages where all the participating B-Schools were allotted a different project related to a business challenge faced by the healthcare giant.
Getting the J&J QUEST Season 8 off the ground, all the registered teams first submitted their Project Pitch. Followed by which the top 5 teams from each college were shortlisted for the Campus round by the campus faculty of the college based on the Project Pitch submissions. Pleasantly surprised by the fresh ideas and new perspectives of the teams, the Johnson & Johnson leaders further narrowed down to top-2 shortlisted teams.
Competing among themselves, the top 2 teams were shortlisted from each campus for the third and fourth round of J&J QUEST Season 8, Mentorship and Campus Champion round respectively. The selected teams worked on their project for over 5 weeks and were then evaluated on their final project submissions to be crowned as the Campus Champions from each college. It was these teams that left an indelible mark on the jury and showed a promising contribution to the profound purpose of J&J.
The wait was finally over on September 17, 2020, when the J&J QUEST Season 8 Grand Finale was held! What was meant to be an on-ground B-School competition, J&J QUEST took on a life of its own and was concluded as a virtual Grand Finale. The finale was given a green signal with a short motivating speech by a jury panel of 4 judges, wishing all the Campus Champions good luck. The panel comprised of distinguished Leaders from J&J - Vikas Srivastava, Managing Director, Consumer Health India; Sarthak Ranade, Managing Director, Janssen India; Sumit Sinha, Senior Director, Supply Chain India and Emrana Sheikh, Head of HR, India and South Asia.
Likeways, this year also the J&J QUEST Season 8 Grand Finale observed mind-boggling solutions to J&J's business challenges. After the jury endowed the teams with luck and wishes, the Campus Champions presented their indigenous ideas to their original business problems through an 8-minute PowerPoint presentation which was followed by a 6-minute Q&A round.
The 14 finalists including the Team ADSR from XLRI Jamshedpur, Team Code Blue from IIM Bangalore, Team Credo from SPJIMR Mumbai, A-Team from IIM Calcutta, Team Eye-deators from SIBM Pune, Team Callisto from SPJIMR Mumbai, Team Professional Pirates from NITIE Mumbai, Team K-Eternals from IIM Kozhikode, Team Dragon Warriors from IIM Lucknow, Team Dead Sirius from MDI Gurgaon, Team Marshals from SJMSOM-IIT Bombay, Team JustInTime from XLRI Jamshedpur, Team My Chemical Romance from NMIMS Mumbai and Team Malkagang from FMS Delhi flabbergasted the audience and the jury with their findings.
After taking a short break, the audience, participating teams and the jury re-grouped again to celebrate the results of the J&J QUEST Season 8 Grand Finale. Before commencing the prize distribution ceremony, the jury congratulated all the participating teams for their endless efforts, passion and innovative ideas to solve the complicated problems. Proceeding it, Emaran Sheikh, Head of HR, India and South Asia gave a huge thumbs-up to all the project mentors, guides, business leaders, curators and distributors who helped the teams to come up with rock-solid solutions.
Beating the tough competition and marginal differences between the presentations and solutions, Team Professional Pirates from NITIE Mumbai which consisted of Hemantkumar Singh, Priya Singh, Krishna Kant Singh and Bharat Chaudhari bagged the position of Runner-up. The distinguished position of National winners of J&J QUEST Season 8 Grand Finale was grabbed by the A-Team from IIM Calcutta which consisted of Vikneswaran R S, Aparna C, Saumya Shrivastava, and M Subhas.
Stay tuned to hear from the winners in an exclusive interview with the D2C Editorial Team.