NITIE Mumbai Conquers J&J Quest Season 10 Grand Finale 2022!

Passion and purpose spark innovation. And to take this line of thought further, the world’s largest healthcare company, Johnson & Johnson, came up with its scintillating competition for India’s B school masterminds named the J&J Quest. This year the 10th season of J&J Quest was organized which saw more than 2100 registrations and 300 plus project submissions from students of the selected B Schools.

Founded in 1886, J&J is counted amongst the most valuable companies in the world today. Driven by the vision of caring for mankind, the company entered India almost 70 years ago and since then, has been creating innovative solutions that help people live healthy and vibrant lives. J&J has over 3,500 employees in India with operations spread across three business segments: Consumer Healthcare, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceuticals.

J&J Quest provides a conducive platform for future leaders to bring forth their inventive solutions for critical problems under various segments of the company. It brings together the B schoolers from selected premier institutes in India to present fresh perspectives to solve unique business problems faced by Johnson & Johnson across its sectors. Students are invited to work on one of the separate business cases – Supply Chain, Janssen, Consumer Health, and Medical Devices.

Let’s run you through the highlights of the J&J Quest Season 10 Grand Finale.

Overview of the competition structure

J&J Quest season 10 grand finale was a culmination of various high-octane stages designed to attract ideas across four sectors namely Supply Chain, Janssen, Medical Devices, and Consumer Health.

The competition was open to 1st-year students pursuing 2-year full-time MBA/PGDM from the following institutes:

Supply Chain: NITIE Mumbai, SJMSOM IIT Bombay, SPJIMR Mumbai, SIOM Nashik, XLRI Jamshedpur
Medical Devices: FMS Delhi, SPJIMR Mumbai, XLRI Jamshedpur
Consumer Health: IIM Indore, MDI Gurgaon, IIFT Delhi, NMIMS Mumbai
Janssen Pharmaceuticals: IIM Kozhikode, Goa Institute of Management

Here is a round-up of the competition rounds:

Round	Details
Project Pitch Submission	Registered students worked on the assigned project brief and submitted a 1-2 slide executive summary along with a video pitch explaining their solution. The top 5 teams made it to the Quarter Finale.
Quarter Finale	The 5 shortlisted teams presented their executive summaries virtually to the J&J jury panel. The top 2 teams from each business case advanced further.
Mentorship Phase	The 8 teams shortlisted from the Quarter Finale underwent a 4-week long mentorship phase under the guidance of J&J leaders.
Semi Finale	The mentored teams presented their polished ideas to the jury and the top team from each business case category made their way into the coveted Quest Grand Finale.
Grand Finale	The 4 National Finalist teams battled it out in the virtual Grand Finale.

All hail the mentors and the esteemed jury!

Apart from the fierce competition between brilliant ideas, J&J Quest offered students the opportunity to learn from the company's seasoned leaders through the 4-week-long mentorship phase. This helped the students etch their ideas into efficient solutions.

Based on the assessment of their fine-tuned ideas, four teams swooped through the semi-finals into the much-awaited J&J Quest season 10 grand finale. The finalists were judged by a high-powered jury consisting of the following members:

Sandeep Makkar, Managing Director, Johnson & Johnson MedTech India
Shipra Saraf, Head of Southeast Asia, Consumer Health, and OneHR India
Jayashri Kulkarni, Business Unit Lead, Janssen Pharmaceuticals
Manoj Gadgil, Business Unit Lead, Consumer Health

Dazzled by the ideas of the teams, selecting a winner was a tough call to make for the jury. The jury assessed the teams on their in-depth understanding of the problem statement, the research orientation followed to collect data, and the technical and functional expertise gathered during the process. And after long deliberations among the jury members, the moment of truth arrived.

And the winner is…..

Starting from 2100+ registrations funneling down to four 3-member teams in the grand finale, J&J Quest Season 10 brought to light amazing solutions for solving critical problems. The participants tussled to pitch their ideas but only the best teams got to plant their flags. Here are the details of the teams that made it to the grand finale of J&J Quest Season 10.

Team Name	Institute	Names of the members	Sector
Team Footloose	IIFT Delhi	Sanyam Garg, Shweta Iyer, Ashutosh Pratap Singh	Consumer Health
Team Muggles 2.0	NITIE Mumbai	Harsh Dapkawala, Samrudhhi Gandhi,Dinesh Bauskar	Supply Chain
Team QuesTion	XLRI Jamshedpur	Abhayankar Joshi, Priyanka Agrawal, Anchit Goel	Medical Devices
Team The Interns	GIM Goa	Sejal Nikam, Pooja Chowdhary, Aman Gandhi	Janssen Pharmaceuticals

The grand finale consisted of two rounds- a 15-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute Jury Q&A round. Selecting the solution that showed maximum passion and promise, the winning team was announced and it was none other than Team Muggles 2.0 from NITIE Mumbai. Team Footloose from IIFT, New Delhi bagged the runner-up spot. To further add to their excitement quotient, the national winner and the runner-up teams were awarded a cash prize of INR 5,00,000 and INR 3,00,000 respectively!

Everything begins with an idea but it needs the right platform to be showcased. J&J Quest Season 10 not only staged an exciting opportunity for bright young minds to bring forth their creative ideas but also provided a great learning platform for them through practical mentorship. We congratulate the winners and the participants for their breakthrough ideas and eagerly look forward to the future seasons of J&J Quest.Till then, keep your innovative spirits high!

Shreeya Thakur

Sr. Associate Content Writer at Unstop

I am a biotechnologist-turned-content writer and try to add an element of science in my writings wherever possible. Apart from writing, I like to cook, read and travel.