Home Competition Stories Secret to winning Reliance TUP 5.0 -By Team Excrutiators from IIM Bangalore

Secret to winning Reliance TUP 5.0 -By Team Excrutiators from IIM Bangalore

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Secret to winning Reliance TUP 5.0 -By Team Excrutiators from IIM Bangalore

Our strategy was to take this competition and its format as if we are pitching to real investors. We already had the intention to make a business out of our idea and we leveraged Reliance TUP 5.0 to refine it from all aspects. Keeping such huge expectations from the competition, we had to work extremely hard.

All about the team - Excruciators

We are a team of 4 engineers pursuing MBA (cliche). All of us come from an electronics background and hence all of us understood the product we pitched much better. The four of us are extroverts and love to talk and network! And we just cannot articulate how much that has helped us throughout the course of the competition!

Probably the toughest thing to manage, yet the most beneficial is to work in a team where each one has a voice and a distinct opinion. We had probably the best team possible where everyone contributed to almost everything to bring the best output to the table. It is true that the division of work brings efficiency and saves time, but we as a team believed in taking on board the whole team for each major aspect of the pitch.

We had at least one major conflict before each submission on the content to be put up on slides. We solved them by having a vote among the team members as to what should be accepted and what should be rejected. One thing that made the resolution of conflict possible was that none of us attached our personal ego with it.

The National Finalists

14 teams made it to the highly competitive finale. All the teams were pretty tough competitors since all of them represented the top B-schools of the country. Moreover, all of us were allotted mentors from Reliance to better our pitch, thus eliminating major weaknesses that the teams had.

To point out some real tough challengers to our title defence (We were the defending champions), it would have to be IIM Kozhikode and IIM Raipur. The team from Kozhikode handled some really tough questions in the Q&A round with ease while the team from Raipur probably had the best product to be pitched. But alas, it’s not just about the product, it’s about the Ultimate Pitch!

The nuances of the competition

The competition had three phases - campus round, national semi-finals and the finals. We had at least one week of sleepless nights before each submission and numerous constructive debates within team members to try to get everything perfect. Our strategy in one line was: God is in the details!

The format of the competition also ensured that the best of the best teams reach the finals and each gets ample opportunity to not only talk to mentors but also potential customers through the idea fair conducted one day prior to the final pitch. Also, the jury comprised of industry experts from diverse businesses and divisions of Reliance, thereby evaluating each team from various angles and crowning the best team as the winners!

We have participated in almost all major B-school competitions and we all agree that Reliance TUP 5.0 is the best competition in terms of the framework and organisation of the competition. From conducting the campus and semi-final rounds across 70+ colleges in India to managing the stay of 50 odd people in the great Beverly Park in Mumbai for the finals smoothly, Reliance really wooed us all.

Our major takeaways

The competition gave us a lot of awesome moments but the one we cannot forget was the night before our final pitch. The mentor we were allotted from Reliance (and he is the vice president of one of the major divisions of Reliance) came to our residence around midnight after his busy day. He spent a good couple of hours with us, brainstorming on our idea and making our pitch better. To spend 2 hours with a high profile experienced leader in an informal setting was truly a great learning experience. We learnt a lot about business in general and the industry in those 2 hours. It has to be the most unexpected awesome moment for the team!

The 4-month long journey of the competition taught us numerous things - from how to bring an idea to life to how to market it and create the best business model. The endless brainstorming session we had as a team for Reliance TUP 5.0 opened up our vision far more than any lecture we have had in the MBA college. We also learned the nuances of pitching. We learned when to add that extra emphasis and when to put in that one line of humour to delight the audience!

Edited by

Team Excrutiators - IIM Bangalore

(Batch of 2019-21)

This winning team comprised Kartik Anand, Swayam Tibrewal, Akriti Gupta and Devashree Maskar. The four of them have an electronics engineering background. They are extroverts who love to talk and network!

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MBA B-School IIM Bangalore Corporate Competitions MBA Aspirants IIM