How Did We Battle Our Way to Winning Bajaj Offroad Challenge - Koustubh Haridas, XLRI Jamshedpur

Founded in Rajasthan in the 1940s, Bajaj Auto has progressed throughout the years to become India's second biggest two-wheeler and world's largest three-wheeler vehicle maker company. However, to let the success achieved sustain over years to come, infusion of new ideas is always required. In quest for these new ideas, Bajaj Auto came up with the Offroad challenge to engage with emerging talents from various B-schools around the country.

Last year, Bajaj Offroad witnessed an overwhelming response from management graduates where the teams were supposed to submit solutions to Turn 1 of the Roadmap to Championship challenge in a 3-slide presentation. Received submissions were evaluated on the basis of:

• Logical Thinking & Analysis
• Novelty of Ideas
• Feasibility of Implementation

Teams that qualified for Turn 2 had to submit their solution in a multi-slide presentation, and then present it virtually to Bajaj Auto leadership.

It was Koustubh Haridas and Srishti Sachdeva from XLRI Jamshedpur who crossed the Offroad Sales and Marketing Challenge finish line first. Let’s hear it from Koustubh on their journey to winning the trophy.

Laying the foundation stone

When the Bajaj Offroad challenge hit our campus, I was pretty sure to be a part of it. However, it required team participation, and thus, I paired with Srishti Sachdeva. Always in the top 10 percentile list of XLRI, Srishti was a marketing graduate. And I was a seasoned sales professional who used to work in the automobile industry & handled countries in South East Asia, Middle East & Africa. Thus, I knew this combination could actually do wonders.

Our team's strategy was that we wanted to leverage our strengths - Koustubh's work experience in the automobile industry & Srishti's BBA Marketing experience - to create a wholesome marketing strategy for Bajaj Neon. Numerous challenges awaited us, but what troubled us the most was the inability to do primary research because of the ongoing lockdown in Maharashtra. However, we made up for it by having telephonic conversations with the stakeholders.

Brainstorming for Bajaj Offroad

Team meetings form an essential part of your preparation journey for any challenge. In our case, the team meetings usually consisted of us brainstorming ideas & writing everything and anything that comes to our mind. Any idea, however bizarre it would sound, we used to write on the zoom whiteboard. Penning down the idea helped us in connecting the dots and establishing a way forward. It also helped us in resolving our conflicts (if we ever had) by highlighting the pros and cons of each side and then deciding on the path to be taken.

Working our way to the climax

Bajaj Offroad Grand Finale included a total of 10 teams. Because we all had similar understanding of management abilities, all of the teams were equally competitive.

The challenge was judged by Bajaj Auto's senior management. They grilled us on a variety of topics, including our market research, target market, positioning, competition analysis, market strategy, plans for new market expansion, and social media strategy. Having crossed all the obstacles, the moment when our name was announced as the winner brought unexplainable happiness. The scenario was similar to the movie climax that we all had been waiting for.

Major highlights of the competition

Speaking with the dealerships and consumers of the Bajaj Neon bike was one of the highlights of the entire tour. We had our Eureka moment when we were chatting with one of the vendors. As the conversation continued, we got to identify a better approach to trademark the Neon bike.

Another enjoyable aspect of this competition was that the distinguished panel of Bajaj Offroad provided us with immediate feedback on our presentation material once it was over. This helped us identify possibilities we had overlooked and provided insights into how someone in a leadership position would tackle the situation.

Key Takeaways…

Bajaj Offroad provided us with an opportunity to put to practice our learnings from the theoretical MBA classes. Our knowledge was put to test where we were asked to reinvent the marketing plan for an already established brand in the market. Bajaj Neon, as a product, was already selling in the market & we had the responsibility of finding a way to position and market it better.

If you also want to share your winning story with us, we are eagerly waiting for you.