Finding Sun Tzu Challenge 2011

About the Challenge

About the Challenge

The Finding Sun Tzu Challenge is a highly anticipated business strategy competition organized annually by Avalon Consulting for leading Indian and international business schools. True to its eponymous name derived from the ancient Chinese military general, philosopher and master strategist, the competition seeks to foster strategic thinking and expose budding managers to CXO level thought process and decision making.
The competition has grown in popularity since its inception in 2006 thanks to the cutting edge topics explored each year. In 2010 it drew over 900 student registrations across 39 campuses including the IIM’s and IIT’s and had participating teams present ideas in diverse verticals like Agri-Business, Retail, Energy, Infrastructure, Transportation and Entertainment and in horizontals such as social media.

Theme for 2011

The Finding Sun Tzu Challenge for 2011 is based on the theme of “Winning through Disruptive Innovation”. This year we seek to identify path breaking ideas that promise to topple conventional thinking in the design and delivery of products and services
Disruptive Innovators typically emerge with a value proposition that changes industry structure significantly and threatens established players serving consumers through traditional methods by leveraging on technology tools and unique product and service delivery. Occasionally, a market leader also plays this role.
Participants in the current challenge can choose to play the role of an established industry player or a start up in show casing their disruptive innovation in an industry sector of their choice.

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Format of the Competition

The Avalon Finding Sun Tzu Challenge will follow a 3-stage process:

Round 1:

Participating teams will be required to provide a synopsis of their disruptive business model in the three page presentation format mailed to the 1st team member upon registration.
The synopsis should describe the basic idea and high level contours. Please refer to the rules in the registration confirmation email for other submission format details.

Round 2:

Shortlisted teams will be required to submit an elaboration of the idea in presentation format not exceeding 20 power point slides. The top 20 entries will be featured in an e-book published on our website for circulation

Event Final:

5 finalist teams will be selected who will then be individually mentored by a senior consulting professional from Avalon Consulting who will provide inputs on how to refine various aspects of the proposition ranging from business model to the communication.
The Challenge will culminate in a grand finale where the 5 final participant teams will make presentations to a panel of eminent judges comprising of CXOs from leading corporates in India.

The Finding Sun Tzu Challenge 2011 would also comprise of interesting online contests and social media events in the run up to our finals.

All B-school participants are invited to register on our website and participate. Winners of each contest shall receive cash vouchers from Avalon Consulting.

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Rules for Registration

The contest is open to both first year and second year students
Each team comprising of 2 members should register with us for the event here.
Both the team members should be from the same institute
No member can be part of multiple teams
On registering, each team will be allotted a Unique Reference Number which is to be quoted on all further communications during the course of the event
The submission file should be named as <Unique Reference Number_Round Number_Team Name> and mailed to gotowar@consultavalon.com in .ppt format

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Event Timelines

The calendar of events for the Finding Sun Tzu Challenge 2011 is as below:

Activity	Key Dates	Remarks
Registration Open	10-Aug-2011
Last Date for Submission of Round 1 Entries	28-Aug-2011	At or before 23:00 hrs
Declaration of Top 50 teams	05-Sept-2011
Last Date for Submission of Round 2 Entries	26-Sept-2011	At or before 23:00 hrs
Declaration of 5 Finalists	03-Oct-2011
Final Presentation and Panel discussion	12-Oct-2011

Online contests will be conducted fortnightly starting August 15th till the end of September.

Activity	Contest Opens (@ 07:00 hrs)	Contest Closes (@ 18:00 hrs)
Online Contest 1	15-Aug-2011	19-Aug-2011
Online Contest 2	29-Aug-2011	02-Sept-2011
Online Contest 3	12-Sept-2011	16-Sept-2011
Online Contest 4	27-Sept-2011	01-Oct-2011

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Accolades

Huge cash rewards and significant recognition is on offer at the Avalon Finding Sun Tzu Challenge 2011

The Winning team will receive a cash prize of Rs. 100,000
The Runners-up will receive a cash prize of Rs. 50,000
The top 2 teams are eligible for a Pre-Placement Interview/ Summer Internship with Avalon Consulting
The top 5 teams will be flown in to Mumbai to present at a gala event attended by the who’s who of corporate India

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