IIM Shillong Wins season 4 Of Tata Steel’s Annual Business Challenge Steel-a-thon
The grand finale of Steel-a-thon 2017 concluded on an exciting note with IIM- Shillong emerging as the winner of the 4th edition. Steel-a-thon 2017 proved to be a highly competitive and grueling intellectual marathon. The grand finale was closely contested between teams from 16 B-schools, who presented their business case solutions to a jury comprising senior management of Tata Steel led by Mr. Peeyush Gupta, VP Steel Marketing & Sales. The case studies pertained to various domains including Corporate and Digital Strategy, Human Resource Management, Marketing & Sales, Supply Chain and Logistics.
This year, Steel-a-thon witnessed a higher participation compared to last year, with total participation of over 1600 teams (over 5000 students), up from last edition’s count of nearly 1000 teams. IIM Shillong emerged as the winner of Steel-a-thon 2017, followed by IIM Indore as 1st runners-up and JBIMS Mumbai & SIBM Pune jointly as the 2nd runners-up.
In his address, Mr. Peeyush Gupta, Vice President, Steel Marketing & Sales, Tata Steel, said, “Steel-a-thon provides students with a unique opportunity to work on real-life business problems over a three-month period while pursuing studies. The competition helps demystify the notion that the steel industry does not have challenging customer-facing issues to solve. Steel-a-thon intends to hone the best talents in the country to become business leaders and solution providers. With the right guidance and advice, we think that we can do our bit in achieving the same. Steel-a-thon’s fourth edition in 2017 received an overwhelming response from 19 premier business schools of the country including four new colleges as part of the wild card entry introduced for the first time. Tata Steel congratulates the winners and the finalists and deeply appreciates the amazing work done by the students.”
Tata Steel had kick-started Steel-a-thon in 2014 to associate and connect with the bright young minds from B-schools and provide them with a chance to work on real-life challenges from the corporate world. Students from top rated B-schools are invited to present their ‘Big Ideas’ to the management of Tata Steel. The platform helps identify talent, fresh ideas, out-of-the-box thinking and plays a major part in a student’s professional life. It is an ideal stepping stone for students to the corporate world.
The champions walked away with a cash prize of Rs 2,50,000, a trophy and a certificate. The first and the second runners-up teams were awarded with cash prizes of Rs 1,50,000 and Rs. 1,00,000, respectively along with certificates. Along with a direct entry to the prestigious grand finale, all campus winners received Rs 30,000 and a certificate.
The participants of Steel-a-thon benefited from the mentoring provided by the senior management of Tata Steel which exemplifies the focus on quality and attention to details. The platform intends to groom these budding leaders for real-time business challenges though application of their classroom knowledge on the practical front.
Champions of the competition:
| Winning Team | Campus name |
| Shillongers | IIM Shillong |
1st runners up:
| 1st Runners-up Team | Campus Name |
| Steel Sappers | IIM Indore |
Joint 2nd runners up position:
| 2nd Runners-up Team | Campus name |
| Valyrian Steel | SIBM Pune |
Joint 2nd runners up position:
| 2nd Runners-up Team | Campus name |
| Cronos | JBIMS Mumbai |
List of B-schools selected for finals:
