Since the inception of United International University (UIU) Business Club in 2012, it has created numerous platforms for the undergraduate students. The club aims to create an understanding of corporate and practical world among students by providing them with lessons and making them skilled individuals.
The club's first success was organising the intra-university marketing competition named 'Marketing Samurai' back in 2013. After that successful event, along with some skill development activities solely for students, the club maintained its top standard of organising such events. For instance, intra-university financial competition 'Millionaire's Mind' in 2014 and another renowned national business case competition 'Corporate Gladiators' in 2016, a competition that took the club to national level.
This year, for the sole purpose of continuing the club's legacy of organising its flagship event, it brought back 'Marketing Samurai 2017' and intends to make it bigger than ever. Marketing Samurai is an inter-university marketing competition. It was designed to exhibit the future maestros of the marketing world. In order to hold on to the legacy, the club has decided to take it to the next level. This time it will be bigger than ever involving the teams of all the prominent universities in the country, such as Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University, North South University, BRAC University, East West University, Bangladesh University of Professionals, Independent University Bangladesh and so on.
The first round of workshop was held at UIU auditorium on October 06, 2017. It was conducted by the Assistant Vice President of HSBC Bangladesh and advisor of 10-Minute School, Samid Razzak and the winner of the Future Leaders Programme 2016 and trainee at GlaxoSmithKline Bangladesh Limited Sajeed Alam. As the topic for the first round was brand problem analysis, the workshop conductors provided important notes on the topic in order to make the participants well aware of the tasks they were to be given.
There were 54 teams from 26 universities all over the country for the first round. The teams were divided into eight panels where, in each panel, there were seven teams. There were three judges in each of the panels. The participants were asked to analyse a falling brand or product in eight categories - food and beverage, FMCG, financial institutions, mobile phone, electronics, furniture, real estate and pharmaceuticals. They were were to present their analysis from Bangladesh perspective. At the end of the workshop, the teams were assigned cases to solve. They were asked to submit their solutions online.
The participants were instructed to submit their solutions within 11:59 pm on the same day. After submission, the teams were asked to present their solutions in front of the judge panels. The judge panels consisted of top corporates from different business sectors of the country. The results of the first round were published on October 08. 24 teams successfully made it to the second round. The selected teams will be battling among themselves in the next round on product launching and selling. The teams will be working on the same industry of round one and will have to redesign the marketing strategy in this second round.
As prize money for the competition, the champions will receive Tk 100,000. The first and second runners-up will get Tk 70,000 and Tk 50,000 respectively. The second round of the competition will take place on October 14. Another workshop for the selected teams who have made it to the second round will be held on the day before the second round. All the enthusiastic young marketing minds are looking forward to the upcoming rounds of the competition.
The writer is currently studying BBA at United International University (UIU), email: ishtiaqrabbani5@gmail.com