The annual management conclave Prerana was organized on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of November 2007. The theme of this year’s Prerana was Aviation.

The director Sh. Subhash D Awale lighting the inaugural lamp.

Prerana Business Meet

The Prerena Business Meet (PBM), the inaugural event of Prerena 2007, got started in a simple, yet powerful style with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp, and the inaugural speech by the Dr. Subhash D. Awale, Director – NITIE.
The presence of four esteemed CEO’s in PBM was aptly summed by the Director, Dr. Awale as:
Symbolizing the  Ground, i.e. Real Estate ( Mr. Niranjan Hiranandani, MD, Hiranandani Group )
Symbolizing  the skies , i.e. Aviation (  Mr. Jeh Wadia, MD, Go Air )
Symbolizing the Orbit, i.e. IT ( Mr. Ganesh Natrajan – MD Zensar  , Vice-Chairman , Nasscom )
Symbolizing  Everything , i.e. Engineering ( Ms. Anu Aga- Director, Thermax )
Mr. Hiranandani started the session with the advice for the youth – “Do Better than the Best “. He emphasized the role of Housing in Mumbai, and the opportunities for the youth in a crisp manner:
Continuing the saga of Creativity, Mr. Jeh Wadia highlighted his journey from a manager in Bombay Dyeing to MD, Go-Air. Highlighting the journey of Wadia enterprises from ship building in 17th century to the present day, highlighting the need to innovate and stay ahead of competitors.
Mr. Wadia attributed the success of Go-Air to team-work and his quotes for the youth were:
“ Try Something new & innovate “
“ Understand the entire Food Chain , not just any Particular Deptt”
“ Academia teaches us theory, it is upto us to put that into practice”
Mr. Ganesh Natrajan rightly summed up the development of India so far as, “Every Generation of India has surpassed its past “. He highlighted how, from being the grandson of an ordinary school teacher in Tamil Nadu, had become a CEO- his father, who had struggled to bring them up could never imagine.  Mr. Natrajan highlighted the role of IT in India, which has grown 10 fold in one decade.
Ms. Anu Aga highlighted the role of interpreneurship, in which employees come up with ideas, and the organization funds the ideas.  She highlighted how Thermax has a non-hierarchical structure, and how it has fostered innovation. At the same time, how it led to inefficiencies, and thus leading to performance based schemes being introduced in Thermax – thus highlighting the importance of discipline. 
The scintillating speeches were followed by a question and answer session with the panelists where the floor was thrown open to the audience for their queries. The meet left the audience abuzz with the keen and cutting insights given by the speakers who presented an honest opinion of making brand India a thriving reality.

A glimpse of Prerana Business Meet with (from left to right) Mr. Jeh Wadia, Mr Niranjan Hiranandani, Mr Ganesh Natrajan & Ms Anu Agha on the dias.

Mumbai Master Plan
The inauguration was followed by Mumbai Masterplan where participants had been given the task of coming up with a master plan for Mumbai city. The event was sponsored by Hiranandani Group and was judged by a panel of eminent jury form MMRDA, Hiranandani, MHADA and Hindustan Times.
A panel discussion was also held on the topic where the jury voiced their opinions.

Launchpad
Launchpad – The Brand Plan Contest, was a new event in Prerana 2007. The event was sponsored by BPCL and the participants had to come up with a strategy to launch BPCL’s  In&Out outlets on a pan India basis. The prize money at stake was a whopping Rs 1 lakh. The Jury was quite impressed with the presentations and expressed their desire to implement the strategies suggested by students.

Atithi
It is said that the best display of a particular culture is the way in which people treat their guests. All through our lives, we have followed the ritual of ‘ATHTHI DEVO BHAVA’ meaning that ‘our guest is our god’.
ATITHI’07 was a marketing case study which involved creating a complete brand plan for Maharashtra & the development initiatives that need to be taken up to support the objectives of the tourism policy. Students from the top B-schools in the country were invited to participate in the contest and the 5 best entries were chosen to fight it out in the grand finals.
Tourism was redefined as a ‘experience’; as a feeling that a visitor takes back home. Few teams felt that developing ‘Niche Tourism’ would place maharashtra on the world map. Developing Mumbai as a ‘Financial Tourism Centre’, Nashik as a ‘Wine Hub’, creating ‘Jurassic Park’ in the forests of Deccan  and developing shayadri mountains as an Adventure Tourism destination were a few of the innovative ideas.
The teams came out with a plethora of innovative ways of promoting Maharashtra as a tourist hub. The jury was impressed by the quality of research and analysis and Incredible India went back with some very good suggestions.

Srijan
Srijan, a series of strategy case studies were held over three days.
The prize catch was Tactix , the challenge where students from the top B-Schools in the country were invited to participate in the contest and the 5 best entries were chosen to fight it out in the grand finals. The winning team was offered PPI from RPG Spencer apart from handsome cash award.

Strategem, the IT challenge had a stringent preliminary round with only 5 team being selected from 100 entries from top B-schools. The teams gave a presentation on the case solution and answered queries from the panellists. ABbsolutdata specially flow in company officials from Bangalore for judging this event. The case was a representation of a similar proposal countered by Absolutdata and the judges were instrumental participants in that real life situation.

The Summer Project Contest
Prerana’s flagship event, comprising the five modules of IT, HR, SCM, marketing and finance was spread over the three days.
Judged by industry heavyweights from companies like Standard Chartered, TAS, Citibank, Johnson & Johnson, Wipro etc. This was an opportunity for budding managers to showcase their first step towards corporate life.

Prerana Business Quiz

Derek O’Brien in action during Prerana Business Quiz

The Prerana Business Quiz truly held its reputation as one of the grandest, and served as the fitting finale to these three enthralling days. It brought out the best participants from corporate world and MBA colleges from across India. Hosted by one of the best quiz master Derek O’Brien where coporates and students locked horns in this battle of brains.

Cita-de-la-Prerana

Cita-de-la-Prerana with (from L to R) Ms Nandita Puri, Adrian D’Souza, Ujjwal Bannerjee and Host Sachin.

In continuation with its pioneering efforts, NITIE held Cita de la Prerana – A talk show. Bringing together achievers from all walks of life, Cita de la Prerana unraveled the common feature that set them apart – they have dared to follow their passion, moving away from the convention and chase their dreams.