The Daily Star Strategy Master, an initiative of The Daily Star, is a strategy challenge competition that sought to bring together teams from undergraduate universities. The modality of the competition was such that a real life strategic business case was given 24 hours prior to the session, and each team presented this to the jury board. The adjudication panel was a diversified group of individuals including corporate leaders, leading digital marketers, University faculty members and representative of The Daily Star marketing team. This year the competition was held in six universities. However the scope will be broadened next year as students were extremely responsive. All six winning teams were given the opportunity to attend The Leadership Summit 2016 where top local and international business leaders gathered to exchange ideas.
This was not mere a strategy competition, rather an opportunity for the university students to connect with some of the top employers such as Microsoft, Chevron, DHL, GSK, WebAble, Rangs, EBL and so on. This platform highlighted the participants and their skills that are not necessary just to win the competition. This strategy master competition can be termed as an unconventional recruitment channel where the participants had the prospect of chatting with the senior management of different organizations and impress them with their determination and portfolio of competency. This can be represented as an innovative but effective way of securing internships and jobs.
Exams and assignments do not necessarily measure the ability of a student to demonstrate his or her competency of real world problems for which reason many students have difficulties expressing their talents. The Daily Star strategy master is a competition where students had an opportunity to show their abilities and apply their skills. This is a platform that allowed students to demonstrate their talent in an unconventional way to secure exposure to real world issues. The whole campaign would not be possible without the support of Bangladesh Brand Forum and digital partner- Webable. Next year the scope of the competition would be broadened in terms of reach and diversity.
This article was written by Md. Tajdin Hassan (Head of Marketing, The Daily Star)
