IT’S A WIN -WIN FOR THE FLAMES

07-Oct-2017

The 11^th edition of RMAI Flames Student Awards was organized at Courtyard by Marriott Ahmedabad. The award ceremony brought together an explicit range of ideas and information from young minds across B-schools in India under a single roof. The function began with the finalists presenting their summer projects concentrating on various genres of rural marketing, giving out countless ideas and facts that would define the future of rural marketing in our country. The speaker’s list included Raj Kumar Jha (Head, National Advisory Board- RMAI), Aditi Nanda (Head of Marketing & Business Development CropIn) and PuneetVidyarthi (Advisory Board Member- RMAI) who spoke about digitalisation quoting that the rural regions are already well covered by basic telecommunication services and are now witnessing increasing penetration of computers and smartphones.The jury members evaluated and awarded the best three out of the lot with cash prizes and certificates in the following categories.

1) First Prize - Gold

    Akhil Nair and Gautam Kumar, Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA)

2) Second Prize - Silver

           Pranav Kumar Singh, S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai

3) Third Prize - Bronze

   Nidhi Chandel,Indian Institute of Management, Indore

This is what the budding marketers have to say on how their summer projects will contribute to the future of rural marketing.

“This is the age of technology and rural India has embraced technology with arms wide open. There is a huge potential of milk procurement in rural markets as it is user-friendly and with penetration of telecommunication in rural India, these technology products are going to be ‘in thing’. IRMA with its specialized courses in Rural Marketing can prove to be the knowledge centre of the requirement of future digital marketing. By moving to rural spaces, we are actually implementing ‘blue ocean strategy’ i.e. finding newer markets instead of spending huge chunk of capital in existing competitive markets.”

                                                                                                                        -         Akhil Nair and Gautam Kumar,RMAI

“I piloted tractor mechanic meet in Dhuri, KVK meet in Samrala, Association meet in Ludhiana. I analysed their annual calendars and press notes to find out how active they are in reaching out to farmers. Similarly, I believe each model needs to be optimized for usage in every state.”

                                                                                                             -        Nidhi Chandel, IIM Indore

“We designed ICECD App (ICECD is an NGO cum MFI based in Bopal, Ahmedabad) with features like online loan application, loan tracker, online query redressal mechanism, video library, FAQs section, online training application and connect to suppliers section for raw material procurement. We have also launched Gujarati version of the app after knowing the requirement from the women entrepreneurs. We are sure that our solutions will definitely prove beneficial for the entrepreneurs and help ICECD reaching better heights in the years to come.”

-   Pranav Kumar Singh, S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research.  Mumbai

We wish these finalists best wishes and look forward to them changing the dimension of Rural Marketing India in the coming years.

The event was sponsored and supported by Ayurvet - Crompton Greaves electricals Pvt Ltd, Vision Force, and Insight Outreach. Event managment was supported by GV - Golden Vibes Events & Weddings and Eventfaqs was media partner to the event.

Commenting on the event Sanjay Kaul, President RMAI said “This year we have got highest number of entries and Flame has definitely become now one of most fiercely contested student awards across B-Schools of the country.

We were excited to see the enhanced quality of entries and how students are making smart & scalable recommendations leveraging digital & technology. "