HOW TO GUIDELINES FOR ORGANIZERS BUSINESS IDEAS COMPETITION This document is an organizer’s guide. It contains tips for student organizers and faculty faculty coordinators to successfully organize the Business Ideas and Opportunity Evaluation competition. It covers topics including the structure and duration of competition, planning, scheduling and marketing the event, fund raising, managing logistics, recruiting judges and guiding participants.
The e-Cell of the institute can organize the workshop under the close guidance of one or more faculty advisors. Guidelines for the faculty lead and content are included separately in the courseware section of this module.
O v er er v i e w :
The Business Ideas Competition is essentially a follow-up activity of the Business Ideas and Opportunity Evaluation workshop conducted by your faculty at your campus. The competition primarily increases the awareness and interest of a larger population of students in entrepreneurship. It gives the students the basic skills to identify an idea and evaluate it for feasibility as a business opportunity. They will be able to appreciate and accept the fact that not all “good” ideas are feasible business propositions. This is an exciting way to empower them with the capability to evaluate ideas on their own. The John Mullins’ Seven Domain Framework detailed during the Ideas workshop is the foundation of this competition. The participants will put their ideas to a test based on an evaluation framework adapted from the Mullins’ framework. Thus, it directly links to the Business Ideas workshop and helps to apply the knowledge assimilated during the course of it. It will also enhance their understanding of what is to be done before writing a business plan. The event kicks off with a call for entries for business ideas. Participants are then required to submit their ideas and plans in detailed feasibility study reports to the committee and to faculty from the institute. The selected teams will then present before an eminent panel of judges including entrepreneurs, faculty and professionals. The winners will be chosen on the basis of both the written report and presentation made to judges. Student organizers and faculty coordinators need to consider a few things while planning and executing a Business Ideas Competition on campus. The following list outlines most, but not all, of the steps required to run the competition successfully on campus:
1.
PREPARATION FOR THE EVENT
Serious and enormous preparation is required to organize such an event on campus. This includes: Forming the organizing committee comprising student members and faculty coordinators. The student members will be the e-Cell members and one core team member may be the leader of the group. He/She may be designated as the manager of the event and should coordinate the activities for the event.
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Identifying tasks to be carried out to launch and conduct the event such as conceptualizing, planning, communicating, marketing and implementing the event plan.
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Assigning responsibilities to committee members for various identified tasks.
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Creating individual schedules for each of the steps involved – preparing the required material, marketing the event, launching the event, raising sponsors, recruiting faculty advisors, identifying judges etc based on a timeline for the event.
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2.
TIMELINE
The competition can span two weeks to a month with the event held in two rounds; create a timeline for running the competition on your campus. Important dates and deadlines include: Preparation for the event Marketing the competition on campus Recruiting Internal and External panels of judges Last date for registration Submission of feasibility analysis reports Announcement of results for preliminary round Final Event: presentation by selected teams and judges evaluation/winners announced All the above dates can be decided as per your institute’s schedule and worked out backwards from the day of the final event.
3.
MARKETING
To launch the contest on your campus, start putting up posters in strategic points to gain the attention of everyone in the campus. Create excitement about the event even before you announce the competition by a series of posters such as “Watch out for the excitement…”, “Are you an entrepreneur?”, “Do you have an idea?” etc. After a planned series of such triggers, you can announce the competition and reveal the details along with the organizers’ contact information Circulate the 2-pager which outlines the concept, rewards and Participation Guidelines (Appendix 1- Business Ideas Competition Concept Note and Appendix ) to students via email and intranet. The attached document is a template to send out to students. Appropriate
prizes, dates, timings and venues need to be incorporated by you along with the student organizing teams’ contact details.
4.
FUND RAISING
An event of this kind in an academic institution usually requires funds. Depending on the scale of the event, the funds may be sourced internally within the institution or from external sources such as corporates. You may approach them with sufficient details about the event such as the concept note and an official letter on the institute letter head (Appendix 7 ). ). This will also prove to be a corporate networking exercise for the institute. Moreover, students gain experience in managing finances.
5.
ELIGIBILITY
Any student(s) enrolled in any program (either full time or part-time), who have attended the Business Ideas and Opportunity Evaluation workshop can participate in this Business Ideas Competition. The entries can be submitted by a team of 2-4 students.
6.
IDEAS
Participants can come up with untested ideas from anywhere - the Internet, magazines, newspapers, friends etc. This is also stated in the 2-pager note for participants to indicate the simplicity of the idea generation process and to motivate them.
7.
REGISTRATION
Assign some students in the organizing committee with the responsibility of handling the registrations. Create a database to capture details of students (name, course of study and year of study) registering for the event. You can issue a registration form by email and request that they be duly filled in and returned by the set date.
8.
BRIEFING PARTICIPANTS
Students interested in participating will begin approaching the committee as soon as the marketing campaign begins on campus. Ideally, the briefing should be after the actual announcement of the competition and commencement of the registration process. They will require details in order to understand what is expected of them. This is the apt moment to hand them the Guidelines to Participants, Idea Evaluation Framework ( Appendix 2 ), ), Format for Submission ( Appendix 3 ) and Evaluation Appendix 4 Criteria ( ). You can provide them with information on mentoring support ). available from faculty and also give them directions to avail of it. They may seek several clarifications because they are attempting to conceive the concept and context in their minds. Your assistance at this juncture will channelize their efforts in the right direction.
9.
SHORTLISTING
9.1 Preliminary Round: In the first round, the organizing team can do the initial screening of the entries and submit the list to the judges. The organizing team should ensure that the product/service does not already exist in the market before
submitting the report to the judges for final selection. Going through the executive summary of the report should be sufficient to ensure that ideas are not replicated. Out of these entries, 6-8 best teams (depending on the number of participants and size of institution) will be chosen based on their reports. The submitted report should clearly state the idea, articulate the basic strategy to build a company around it and the resources required. It has to be prepared with specific reference to the given opportunity evaluation and feasibility analysis framework. The finalists will then by announced. 9.2 Final Round: During the final round, the teams that qualified qualified in the preliminary stage will be invited to formally present their ideas to a panel of judges. The participant guidelines will give them appropriate information about best utilizing the time and opportunity of final presentation. Based on the written report and the presentation the winning team will be chosen. 10.
MENTORING
The participants should be able to solicit help from faculty within the institute to develop their ideas further. You should get the support of faculty members from marketing, strategy, finance, or any other department to work with each team to clarify any doubts. You will also have to schedule these meetings initially until the process starts off. Later, it can be based on the needs of the teams and fixed according to the mutual convenience of the mentors and students. 11. 11.1
JUDGES PANEL
More than one opinion is required for an objective evaluation of entries and therefore at least two judges must be present to constitute the panels of both the stages in the competition: a) First Round: The panel of judges for the first round of the competition will be constituted internally in your institution. This will mean recruiting your own faculty members on the panel. Ideally, the panel should consist of 3 faculty members. b) Final Round: A panel consisting of 3 external judges can select the final winners. The judges could be entrepreneurs, analysts, venture investors, industry experts, corporate professionals or faculty members from other institutions. However, one entrepreneur must be part of this panel to add the perspective gained from experiencing the entrepreneurial process first-hand. This will be an opportunity for you to network with the academic, business and entrepreneurial communities.
11.2
BRIEFING JUDGES
Judges should be clearly informed of the evaluation criteria and process of rating the entries. Each judge should be handed a list of evaluation criteria (Appendix 4- Evaluation Criteria ) with space to put in their scores ( Appendix 6- Judges Score ). The introductory note of the criteria document will help the Sheet-Final Round ). judges to understand that the report is based on a prescribed framework of analysis (Appendix 2- Idea Evaluation Framework ). ). Please share the Format for Submission and the Framework of Analysis with the judges. This will enable them to understand the context and relevance of weightage assigned.
12.
FINAL EVENT
12.1
ARRANGEMENTS
Preparation for the Final event has to be meticulous and students in the organizing committee need to be assigned with the responsibilities listed below: 1. Finalize the date and venue for the event 2. Fix and print agenda 3. Obtain sponsorship for cash prizes, if any 4. Print certificates for winners, participants 5. Send out letters to chief guest, guests of honor (if any) and sponsors (Appendix Appendix 7- Sample Lett Lett ers ) 6. Network with press and send invitations 7. Purchase medals, trophies if any 8. Purchase mementos for judges and chief guest 9. Identify MC for the event 10. Arrange AV equipment, backdrop (if any) 11. Arrange for photo/video-graphy 12. Arrange for refreshments for guests The above are indicative steps and activities in organizing the final event and you may chose to add or omit some of them.
12.2
DURATION
It may take approximately 3 hours for the final round, including time for the chief guest’s address and prize distribution. A time limit of 10 minutes per team should be adhered to strictly to ensure that all teams have time to present their plans and interact with the judges for a Q&A. You may have to schedule the session accordingly. 12.3
CHIEF GUEST/GUEST OF HONOR
Nothing can compare to hearing a success story first-hand from an entrepreneur. Effort should be made to bring in an entrepreneur of some stature for this final event to enhance students’ interest. Invite an entrepreneur as a chief guest of the event to talk about his or her entrepreneurial journey, the challenges, risks and the rewards of starting and growing a company. The availability of the chief guest should be confirmed well in advance (ideally before you start marketing the competition) so that his/her name may be used as an additional draw for the participants. The chief guest can also be included as one of the judges in the panel.
12.4
Distribution of Prizes
The judges can declare the results at the end of the talk and the winners can receive their certificates/ cash prizes from the chief guest. The participants may also be given certificates of appreciation.
