The Accenture team of Sandeepan Chaudhuri and Rohan Khanna emerged victorious at the Grande Finale of the prestigious Brand Equity Quiz (BEQ), held in Mumbai recently.
Conducted by The Economic Times (India’s largest business daily), the BEQ is Asia’s largest and most challenging business quiz competition. Geared toward corporate professionals, the BEQ tests contestants on their general business knowledge, challenging their ability to connect clues to work out answers, their speed of information recall and aptitude to think out of the box.
Sandeepan and Rohan, both consultants in Management Consulting & Integrated Markets in New Delhi, relished the opportunity to team up once again and compete against the brightest business minds in India in hopes of bringing the championship trophy home to Accenture for the first time in the contest’s 19-year history.
“A key motivation for us this year was to make amends for missing out qualifying last year,” says Sandeepan. “This year we resolved to do much better. We had to hit the ground running and leave nothing to chance.”
Having won the Acumen national quiz championship in December 2008, Rohan was confident through the regional competition, but says he felt a bit unprepared going into the championship round, explaining that he had just returned from Accenture’s Strategy College on the eve of the national finals.
“Given the intensity of the competition, winning such a prestigious national event and being the first team to successfully represent Accenture is certainly a great feeling,” Rohan said. “Securing the victory, despite challenging work schedules and being a tad under-prepared, was just the icing on the cake.”
Sandeepan adds, “Last year we were disappointed, as we did not even qualify at the zonal level, so we decided to alter our strategy. The strategy was simple: make intelligent guesses, stay calm, and be quick on the buzzer.
The duo kept their cool as they worked their way through somewhat unconventional questions like, “What is client golf?” The answer: “Play golf with a prospective client where you deliberately mess up your chance to win, and after the client has won the match you strike a business deal with him.” The Accenture team was the first to ever win with more than 100 points.
Somewhat more analytical, the contestants were asked: “According to Thomas Friedman, Infosys is one example of a company that epitomizes the flat world and globalization. Which is the other organization which has equally well adapted to the tenets of globalization and the flat world?”
“The Accenture team got this bang on after the other teams had failed to answer,” says Rohan. “The answer is, Al Qaeda.”
The prizes, says Sandeepan, were another motivating factor. The champs were awarded a Mahindra Scorpio sport utility vehicle, car stereo system, a trip to London, and a variety of other desirable gifts.
Sandeepan and Rohan are especially happy that the national prestige their winning the BEQ is reflected on Accenture.
“Accenture received a lot of publicity and recognition at the venue, and in media coverage,” Sandeepan said. “The response from Accenture employees both within India and abroad has been incredible.”
Both say they look forward to defending their national title next year.