“Shelby & Co” team, TBS students, comprising of Mr.Anek Koosuwan, a third-year student, Mr.Putinat Krungkraipetch, a third-year student, Mr.Arnon Ariyawatkul, a second-year student, and Mr.Thanadol Sirijanthakul, a second-year student, from BBA International Program, Thammasat University won championship at Strategy Storm 2020 at Guwahati, India. There were more than 350 teams of students from all over the world participating in this competition.
Strategy Storm is India’s biggest competition on business problems for society. Contestants have to search for the solution to social problems that will bring about sustainable change for the world. This year, the competition is divided into two rounds. The first round will select only 10 teams to continue the competition in India. The first round competition is to let contestants find a plan for the companies that want to expand the market in the biggest religious ritual of India. The last round is a competition within 12 hours about startup business. The problem is to find a solution to increase the profit rate and expand the market for a business that aims to solve education in India and create sustainability.
Mr.Anek Koosuwan tells us about the starting point before joining the competition. “We saw the poster of this competition on Facebook and were interested in this competition so we formed a team. We thought that it is a chance for us to develop ourselves and open a new perspective in terms of culture and ideas that can be used in the future. At last, we got selected for the final round in India. We practiced in terms of time management as we had to solve the problem under limited time. For example, we have to think about this process at this time and we have to rest at this time. We also practiced our thought system by solving a mock-up problem before the real competition. The purpose is to adjust and learn about our team members’ thoughts in order to carry out the best result in the real competition.”, said Mr Koosuwan.
Mr.Arnon Ariyawatkul says that this is the first time that students from BBA International Program, Thammasat University have a chance to join a competition in India. We felt pressure as we had to compete with 9 other talented teams. Strategy Storm is the world-class competition but most of the teams in the final round are from India because India is a country with unique cultures. Therefore, contestants have to deeply understand the business context in India. As a result, we put more effort into solving the problem in a time limit of 12 hours. We had to concentrate on analyzing and answering the questions from the judge. It was very stressful but we managed to do it because of our teamwork and friendship within our team. In the end, we successfully solved the problem in time and presented it to the judge and director team.
Part of this success came from our determination and effort. Mr.Putinat Krungkraipetch reveals that we didn’t start practicing when we signed up for the competition but we started since the day we study at Thammasat University. We learned from experience from many business competitions. It helps us to solve immediate problems and finish the task under the time limit. Besides, it helps us to analyze proper solutions to the problem. Another factor that makes our team successful is trust between team members as we have limited time so we have to divide tasks and do our best on our part.
“We are pleased to win the championship. However, despite whoever is the winner, the most important thing that we got is valuable experience and friendship during the competition. Strategy Storm is one of the warmest competitions that we participated in. Indian people that we met are friendly and amicable. We enjoyed and were happy to be in this competition,” said Mr.Thanadol Sirijanthakul.