BBA

Department-wide guidance

BBA Challenge Briefs

1. Rules common to all BBA entries

• Teams: 1–2 students from the BBA department, all from the same year of study.
• Submission: one recorded video of 8–10 minutes uploaded on the college website by the deadline. Every claim, photo and number must appear on screen in the video. Keep original receipts, survey sheets and payment records for jury checks on request.
• Real product: every team makes a real, physical, low-cost product within its budget cap and keeps all bills.
• Not allowed: home-made food or drinks, cosmetics or anything applied to skin, medicines, anything unsafe for children, and any copied brand name, logo or character.
• AI tools: allowed for research, drafts, visuals and analysis. The final 30 seconds of the video must state which tools were used and for what. Invented data, fake interviews or fake reviews lead to disqualification.
• Ethical marketing: no false urgency, hidden charges, misleading claims or fake social proof.

First Semester

Why Did You Pick That?

CASE 1 · 1ST SEMESTER BBA

Why Did You Pick That?

What you create

• One simple physical product, made or assembled by your team, total cost ₹500 or less. Examples: a bookmark set, an upcycled desk organiser, a phone stand, a festive gift-tag pack, a reusable cloth pouch.
• A simple label or pack showing a brand name, a price and a one-line promise.

What you must do

• Make three samples of your product and fix a price.
• Observe real buying: spend 30 minutes at a local shop that sells your category, and browse the same category on one quick-commerce app. Note what buyers look at, touch, ask about and compare, and roughly how long they take to decide.
• Interview 15 people (students, parents, a shopkeeper) using one fixed set of 8 questions.
• Map the buyer journey for your product using the five stages: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, post-purchase behaviour.
• Find the strongest influence on your buyer: cultural, social, personal or psychological factors (Kotler). Back it with what people said.
• Run a "pick test": place your product next to two existing alternatives. Ask 20 people which one they would pick and why. This is a choice test, not a sale. Tally the results.
• Compare kirana and app buying: in one slide, show how buying your category differs in a shop and on a quick-commerce app (trust, touch, price comparison, impulse).
• Run your team as a mini company using POLC: Planning (a 15-day Gantt chart), Organising (named roles: coordinator, research lead, product lead, communication lead), Leading (how you made decisions and handled a disagreement), Controlling (a daily 10-minute check-in log and what you corrected). Name three of Fayol's 14 principles you actually used, with an example of each.

15-day roadmap

Video structure (8–10 minutes)

• 0–1 min: product reveal and your one-line promise
• 1–3 min: what you saw in the shop and on the app
• 3–5 min: buyer journey map and the strongest influence
• 5–7 min: pick-test results and what surprised you
• 7–9 min: how you ran your team (POLC + three Fayol principles)
• 9–10 min: one big lesson + AI-use disclosure

Second Year

Ten Minutes to Shelf

CASE 2 · 2ND YEAR BBA

Ten Minutes to Shelf

Go-to-market strategy in the age of quick commerce and AI

What you create

• A working product prototype and real packaging, total cost ₹1,500 or less. Choose a category that genuinely sells on quick-commerce apps (gifting, stationery, home décor, festive items, phone accessories and so on), within the common rules.
• A mock product listing as it would appear on a quick-commerce app: thumbnail, title, pack size, price, and five feature bullets.
• A go-to-market plan, presented in the video.

What you must do

• Shelf audit: study the top 10 listings in your category on one quick-commerce app. Record price, pack size, price per unit, rating, thumbnail design and main claim. Visit two local shops for the same category.
• Customer evidence: 20 interviews plus a short survey with at least 50 responses. When do people buy this on an app and when in a shop? Planned or impulse? What else is in the basket?
• Market sizing for Ajmer: build it bottom-up (number of buyers × how many buy × how often × price) to estimate realistic first-year sales. Show every assumption.
• Segmentation, targeting, positioning: pick one target customer and write a positioning statement: For [target] who [need], [brand] is the [category] that [benefit], because [reason to believe].
• Marketing mix and the rupee waterfall: fix the MRP and show where every rupee goes: product cost, packaging, retailer or platform margin, listing and delivery charges, GST, advertising, profit. Use cited assumptions; platform terms vary.
• The thumbnail test: design three thumbnail versions. Show each to 30 people on a phone for three seconds. Which one do they remember? Use the winner.
• The AI shelf: ask three different AI assistants for the best product in your category at your price. What do they recommend, and why? Plan how your brand would honestly earn a place there (clear product information, genuine reviews, useful content, creator mentions).
• Channel choice: decide the launch order across kirana, quick commerce, Instagram/WhatsApp and campus. Justify the sequence.
• 90-day launch plan: pre-launch, launch, sustain. Use a notional budget of ₹50,000 and set KPIs: awareness, trial, repeat purchase, cost per customer, margin per unit.
• Risks: what happens if a big brand cuts its price, or the platform does not list you? What is your response?

15-day roadmap

Video structure (8–10 minutes)

• 0–1 min: the product and the customer problem
• 1–3 min: customer evidence and Ajmer market size
• 3–5 min: positioning, product, pack and app listing
• 5–7 min: strategy for the three shelves, including the thumbnail test and AI-shelf findings
• 7–9 min: rupee waterfall, channel sequence and 90-day plan
• 9–10 min: key risk + AI-use disclosure

Third Year

Made by You

CASE 3 · 3RD YEAR BBA

Made by You

A real launch built on the IKEA effect

What you create

• A product kit that a customer finishes in 10–30 minutes, with clear instructions. Seed budget ₹3,000 or less.
• A real sales channel: an Instagram or WhatsApp Business catalogue or a simple landing page, plus at least one offline touchpoint (a campus stall, a local shop on consignment, a residential society, a workshop session).

What you must do

• Design for success: test the kit with five first-time users. Record how many completed it, how long it took and where they got stuck. Fix the design before selling. (Remember: no completion, no IKEA effect.)
• Choose a beachhead: one narrow first segment (for example hostel students, families buying festive gifts, or small offices buying client gifts). Explain why this group first.
• Run the IKEA experiment: test willingness to pay for a ready-made version against the make-it-yourself version, with at least 30 people per version, or sell both at different prices. Report the result honestly, even if it goes against you.
• Sell: take real orders with payment or paid pre-orders. Keep every record.
• Track your numbers: units sold, revenue, gross margin, cost to acquire a customer (marketing spend ÷ customers), conversion (enquiries → orders), completion rate among buyers, a would-you-recommend score, and photos customers share of their finished product.
• Use what customers make: turn finished-product photos and reactions (with permission) into your marketing. Show how this social proof changed your sales.
• Pivot log: what did you change during the 15 days (price, message, channel, product), and what happened after each change?
• Scale plan: if this became a real brand, how would it work on a quick-commerce app or in a retail chain? Recalculate the unit economics at that scale and say what must change.

15-day roadmap

Video structure (8–10 minutes)

• 0–1 min: a real customer making your product
• 1–3 min: insight, beachhead and kit design (with user-test results)
• 3–5 min: the IKEA experiment and what it showed
• 5–8 min: go-to-market in action and traction numbers, with proof on screen
• 8–9 min: what failed and how you pivoted
• 9–10 min: scale plan + AI-use disclosure