The First Edition of Discessio Imperators

Discessio Imperators- the flagship event of Ensemble 2008 was kicked off in style with seven teams from across the country participating in the multi-round finals. The event partner for the event was HSBC. The first round checked the ability of the teams to think on their feet and deliver solutions to real life problems within a short time. They were given five real life cases to solve in 15 minutes and they were to come up with a concise analysis. The case analysis was judged by eminent faculty members from XLRI- Prof. L. Gurunathan and Prof. Sumit Sarkar. This round saw teams presenting amazing analysis for the cases from diverse perspectives.

The caselets were just the start of a trail by fire for the finalists. They were next glutted with financial data for a fictitious company and they were asked to come up with the stock valuation for that company within two hours. Midway through the process all the interim valuations were displayed to each team so that they could refine their final value. The round gave the participants a grueling snapshot of an analyst’s life in an investment bank or private equity firm- jobs many of the participants aspire for. The final valuations of the participants were judged by the XLRI faculty members- Prof. Munish Thakur and Prof. Gaurav Vallabh. The participants shared their valuation methodology with the judges and received valuable feedback.

Only the top four teams- Invictus (XLRI) ,Vanishing Nerds ( IIM-C) ,Gladiators ( XIMB) and Team Xtreme (IIM-L) made it to the third and final round based on the cumulative scores of the first two rounds. The final round was a case study with a multi-functional perspective. It presented a case of a fictitious organisation with several issues spread across various functions. This was designed to test the all round management skills of the finalists. The case analysis was presented to a panel of judges comprising of – Prof. Rajesh Upadhyay and Prof. Sumit Sarkar.

After three grueling rounds and twenty four hours of extreme stress the team from XLRI- Invictus emerged as the winner followed by Vanishing Nerds (IIM-C) and TeamXtreme (IIM-L) sharing the runners up position on the podium. The success of the event could be gauged by the smiles on the faces of the event coordinators, participants and judges as they left the venue after the completion. The flagship event had truly lived up to the high expectations that all had of it.

(-Tarun Bahuguna, PM& IR 2006-08)