Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd. (NMIPL) made an announcement yesterday. The automaker announced the selection of 19 management students from different parts of the country as Nissan Student Brand Managers (NSBM). The program attracted 2,467 registrations from across the country. The applicants were from 590 colleges across 25 Indian cities, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata.
As far as the number of applicants from these metropolitan cities is concerned, Mumbai applicants outnumbered applicants from other cities by registering 880 students, followed by Delhi, Chennai, and Bengaluru with 618, 445 and 362 applicants respectively.
Many renowned educationists were involved in the panel. The panel included some well-known names like Marketing Guru and London Business School faculty member, Dr. Nirmalya Kumar and Ad film Director, PrahladKakkar. Apart from these two, the panelists included Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. CEO, Mr. Harish Bijoor, Mr. Josy Paul(National Creative Director of BBDO India) and Mr. NitishTipnis (Sales& Marketing Director of Hover Automotive India). 41 students qualified for the final round in Mumbai. The criteria of judgment included many crucial aspects including exclusiveness in ideas, relevance to the industry, clarity in communication of ideas, innovative thinking and its feasibility.
Hover Automotive India’s Sales & Marketing Director, Mr. NitishTipnis, said that the third season of NSBM has brought more innovation and creativity to the fore. The overwhelming response that we have received this year justifies the fact that India has a large pool of entrepreneurial talent which thrives on creative excellence. Through this initiative, we will tap this potential and propel it further to achieve meaningful results. Mr. Tipnis’s statement was followed by Dr. Nirmalya Kumar, who added that it is very gratifying to see the talent that India has and it is encouraging to see a brand like Nissan taking them to the next level with a program such as NSBM. The program reflects the serious intent of Nissan to identify and nurture future talent and there is no doubt about the fact that it has created a benchmark for companies to follow.
The list of the selected students as the Nissan Student Brand Managers included names from some of the reputed B-schools across the country. In fact, students from IIM Bengaluru, IIM Calcutta, IIM Chennai, FMS, MDI, IIT Bengaluru and IIT Chennai too were there amongst the selected 19 students. The NSBM is presently doing pretty well on social networking website, Facebook, as it succeeded in receiving more than 37,000 hits.