5th SJIM-Albers International B-Plan Competition

It is late into 2021 and, after more than a year of change, hardship, and illness that the pandemic has brought, we need to ask ourselves: Have we grown from all these life experiences? Can we be better people to those around us and to our planet even while we maintain our level of consumption of goods and services? As a business, can we convince our consumers to consume responsibly?

Would you like to take part in a competition that is trying to find a solution towards Responsible Consumption? Would you like to collaborate across continents on an impactful assignment?

St. Joseph’s Institute of Management (SJIM) and the Albers School of Business (Seattle University) invites you to join hands with students at Albers and SJIM to create the best business plan to solve this crucial problem. You will be part of a virtual team, collaborating over the internet and harnessing two countries’ technical and social expertise towards a critical global issue.

The business plans of all participating teams will be judged by prominent and successful European jury members. The three finalist teams will get to present and debate their case in front of a distinguished panel at Albers or SJIM.

So join us today to win this unique multi-school multi-nation b-plan competition!

Competition Topic
Very often we live within our own worlds, not realizing the impact our daily lives can have on the rest of the planet – both people and the environment. For example, just using our smartphone for a year creates approximately the same about of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents as flying an aircraft for an hour; and this does not even include the CO2 equivalents related to manufacturing the phone itself!

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG#12) encourages people to be more sustainable in their production of goods and services, as well as in the consumption of these final products. Several countries have tried to implement policies and regulations to support the attainment of this SDG, and yet as a global civilization we are still falling short. For example, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is still being wasted annually due to poor production and consumption process globally. Is this a future we want to live in? As Pope Francis said, “A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment.”

Most of the time, a business is expected to contribute to the attainment of SDG#12 through sustainable production of goods and services while responsible consumption is primarily left in the hands of the consumer. This arrangement has been less than optimal given that recent estimates claim that we will need the natural resources of three planets in order to sustain our current levels of consumption into 2050.

Therefore, your task as a business entrepreneur in these new and challenging times is to take on the yoke for responsible consumption. Can you develop a business model that will enable, facilitate or encourage responsible (sustainable) consumption from consumers? Think beyond just awareness campaigns and social activism. Can you make a real difference using your business acumen?

Working in virtual teams, can you develop a financially sustainable and technologically feasible and scalable business idea that will engender responsible consumption in societies?

Remember, you can tackle this problem from any angle and with whatever extent of technicality you wish. Your business idea can cater to a situation either in the United States, Taiwan, India or any combination, or it can even be at the global level.

Competition Demands
While this competition is co-hosted by St. Joseph’s Institute of Management (SJIM, India) and the Albers School of Business and Economics (Seattle University, USA), the students of all courses/departments/programs/schools at Fu Jen University, Seattle University and of the St. Joseph’s group of institutions are eligible to join

The only infrastructure you need is a data connection! After registration, all students will be assigned to teams. Ideally, each team will comprise of a minimum of two students from each country. However, team sizes might vary based on the number of registrations.

Each team has about a month to formulate a 7-10 page business plan, and so the demand on each individual’s time may be 1-2 hours a week, over a four week period.

For the first round, the business plan should be submitted in a doc/docx/pdf format. All submissions will be passed through anti-plagiarism software. The document should use Times New Roman 12-point font with 1-inch margins all round. The length of the document must be a maximum of 10 pages, excluding any appendices. Judges will read, but not evaluate, any appendices. The required structure of the business plan is below.
❑ Cover page, which includes the name of the proposed company and the names of the team members.
❑ The Idea: one page dedicated to explaining the idea (or your solution) in brief.
❑ The People: The men and women who will be starting and running the venture, their roles, details about any outside parties providing key services or important resources, and so on.
❑ The Opportunity: A profile of the business itself – what it will sell and to whom, whether the business can grow and how fast, what its economics are, who and what stand in the way of success.
❑ The Context: The bigger picture – the regulatory environment, demographic trends, technological trends and developments, and any other factor that will inevitably change but cannot be controlled by you (the entrepreneur). How will you be prepared to deal with the inevitable change in the environment?
❑ Risk and Reward: An assessment of everything that can go wrong and right, and a discussion of how the entrepreneurial team can respond.
❑ Appendices, if any.
The structure listed above is adapted from an article by William Sahlman, Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration (Emeritus) at Harvard Business School. All teams are encouraged to read this short article, which is available by clicking here



For the final round, the business plan should be submitted in a ppt/pptx format. The structure of the presentation will follow the broad structure of the written plan. Each team will have 15 minutes to present their plan. After all teams have presented their plan, the judges will give each team a set of questions to answer. All teams will get 20 minutes to discuss between themselves, including with the overseas team members via the internet. Thereafter, the teams will have to give their answers to the judges.

Competition Judges
For the First Round:
Since the teams will comprise of American and Indian students, it is apt that, for the first round of this competition, we have judges from elsewhere in the world, who are experts on this year’s competition topic. This multi-member panel of judges will shortlist the three best business plans for the final. Brief details about the judges for the first round are given below.

For the Final Round:
Since the teams will comprise of American and Indian students, it is apt that, for the first round of this competition, we have judges from elsewhere in the world, who are experts on this year’s competition topic. This multi-member panel of judges will shortlist the three best business plans for the final. Brief details about the judges for the first round are given below.

Deadlines

08 Nov 2021	Registration opens (click here).
25 Nov 2021	Registration closes
29 Nov 2021	Teams will be announced
17 Jan 2022	All teams must submit a softcopy of their b-plans. Click here to submit.
22 Feb 2022	Announcement of the THREE finalist teams on the competition webpage.
31 Mar 2022	All finalists must submit their final presentation. Click here to submit.
02 Apr 2022	Live presentation by the finalists to a panel of judges.

Finalist Teams
The results from the Global Jury are in, and the best three teams are:

Team	Name	School
3	Dhivya Ramanujam	Albers School of Business and Economics
	Bhuvana.S	St. Joseph's College of Law (SJCL)
	Rohith K C	SJIM
	Syed Mohammed Jaffer	SJIM
	Barjeesa Shafat	St. Joseph's College (SJC)
4	Gracious Dsouza	SJIM
	Priola Muriel Sequeira	SJIM
	Maanya Sharma	St. Joseph's College of Law (SJCL)
	Lochana Khatri	St. Joseph's College of Law (SJCL)
5	Richa Prabhu Verleker	Albers School of Business and Economics
	Glister Prithesh D Silva	SJIM
	Faiza Hussain	SJIM

Important Links
Registration (team or single): https://forms.gle/3svWKgDFTZ4J74qRA
Note: maximum of 2 students from any school per team

Submission of b-plan for first round: https://forms.gle/jq3pED7mBF5VmEgr9
Submission of b-plan for second round: https://forms.gle/LN2pbCfdi1q5nsRM9

How to Join?
Please register by filling up this form: https://forms.gle/3svWKgDFTZ4J74qRA. You will then receive an email by 29th Nov 2021, informing you of your team members.
Fu Jen University students: please contact Mr. Allen Lee (083232@mail.fju.edu.tw) if you have any concerns or issues.
Albers/SU students: please contact Ms. Amelia Marckworth (marckwor@seattleu.edu) if you have any concerns or issues.
SJIM/SJCC/SJCL/SJC students: please contact Dr. Caren Rodrigues (caren@sjim.edu.in) or Dr. Anup Krishnamurthy (anup@sjim.edu.in) if you have any concerns or issues.

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Read about past b-plan competitions here:

2017 (1st) : Recycling in Bangalore and Seattle

2018 (2nd) : Combatting Fake News

2019 (3rd) : Defeating Food Insecurity

2020 (4th) : Universal Digital Inclusion