Acumen arsenal (Lto R): National quiz winners Deepak Chandran and Soumit Deb from School of Communication & Management Studies, Cochin, with national debate champs Khalid Ahmed and Ankur Huria from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

Confidence, intelligence, aggression, passion, competitiveness, chutzpah -- in a word, sharpness, the sort that separates winners from losers at the bleeding edge of business. We're proud to report that, yes, tomorrow's managers have what it takes. Flashes of it were evident all through the regional rounds of Acumen 2002 -- the case game, quiz and debate contest amongst B-schools organised by Business Today and Standard Chartered, in association with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

But it was the finals, held in Delhi's FICCI auditorium, that saw all of it reach a crescendo. This is where 16 regional finalists converged on November 25, brought together by a two month region by region knock-out process which had some 70 B-schools at each other's throats.

At stake? All-paid summer courses at Middlesex University, UK, for each winning team member, but more than that, the very honour of the trophy. As also, of critical importance to India's hyper-competitive MBA populace, the B-school's pride.

The actual contest, once it began, was full of clatter, thwacks and sparks, with its moments of nerve-wracking tension and Nth minute fortune reversals. Super banker Jaspal Bindra, CEO of Standard Chartered, was glued to his seat for all of the pulsating five hours, visibly impressed with the clash of wits. As he said, "I am very pleased with the way the event has worked out. We intend to continue participating in Acumen." And as the bank readies for the next recruitment season, it has already got the winners within its sights. "We are very happy to be associated with Acumen 2002," said P.S. Viswanathan, Transformation Officer, TCS, equally impressed with the contest.

The audience, for its part, conveyed its appreciation with its cheering and raving all through the proceedings. The rip-roaring clamour of B-school enthusiasm -- the very spirit that prompted the organisers, as Business Today editor Sanjoy Narayan said, to make Acumen an annual contest.

The Pow-Wows
There was ample warning beforehand. The debates were going to go eyeball-to-eyeball, argument-to-argument, nerve-to-nerve. High-voltage stuff, with Equus chief Suhel Seth's moderation services providing no insulation.

The first semifinal pitted the North Zone's qualifiers Ankur Huria and Khalid Ahmed from MDI, Gurgaon, against the East Zone's Avik Bhattacharya and Rohil Sehgal from IIM-Kolkata. The topic: 'Corporate Governance Is As Important As Good Citizenship'; IIM-Kolkata for the motion, MDI against. Three minutes for each speaker, to be followed by questions from the audience and panel of judges, which included Neel Chatterjee, Regional Head (Corporate Affairs), Standard Chartered Bank, P.S. Viswanathan of Tata Consultancy Services and Barun Das, Associate Publisher, Business Today.

IIM-Kolkata contended that only a good citizen can be a good corporate. MDI, Gurgaon displayed a mix of cheeky aggression and quiet confidence, arguing that corporate governance was not as important as good citizenship -- it was more important. Because a corporate's foremost responsibility was to enhance shareholder value, and only such success could let it do anything for the wider stakeholders (the public). With that, MDI, Gurgaon stormed into the final debate.

In the other semifinal, P.M. Hashim Kabeer and Anirban Roy from IIM-Bangalore crossed words with an all-woman team of Deepti Srivastava and Anjali Sharma from Symbiosis Centre of Management and HRD, Pune. The issue: 'Have Marketers Lost Hope On The Indian Consumer?' Speaking for the proposition, Symbiosis argued that there is no such creature as the "Indian Consumer", and marketers had got it all wrong in reading his mind. IIM-Bangalore's take? If the consumer is King, no one can give up on him. It seemed that the girls had it all wrapped up with their poise and assertiveness, but ended with a reckless slip up, contradicting their own argument while answering a question from the judges of the debate finals. "If we had been allowed to cross question our opponents, the result could have been different," said a visibly dejected Sharma.

An Acumen moment: Suhel Seth, CEO of Equus Advertising, was the moderator for the Acumen debate finals

Anyhow, that made it MDI, Gurgaon versus IIM-Bangalore for the trophy, the former enjoying the advantage of a raucous home-crowd turnout. The rules for the finals were tweaked just a little, allowing the teams to fire two questions at each other in the end. The topic: 'An Autocrat Makes The Best CEO'. "Most definitely," argued IIM-Bangalore. "Autocracy of ideas is essential. The CEO needs to take the matter by the scruff of the neck and take decisions fast without dilly-dallying," asserted IIM-Bangalore's Anirban Roy. But doesn't team morale sag under a tyrant CEO? And, as MDI, Gurgaon's Huria said, "With a participative CEO, there is no room for an information gap." Then came the questions. Autocrat, participative CEO or visionary, who would you prefer, asked TCS' Vishwanathan. "A visionary CEO," answered Huria, "is best suited for a company operating in a sunrise sector like biotech. But a participative leader is essential for companies in the well-established sectors." That might have clinched it for MDI, more or less, though according to the judges, it was just a whisker's difference at the end.