PRODIGY

IIM Bangalore’s International business summit Vista 2019 presents Prodigy – the case
competition for graduate students aspiring to build a career in management. It is a strategy
competition that will test your ability to generate valuable insights and stick to your guns in the
face of an intense business problem. Don the hat of a head honcho!

Case:

It was the 3rd Sunday of June 2019 and as usual, Mit Parekh’s mobile alarm rang at sharp 6:00AM.
As he got up and put it off, he scrolled through the messages he had received last night. One of
them read, “Dear Mit, I am really eager to join CycloMeet. I am 27 years old and a working
professional at Big Consulting Group in Cybercity. I suffer from weight issues due to my sedentary
lifestyle and have been advised by my doctor to exercise regularly. My friend Bunty has been
training with you and I have seen his health improve drastically. However, every time I tried
joining, I was told that there are no more seats available. Sir, I request you to please look into
this at the earliest.”

Mit had been increasingly receiving such queries for CycloMeet – cycling community founded by
him 4 years ago to coach people (especially with day jobs) for long distance/ professional cycling.
While the existing group comprises approximately 150 cyclists, the applications to join have
exceeded 1000. Especially in a metro city like Gurgaon with increasing number of corporates,
there was a growing need for fitness. Additionally, Gurgaon has a lot of young people with
significant disposable income, who often enrol in commercially oriented gyms but often drop out
before reaching their end goals.

In order to push people and make their fitness efforts more sustained, Mit decided to organize
“Meets” of cyclists, with the goal of building a community and creating an opportunity for people
to ride together with like- minded people, socialize and offer mutual support. He took extra care
to avoid injuries within the group and provided the members with small wins — participation in
organized competitions, providing medals and commemorative t-shirts — and promoting the
same through CycoloMeet’s Instagram and Facebook handles. This ensured the dropouts were
minimal. Overall, CycloMeet would create an environment cycling that people would make an
important part of lives, and possibly even celebrate it as a means of fitness, discovery, exploration
and achievement!

With these ideas, Mit had started by coaching his few close friends who were occasional cyclists
for a challenge organized in Gurgaon. Within a few months of training, Mit’s friends achieved
100% success rate — all of them completed the race which was double the distance they used to
cycle earlier. All of them decided to enrol him as their coach and pay him monthly fees. They
were delighted with the significant changes they witnessed in their health and the sense of
achievement they felt after completing the race. As they went by their cycling routines and posted
photos online with Mit, other people started taking notice. Meanwhile in the past few years,
cycling itself as a hobby and sport transformed significantly. Soon CycloMeet started attracting
more people and grew to about its current size of 150 today.
Demand to get enrolled with CycloMeet however has not stopped. Finding cycling routes for a
group size of 150 along with traffic congestion in Gurgaon is becoming an increasingly difficult
task for Mit. Hence there has been a demand to split group into geographical zones across
Gurgaon and Delhi. This would also allow cyclists from far off places like Noida to join. The option
was to allocate dedicated coaches to each of these groups. This would enable CycloMeet to scale
and professionalize some of its activities. However, Mit felt that this would sway CycloMeet away
from its original purpose of promoting fitness as a goal. Several other cycling clubs existed in
Gurgaon but were not as successful as they were commercially oriented and did not care as much
about its members’ welfare. They were not a “high touch” model like CycloMeet and hence could
offer services at half the prices that Mit charged his cyclists.

As Mit put his phone aside to get ready for his cycling meet, his mind was consumed with the
decision to scale or not. He decided to reach out to you at the cycling meet today and seek your
advice. Mit knows that you have studied at IIM Bangalore and hopes to utilise your expertise in
answering some of the following questions:

How can Mit scale up CycloMeet without compromising the basic nature of the organization? Can
he meet the growing demand or should he stick to the current size?
Rules:

1) All participants must be registered for the event on IIMB Vista website/ townscript. Any
participant who does not register for the event will be disqualified.
2) A registration fee of INR 100 has to be paid by the participant. The submission will be
invalid if the participant defers payment.
3) The participants must carefully read through and agree to the following Terms &
Conditions: All decisions in matters of eligibility, authenticity and final judgments will be
with organizing committee of Vista, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. The
format and structure of events on campus could be subject to change before the actual
beginning of the event.
4) The decisions of the organizers will be final and binding on all participants.
5) Registrations close: 7th July 2019.
6) Submissions close: 7th July 2019.

Submission details:

1) Please write your answer in no more than two pages. Font: Times New Roman, Font size:
12, Margins: 1 inch/2.54 cm
2) Submissions to be made in pdf format on the submissions links shared with registered
participants
3) Send your submission named as Prodigy_<<Full Name>>
4) You will be judged on the following parameters:
• Clarity and structure of thought
• Comprehensiveness
• Feasibility
• Relevance
• Creativity
• Cost-effectiveness (Optional; but may fetch brownie points)

Prizes

1) Certificates to be issued to every participant who submit their solution.

2) Winning certificates to top 10 people.
3) Top 10 to be given free YLS seats from 26-28 July at Vista 2019, IIM Bangalore