Tata Group case, written by IIM Bangalore and IIM Tiruchirappalli faculty, wins top honours at 2016 EFMD Case Writing Competition

Bengaluru: A two-part Tata Group case, co-authored by J. Ramachandran, Professor of Strategy, IIMB Chair of Excellence and Bain Fellow at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, K S Manikandan, Associate Professor of Strategy, Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli, and K Rajyalakshmi, formerly Research Associate at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, has won the 2016 EMFD Case Writing Competition. This year was a record for the number of entries received and the quality was exceptionally high. The Tata Group case won the award in the category ‘Indian Management Issues and Opportunities’.

The awards ceremony will take place on the 7th of June at Berlin, Germany.

The first of the two-part case, titled ‘Ratan Tata Case’ focuses on Ratan Tata’s leadership of the Tata Group, from 1991 to 2012. Written by K S Manikandan, K Rajyalakshmi and J Ramachandran, this part of the case narrates the Tata Group history and traces the early years of the Tata Group, its management philosophy, the leadership years of its legendary chairman JRD Tata, the DRAMATIC transformation under Ratan Tata’s leadership and passing the Baton to Cyrus Mistry as Chairman of the Group in late 2012.

The second part, titled the ‘Cyrus Mistry Years Case’, co-authored by K S Manikandan and J Ramachandran, describes Cyrus Mistry’s leadership of the Group until it ended abruptly with his sudden removal as Chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, and the reinstatement of Ratan Tata as Interim Chairman.

“We are delighted with this recognition. Diversified business groups, which are widely prevalent in emerging economies, are an important organizational form as they defy received view that unrelated diversification is value destructive. This two-part case study based on an exemplar business group based in India, an emerging economy, is apt for MBA and Executive MBA courses on Corporate Strategy and Strategy in Emerging Markets,” said Prof. J Ramachandran.

For the last thirty years, EFMD has been organising its yearly case writing competition. With a wide selection of categories that focus on specific issues, as well as specific regions of the world, the aim of the EFMD case competition is to encourage and support the writing and creation of new and innovative case material.