Teams make strategic business decisions and meet industry professionals, 4th Day of YLES

The LUMS Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs Summit has entered into its fourth day. YLES is the flagship event of the LUMS Entrepreneurial Society and therefore a lot of effort is put into making it a success.

The participating teams have been battling each other in a series of business rounds for the last three days in a bid to emerge as the winner and grab the scholarship on offer by the Solve Business School in France. These rounds were based on the presentation of new business ideas and the drafting of branding strategies of existing companies etc. After the provision of dozens of learning opportunities during the first, second and third day, the delegates were full of anticipation for what the fourth day had in store for them.

The teams progressed towards their respective halls in order to partake in the first round of the “Strategic Business Management” segment. The teams were given a case study pertaining to supply chain management, wherein the business in question, which was based in USA, had asked for recommendations regarding business plant location decisions. The choice was between Hong Kong and China, with manufacturing and distribution costs along with an import quota imposed playing a huge role in each team’s thinking process.

Teams took up the challenge with high spirits and tackled the case study quite efficiently. Some of the teams excelled, impressing the judging panel to the extent of them remarking the efforts of the participants as “Highly evident of the talent in our country”. Speaking to our representative, one of the judges commented that events like YLES are extremely important in exploiting the talent in our youth and bringing gifted individuals to the forefront.

The second round of Brand Rush followed the SBM segment. The participating teams were tasked with presenting the branding strategy of the businesses they had pitched in “Idea Junction”. Teams gave detailed presentations on how they intend to go through the branding procedure of their respective businesses. Teams were required to justify the thinking process behind their choice of corporate identity elements such as logos and taglines. Some of the teams incorporated marketing strategies into their presentations, in order to show the judges that they’ve planned well ahead. Some of the teams impressed the judges a lot while others failed to leave a prominent mark.

With the end of the Brand Rush, participants were called to the challenge in the third round of “Plug It In”. Following the likes of the previous rounds, this time around teams were instructed to create advertisements of existing companies. The catch, however, was that the teams were supposed to create animated ads using the animation tool “PowTeen”. Teams were assigned a wide array of firms. Teams that got Tesla advertised the upcoming “Tesla Roadster”. Creative animations were used along with infoboxes to inform the users about the advantages of owning a Tesla. Other teams were assigned Nesvita, which is famous for its calcium-providing properties. The ads depicted similar information, i.e. pertaining to the number of women in the world that are suffering from illnesses like osteoporosis and calcium deficiency and how Nesvita helps cure these illnesses.
The daily dose of knowledge given to participants through workshop sand seminars was due today too, but got canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. Tough luck, right?

To the joy of delegates, however, the networking night fulfilled the quota of learning. The networking night started off with a flashback of last year’s YLES. The networking night was graced by the presence of Mr. Umar Zulfiqar, Mr. Umair Rana, Mr. Adeel Hashmi, Ms. Mehreen Murtaza and Mr. Tauseef H. Farooqi. The wide array of industry professionals revealed some of their life-changing experiences along with some insight into what helped make them into what they are today.

It’s the last day of the suspense since tomorrow one team will emerge as a victor and grab the scholarship offered by the Solve Business School in France.

That’s all for today, check back tomorrow for our coverage of the last day!