Over the past few months, StratBuzz has brought students together to explore strategy beyond textbooks and theoretical frameworks. Through hands-on challenges, negotiation exercises, crisis simulations and conversations on career development, members have tested ideas, challenged assumptions and experienced the complexities of real-world decision-making.
As the club continues to grow, this issue also marks a new chapter with the unveiling of its identity — one that reflects the strategic thinking, foresight and willingness to see things differently that define StratBuzz.
This issue, StratBuzz officially unveiled its logo — a chess knight, chosen because it mirrors exactly what this committee stands for.
The knight is the board's most unpredictable piece: it doesn't move in straight lines, it moves in angles others don't see coming. That's strategy. That's foresight. And it's why we picked it to represent a club built on thinking differently before acting.
Beyond the symbolism, the knight is also timeless — a piece that has meant the same thing on every chessboard for centuries, and powerful, in that it commands the board quietly, without needing to be the loudest piece on it. That's the identity we're building for StratBuzz: strategic, enduring, and quietly powerful.
Theme: Team Building Under Constraints
Members kicked things off with quick self-introductions — a skill they could teach, and one they wanted to learn — before splitting into teams for a build challenge. Teams played an odd/even round to earn first pick of a box of random items (clips, straws, rubber bands, blocks, balls), then had just 20 minutes to build a product or prototype using only what was in their box. Each team pitched their creation to judge Dr. Umesh Kothari, who picked the winner. Simple materials, real constraints — and the session set the tone for everything that followed: think fast, build smart, sell your idea.
Theme: Legal Caution vs. Commercial Risk
Teams split into two roles — lawyer and salesperson — and worked through a live negotiation dilemma: a deal was on the table, but the lawyer wanted to add one more protective clause, while the salesperson worried that pushing it through could spook the client and kill the deal entirely.
Teams had to argue both sides and land on what the "righteous path" actually was. There was no easy answer — protect the company legally, or protect the relationship commercially — which was exactly the point. It's the same tension real teams face when legal caution and sales urgency pull in opposite directions.
Theme: Decision-Making Under Crisis
The biggest simulation of the year so far. The scenario: a coordinated strike closes the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices triple, credit freezes, and every team's company is wiped out overnight — left with nothing but a Rs. 1,00,000 government reconstruction loan.
Teams took on five roles (CEO, CFO, CMO, CTO, COO) and moved through the full arc: absorbing the crisis, bidding at a live raw-material auction (only the CFO could bid), building a completely new business idea out of whatever materials they won, and pitching it to investor in a five-minute pitch plus Q&A.
Every material won had to be used in the final pitch — no cherry-picking — which forced teams to justify choices they might not have made by themselves. The debrief tied it back to real black swan events: 2008, COVID-19, and modern supply chain shocks. The lesson: strategy isn't tested when things go to plan — it's tested when they don't.
Theme: Diagnosing an Organization from the Inside
Members stepped into the role of a management consultant hired to fix a struggling phone sales and service department — a team under pressure from competitors, understaffed on service quality, and quietly losing good people. The case surfaced a familiar organizational trap: staff who "go through the motions," managers who avoid hard conversations, and a department head disconnected from the industry he's meant to lead.
Before recommending anything, teams were asked to sit with an uncomfortable step: how would you feel as the team leader, the operator, the manager?
And whose version of events are you actually hearing — and how much should you trust it? A session less about fixing a broken process and more about reading the politics and incentives underneath it.
Theme: Seeing Better, Thinking Longer-Term
The final session of the series and the most memorable one. It ran in two parts:
Part 1 was an intensive workshop led by Arya Chitra on the Nikon Challenge, but it went far beyond "how to take a good photo." The session dug into how photos are actually composed, how to present them with intent, and how to sequence a set of images so a pitch or presentation feels genuinely compelling rather than just informative. A reminder that strategy isn't only about the idea — it's also about how well you make people see it. Part 2 brought in guest speaker who spoke candidly about shaping a career, what the early years actually look like, why giving up is never really the option it feels like in the moment, and how strategy isn't just about what you choose to do, but how you handle the situations you didn't choose, and still find a way through. A grounded, honest close to the session series which was less about frameworks and more about the mindset that outlasts them.
Build fast. Argue both sides. Rebuild from zero. Read the politics. Four very different rooms, one thread running underneath: every session put members in a position where the "right" answer wasn't obvious, and the only way through was to think it out loud, defend it, and own the call.
That's the muscle StratBuzz keeps training — and it's the same muscle a chess knight represents seeing the move nobody else sees coming.
Guiding Faculty: Dr. Umesh Kothari
Currently in Office:
Hrithik Sivadasan (Co-President),
Aishwarya Birla (Co-President),
Manya Sarda (Chief Editor)
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