This year, the theme of the competition was ‘Paving the path for the next 20 years'. Keeping in mind the future imperatives for global growth, the participants were given a challenge to present a business plan for the Tata Group, in line with the above theme. In the national final round of the campus-track for B-schools, Team Jishnu from IIM Kozhikode won the coveted Tata Business Leadership Award 2012. Close on their heels were Team Velociraptors from S.P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai, and Team Dark Knights from IIM Kolkata, who were declared as first national runners-up and second national runners-up, respectively.

Meanwhile, the national final round of the internal-track for Tata companies saw Team Eye 4 Eye from Tata Motors Pantnagar Works as the winners for their case study. The team from Tata Motors was followed by Team Gatik from TCS, Chennai, as first national runners-up and Team Josh from Tata Motors, Pune, as the second national runners-up. The in-house teams which were shortlisted for the finals from amongst 48 entries were TCS, Kolkata; Tata Housing, Mumbai; TCS, Mumbai and TCS, Hyderabad.

The evaluation of the business cases presented by participants was undertaken on parameters like creativity, clarity, relevance and business value. The case presentations were judged by a jury of experts comprising of senior academicians such as Dr. Devi Singh, Director IIM Lucknow; Professor Sesha Iyer, Director, S.P Jain Mumbai; and Professor Sudhir Bhaskar and Professor Ananthraman from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher learning. Senior Tata leaders on the jury panel were R. Mukundan, Managing Director - Tata Chemicals; Koushik Chatterjee, Chief Financial Officer - Tata Steel and Sumit Guha, Deputy Managing Director at Tata Reality and Infrastructure Ltd.

In each category, the campus-track and the internal-track, the Tata Business Leadership Awards 2012 national winners walked away with a Tata Business Leadership Awards Rolling Trophy plus Rs. 1.5 lakh cash prize, while the first national runners-up and second national runners-up received a cash prize of Rs. 75,000 and Rs. 50,000, respectively. In addition to these prizes, a number of gifts were given to the winners by Tata Group companies such as Indian Hotels, Ginger, Tata Docomo, Trent and Infinity Retail. The awards were given away by Ratan N. Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons. Cyrus P. Mistry, Deputy Chairman, Tata Sons and senior directors of the Tata Sons board were also present for the event.

Launched in 2002, the Tata Business Leadership Awards is organised by TAS, the flagship recruitment programme of the Tata Group aimed at developing young leaders for the group.

Commenting on the awards, Satish Pradhan, Chief, Group Human Resources, Tata Sons Ltd. said: "TBLA symbolizes the efforts of the Tata Group in promoting leadership together with developing a better understanding of the Group among the students. It is a great platform for the students to engage with real challenges of the business world and an equally great opportunity for us to get young minds to give us ideas about the opportunities and challenges facing the Tata Group. At the same time, the internal-track of TBLA for Tata companies endeavours to unify the talent pool of the Tata Group across companies and geographies and focus on innovation, leadership and achieving excellence. It gives the employees of the Tata Group an opportunity to sharpen their business acumen and interact face-to-face with the senior management of the Group."