Corporate India gets inspiration from IPL

Not even a week has passed since India became the cricket world champion and the cricket-craving nation is already on to the Indian Premier League (IPL). The popular cricket league has inspired the corporate world to come up with innovations to boost internal competition and in team building exercises.

Corporate houses such as Future Group have used the popular cricket league model to create a healthy competition among their personnel and departments, especially sales and marketing.

The group introduced the Indian Paste League while launching their toothpaste, Sach. Regional sales and marketing teams were given catchy names, scoreboards were put up in some offices to track the progress of the home team and internal emails from the head office informed everyone of other teams’ performance.

“The competitive nature of the plan ensured all teams and individuals were motivated, ” said Devendra Chawla, business head for private brands, Future Group. “With a prize, recognition and a chance to meet the top leaders of the company everyone worked hard, and, we comfortably exceeded our target.” 

Viacomm 18, the company behind MTV and VH1, has used the IPL for team building exercises. “We have had the Parking Lot Viacomm 18 Premiere League in our Mumbai office. People from all departments are divided into teams of seven and everyone has a good time,” said Ali Hussein, director digital, Viacomm 18.

Airtel DTH and Airtel’s mobile business use various sports for building camaraderie and an adapted version of the league was a part of its activities last year.

“IPL is snazzy, fancy and the in-thing. It’s the mood of the nation and employees like the concept,” said Sanjiv Saran Mehra, founder CEO, Saran Sports, which organises corporate events for several corporates, including Standard Chartered, Castrol and Edelweiss.

“For the company, such events are a team-building exercise to involve their rank and file. It further leverages association between the oragnisation and the individual,” he said.

Oriental insures 5 teams for Rs 610 cr

State-owned Oriental Insurance has provided insurance cover of R610 crore to 5 IPL franchise teams, including the defending champion Chennai Super Kings. The insurance cover includes personal accident, medical insurance and loss of baggage.The highest insurance cover of R160 crore was provided to Kochi Tuskers Kerala.