Cogni'15 Biz. Quiz - Finals

The Business Quiz
Cognizance 2015
IIT Roorkee

Pointers
O It’s the quizmaster’s decision where he
finds it fit to give points and where not
to. The quizmaster feels that points don’t
matter, except… in deciding the result, of
course. 
O Some questions are relatively long.
Patience has its rewards.
O That’s all this slide is meant for.
Guidelines, wherever necessary, will be
provided.

1. Infinite Pounce 1 [CW]
O +10 on Direct
O +10 on Pass
O +10/-10 on Pounce

Q1. Who, Which Book ?
O Last year, this billionaire investor took to Reddit for an AMA as part of the
run-up to the release of his new book. Here three targets of his hyper-
articulate ire were b-school grads, the overly dressed, and the cult of Silicon
Valley.
O While he doesn't have an "absolute ban" on hiring MBAs, he thinks that they
tend to be "high extrovert/low conviction people.
O While he cautions that there are "no absolute and timeless sartorial rules,"
he says that "in Silicon Valley, wearing a suit in a pitch meeting makes you
look like someone who is bad at sales and worse at tech.“ Maybe that's why
he has a simple rule for investing: never bet on a CEO in a suit.
O And he is particularly less enthusiastic about Silicon Valley than most of his
peers. He says it is more affordable to start a business outside, in almost all
ways.

Q2
O Arunachalam Muruganantham is an
inventor and social entrepreneur from
Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.
O He is the owner of Jayaashree
industries whose signature product
has been used in 23 of the 29 states
in India and he currently plans to
expand exports to 106 nations. In
2014, TIME placed him in its list of
100 Most Influential People in the
World.
O What does his company make ?

Mini-machines to self-manufacture
low-cost sanitary pads

Q4. Who ?
O He (and his organization) is the winner of over
600 awards in his field from all over the world.
An alumnus of St. Xavier’s school Jaipur and St.
Stephen’s College, little is known about his
versatility in that he has played in the Ranji
Trophy, worked as a Tea-taster & also made a
brief acting stint in a mainstream Bollywood film
in 2013.
O Insiders say it was him who came up with the
now famous ‘Achchhey din aane wale hain’ for
the BJP campaign.

Q5. (1/2)
O In 1981, Steven Spielberg was at work on another soon-to-be box office sensation, E.T.
the Extra Terrestrial. A key scene called for the film's main human character, 9-year-old
Elliott, to lure an alien out of the woods with ‘X’. Spielberg's people approached the
makers X, A, with a deal to use their product in the film. Notoriously frugal,
unpredictable, and tyrannical in their business dealings, chief executives John & Forrest
A flatly rejected Spielberg's offer.
O Looking for the best alternative, the movie's producers turned to B for its Y, a relatively
new addition to the B product line. Despite Spielberg's track record, Jack Dowd, B's Vice
President for took a substantial risk when he accepted Universal Studio's offer: he was
not permitted to read the script but was told the plot and, he knew that his rival had
curiously already turned down the opportunity. Nonetheless, Dowd made an agreement
with Universal, guaranteeing that B would spend $1 million over six weeks concurrent
with E.T.'s release, to promote the film in return for being allowed to use E.T. -- the movie
and its trademarked images -- to promote Y.

(2/2)
O Dowd had made an astute decision. Y had been introduced
nationally in only 1980, and by the time E.T. was released in June
1982, sales were sagging. However, within two weeks of the film's
release date, its sales had tripled; distributors of the product re-
ordered as many as ten times during that 14-day period.
O B paid $1 million for an amount of promotion that would have cost
an estimated $15-$20 million, according to Dowd. Articles at the
time pointed out that some viewers thought the product used in the
movie was X, and that A probably experienced some level of "free
ride" from the movie hype. A month after E.T.'s release, however, A
was clearly abashed by the company's missed opportunity, going so
far as to imply that they had never received an offer from Universal.

A – Mars, B – Hershey’s
X – M&Ms, Y – Reese’s Pieces

Q7.
O A X (Korean: for "wealth or property" + "faction or clan") is a South
Korean form of business conglomerate. They are typically global
multinationals owning numerous international enterprises, controlled
by a chairman who has power over all the operations.
O
The term is often used in a context similar to that of the English word
"conglomerate” and was first used in 1984. There are several dozen
large Korean family-controlled corporate groups which fall under this
definition. Examples would be Hyundai, Samsung, LG, etc.
O The X has also played a significant role in South Korean politics. In
1988, a member of a X family, Chung Mong-jun, president of Hyundai
Heavy Industries, successfully ran for the National Assembly of South
Korea. Other business leaders also were chosen to be members of the
National Assembly through proportional representation. Since 2000,
Hyundai has played a role in the thawing of North Korean and South
Korean relations

Q8. Who ?
O The family is said to have its roots in Araria, Bihar, but
was settled in Gorakhpur. He stayed with his parents
and siblings in a rented house in Turkmanpur area. The
eldest son, he did a diploma course before being forced
to take up work due to the death of his father Sudhir
Chandra, who worked in a sugar mill. He tried his hand
first at making salted snacks, apparently supplying them
on the Lambretta under a venture called ‘Jaya’ Products.
O Nothing epitomises his preoccupation with his humble
past more than the Lambretta scooter that stands
enclosed in a cubicle in his home — a throwback to how
it all started over three-and-a-decades ago in Gorakhpur,
Uttar Pradesh’s hardscrabble east.
O Who ? And which group did he establish ?

Q9. X ?
O X has reportedly become the country’s largest
digital company. With eight lakh orders every
day, it has surpassed the volume of Indian
Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
(IRCTC).
O It brings over 250 merchants with over 1,00,000
items for users with an interesting feature of
allowing bargaining between the merchant
and buyer through a messenger.
O Jack Ma’s Alibaba recently ventured into Indian
markets by acquiring a 25% stake in this
company’s parent body.

Q10.
O While at college, company founder Marc Ewing was
given the Cornell lacrosse team cap by his
grandfather. People would turn to him to solve
their problems and he was referred to as that guy
in X. By the time he wrote the manual of X _____
he had lost the cap, so the manual included an
appeal to readers to return X if found. What is X ?

Q11.
O Due to its narrow focus and relatively small size, X has been potentially
an attractive takeover target for its competitors, namely Nestle and
Kraft Foods.
O In mid-July 2005, the share price of X rose 20% within two weeks on
rumors of a bid approach by PepsiCo, although this intention was
denied. Upon realizing that a takeover of a national treasure such as X
by a foreign company was indeed possible in the capital markets, the
"economically patriotic" French government stepped in by drafting a law
to protect companies in "strategic industries" such as X from takeover.
This has been dubbed the "X Law".
O X has recently made concerted efforts to ramp up its growth in Indian
markets. X?

Q12. X ?
O X was founded in 2010 by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell and Matt
Rogers. The idea came when Fadell took a couple of years off and built
a vacation home. He was unimpressed with all of the certain available
products and decided to design a new, better ones. X was acquired by Y
in January 2014 for US $3.2 billion.
O On 7 May 2014, German activist group Peng Collective released a
parody website named Y X, satirizing Y’s practices with fake products
imitating Y’s art style, supposedly created as a result "of an intensive
period of studying user behavior" in response to the "public debate
around privacy and government surveillance" .
O The site described four purported new services lampooning Y’s data
gathering tendencies made possible with X's technology: Y Trust, Y Hug,
Y Bee and Y Bye, respectively a "data insurance" paid with personal
data, a location service encouraging in-person emotional interactions, a
"personal drone", and a memorial website created from automatically
collected information.

2. Mega-Connect
O Written Round
O +5 For every Correct Answer
O Points for the connect are indicated on the
each slide

2. ID (+25,-15)
O He is the former CEO and Chairman of infoGROUP
(previously known as infoUSA). Borrowing $100 from
a bank to get started, it has grown from a one-man
operation to a global employer of over 5,000 with
revenues of $750 million. During this period he
acquired over 45 companies. InfoGroup was sold in
July 2010 for $680 million.
O More than that, he has been known for his close
association with the Clintons.. He was recognized in
Bill Clinton’s book Giving, describing the company as
one that “has made a concerted effort to hire people
who were on welfare, as well as people who are
disabled or who have to support themselves after
getting out of unsafe domestic situations.” He has
also established a state of the art Science block at his
old school at Rampur, which was inaugurated by
former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2003
O He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a
Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

3. ID (+20,-10)
O X in a remote village of Kutch. At the tender age of
eleven he came to ‘Mumbai’ was hardly literate even in
Gujarati. By dint of hardwork and determination he
learnt not only Gujarati, and Accounts, but also
acquired functional command in English, Hindi and
Marathi.
O He started his career as a hawker. At one time he
became one of the leading share brokers in Bombay
Stock Exchange. Having experienced fluctuations of
fortune and a severe setback in the Stock Exchange he
decided to set up an industry.
O He established Golden Tobacco in 1930 and nurtured
it in very adverse and hostile environment of the
British Monopoly in the cigarette industry. He showed
the same determination and entrepreneurial skills
when he established Golden Chemicals ten years later.

4. ID (+15,-5)
O X(4 November 1889 – 11 February 1942) was an Indian
industrialist, a philanthropist, and Indian independence fighter.
He was also a close associate and follower of Mahatma
Gandhi. Gandhi is known to have adopted him as his son.
O During the First World War, the British government appeased
and honoured native tradesmen, soliciting funds. They
appointed X an honorary magistrate. When he provided money
for the war fund, they conferred on him the title of Rai Bahadur,
a title he later surrendered during the non-co-operation
movement of 1921.
O In 1920, he was elected chairman of the reception committee
for the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress. Later,
in 1923, he participated in the flag satyagraha, defying a ban
on flying the national flag in Nagpur, and was detained by
British forces. This earned him national admiration.
O X found one of India’s finest group of companies that continue
to do well even today.

5. ID (+10)
O XY was a Basque Roman Catholic missionary
born in Y, Kingdom of Navarre (now part of
Spain), and a co-founder of the Society of Jesus.
He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in
the Portuguese Empire of the time and was
influential in evangelization work most notably in
India.
O On his death, he was first buried on a beach at
Shangchuan Island, Taishan, Guangdong. From
there his body was taken to St. Paul's church in
Portuguese Malacca on 22 March 1553. On 11
December 1553, his body was shipped to Goa.
O The body is now in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in
Goa, where it was placed in a glass container
encased in a silver casket on 2 December 1637.
This casket, constructed by Goan silversmiths
between 1636-1637, was an exemplary blend of
Italian and Indian aesthetic sensibilities.

6. ID (+5)
O X, is a distinguished alumnus of
IIT Bombay and a venture
capitalist based in the US, was
the chairman of the board and the
CEO of Providian Financial
Corporation, a former Fortune
500 company. He has served on
the boards of MasterCard Inc.,
CIRRUS and many other
organizations.
O He was appointed by the governor
of California to the California
State University Board of Trustees.

2. ID
O He is the former CEO and Chairman of infoGROUP
(previously known as infoUSA). Borrowing $100 from
a bank to get started, it has grown from a one-man
operation to a global employer of over 5,000 with
revenues of $750 million. During this period he
acquired over 45 companies. InfoGroup was sold in
July 2010 for $680 million.
O More than that, he has been known for his close
association with the Clintons.. He was recognized in
Bill Clinton’s book Giving, describing the company as
one that “has made a concerted effort to hire people
who were on welfare, as well as people who are
disabled or who have to support themselves after
getting out of unsafe domestic situations.” He has
also established a state of the art Science block at his
old school at Rampur, which was inaugurated by
former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2003
O He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a
Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

3. ID
O X in a remote village of Kutch. At the tender age of
eleven he came to ‘Mumbai’ was hardly literate even in
Gujarati. By dint of hard work and determination he
learnt not only Gujarati, and Accounts, but also
acquired functional command in English, Hindi and
Marathi.
O He started his career as a hawker. At one time he
became one of the leading share brokers in Bombay
Stock Exchange. Having experienced fluctuations of
fortune and a severe setback in the Stock Exchange he
decided to set up an industry.
O He established Golden Tobacco in 1930 and nurtured
it in very adverse and hostile environment of the
British Monopoly in the cigarette industry. He showed
the same determination and entrepreneurial skills
when he established Golden Chemicals ten years later.

4. ID
O X(4 November 1889 – 11 February 1942) was an Indian
industrialist, a philanthropist, and Indian independence fighter.
He was also a close associate and follower of Mahatma
Gandhi. Gandhi is known to have adopted him as his son.
O During the First World War, the British government appeased
and honoured native tradesmen, soliciting funds. They
appointed X an honorary magistrate. When he provided money
for the war fund, they conferred on him the title of Rai Bahadur,
a title he later surrendered during the non-co-operation
movement of 1921.
O In 1920, he was elected chairman of the reception committee
for the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress. Later,
in 1923, he participated in the flag satyagraha, defying a ban
on flying the national flag in Nagpur, and was detained by
British forces. This earned him national admiration.
O X found one of India’s finest group of companies that continue
to do well even today.

5. ID
O XY was a Basque Roman Catholic missionary
born in Y, Kingdom of Navarre (now part of
Spain), and a co-founder of the Society of Jesus.
He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in
the Portuguese Empire of the time and was
influential in evangelization work most notably in
India.
O On his death, He was first buried on a beach at
Shangchuan Island, Taishan, Guangdong. From
there his body was taken to St. Paul's church in
Portuguese Malacca on 22 March 1553. On 11
December 1553, his body was shipped to Goa.
O The body is now in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in
Goa, where it was placed in a glass container
encased in a silver casket on 2 December 1637.
This casket, constructed by Goan silversmiths
between 1636-1637, was an exemplary blend of
Italian and Indian aesthetic sensibilities.

6. ID
O X, is a distinguished alumnus of
IIT Bombay and a venture
capitalist based in the US, was
the chairman of the board and the
CEO of Providian Financial
Corporation, a former Fortune
500 company. He has served on
the boards of MasterCard Inc.,
CIRRUS and many other
organizations.
O He was appointed by the governor
of California to the California
State University Board of Trustees.

Indian Business Schools
O Shreyansh Prasad Jain (S.P. Jain IMS)
O Vinod Gupta ( VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur)
O Shri Narsee Monjee (NMIMS)
O Jamnalal Bajaj (JBIMS)
O St. Francis Xavier
O Shailesh J Mehta (SJSOM, IIT Bombay)

3. Infinite Pounce 2 [ACW]
O +10 on Direct
O +10 on Pass
O +10/-10 on Pounce

Q2.
O The X was a cartel of, among others, Osram, Philips, and General Electric from
December 23, 1924 until 1939 that existed to control the manufacture and sale of
light bulbs.
O The cartel is an important step in the history of the global economy because it
engaged in large-scale planned obsolescence. It reduced competition in the light bulb
industry for almost twenty years, and has been accused of preventing technological
advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs.
O The cartel was a convenient way to lower costs and worked to standardise the life
expectancy of light bulbs at 1000 hours, while at the same time raising prices without
fear of competition. Members' bulbs were regularly tested and fines were levied for
bulbs that lasted more than 1000 hours
O The X divided the world’s lamp markets into three categories:
O home territories, the home country of individual manufacturers
O British overseas territories, under control of Associated Electrical Industries, Osram,
Philips, and Tungsram
O common territory, the rest of the world

Q3.
O X is a British alternative investment management business. The company
manages about US$72.3 billion (30 September 2014) and employs over 1,200
people in 14 locations worldwide and is headquartered at Riverbank House in
London.
O The company was founded in 1783, by James X, a barrel maker. The following
year the company secured the contract to supply the Royal Navy with the rum for
its daily “rum tot”, a tradition under which all sailors were allocated a daily ration
of rum. The company moved into rum and sugar broking, and then later expanded
into other commodities such as coffee and cocoa. Throughout the nineteenth
century and into the twentieth, it became a major market participant in
commodity exchanges; and the firm’s twentieth century partners established the
company as a broker to third parties..
O This venture prompted a move into financial services, which the company
increasingly concentrated on. In 2000, the commodity trading companies went
private with the result that X became exclusively a financial services company

Man Group (One that grants
the Man Booker Prize)

Q4.
O She is the only child of the founder one
of India’s largest enterprises and a
trained classical musician.
O She graduated from Northwestern
University majoring in Communication
with a focus on Radio/TV/Film AND with
a Masters in Business Administration
having a focus on Social Enterprise
Management and Strategy from the
Kellogg School of Management.
O Within a year of joining her father’s
company, she was elevated as executive
director and CEO. Who and which
organization is she associated with ?

Q5.
O Below is an excerpt from the ‘About’ section of a company:
O “X is not for you. I repeat, X is not for the ‘Regular' you. X is
only for that crazy traveller hidden inside you. It is an
accommodation facility for your social self who wishes to meet
new people and exchange travel stories. It is for your casual
self who prefers a safe, hygienic, centrally located and
affordable stay but at the same time want a relaxed and super
friendly experience. It is for your playful self who feels that
travel keeps them young at heart. It for your comradely self
who believes that friends should have non stop fun while
travelling in a group. It is for your dreamy self who dreams but
never dared to step out for a solo trip before.”
O As on March 25,2015, X had its establishments in Jaipur,
Jodhpur, Udaipur, Agra, Varanasi, Goa, Delhi and Vadodara.
Which young start-up are we talking about ?

Q6.
O Fortune’s investigation yields the first comprehensive
picture of how one under-policed and far-flung generics
company operated. It is not a tale of cutting corners or
lax manufacturing practices but one of outright fraud,
in which the company knowingly sold substandard
drugs around the world — including in the U.S. — while
working to deceive regulators. The impact on patients
will likely never be known. But it is clear that millions of
people worldwide got medicine of dubious quality from
X.
O Excerpt on next slide.

O “In May 2004, Dr. Kathy Spreen joined X’s U.S. office as executive director of clinical
medicine and pharmacovigilance.
O At first, the company’s science seemed to exceed her expectations. She had been on the
job a few months and was preparing slides for a presentation about the company’s
launch of Riomet, a version of the diabetes drug Metformin, when she noticed something
remarkable. The data showing the concentration of X’s drug in the bloodstream appeared
to match that of the brand name perfectly. “Look how good this company is,” she
remembers thinking. “The bioequivalence data is superimposable on the drugs we are
modeling.”
O About a month later, she found another drug with similarly superimposable data. That’s
when she began to worry. “It’s too good to be true,” she recalls thinking. By definition,
data is tricky. Even two batches of the same drug made by the same company at the
same plant under the exact same conditions will have slight variations.
O With her suspicions aroused, Spreen began asking her Indian counterparts to send
underlying data that supported the test results. They repeatedly promised the
information was on the way. When it didn’t arrive, she got excuses: It was a “mess”;
they’d be “embarrassed.” She recalls begging, “I don’t care if it’s written on the back of
toilet paper. Just send me something.” But it never arrived.”

Q7.
O The practice of X emerged in the same London coffeehouses that operated as the
unofficial stock exchange for the British Empire. In the late 1600s, shipping was
just beginning between the New World and the old as colonies were being
established and exotic goods were ferried back. A coffeehouse owned by Edward
Lloyd, later of Lloyd's of London, was the primary meeting place for merchants, ship
owners and others seeking ________.
O A basic system for funding voyages to the new world was established. In the first
stage, merchants and companies would seek funding from venture capitalists. The
venture capitalists would help find people who wanted to be colonists, usually
those from the more desperate areas of London, and would purchase provisions for
the voyage. In exchange, the venture capitalists would be guaranteed some of the
returns from the goods the colonists would produce or find in the Americas.
O By 1654, Blaise Pascal, the Frenchman who gave us the first calculator, and his
countryman Pierre de Fermat discovered a way to express probabilities . Pascal's
triangle led to formalization the practice of X and made _________ more
affordable.

Q8
O December of 2012, three young men were living in a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco’s
Tenderloin district, working on a technology startup. Their project—a plan to make inexpensive cell-
phone towers—had failed. Down to their last seventy thousand dollars, they resolved to keep trying out
new software ideas until they ran out of money. Rent was a sunk cost. Since they were working
frantically, they already had no social life. As they examined their budget, one big problem remained:
food.
O Rhinehart, who is twenty-five, studied electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, and he began to consider
food as an engineering problem. “You need amino acids and lipids, not milk itself,” he said. “You need
carbohydrates, not bread.” Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, but they’re
“mostly water.” He began to think that food was an inefficient way of getting what he needed to survive.
“It just seemed like a system that’s too complex and too expensive and too fragile,” he told me.
O What if he went straight to the raw chemical components? He took a break from experimenting with
software and studied textbooks on nutritional biochemistry and the Web sites of the F.D.A., the
U.S.D.A., and the Institute of Medicine. Eventually, Rhinehart compiled a list of thirty-five nutrients
required for survival. Then, instead of heading to the grocery store, he ordered them off the Internet—
mostly in powder or pill form—and poured everything into a blender, with some water. The result, a
slurry of chemicals, looked like gooey lemonade. Then, he told me, “I started living on it.” Rhinehart
called his potion X, which, for most people, evokes the 1973 science-fiction film “X Green,” starring
Charlton Heston. The movie is set in a dystopian future where, because of overpopulation and
pollution, people live on mysterious wafers called X Green. The film ends with the ghastly revelation
that X Green is made from human flesh.

Twitter’s April Fool’s Joke
O On 1st April 2013, Twitter announced that
it’d be shifting to a two-tiered service: a
basic free service, Twttr, but you only get
consonants and for five dollars a month, a
premium “Twitter” service which also
includes vowels.

Q11.
IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering And Tourism Corporation Limited) in
joint partnership with SBI launched the IRCTC-SBI Railway Credit Card
- India’s first co-branded credit card of its kind for railway passengers.
It had many exclusive features such as -
• Up to 10% of the ticket fare back as Railway Points which can be
redeemed for free travel
• Online railway ticket booking at a 0% transaction charge
• The SBI Railway Card also gives complimentary personal
accident insurance of up to Rs 10 lacs in the event of death in the
case of a train accident
What was unique about it?

O India’s first ever credit card to have been designed by renowned
cartoonist, Shri R K Laxman. The face of the Card bears a
never-before published sketch created by Laxman exclusively for
the SBI Railway Card along with his autograph

Q12.
O The name X is the Chinese word for "millet".
O In 2011, its CEO suggested there are more meanings than just the
"millet and rice." He linked the first part to the Buddhist concept that "a
single grain of rice of a Buddhist is as great as a mountain," suggesting
X wants to work from the little things, instead of starting by striving for
perfection, while the second part is a reference to ______ _______ and
also Mission Impossible, referring to the obstacles encountered in
starting the company.
O He also stated that he thinks the name is cute. It is about revolution
and being able to bring innovation into a new area. Several sources
have linked the latter meaning to the Communist Party of China's "millet
and rifle" revolutionary idiom during the Second Sino-Japanese War

4. Long Visual Connect
Written Round
+5 for each print ad
Points for connect indicated on each slide

Companies that explicitly collaborated
with/aided the Nazis during WW2.
O Kodak (Used slave laborers from concentration camps)
O Hugo Boss (Uniform for German soldiers)
O Standard Oil (Supplied Tetraethyl Lead for German War Planes)
O Allianz (Insured all the facilities and employees at Auschwitz)
O Ford (Supplied vehicles, Henry Ford known anti-semite)
O Coke (Fanta was conceptualized)
O Bayer (Gas for Concentrations Camps)
O IBM (Made all sorts of tracking machines – Jews, soldiers,etc.)
O Volkswagen (Designed Beetle for the Nazis)
O Random House (Published Nazi Propaganda)

Cogni'15 Biz. Quiz - Finals

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Cogni'15 Biz. Quiz - Finals