Engage4more's 'Corporate Talent Championship' concludes season 5

This year at Corporate Talent Championship, 15, 000 employees participated from more than 20 cities, a significant leap from the participation statistics last year. This time they reached out to not just metros but also cities like Raibareli, Jaipur, Guwahati etc., which represents the growing interest in the contest amongst corporates.

In a 10-month stint, the contest saw over ten thousand auditions, 4 city finale events and a cyber contest before culminating into a splendid finale. Hosted by Cyrus Sahukar, the grand finale was a glitzy affair with the Bollywood Music duo Sachin-Jigar in Concert, comic artist Sourabh Pant, and a mega dance act by Ashley Lobo’s Danceworx. Plus, there was a fashion show by Fashion Un-limited that showcased the latest trends to help young corporates stay in style.

CTC 2016 was sponsored by Datsun India and powered by TVS Wego in Association with LIC India. Other partners included Zaggle, as gifting partner, Yes Foundation as Change Partner, Fashion Unlimited as Fashion Partner, NDTV Prime as Broadcast Partner, Danceworx as Talent Partner, HR Shapers as HR Partner, The True School of Music as Music School Partner, Radio City as Radio Partner and Book My Show as Ticketing Partner.

In spirit of the Corporate culture, where teams are meant to work seamlessly, yet maintain a healthy competition, CTC tweaked their contest format this year, which made it a tougher competition. The contest comprised 5 categories - Singing, Music, Solo Dance, Group Dance, Group Theatre and CTC Rockstars. While Group Theatre and CTC Rockstar winners were selected during City Finale, the other 4 categories saw a format that was more challenging than the previous versions where corporates were expected to compete yet collaborate. The rounds were trifurcated into Power Play, Face-Off and Decider. PowerPlay and Face-Off had weightage of 30% and 70% marks respectively, which led to the top 2 finalists to battle it in the Decider round. Also, the Face-Off round was done innovatively wherein the contestants performed together with individual acts plus collaborating to make a seamless act together.

The participants never had it easy with pre-event week-long rehearsals at Kurla Phoenix Market City and at Renaissance Hotel where they were put up. But for their fantastic spirit and performance, the winners were handsomely rewarded with several prizes i.e. NDTV Two-in-One Act Award, the mega Dastun Redi Go car for solo winners, Radio City Solo Singing Award, TVS Wego for all winners etc. In fact 2 of our finalists earned an offer from Sachin Jigar to perform in their composition.

The Grand Finale Show was a mega blitzkrieg with performances interspersed with finale performances. The winning team of the Group theatre contest performed a Mime act highlighting the farmers’ suicide issue. We also had India’s leading comic artist Sorabh Pant leaving the audience in splits followed by the mega Sachin Jigar rock concert, which was the crescendo of CTC’s Grand India Finale.

Commenting on this sweet liaison between employee engagement and CTC, Kaustubh Sonalkar, Group Chief People Officer, Future Group said “Engagement is the most important aspect of a great work culture. We believe that engaged employees are always happy employees. When it comes to reality shows, corporates are not far behind. When you look at several competitions on television, this one which will give them equal competition”

Sanjay Gupta, VP Marketing, Nissan Motor India said that “I am sure Datsun and CTC will go a long way”. Also S Manthralaya Nivasan, GM Institution and Activation, TVS Motor Company said, “This event has been getting bigger and bigger every year”.

Papan Majumdar, Sr. VP, NDTV mentioned, “Both the brands are unique in nature. We would love to participate and associate for many years to come” and Arindam Biswas, Sr. Marketing Manager, Arvind Lifestyle Brands Limited feels that “All in all it was an excellent association, and I am really looking forward to associate with CTC in the coming years ahead.”

Nishant Parashar, Founder & Director Engage4More says This year’s highlight was the addition of Pune region to the City Finale, taking the count of City finale from 3 to now 4. Also the Grand finale had an exciting Face-off section, which really brought out the best in all the finalists. The competitive yet collaborative spirit was the hallmark of CTC 2016, which was received quite well. Another key highlight for this year was the concert by the super talented Sachin – Jigar. Concerts of this stature are now going to be an intergral part of CTC”.

The coming years might add few innovative initiatives like:
• CTC South, which would be a Special South edition of CTC, comprising regional South music
• CTC Canvas, which would include Photography, Sketching and Painting
• CTC also plans going International to markets like Singapore and few more

The TV Broadcast of CTC 2016 was aired on NDTV Profit-Prime on 11th, 13th 18th and 20th October 9-10 PM, with repeat telecast on 12th, 14th, 19th and 21st October 5-6 PM.