IIM's Case Study On Indiahikes Wins ISB Global Case Study Competition 2018

A business case study on Indiahikes by two professors from Indian Institute of Management, Indore, has won the first prize in the Ivey Global Case Study Competition 2018 by ISB.

The competition had a total of 100 entries of the best India-centric business cases from around the world. Only 4 case studies won prizes, out of which “Indiahikes – Treading The Untrodden Trail” won the first prize. It includes a cash prize of $3000.

The case study was researched and written by Prof. Swapnil Garg (Associate Prof., Strategic Management) and Prof. Sanjeev Tripathi (Associate Prof., Marketing, Sports Management) of IIM Indore.

All of us at Indiahikes are honoured to have this case study on such a prestigious platform, where judges from all over the world are reading it.

“We were truly inspired by the Indiahikes journey and learnt so much,” says Prof. Sanjeev Tripathi, who co-authored the case study.

How did the case study come about?

After attending the Himalayan Mountain Challenge by Indiahikes in 2017, the two professors were intrigued by the story behind Indiahikes.

Immediately, they set out on a long project to document the journey of Indiahikes.

They covered all aspects of Indiahikes, right from its inception, its growth, its expansion across the length and breadth of the Himalayas, its Green Trails initiative, to future possibilities.

The case study starts off by speaking about the founder, Arjun Majumdar’s first venture into bringing out information about trekking in India — a good old Blogspot page.

An excerpt from the case study:

“Every time Majumdar undertook a trek, he sensed these issues more acutely. He identified information as being key to getting people to trek. In the early 2000s, when MySpace and Orkut had just emerged, he began writing about treks on these social media channels. His trekker colleagues encouraged him, agreeing with him that the need to bridge information gaps existed. This often made him envision of an organization that could use credible information to transform the situation.”

Further on in the 15 page document, the professors dig deeper to reveal the challenges Indiahikes faces, having to battle the remoteness of the operations, extreme weather conditions and unpredictable circumstances.

It concludes by uncovering the growth opportunities of Indiahikes — of how the organisation can grow without compromising its core values.

“Prof Swapnil and Prof Sanjeev have put in weeks of efforts to bring out the right image of Indiahikes. They have researched extensively to present the organisation as it is, without glorifying it or underplaying it. Our organisation is driven purely by its core values and I’m happy that that is what the world is seeing through this case study,” says Arjun Majumdar.

We congratulate the professors for their work. We hope to see them make more such case studies that will help Management students understand the difficulties of running organisations with such rare and exciting challenges.

The Case Study has not been published on a public platform yet. It is a private Case Study for the students of IIM.