So, HSBC and several other leading domestic and international banks have been edged out in favour of ICICI which will sponsor the Finance Fair at the event. Similarly, McKinsey & Co, GE Capital International Services, Ashok Leyland and i2 Technologies are among the other prominent sponsors for Confluence '99.

Not only that, the event is already a clear showstealer for media moghuls too if the intent of support expressed by CNBC, Zee TV and DD, The Times of India group and Asian Age are anything to go by.

Choosing the sponsors
According to Vivek Chandrashekharan, one of the coordinators of the show, ``We chose the sponsors on the basis of the inputs they offered to provide as well as their rating within the campus.'' For instance, all the sponsors are flying in top-notch executives either for being on the panel of judges for various events or for giving talks on specific topics. So while Lazard executives would share their experience in valuations, mergers and acquisitions, those from Planet Asia would shed light on the latest in data-mining, while others from the RPG Group would provide vital inputs to the Management Information Systems game.

The list of executives who have queued up to deliver talks to the cream of management talent in the country reads like a corporate who's who starting from Sebi chairman D R Mehta to experts from India Infoline, FabMart and KPMG.

Interestingly, Confluence '99 marks the first time that IIM-A is hosting a management event on such a scale. Speaking to The Financial Express, the coordinator for the show, Ramdhurai K said that though IIM-A used to host similar events in earlier years too, they were held as small focussed events spaced out through the year and were largely inhouse affairs. "For instance, we held `Fundamentals' a finance fair once a year, while `Cybergold' the IT fair and `Kshitij' the strategy forum, were held at a different time.

However, we felt that these low key events were not attracting the best talent in the country." A decision was therefore taken to merge all the competitions into one mega management event spaced over a period of three days which would be thrown open to the best business schools in the country.

Said Ramdhurai: "As students, this would provide us with the opportunity to benchmark ourselves vis-a-vis similar institutions in the country." The top 15 business schools of the country including the IIMs of Bangalore, Lucknow and Indore, XLRI, FMS Delhi, Jamnalal Bajaj, S P Jain schools and NMIMS in Mumbai and Symbiosis Pune would be participating in the competitions.

Director of IIMA, Prof Jahar Saha maintains that: "The event will be an intense intellectual feast for participating student teams and create healthy competition amongst the cream of management students, provoking them to be at their intellectual best."

Serious business of games
This is evident from the games itinerary of Confluence '99. While the IT fair, sponsored by i2 Technolgies would comprise the IT Consulting Game, the Supply Chain Management game and a workshop on data warehousing and data-mining, Kshitij, the strategy show, would this year provide a forum for brainstorming between students, faculty and corporate leaders on "Building Indian MNCs." Similarly, the Finance fair would include the corporate takeover game, the securities trading game and the risk hedging game.

However, Confluence 99 is definitely not all about testing cerebral acumen. It's also about a whole lot of play for which a set of informal get-togethers and cultural events have been thrown in for good measure. Late evening shows hosted by IIMACTS promise to liven up the proceedings even as they promote greater informal interaction among the participants. And for the best team of the competition, McKinsey & Co which has sponsored the Award for Excellence which carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000.

The ultimate ambition of IIM-Aites is to bring Confluence in league with other international management symposia. "Within the next five years, we aim to make it the premier management event in Asia at least," gushes Ramdhurai. With considerable help from India Inc, of course.