OBQ 1658: Times...they are changing.

 ...and so is this brand that has survived for over 100 years though under different set of owners.

Connect these images to an iconic brand that defines an entire industry.

Answer: Rado

OBQ 1627: Game of thrones.

Simply connect these companies to a business personality who might have something to do with Game of Thrones....both literally and metaphorically :).

Answer: Marc Beinoff

OBQ 1598: The connoisseur.

Connect to a giant from its industry that has curated a nice collection of product line that serves all taste over the last 100+ years of its existence.

Answer: Conde Nast group of publications.

OBQ 1568: A story of two platforms.

Journalism is changing and all of it is not the troll armies taking sides on social network, some of it is very civilized and well organized.

Here is a guy who created multiple platforms at either end of the spectrum of journalism/reporting.

Who is he?

Answer: Evan Williams the founder of Medium, Twitter, Blogger and many more!

OBQ 1556: The constellation.

 The number of iconic brands that are now part of this Dutch headquartered company is staggering. Identify the company that was recently formed from a part of its logo.

Answer: Stellantis

OBQ 1541: West coast to West coast.

 This company has some of its most important assets on west coasts of different countries, be it Seattle in USA to the quiet place on Western most point of India. After existing for many decades the company is finally getting its act together and everyone from stock market to consumer market is celebrating.

Connect these images to a company.

Answer: Tata Consumer Pvt Ltd.

OBQ 1525: Challenger from the East.

Connect to the company started by two friends that has gradually grown into a house of power brands.

Answer:Emami

OBQ 1523: Made in USA.

The lure for outsourcing is hard to resist specially when your competitors are getting huge cost advantage out of it, here is a company that has resisted it and turned it into their USP and transformed itself from a niche player to an everyday warrior brand.

Connect the images to a company that is doing "Atmanirbhar USA" campaign for over 50 years ;).

Answer: New Balance

OBQ 1503: United against racism.

Companies that compete in same industry would be at each others throats to get ahead of each other, but sometimes there are bigger forces at play that unite them in their stance. Here are two such companies that are united under the ongoing protests in US for #Blacklivesmatter.

Identify the companies or just tell me which industries do they belong to.

Answer: Trek and Fuji two of the largest performance bicycle manufacturer that have stopped their contracts with various police departments in USA.

OBQ 1500: A sticky business model.

Finally 1500th  post! 10 years, thanks to all the Loyal OBQ followers !!!

It has to be a tough one for this monumental milestones.

Being a chemical company was a cool thing once upon a time, not any more. However if you are the company in question then it hardly matters as you are more a household name and your products are in pretty much all rooms of the house, especially in certain parts of Europe.

Identify the European behemoth.

Answer: Henkel

OBQ 1487: This means war.

Wars have scripted a big part of human history and same is true for business history. It was World War-II that left a lasting impact on these two brothers. It might have done too much harm to their personal relationships but did wonders for their customers as well as to exchequer of their fatherland!

Id the brothers.

Answer: Dassler brothers of Adidas and Puma.

OBQ 1468: Local Favourites.

India has seen a bevy of global fastfood brands coming in India for over 25 years now. But we all have this special place for those local delicacies and everyone has realized that they cant win over Indians without satisfying this need.

Here is a company that has realized this from the beginning in the 90s and has built chain of local brands to cater to those specific culinary traditions of India and not just doing a lip service like McAloo Tikki!

Identify the parent company that has over dozen desi brands.

Answer: Specialty restaurants.

OBQ 1445: Mastering impulses.

A lot of product and whole industries stand on small human desires that are normally driven by impulse, so to run an empire for over 100 years just based on these impulsive purchase should be considered as a miracle.

Connect these images to a company that has built a big empire by offering its customers something for a small price.

Answer: Perfetti Van Melle

OBQ 1375: Mind your own business.

Sometime successful businesses have hard time containing themselves and they start expanding in too many verticals. Here is a company that was a big name in food industry...but then they overextended and it all ended very badly.

Identify the company that at one stage owned these disparate set of brands.

Answer: Sara Lee

Tata Crucible Corporate Quiz 2019 Ahmedabad Regional Final review with answers

As usual we were in Gandhinagar (for the Ahmedabad) regional round as participants. Apart from atleast 70-80 TCS teams (because the quiz was held in TCS premise) there must be other 25-30 teams that were in contention.

The prelims had 20 questions as usual with inbuilt tie-breaker. The questions were slightly tougher than the usual and cut-off for the teams that qualified was 14 and above.

Here are the questions from prelims.

1.  This word comes from Latin term which means "One who loves" and now this word is used for some one who is a non-professional and doesn't monetary benefit by participating in the activity.
Answer: Amateur

2.  Identify the logo: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

3. Bringing the rainbow is a book written by Mr. R K Somany, he started which sanitaryware company?
Answer: Hindware

4.  This building constructed in 1898 had hosted several freedom fighters, maharajas and other important personalities. It was also the first to introduce innovations like electricity and phone in the country. Name the building.
Answer: Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai.

5. This hill station in Satara district in Maharashtra has is famous for it table top like geography and is famous because of some of the movie shot their like Tare Zameen Par.
Answer: Panchgani

6. A question about logo of Panini brand of stationery (never heard of it and didnt even find it on Google!)

7. Identify the logo of aviation giant.

Answer: Boeing

8. Which famous Indian is author of this book?

Answer:Ram Charan

9. What did he invent? He is Momofoku Ando

Answer: Instant noodles, Cup Noodles
10. Jamshed Bhabha started which institution to promote art and culture?
Answer: NCPA

11. This country didnt make it to ICC worldcup but their airlines promoted itself by urging travelers to use them for flying to worldcup.

Answer: Kenya Airlines

12. Logo of clothing brand started with initial "EK" who started it?
Answer: Ekta Kapoor

13.  Shri Narandas Desai started this business more than 100 years ago by importing his first batch of team from South Africa, Which company?

Answer: Wagh Bakri tea

14. George Townsend started this business that initially manufactured sewing needles, but then changed to manufacturing motorcycles, the company is today very successful in India. Name the company/brand.

Answer: Royal Enfield.

15. This product was made by Block Drug company and claimed to help with tooth sensitivity, what is the name of the brand?
Answer: Sensodyne

16. This is a French word that means Morning however in entertainment industry this means the afternoon show, which word?
Answer: Matinee show

17. Which American banker advised Thomas Edison to be more aggressive in business and acquire competitor Westinghouse?
Answer: J P Morgan

18. This IT company was started by Dun & Bradstreet and Satyam 25 years ago and has a big presence in Pune and Chennai today. Name the company

Answer: Cognizant

19. An act was passed in parliament in 1963 to establish this important financial institution that is better know these days through its abbreviated name.
Answer: UTI

20. Who is the famous Indian co-author of this book?

Answer: Raghuram Rajan


The teams that qualified were the following.

1. Nielsen India Pvt. Ltd (Me and my partner Ashutosh Dixit)
2. Triton Consulting
3. Pharmazone
4. Hanning Motors
5. Genesis A1
6. Ambalal Enterprise

The format this year was pretty similar to last year's corporate round with all questions on buzzer with default value of 100 points and option to have 150 points for each question. Total 26 questions were asked.

Given that we were one of the team that qualified I was not able to capture all questions, but here are the few questions that I was able to capture.

1. This was a currency issued by a bank in Mumbai, this is beginning of which famous bank?

Answer: HSBC

2. Which brand was created in Spain in 60s eventually owned by Sara Lee and P&G and is asscoiated with Cars.

Answer: Ambi Pur

3.  Volkswagen Beattle is considered to be a copy of a product made by this company because of impeding world war Hitler asked the VW owners to go ahead with this and settle the case later. In 1960s the company settles by paying company X an amount of 3000000 Deutsche marks. What is X?

Answer: Tatra

4.  This is a jewelry brand by Tanishq which is named after a famous Indian princess, Identify the brand.

Answer: Ahalya

5.  A question on identify the financing term that relates to the image.

Answer: Mezzanine financing.

6.  Identify the famous print ad from 1980 and the brand.

Answer: National Panasonic.

7. There were few question where the answers were Coco Chanel, Script.com & Gillette, there was also connect showing images of Brian Acton, Jan Koum, and a video clip. The connect was Whatsapp

8. Which broking firm did he start?

Answer: Angel Broking

9. There was an abstract connect on failed airlines with image of Maran brothers, Natwest series video.

10. A connect on Sotheby auctions.

11. Which company offers 5000$ for employees who wants to quit?

Answer: Amazon.

12.  Which American businessman entered politics after world war 1 and had 161 patents? His biggest wish was to come to India and meet Gandhi

Answer: Henry Ford.

13.  Which product was launched with the line "Without darkness what will be purpose of light? Without villains what will the gods do?"

Answer: 

We were leading the quiz halfway through, with Hanning motors trailing us just by few points. It went down the wire and Triton and Pharmazone covered a lot of ground in second half, though playing recklessly costed us the game, holding their nerves helped Hanning Motors from Vadodara to win the quiz.

OBQ 1355: Bigwig shopping spree.

Have money will shop has been mantra for the shopaholics for long time. Here is a shopaholic of a different kind, with deep pockets and penchant for disrupting industries after industries.

Here is a sample of the latest acquisitions by this big shot of a company and its stalwart owner, this time with plan to disrupt the tech industry.

Identify who is the shopper, and if you are really smart name each of the acquisitions.

Answer: Reliance Industries Ltd/Mukesh Ambani, they bought Saavn, Haptik and Fynd.

OBQ 1285: Smarter of the lot.

He was part of a family that was know for creating smart kids, doctors and businessmen in specific. Some of them went up create a very famous and successful company, he was a league above so he created not one but two great companies that still survive more than 100 years after its founding.

Who is he?

Answer: Edward Mead Johnson, who founded two companies Johnson & Johnson & Mead Johnson. Both of them exist to this day.

OBQ 1280: Living up-to its name.

This brand was one of the pioneer in its field, but thanks to geo-politics and some not so good business moves it had to go through many tribulations, but true to its name now it is once again ruling the roads.

Connect these images to a brand/company.

Answer: Triumph motorcycles

OBQ 1236: Global to its core.

The company has many firsts to its name, and its name stands to confirm its global character, and true to its name the brand is always there to help the globetrotters.

Identify the company, the gentleman in the second image and what he is doing holds the key to the answer. The first logo can confuse you if you don't know the overall connect.

Answer: Intercontinental Hotel Group

OBQ 1233: The many-headed dragon.

Here is the army of red,blue and green that has invaded India and looking at them they look like fierce competitors but when you look closely you realize that this are different heads of the same dragon that is eating up market share by day.

Name the company/brands/founder...

Answer: Duan Yongping, his BBK electornics owns mobile phone brands like 1+,Oppo and Vivo