“The difference between a mountain and a molehill is your perspective.” Garden City College has always looked at all challenges in the field of education as opportunities for it to raise dreamers, achievers and winners. The legacy of Garden City College continued to soar to higher horizons with the college being awarded the Business School Leadership Award at the 16th Business School Affaire & Dewang Mehta Business School Awards as a part of the Asia Brand Congress. This took place on the Friday 26th September 2008 at the Taj-Lands End Hotel in Mumbai.

The Award was presented amidst praise, to the Chairman Garden City Group of Institutions, Dr. Joseph V.G. by Mr. Harish Mehta, CEO and MD of Onward technologies and Dr Prasad Meduri, Partner, Amrop International. They acknowledged the efforts of Garden City College in providing high quality-world class education to not only the Indian Community but also the International community.This award also commends Garden City College for being the Best Business School in South India that encourages Leadership and nurtures talents. These awards witnessed some of the best Business Schools in the country vying for various awards.

The Dewang Mehta Business School Award was instituted in the name of Mr. Dewang Mehta who is one of the pioneers in the promotion of the Indian I.T industry through NASSCOM. Dewang Mehta was the head of NASSCOM from 1991 to 2001. He is credited with a large portion of India's momentous rise as a software "giant."

To add flaveur to the achievement of the day, the GCC Biking club riders caught up with the GCC representatives in Mumbai as they continued on their expedition around India.

The awards came after a two day Asia Brand Congress sponsored by Times Now which saw CEO’S of some of the biggest corporate houses in the world coming together under the theme; “Communicating a Brand that Connects, Engages and Inspires.”

Among the companies present for the congress were Nokia, Reliance, Airtel, Zapak, Vodafone, Future Media, Deccan Chronicle, Godfrey Phillips India Limited, Yahoo, Satyam, Blue Dart, Godrej, TV18, and Virgin Mobile among others. All these companies came out with presentations on what makes a good brand. The various speakers stressed the fact that today all corporate houses should see their customers as the brand and leave the trend of putting a lot of efforts in Advertising and Brand building yet the customers’ needs are not met.

“It is never too late to capture a market if you find a better performing brand. It just has to be new, different and better. Being remembered is an advantage but the most important thing is what the brand is remembered for. Don’t advertise your brand values, live them,” quoted Prof. Nirmalya Kumar (London Business School).

During this congress it was emphasized that customers seek honesty from brands. Good brands connect with people even when not in the media. Take an example of Honda’s “Hate Something Change something-which shows the evils of using diesel.” Brands today should stand for things that people care about. The various brands should be committed to making people’s lives better.

Among the best speakers of the congress was Tapio Hedman, Sr. VP – Category Marketing Nokia. He took the delegates through the reasons behind the success of Nokia in the world. He said that Nokia has a genuine mission and vision of connecting people through human technology. Nokia also possesses a correct branding strategy with a successful execution. He encouraged the other brands to ensure that they have internal development through worker involvement. All brands should have a local voice “sisu” which means decisiveness, perseverance, courage and guts. The target audience of every brand should be everybody.

We would like to thank our beloved chairman Dr. Joseph V.G. for being focused on raising this institution to greater heights. We congratulate all the Gardenians upon getting yet another achievement. Kudos Garden City College.