Impactus: Case Study Competition by BITS Hyderabad

🔒 This resource is locked
Login to unlock the full case deck
Login to Unlock

1. About the Case Competition

Impactus ’25 is a case study competition hosted by Enactus BITS Pilani, one of India’s most respected student-run social entrepreneurship platforms. The case sits squarely in the social impact, clean energy, and rural market strategy domain, making it a standout entry in a competition known for purpose-driven problem-solving.

2. Problem Statement Overview

India faces a dual crisis at the intersection of agriculture and public health. With 41% of households relying on traditional biomass and 340 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted annually from biomass burning, the problem is both environmental and human, indoor air pollution causes 600,000 premature deaths yearly, and women in rural areas lose 2–4 hours daily collecting firewood. Despite Ujjwala Yojana, over 100 million rural homes still depend on solid fuels because LPG refills at ₹1,100 remain unaffordable for families earning under ₹8,000 a month. Simultaneously, over 65% of India’s 141 million tonnes of annual crop residue goes unutilised. Project Tejas reframes this waste as feedstock, converting sugarcane byproducts into clean-burning biomass briquettes through decentralised, community-operated micro-factories.

3. What This Winning Deck Covers

The deck opens with an unusually sharp problem framing, mapping health data, crop residue statistics, and behavioural inertia simultaneously before introducing the Tejas vision. The strategic landscape section applies SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces to the biomass briquette space, identifying buyer power and the threat of subsidised LPG as the most critical forces to neutralise. The “Root of Inertia” diagnosis, invisible health harms combined with a trust deficit- sets up the behavioural design strategy that follows and elevates this deck above standard social impact pitches.

The market penetration and adoption sections are where the deck earns its runner-up finish. The STP strategy segments rural users by income, geography, and use case; targets BPL households, government schools, and dhabas; and positions Tejas through emotionally resonant messaging. The pricing architecture is the deck’s most analytically rigorous moment: BPL households are sold briquettes at ₹2.5/kg at a ₹0.5 loss, institutions at ₹4.5/kg generate a ₹1.5 margin that cross-subsidises access. The stove bundling strategy, ₹200–₹300 locally manufactured units distributed via ITI partnerships, removes the adoption hardware barrier entirely. These bottom-of-pyramid pricing and rural GTM frameworks are explored in depth in Battleground – IIM Shillong.

The operational blueprint maps a five-stage briquette production process (drying, chipping, pressing, cooling, packaging) against a state-wise feedstock sourcing strategy, Telangana at 35%, Maharashtra at 30%, and UP at 25%, with above-market procurement rates offered to farmers to ensure supply chain participation. Last-mile distribution runs through SHG-run outlets, kirana store bundles, e-rickshaw networks, and village haats, building a genuinely asset-light logistics model. The growth strategy introduces a self-sustaining flywheel: local jobs build trust, trust drives repeat usage, health gains trigger word of mouth, and adoption scale reduces unit costs. Carbon credit monetisation at ₹1,200–₹1,500 per tonne adds a defensible external revenue stream. This kind of community-embedded operations and social impact delivery model is also central to the strategy in GNFC Neem Project – Profit With Purpose. The institutional leverage section maps alignment with PM Ujjwala Yojana 2.0, PM-KUSUM, Swachh Bharat Mission, and the National Bio-Energy Mission, demonstrating how government schemes can be integrated as distribution and legitimacy accelerators rather than dependencies. Similar policy-integration thinking for rural execution is also explored in Paramarsh 2.0 – IIM Raipur.

Key Takeaways:

• Cross-subsidy pricing across customer segments (BPL vs. institutions) is a replicable bottom-of-pyramid model that balances social access with financial viability
• Behavioural design- challenges, badges, SHG ambassadors, community stove events, converts awareness into durable habit change
• Carbon credit monetisation is positioned as a competitive moat, not just an ESG footnote
• Aligning with four existing government schemes dramatically de-risks adoption and unlocks distribution infrastructure
• The sustainability flywheel structure (jobs → trust → health → word of mouth → scale) is a transferable framework for any community-led social venture

Year 1 total revenue target is ₹80 lakhs, split across household sales (₹50 lakhs from 5,000 households at ₹2.5/kg), institutional sales (₹25 lakhs from 25 buyers), and carbon credits (₹5 lakhs from 1,000 tonnes CO₂ at ₹500/tonne). Total costs sit at ₹55–60 lakhs, yielding a net profit of ₹20 lakhs and a 25% profit margin. Year 1 impact targets include 500+ tonnes of agri-waste recycled, 1,000+ tonnes CO₂ equivalent saved, and 5,000+ households transitioned. The biomass briquette market is valued at $785 million, growing at 7.25% CAGR through 2030.

This deck is essential for students preparing for social impact, ESG, and rural strategy cases, particularly those targeting competitions hosted by Enactus chapters, development sector organisations, or CSR-linked competitions. MBA students working on bottom-of-pyramid business models will find the pricing architecture and behavioral design sections directly replicable. Undergraduates building sustainability-focused business plans will gain a strong template for community-led operations and government scheme integration. For more winning frameworks across social impact and ESG strategy, explore CaseBuzz, India’s leading case competition resource platform.

• Cityscape 2.0 – IIM Rohtak & Lucknow – Climate resilience and sustainability strategy with phased implementation; relevant for the long-horizon scalability roadmap of Project Tejas.
• GNFC Neem Project – Profit With Purpose – Triple bottom line and CSR-driven strategy with community impact; mirrors Tejas’ social value creation model.
• Paramarsh 2.0 – IIM Raipur – Public policy framework with rural India execution and KPI dashboard; strong complement for the government scheme integration layer of this deck.