Shikhin Garg of MDI and Rishabh Singh of IIM Kozhikode break down the requirements to crack cases. Both Shikhin and Rishabh have won and have been finalists for case competitions held at B-Schools. Both are first year students who have been through a singular year of case cracking and their advice is limited to the experiences of first year.
The article has been approached as an FAQ. It deals with the questions surrounding cracking cases but not the content of the case solutions. That is left for another article.
Q. Why I do need to win case competitions?
A. How does having an internship offer without ever having made a CV sound to you? Secondly, how does having an offer without sitting in the brutal placement process sound to you?
You can get placed well before the batch and then sip your beverage of choice while others go bonkers with the placement processes. Case competitions are a test of managerial aptitude and cracking one adds value to your CV as well. It is a stamp of approval saying that you are competent at live business cases.
I don’t think I need to elaborate further.
Q. What are the case competitions that I have a shot at?
A myriad of cases are going to come your way in the first year. Some of them are:
Tentative list of cases
(Credits to Mehul Kothari for the base list)
Q. What is the gold standard(legendary) of case cracking? (one must know this before they proceed)
In an IIM unknown, there was a legendary placecommer years ago. He had 7 nationals(when I say national I mean finalist or winner) & 4 campuses (similar for this) This is a very good tally. And can be aimed for. People at the top of the food chain have multiple wins and finals.
Q. What sets me apart without being legendary?
2+ National wins and your CV will be a cut above the rest. A few campus wins is also good. But by the end of 2nd year, it wont matter as much. (60-70 people would also sport the same on their CV)
Q. How do I choose my cases?
You will not have time to do all the cases and do justice to them. If you want to win. Choose one and slaughter the case. Give yourself ample time to rest between consecutive cases as a good case solution will drain you out. The two main parameters are:
Value of case :
This has individual interpretations. But the parameters of gauging this can be :
1. Does this give me a PPI?
2. Does this give me a PPO?
(When having the above two incentives, try giving weightage to the company’s domain also. If it is one of your dream companies, try putting the extra effort and carving out time even if you are drained out or packed with other tasks. Even if you fail to land a PPO/PPI, a decent performance would catch the company recruiters’ eyes when they come on campus)
3. Does this give me money? (This is not important initially, but prizes range from 10k to 5 lac)
4. Does the company name add value? (Example: Mahindra War-room > Case from a relatively unknown company)
5. Does this make me feel proud? (A non tangible parameter, varies for everyone)
6. Does this send me abroad/different city for the finals?
General order could be PPO, PPI, Company name, considering the Covid-induced recession that is playing on every MBA student’s mind.
Competition Level of case:
My definition is limited to the campus level of competition. As in the nationals, you are better off focusing on your solution than your chances.
Unlike the common parlance, competition level is dynamic. It depends on the situation within the college.
Parameters would be:
1. Is it 1st year exclusive? (Without 2nd years in the mix, you can knock it out of the park)
2. Is there an exam or place-comm session or anything important on the final submission date? (If yes, then people are not going to participate; take a call and submit a half decent presentation and you may get a win)
3. Does it have a campus round or a national round directly? (National round means that you are competing with everyone outside your campus)
4. No of slides – Anything higher than 7 takes considerable effort to make.
5. Skill required – Hardcore financial cases will not have many takers. Same can be said for niche cases that require you to build dashboards, do data analytics etc.
6. Category of colleges for which the competition is open – Most companies will have different tracks for engineering colleges and business schools under the same competition name. However, some would combine engineering and business students in the same pool, in which case it helps to have relevant technical skills and an engineering background in the team e.g. KPMG Ideation Challenge.
This is diagram is something similar to what you will need in case solving. Graphically representing concepts.
Q. How do I choose my team?
The most crucial aspect of the cases. THIS IS PARAMOUNT to winning.
The two main parameters:
1. Teamwork – How much you trust, know and gel well together. This non tangible aspect is the most important. I cannot emphasize on how important it is. If this is not there. You can kiss your case wins goodbye. This is harder to get and build than skillsets. And I see people struggling to understand what teamwork really is. Let me try to break it down.
Trust – Can I call this person at 2am in the night and ask him to make 1 slide and be sure that he will do a stellar job?
Know – When I look at a possible solution for a case, do I know and agree that this member is best suited to do this and I trust him blindly to come up with a great solution?
Commitment – Do I genuinely believe that this case is the priority of this person. Will he skip a class for it? Will he take the plunge if it results in an exam going bad?
2. Skillset
Powerpoint master – Can churn out very good slides quickly (but others must also develop up this to reduce load)
Research master – Knows exactly which McK paper has what I’m looking for. Knows the library facilities. Knows Euromonitor and is considerably experienced with Google search and understands the algorithm to get the right answers.
Basic data/finance literacy – As the name suggests, who can do sufficient analysis to churn out a believable and comprehensive financial plan for the solution. Most companies ask for a financial analysis. After all, they are going to put your solution to implementation with their own money ?. But make sure the person can be equally helpful with one of the previous two tasks.
These are the most basic requirements.
Some other good to haves but not necessary are:
The graphics and video guy, many cases ask for a video submission
Work ex guy-. Also, without meaning any discredit to the freshers, keep an eye out for people with work experience relevant to the case, as potential teammates. They would hold some capabilities to think from the judge’s perspective.
3. Mindset
You do not want cynics on your teams. You rather have 3 dreamers and 1 cynic than 3 cynics and 1 dreamer.
When I suggest that “maybe we should send people to Mars” as a case solution.
You don’t want the guy who says “Pagal hai kya. Kitne constraint hai.. Paise kaise aayenge?”
You want the guy who says “Okay. Space is good but why did he say space? Can we get the same solution or HOW CAN WE DO IT CHEAPLY?”
You want people who build ideas and make solutions. Not provide roadblock
Also 1 cynic is necessary to keep the solution grounded.
REMEMBER, SKILLS can be developed in a month or two. MINDSET can’t be changed.
A brief profile of Shikhin (co-author):
Shikhin is a first-year student at MDI Gurgaon. Prior to his MBA, Shikhin has nearly 2 years of experience with PSUs and manufacturing firms. He is an engineering and sciences graduate from BITS Pilani, and holds keen interest in academic research and quizzing. Shikhin solves case competitions in his spare time and has performed well in multiple competitions:
1. National Semi-Finalist KPMG Ideation Challenge 2020
2. Campus Runner-up at ABG Stratos 2019
3. Campus Finalist at TATA Steel-a-thon 2019
4. National Finalist at NIVEA’s The Next Gen Leader at XLRI
Shikhin’s co-author Rishabh Singh is from IIM Kozhikode. He met Shikhin whilst preparing for B-School interviews in the same coaching. Rishabh has a year of experience with KPMG in Risk Consulting. He is also a member of the InsideIIM team. He has the following case competitions under his belt.
1. Global Semi-Finalist, SCBFLC 2019 (only Indian Team)
2. National Winner, ACTapult 2019
3. National Finalist, UBER Transit Station 2019
4. Campus Finalist, Bajaj OffRoad 2019
5. Global Rank 10, Telco by Swisscom