Team Hashtag, comprising IIM Shillong PGP 2017 participants Aakash Saxena, Jyotisman Sharma, and Anurag Sugandhi, were declared the runners-up for the Amazon Ace case study competition. We asked Jyotisman to share his experience of how the team cracked the code.
Nervousness, excitement, and, confusion. That was exactly what was going through our minds during those six days of solving the case. Going through endless research articles, playing with data, and using lots of caffeine as input, we were searching for that eureka idea but had no idea how to get there. Soon we realised that it’s not the idea but the approach towards the solution, the in-depth analysis and the feasibility is what brings the ‘eureka-ness’ in your idea.
The approach was not to directly go into a solution for the given problem, rather to try and analyse all the factors that lead to the problem and then work on both proactive and reactive measures that can be taken to tackle it. We mostly used machine learning and Six Sigma tools to solve the case. It is important to validate every logical point with data. Whenever we made a statement, we made sure to quote a research paper in that context to put weight into our statement.
Talking about the experience, there was a moment when my brain froze right before the submission deadline. We felt so helpless that I almost gave up. I remember my teammate Akash pushing us to keep it together and focus for just the next 20 minutes until the submission. The secret sauce was completed when at the final moment my other teammate Sugandhi showed off his MS Excel prowess, churning out data at astonishing speeds.
On the day of the presentation, we knew that confidence was going to be the key. Presenting in front of judges on national TV was a turning point for me. I don’t know where all my stage fright vanished. Maybe because we had worked so hard for it that we felt powerful, confident and proud. We delivered our solution with a conviction that it was the best one possible, which gave us an edge while tackling the questions put forward by the judges.
When the results were being announced, my heart was in my mouth. There was a point where I even thought of slipping behind the hoarding for a speedy exit! When the judges called out our team’s name, I stood in utter disbelief. We had worked so hard, we were so confident, and yet we couldn’t believe it when the results were announced.
Looking back, participating in Amazon Ace gave us a huge opportunity to learn by allowing us to work on a real industry problem that required us to use all the concepts learned in class and pushed us to go beyond. The experience of connecting with participants from across the country and Amazon’s business leaders will be one that will stay with us for life.