Secondly, take genuinely interested candidates in your team who can devote efforts and time.
Lastly, make sure to conform to the constraints on PPO holding members and student exchange members in the team for the competition.
2. Selecting the Case Competition
The strategy, in my opinion, to participate in case competitions should be based on what is the domain of the challenge, which firm is organizing it, how many slides/video submission is required at different stages, what is the prize money/ PPI offerings on clearing different rounds, how many teams are going to be shortlisted at campus / national level, etc.
These factors become important because there are numerous case competitions that will come your way and it may not be possible to attempt all of them. Clearly, you would want to put your efforts into the ones where your interests lie and where the chances of success are high.
A few good ones that you can look forward to attempting are Amazon Ace, RB Global Challenge, Mahindra War Room, HUL LIME, etc. Refer to the detailed case competition timeline here.
3. Analyzing and Solving the Case
It is important to understand the problem at hand before jumping into solutions. Usually, primary research (especially for marketing case challenges), secondary research ( news articles, data points from market research), customer journey and value chain analysis are good ways to identify gaps and insights.
You can leverage the institute database resources like Euromonitor, Marketline, Bloomberg, etc. These databases provide comprehensive data analysis, business information, forecasts and insights on a wide array of global markets. Also reports from various consulting firms like BCG, McKinsey PWC, EY would come handy if you happen to find them over the internet.
This will be followed by your big idea. You can suggest 2-3 ideas at the starting phase of the case competition. In the later rounds, you may want to focus on one or two big ideas. The idea should be practical and you should chart out an in-depth implementation strategy.
You can end with evaluating your idea on parameters like customer wow, differentiation, economic viability, scalability, feasibility, reliability, and list down possible challenges and mitigation plans. Many case competitions also expect you to come up with a possible cost-benefit analysis and cash flow projections for the idea. A few case competitions ( especially the operations cases) give you data set and you need to perform analytics in excel to come up with possible solutions.
4. Preparing Case Presentation
How you present your ideas into a coherent and convincing story is also very important. Refer to the article on Storylining and Elevator Pitches for detailed outlines.
Ensure that you are answering all the questions that are being asked in the problem statement. It is a good practice to put a reference to the secondary research sources that you have included in your presentation. Use fonts, colors, tables and format consistent throughout the presentation.
During the presentation, draft your content and practice presenting it confidently in the stipulated time. Anticipate possible questions that can come in the minds of the jury and be prepared to justify your assumptions and research.
5. Understanding the Advantage
Winning Corporate Case Competitions are a big plus on your CV and many firms shortlist students based on their performance in case competitions. Hence, do not get disappointed if you are not able to crack the first few. Instead, try to connect with seniors who have done well in case competitions and see what was their strategy. In a B-school setting, you will get plenty of opportunities to prove your mettle in case competitions if you do not give up and keep learning with each case you take part in. Wish you all the best in your journey of cracking the case competitions!
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