How to write that Winning Case Study presentation...

4 months, 8 case study competitions, 4 finals and one win.

And my key learning “Facts and figures in an MBA life are much akin to Shahrukh doing the Lux commercial, great Face value but not exactly what you came for; all that really matters is an idea that borders on ingenuity and simplicity and truck-loads of hardwork”. I shall explain this final thesis of mine, with an elaborate hypothesis on what exactly is the fundamentals behind a case-study competition, why should you waste your time upon it and the most important of them all how can u actually write a winning case-study.

Fact No 1: If someone as Dumb(Dumb enough to share this secret with everyone) can do it ….. why can’t the guy/gal sitting next to me ?

Fact No 2: Case studies are nothing more than extra assignments ( I know you must be smiling after reading this fact; as if I am not over-burdened with enough). But consider this tiny case illustration :
During my past 4 months I have tried to analyze the average time spent on doing an assignment and believe me or not it doesn’t exceed half hour/day; and the rest of the day we end up procrastinating about the load upon our tiny shoulders (Wish I had a dilbert illustration to prove my point)
(Click to enlarge)
Fact No 3 : Case Studies are excellent pedagogy to learn, have fun, network and at the end also make some extra money.

Fact No 4 : The most obvious CV point (or) as most of us would refer it to a SPIKE in your resume.
Now if I have somehow instigated the curious nerve amongst you.. read on further

So what is the exact funda behind a case-study competition:-
Mr.Nikhil, managing director of CSS corp (a typical MBA) is luxuriating under the shade of his money-tree when suddenly, the occurs a serious administration issue and unfortunate for him he did not do ADMAP in India’s top ten B-schools and hence is at a fix to find a practical solution to his current scenario.
Immediately a light bulb shines and he plans to release this current problem of his as a live case-study to those hundreds of MBA students who are immersed in RIP-VAN-WINKLE case-studies. And just to prove his MBA degree he shall showcase this brain-storm to his boss as the “3B Approach“
Brains(getting access to virgin MBA student’s ideas)
Brand(increase the brand-image of CSS corp) and
Bucks (instead of spending a million dollars hiring a consultant they could do away with a few lakhs on sponsorship money)

So, we come to the next agenda of our discussion … how would you approach a case-study

First on the agenda, find someone who would do the case study for you (LOL .. jus kidding) but one of the really great things about case-studies is that you can really work with the brainiacs sitting next to you, rather than upon mundane assignments.

Next, approach an appropriate Staff and make sure you carry a hard-copy print-out of the case study ( of course, given the fact that paper could have been put to better uses such as the ubiquitous toilet paper). I have seriously, found amazing insights from my profs whenever I have begun working upon a case-study and this essentially provides you with the much needed focus plan. Professors, have the inherent advantage of having practical exposure and also a sharpened edge of exposing the true issue beneath the truck-loads of data and text in any case-study model.

Then comes the exciting work of brain-storming… typically, this is a true simulation of a corporate scenario albeit sans the conference rooms or free coffee. One piece of advice is to indulge in a bit of free-wheeling before you actually discuss core-aspects of the case study. For example, during a case study to develop a marketing model for Hindi Layout Keyboards, the entire case focused on needs of a Rural segment but during our free-wheeling exercise we were prompted to believe in a higher potential among Urban customers such as DTP, Government offices & Institutions, et all; you either come up with ground-breaking revolutions or that single-edged evolution.

Presentation, the next and the most important phase of your initial case study analysis. Naturally, this is also the most-time-consuming exercise, wherein you have to express your analysis within the boundaries of the guidelines. One real way to nailing your way to the finals is to understand the person who is going to evaluate your solution; he shall definitely be hard-pressed for time and would hardly have 5 mins to read a 10 page report for which you have spent around 4 hours. Be inspired by Comic Strips, keep them short, colorful, informative, picture-oriented and make sure you have a great Tagline.

Then keep your fingers crossed until the D-day announcement comes and you get selected with a Sleeper Class re-imbursement fare to present your concept at the Finals

Now here comes to tricky part, first thing that I learnt after the case study presentation for BMC’s Sanitation and Slum participation was that the judges are the essential Mr.Nikhil who have come to identify their much-sought-after solutions and unless you provide with a practically viable plan .. BEEP(wrong answer)
Here is how you can really showcase your solution:
1) Primary market survey : During our final presentation at IIT-Bombay for our paper presentation for IT for SMEs we actually got a SME and got a proper field report (Within a span of 2 days).
2) Understand the true Question : This was an essential learning we had in IIM-Bangalore when we were presenting our final presentation for John Deere (The Tractor company) and we found that though we had presented the judges with the three customer segments (or) product portfolios John Deere should target, we hadn’t covered much on the Marketing proposition, which was exactly what the judges were looking for. This is not as easy as it sounds, since the case study only mentioned the product portfolio.
3)Presentation skills matter : Get a couple of Hard-copies Xeroxed and put them in front of the judges (esp. if u have any diagrammatic representations or hard-core technical graphs) and as the old-thumb rule presentability would be the most important factor for marking.

Last but not the least, go with my metrics …. 8:4:1 ( I am sure you can definely beat that)

Barcamp 2 : Un-conferance Un-limited

Where would you find :
* A 22 year old who has 5 startups to his credit...
* Truck-loads of Start-ups such as Aggregatorz.com,Novix,realAcres.com
* CXOs of companies such as iXiGO.com, Creative Commons
* Have a cup of coffee with the Business Heads of SUN and IBM
* Angel-Funder's such as Mahesh Murthy giving an introduction on what they look in a company before investing
* Junta talking about their crazy ideas and how they won an Apple IPOD cause of it.
* Sessions on Jumpstarting your startup.

everything in only one place ... the Mumbai Barcamp2 recently held at IIT-Bombay.

If you are those kinds who say "what the hell is BARCAMP" ... refer to the site Barcamp before you read ahead

Myself and my friend had gone over there to research for our topic upon ISVs and the SME sector (in the IT industry of course) and i must say that we were as surprised as Ali-baba after he mumbled "open sesame".

Not only did we get to have a lively discussion with Mr Bakshish Dutta,the marketing manager for SUN's start-up essential program(the event sponsorers too) how they could forge across newer contacts with startups and ISV(Independent Software Vendors) who would later on decide on a required collaboration with SUN; but also came across many IT employees who were looking forward for such conferances to get a feel of the latest technologies and in the end also decide if they want to join any of the startups.

So how is everything in this un-conferance as it is named ORGANIZED ??

The moment you enter into the halls (there are 4 concurrent sessions happening) and you shall be greeted with this Board, riddled with Stick-ons announcing the speaker and his topic...

if you like it you go ahead and involve yourself in the brain-storming else you simply go ahead to the adjoining parralel session.


Also, this open format means that if you have an idea and want to thrash it out.. then go ahead take out a Stick-on and write your name and idea and utilize one of those free spaces(if any)
For those who believe in out-doors we also have a coffee table, wherin people just hang around (in a circular fashion) each holding a cup of coffee and a brilliant idea in their brain and voila you have a great conversation.

A few things i really loved : The totally informal methodology of brain-storming, there is absolutely no issue of patents or information rights which are discussed. Everyone comes with an open problem or idea and others simply add on their suggestions and opinions.

A few things i think can be improved : The entire conferance was essentially IT based; given the fact that most of the start-ups are web-related and the entire show was over-whelmed by 200 IT junkies looking for the next happening thing.. there wasn't even a glimpse of other fields.

So the next time, some one says "BARCAMP" do not raise your glasses and says cheers but rather put on your thinking hats and hop on to this discovery channel.

Other links :
http://startupcentral.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/barcamp-mumbai-2/
http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/15234644/More-on-entrepreneurship-less.html
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2

WHY GO TO B-School

Came across this interesting read after being forwarded by a friend.

WHY B-SCHOOL

This is more of those initial questions which arise across the minds of every potential MBAs, or people (as in the case of the author himself) who are currently fed up with their current profile and need a booster in terms of Learning curve.