Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge 2021 - Know it all!

Amazon India recently concluded its 11th edition of the Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge that spanned for a month from 2nd August to 10th September 2021. This competition was aimed at giving the first and second-year students pursuing a full-time MBA program from any of the mentioned institutes a chance to innovate, strategize and come up with significant solutions for Amazon, and put their skills to a quintessential test.

The live launch event was conducted at Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete)platform and had eminent Amazon leaders including Aparna Purohit (Head of India Originals, Amazon Prime Video India), Siddharth Nambiar (Director Category Management, Amazon India), Puneesh Kumar (Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India), and other strong personalities demystifying Amazon's peculiar marketing ways and sharing about its secret recipe. Students got to learn how the diversity of ideas assisted Amazon with building adaptable answers for its assorted clients and also received tips and techniques on winning the Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge 2021.

This article is an attempt to share some insights into what went behind this year’s ACE challenge and why you should participate in the next one. We hope this will help you prepare better for the next ACE competition and other similar challenges!

What is Amazon Customer Excellence challenge?

ACE Challenge is a competition that allows students to exercise lateral thinking and logical abilities by evaluating challenging case studies. The challenge is about testing the participants' ability to deliver under pressure in a real-life work situation within a limited timeframe. This year's challenge saw a whopping 15,224 registrations for the event.The 11th edition of Amazon ACE Challenge was split into four rounds:

Demo quiz round

It was for students to get familiar with the platform. This wasn't an eliminator round. 

Preliminary round

Each team member was to take a 45 minutes quiz individually and these individual scores were then averaged to determine the final team score. The top 10 teams from 12 campuses each and the top 10 teams from the wildcard campuses were then shortlisted for the second, that is, the Campus Round.

The top teams who made it through the preliminary round got a chance to attend the Writing at Amazon session wherein they learned how to submit a two-page Word document of the solution, the Amazon way! A mentorship program was conducted through which top-performing teams were guided by senior Amazon leaders and case writers to help them ace the case study document. Mentors provided guidance and support to participants during the course of the competition.

Campus round: Case submission

The top 10 teams per campus then competed to be the best team for each one of the 12 qualified campuses and the top 10 teams competed to be the best team from the wildcard campuses. In this round, the teams presented their two-page solution document to the judging panel, which comprised of Senior Amazon Leaders and distinguished alumni.

Grand finale: Case submission

The 13 National Finalists then faced off each other in the virtual Grand Finale and presented their solutions to an illustrious jury of Senior Amazon Leaders. An award ceremony wherein the Winners, First Runners-Up and Second Runners-Up received cash prizes worth INR 2 lakhs, INR 1,50,000, and INR 50,000 respectively, along with pre-placement interviews (PPIs), and Amazon Alexa products/devices. 

The team 'Gold Diggers' from IIM Lucknow won the 11th edition of the Amazon ACE Challenge (2021). The winning team was spearheaded by Ankita Goomer and had other three brilliant members, namely, Aditya Jain, Rishabh Goel, and Udhav Khanna. The second position was bagged by the team DIRK from the Indian School of Business led by Aryan Mittal and had Dhruv Dua, Charu Bhardwaj, and Apoorv Gupta as the other team members. The team SNCS from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, got away with the third prize.

Why should you participate in Amazon Customer Excellence?

There are many reasons why you should participate in Amazon Customer Excellence. Here are just a few of them:

• To build confidence in yourself and gain exposure to new technologies and processes.
• Learn more about the business side of eCommerce.
• Gain valuable insight into the challenges faced by Amazon sellers globally.
• Get ready for the future of retailing.
• Winning The Amazon Customer Excellence will help you kick your career up a notch.

It is not only about getting recognition but having won the Amazon Customer Excellence will give you a competitive edge when applying for jobs after graduation. Companies look for candidates who have participated in competitions like this because they know that those individuals possess certain traits that make them stand apart from others.

A big congratulations to the winning teams!

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