How to win Flipkart Wired 2019 Campus Case Challenge 3.0? -By team Coffee House from IIM Bangalore

In the battle of creativity and research, let's discover how the team Coffee House earned the tag of the winners of Flipkart Wired 2019 Campus Case Challenge 3.0.

The challenge of the Business case was to suggest whether the Super App strategy is good for Flipkart or not and to suggest how Flipkart can acquire more customers by adding new features. 

Our two-fold strategy

First, to come out with the problems customers are facing with Flipkart and which among them Flipkart did not solve until then. We demonstrated these aspects by use cases (depicting customer persona). All these insights were obtained through primary research. The second was to suggest some features which Flipkart management might not think of or express publicly. All in all, we aimed at solving customer problems/demands that were hardly served. Here, we studied such apps globally and came up with creativity. We also kept in mind the feasibility of the idea and the synergy of the same with the operation of Flipkart. Therefore, we proposed some features to the Flipkart app that could be implemented without much trouble. 

Humble judges and good mentors

The judges were highly experienced and knowledgeable yet very humble. They carefully listened and gave everyone honest feedback, pointing out flaws in the solutions. They also showed appreciation wherever they felt the need to.  

On top of that, our interaction with Flipkart Mentor who was in charge of a Category there is one of the most memorable moments. He suggested us to change the sequences of slides in our PPT and gave the rationale behind that as well. We had some wrong perceptions about the presentation which he corrected from a management angle to grab the attention of the audience. No doubt, it was a learning for life. He also taught us how to depict better use cases. We later used those learning in other case-studies too.

Teamwork matters!

Our team's USP was compatibility. We complemented each other by covering their weaknesses with our strengths. We knew that anyone of us can't win alone but together could challenge any team. Anusmita is awesome in PPT making as well as its presentation, creativity and out of the box thinking. Soham is one of the best orators besides being very efficient in analyzing the cases as well as drawing inferences from primary research, depicting use cases. Soumyajit is good at structured thinking, finding root-cause and doing financials. We could argue with one another for a better solution but at the same time, we would converge to a specific solution as per the need of the hour. We all took case-competitions as a learning platform and tried to understand the viewpoint of others while debating. After allotting tasks, we used to give each other complete freedom to execute it in his/her own way.

The valuable learnings

As we emerged as the winners, we understood the following things from the Flipkart Wired 2019 Campus Case Challenge 3.0:

• The solution should be feasible

• It should be in line with company vision-mission

• Primary researches are very essential to solve such cases

• It is not only about work but how to present it in a good way is equally crucial