How to win Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge | With Mahak, Santosh, Rahul and Ritika from IIM Ahmedabad

In times of stress, when the world is fighting a pandemic, it is crucial to see a ray of hope, one that keeps your faith alive. Knowledge, as we know, is the only thing that we can cling on to, that will guide us to our destination. So as an endeavour to ignite the spirit of competitiveness, in this episode of Winning Mantra let’s become acquainted with Rahul Sharma, Santosh Saladi, Ritika Jain and Mahak Tiwari from IIM Ahmedabad, the winners of Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge 2019.

Amazon ACE Challenge, a competition that allows students to exercise lateral thinking, and evaluate challenging case studies. By putting the participants on a clock, the challenge aims to test their ability to deliver under pressure in a real-life work situation. 

Down to the last detail

Held across two of Amazon’s business areas - Operations and Consumer Business, the 9th edition of Amazon ACE Challenge was split into three rounds:

• Preliminary Round
• The ACE Case Breakers
• Finale - Innovation Challenge Round

The Preliminary round primarily focused on analytical skills which had a number of questions. The best part of solving those problems was that there were multiple correct answers and panelists focused on whether we were able to get all of the answers or not. The following round consisted of a hands-on case based on the running business of Amazon. It was a one-pager case related to academics which we all dealt with easily. But the Finale was pretty much intriguing as it was based on their realistic business but had a futuristic perspective with a motive of scaling it up. 

The jury consisted of 6-7 panelists including the CFO - Amazon, CHRO, and Head - Cloud Computing, Amazon among others. They judged the teams not only on the basis of technology but on their entire skills from their perspective of leadership principles. 

Come hell or high water we needed to beat the challenges

Setting the ball rolling, they gave us close to a week’s time to work out the solution to the first round. The major challenge was to break down the problem and comprehend it to a micro-level. Moreover, the case study was not just catered to one aspect of the business, it touch-based every aspect from conceptualization to implementation whether it was marketing or planning on logistics. So, as a golden rule, we initiated our task by spending around two days in brainstorming and that is where challenges started to pop-up.  

So to delve deeper into a case, we perceived it as running a business. We got down to the brass-tacks of the business-cum-case by leveraging our unique strengths to breakdown a macro-level problem to a micro one. It can be seen as a bottom-up approach, where we gave importance to the existing data available online. This resulted in building a completely data-backed up implementable hypothesis, which earned us a great deal of praise from the panel.

Lond story short, before solving any case, get into the shoes of the company’s business and understand its DNA. It is not necessary to develop an entirely new strategy or solution but it can be about harnessing the potential of an already established system. 

Diversity: Garnering a great range of talent

Team, a small four-letter word but able to do wonders when functioned in the best way possible. One of our learnings as a team was the importance of diversity, the way we synchronized and fitted together like puzzle pieces. Santosh had a strong foothold in finance and understood how lending-selling would work efficiently in MSMEs, Rahul was a master strategist with a perfect grasp of consumer behaviour study, Ritika had expertise in consumer and marketing research and Mehak utilised her journey of working with small business set-ups. 

Another factor that contributed to our success was personal skills. For instance, Santosh had his charms in networking with people for collecting relevant information, Ritika’s presentation skills enabled us to put forth our solutions in the most compact manner possible, and apart from strategic skills of Rahul’s, his patience and ability to make people understand his point helped us tons. 

Be dynamic and half the battle is won

In this battle of 10 teams, there were many moments that came to us as a surprise. Being 7th on the tally for presenting our solution, we saw a number of teams with solid market research that definitely raised the bar of competition.

Till the last moment, even in our flight, we thought of improvising our slides. Not only this, in spite of having a rehearsed and a well-structured format ready for the presentation, we also added a surprising element to our presentation just 15-20 minutes before the start of the event.

All in all, we had our work cut out managing academics and the competition. Adding on to it, we had our final exams lined up that gave us an adrenaline rush for sure. Out of that one week for preparing our solution, the first three days were not much aligned. This is where the team did not back off and grilled more into thinking of an implementable solution. So, there will be intense discussions, but keeping a mutual trust is a must. This way the team finally aligns on one idea and fully dives into the ecosystem of the business model.

Step-up, take up the gauntlet

B-School or corporate competitions not only greases the thought-process but also offers you,

• A platform to test your learnings and deal with the real world
• Courage to explore your hidden skills 
• Interactions with the other students and the leadership
• The capability of coming up with a concrete solution 
• A practical approach and a stimulating environment

So, be wise and pick-up competitions that align your interests. And once you participate, dig deep into their thinking and functioning. By being a part of such competitions you will definitely notch-up your skills and stay ahead of the pack.

Good luck to all those who are participating in the next edition of Amazon ACE Challenge!

Register for the live launch event for Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) Challenge 2020 here.