Invaluable Insights From J&J Quest Season 10 Winners- Team NITIE

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Johnson & Johnson is a leading American multinational corporation that has been keeping people at every age and every stage, healthy for more than 130 years. The healthcare giant recently launched J&J Quest Season 10, a live business case competition to bring students from top B-Schools in India together and expose them to unique business problems faced by J&J. The competition was a huge success with Team Muggle 2.0 from NITIE Mumbai walking away with the winning title. Let’s hear what they have to say about the competition. 

J&J Quest is an amazing competition and as soon as we heard that it's coming back for Season 10 this year, we banded together to form Team Muggles 2.0. Our team comprised Harsha Dapkawala, Samruddhi Gandhi, and Dinesh Bauskar. The name of our team is Muggles 2.0, which is short for "those who don't know magic." Despite not knowing how to use magic, we muggle always manage to produce magical results by working hard for our goals. And this time we bagged the national winner title for the competition.

J&J Quest Season 10 Structure

The competition was a live business case competition that offered all participants the opportunity to study real business problems, then brainstorm and present fresh perspectives to solve these as best as one could. There were four different business cases open to premier B-Schools, industry-wise. They were:

1. Supply Chain - for NITIE Mumbai, SJMSOM IIT Bombay, SPJIMR Mumbai, SIOM Nashik, XLRI Jamshedpur
2. Medical Devices - for FMS Delhi, SPJIMR Mumbai, XLRI Jamshedpur
3. Consumer Health - for IIM Indore, MDI Gurgaon, IIFT Delhi, NMIMS Mumbai
4. Janssen - for IIM Kozhikode, Goa Institute of Management

We are all from NITIE Mumbai and were eligible for the Supply Chain case. Immediately following the case launch, we got to work on the provided problem description. There were five rounds in the competition:

Round 1- Project Pitch Submission

Round 2- Quarter Finale

Round 3- Mentorship Phase

Round 4- Semi Finale

Round 5- Grand Finale

We comprehended the deliverables in the launch lecture and used that understanding to develop our solution. 

Our Competition Strategy

Our approach was compiling leaders' voices, concerns, industry best practices, and systemic constraints before formulating a workable solution. We faced challenges in compiling all the data from our in-depth primary and secondary research and creating a reasonable and workable solution. But in the end, we managed to gather all the info and streamlined it for use. The practice taught us a lot about how to conduct research and use it on your journey to finding a viable solution. 

Our team was comprised of individuals without any IT experience. And in order to handle the analytics portion of the problem statement, we needed to construct a Python forecasting module. Even though it took us weeks of effort to get the code to run and provide results we did not let up. Naturally, when we finally handled the problem, it was a happy moment for all of us.

Also read- Challenge Yourself With These B-school Competitions

J&J Mentors Provided Invaluable Coaching

Two distinctive features of J&J Quest were the competition's length and the mentorship we received from Johnson & Johnson leaders the entire time. The panel had a variety of J&J leaders from various divisions. They attentively analyzed our responses and asked pertinent questions that compelled us to think more deeply and improve our solution.

We had more than four months to create the solution that we had to present at the national final after being selected as the campus winner. Throughout this time, we received coaching from the esteemed panel, and we also forged connections with people who helped us discover a better solution. As a result, it never felt like a traditional case study competition. It was a one-of-its-kind experience that felt more like a fantastic learning opportunity where we learned about J&J and the FMCG sector than a plain competition. 

Lessons we Learned

The primary lesson we learned through this brilliant journey was the significance of creating a practical, inexpensive solution that can be implemented in a short amount of time. Another learning we gathered was the importance of understanding current ground reality, different technologies, risk management strategies, and mitigation measures. These were the critical dimensions that helped us to grab the national winner title.

The three of us also learned a lot about teamwork from this competition. Although working with others has its own set of difficulties, we realized that the advantages far outweigh them. We came to the conclusion that any disagreements should be handled professionally and that nobody should take offense. As a result, we openly discussed and resolved whatever differences we had.

Also read- Case Study Competitions- Details, Winning Strategies, And More!

The Final Word

Following the mentorship round, four teams advanced to the finals. Every team's solutions were commendable. But out of everyone, we found Team Footloose from IIFT to be our toughest rival. Their presentation format and product design caught the judges' and participants' attention.

But what led us to victory was that everyone on our team was skilled in a separate area and we took full advantage of this team diversity. Dinesh for example excelled in networking and gathering opinions from the business world whereas Harsh was proficient in presentation design and structuring of solutions. Additionally, Samruddhi did a job of organizing the presentation flow throughout the finals. 

J&J Quest Season 10 was a brilliant experience that we will cherish for years to come. A final word for those participating in such competitions is to power through the challenges and harness all the skills of your team members to the optimum level.

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