SCMHRD Pune Team Lifts The Trophy Of Marico Over The Wall Season 9; Wins INR 5 Lakh and Direct Placement Interview

“The joy of winning our first major corporate competition was unparalleled. Throughout our MBA Journey, we as a team had a single goal and that was to make it big in at least one major competition like Marico Over The Wall. 

When the results were announced in the Grand Finale of Marico Over The Wall Season 9 that too in front of Harsh Mariwala Sir, we realized that we had finally achieved what we had set out for. It was a dream come true moment for all of us.” - This is what the National winners of Marico Over The Wall Season 9 said after winning the competition! 

Keep reading to find out more about their journey.

Marico Over The Wall Season 9: A brief

Over The Wall Season 9 provided students with a chance to think like a business leader and propose disruptive ideas to the organization. Through this challenge, students got an opportunity to unlock & explore new engines of growth for Marico by focusing on any of the three key pivots: 

• Innovation
• Diversification
• Scaling up of digital-first brands

The students came up with a proposal and made a pitch to senior leaders.

“We had to suggest a new product idea for Marico to venture into”

Sharing their preparation strategy, Team Buddhiman said, “We took it upon ourselves as a challenge to crack some of the biggest case studies that major corporates had to offer like Marico. Every corporate company sets out challenging case studies for business students so that they can utilize what they have learned in their MBA and solve some of the real-world challenges that corporates face.”

The team continued, “For us, it was all about challenging ourselves to solve what Marico had in store. We went through their case study and really liked the case wherein we had to suggest a new product idea for Marico to venture into so that they can increase their footprint and that led us to participate in this competition.”

“The most challenging part was the initial round”

Talking about the challenges they faced during Marico Over The Wall Season 9, the team members quoted, “Because of the pandemic, we had to prepare by coming online in a virtual setup through Google Meets or Zoom Calls. We took one step at a time and broke down the problem into several smaller steps. We also divided the work amongst ourselves so that we could leverage what we were good at. We worked on the problem almost daily by coming into virtual meetings and brainstorming for at least an hour.”

They added, “The most challenging phase in this competition we would say would be the initial round where we had to prepare a 2-pager document proposing our product idea in a brief and creative way. This required us to think a lot on our feet, to sum up our idea in a crisp way. We also had to reject a lot of ideas before finalizing one.

The 3 biggest challenges we would say were -

1. Virtual Setup - Being on a virtual setup has its own challenges. Even though we got used to it after a lot of case studies, it still did pose a lot of challenges in terms of collaborating, brainstorming, and finalizing the idea as well as the presentation.
   
   
2. Conflict in Ideas - Every case study allowed us to creatively think and come up with a lot of ideas. However, that also initiated hot debates and led to a lot of conflicts. To come up and finalize one single solution, required us to reject a lot of good ideas and that led to a lot of intense discussions amongst the three of us.
   
   
3. Fatigue - Having participated in a lot of case studies prior to Marico OTW, all three of us were mentally drained and fatigue did catch up to us. However, we did not want to let a major competition like Marico OTW go away. We all wanted to give our best no matter what and as a result, motivated each other daily to help each other out. We took breaks in between and played an online shooting multiplayer game to help us relax and chill out during our sessions.

“Getting a chance to pitch our final PPT in front of Harsh Mariwala was a very special moment”

Getting a chance to pitch our final PPT in front of Harsh Mariwala sir himself at the Grand Finale was a very special moment for all of us. He not only made us comfortable while we were pitching but also gave us valuable feedback and suggestions for us to improve upon.

During our entire journey of Marico Over The Wall Season 9, we garnered numerous learnings. The major learnings were -

1. Thought Process - Solving case studies helped us to creatively think every time and that led us to build a unique thought process every time we participated in a competition. We realized that we could come up with solutions faster every time.
   
   
2. Team Building and Problem Solving Skills - Our team coordination and problem-solving skills greatly improved once we got hold of an idea and worked upon it.
   
   
3. Time Management - We learned to effectively manage time and complete the necessary tasks on time without any compromise or delay.

To sum up, Marico's Leadership team was fair and to the point in giving us valuable feedback throughout the competition. There were numerous learnings throughout the competition and we really enjoyed the whole process. Our mentors during the final round also gave us very insightful updates and insights which really helped us in the Marico Over The Wall Season 9 Grand Finale. The whole process was a very smooth affair.

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