How to win Google Case Challenge 2019? -By Team Droid from NMIMS

The 2019 edition of Google Case Challenge featured case problems on hardware sales, digital marketing, and product growth and user experience. Our team had chosen the hardware sales case problem which aimed to develop smart homes as a category in India.

The thorough strategy 

We worked on our solution for close to two months and throughout that period, our team’s strategy was to understand the nature, size, and behavior of the addressable market, and basis that, build a feasible and scalable solution that aligned with Google’s overall vision.

For a successful implementation of this strategy, we had to perform rigorous primary research, demonstrate clarity in thought process, develop a detailed phase-wise plan of action, and show the return on investment through an increase in sales and market share. We also had to work on how we could effectively communicate our proposal to the jury and be able to tell a story through our presentation. Hence, we introduced characters in our script and built a story around how our solution would address the problems faced by these characters. However, we faced a number of challenges on our journey.

Thought-provoking challenges

The primary challenge was gathering insights from existing and proposed channel partners, especially because the research was not just restricted to Google’s own smart home products, but the entire category itself, which included everything from smart vacuum cleaners to televisions to refrigerators and so on.

We also faced a challenge in differentiating Google’s Smart Home products, which we overcame by leveraging continuous and seamless interaction with other Google platforms and creating a video that demonstrated its differentiated positioning.

The journey of Google Case Challenge 2019

The competition was organized in three phases, a campus round, a zonal round and the national finale. The competition was well structured and the organizing team was particularly flexible. The West zone finals had to be rescheduled due to incessant rains that had brought the venue city of Mumbai to a standstill. The organizing team was accommodating in rescheduling the zonal round according to the convenience of participating teams, respecting all of their prior commitments.

The Finale was held at Google’s Hyderabad office and featured a total of nine teams across three case studies. All teams represented top B-Schools in the country and we found them to be well rounded and tough to beat. It would be difficult to pick the toughest competitor since the competition was top notch and every team had presented an innovative solution. The jury for all rounds comprised eminent leaders from Google who headed functions that related to the given case studies. The Q&A and feedback gave us tremendous insights into what leaders at the world’s top firm expect in terms of details, quality, and precision.

Our favorite part of the competition was the allocation of mentors to finalists teams. Our mentor, Mr. Anand Devsharma, gave us valuable feedback on not just our solution but also on the importance of story-lining. The learnings from our mentor not only helped our team in the finale but will continue to serve as lifelong learnings as we enter the corporate world.

A guided tour of the Google campus, by the very approachable Organising Team, is another perk of qualifying for the finale of the competition. All in all, we can confidently say that the Google Case Challenge 2019 is the most well-organized B-School competition.

Our journey has taught us how to bring an idea to life. Not only did we get the opportunity to apply academic learnings to a real business problem, but also learned more about the art of pitching and effectively putting across a point to business leaders through story-lining.

Also, one cannot overstate the importance of primary research derived through in-depth interviews with stakeholders such as customers and retailers. It clearly differentiated our solution as it was built on solid primary insights.

We never thought that winning the competition was too big a dream because we were prepared to give it our all, which only reinforced our belief that if you can dream it, you can do it.

Winning moment

No moment beats the announcement of Finale results. We knew that we had performed well, however, we also recognized that the competition was tough and results could go either way. However, when the results were announced, it was a joy like no other. We saw the confetti go off and at that moment we looked at each other and acknowledged that the dream had been realized. That moment was a recognition of all the efforts and all the sleepless nights put in by the team. The fact that our college was able to retain the title as defending champion, was also a matter of great pride for us.

Our dynamic team

Our team comprised of three highly motivated and diverse individuals who had their eyes set on winning the Google Case Challenge 2019 (and retaining the title for NMIMS) since the beginning of our second academic year. Academically, we represented a mix of marketing and finance specialization and our pre-MBA work experience ranged from IT Services to Consulting.

Our team always wanted to go that extra mile to better our solution, no matter the time and effort involved. We were excellent at keeping each other motivated and always respected each other’s opinions. Each welcomed critical feedback. Together, we could analyze each idea from the grass-root level to the bird’s eye view, never losing sight of our end objective.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, hence, we not only combined our strengths but also helped each other overcome our weaknesses through feedback. We always had each other’s back. Given that all three of us were in it to win it, it was never an issue for us to find tens of hours together to work on the solution every day, keeping everything else, including exams, on the backburner.

Each knew that group dynamics would be key in winning the competition. Our diversity helped us brainstorm and analyze ideas from different perspectives. It also gave rise to innumerable debates and conflicts. Our team followed the simple mantra of always being on the same page. In case of any disagreement, we discussed the pros and cons of the idea till we either unanimously agreed or unanimously disagreed, there was never an in-between. It took considerable time and effort, however, it made us that much more prepared and confident in our solution.