Product Spotlight 2022: Tips By Team SAM (XLRI Jamshedpur)

Product Spotlight is a flagship event of Publicis Sapient for top B-Schools in India. It explores the beauty of product management and how product mindset plays a key role in digital business transformation. Product Spotlight 2022 was open for all 1st & 2nd year full-time MBA, PGP (2-year), and PGPX (1-year) students from select institutions. Being from XLRI Jamshedpur, a prestigious institute, we- Mohit Munjal, Smriti Rajpal, and Ananya Dasgupta were also eligible for this case study competition. 

The three of us have unique strengths that perfectly complement the others, so we decided to participate together and called ourselves Team SAM. Winning the runner-up title and hearing our name get announced on the national platform was one of the best and most memorable moments for all of us. 

Competition Structure

The competition was very well organized with in-depth and fantastic judgment quality. The flow of the competition was as follows:

• Online Treasure Hunt
• Quiz
• Case Round
• Product Spotlight Finale

Sixteen teams made it into the finale. All groups did a fantastic job but we considered IIM K a tough competitor owing to their past performance in the competition. The firm hosted the final event online where the Publicis team showcased their solution as well, which was very insightful.

Our Strategy

The case problem for the competition asked us to build a diversification and growth strategy for a bank to transform and create a one-stop digital ecosystem and cross-sell its banking services. Here is how we went about solving the case and building our solution:

• The team decided to brainstorm and conduct research to compile information about the digital ecosystem. 
• We also analyzed the organic and inorganic growth strategies and then summarised our insights comprehensively. 
• The challenge was to present our research comprehensively, keeping current and predicted future market ecosystems in mind. We met the challenge by spending four days on problem identification, research, collaborating insights, drawing inferences, and designing the final presentation.

Check this out: Challenge Yourself With These B-school Competitions

Key Takeaways From Product Spotlight 2022

Such competitions are full of lessons and growth opportunities, here are some key takeaways:

• The competition motivated us to explore digital transformation opportunities, brainstorming and ideating new features after conducting intense research to understand customer problems and generate hypotheses around the same.
• We learned everything about how a product is built. Many case competitions revolve around improvising an existing product. But this one gave us an in-depth experience of building one.

The Experience of Working In a Team

Our team had the right balance of consulting, product management, and human resource management experience. This helped us explore the problem statement from multiple viewpoints and synergize to build a holistic solution. Working in a team by pooling different expertise and ideas made our research and deliverables diverse and comprehensive. 

Facing and Resolving Conflicts

Most of the conflicts we faced revolved around technical development possibilities that could not be materialized owing to budget constraints. But since the three of us had collaborated before, we had a conflict management ecosystem where both the conflicting parties presented their respective viewpoints and helped the team make an informed decision.

Conclusion

The journey of Product Spotlight 2022 was full of unforgettable moments, opportunities, creativity, implementation planning, deck development, and framework. The memorable moment was when our team was declared the National 1st Runner-Up, and we all cherished the fruits of our labor.

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