Tata Consumer Products Grow Beyond Better 2023 Winners Deconstruct Their Winning Strategy

5 mins read

When Tata Consumer Products announced the third edition of its case study challenge, Grow Beyond Better 2023 (formerly known as The FnB Challenge), we knew we had to sign up for it right away. 

The challenge focuses on marrying creativity with innovation to transform the future. The goal is to provide solutions for critical and real problems at Tata Consumer Products. 

The month-long challenge was marked by tough competition. But with a clear vision, in-depth research, and hard work, our team - Team Pitchers (Chaitanya Singamsetti, Tanmayee Yerramsetti, Surya Saride) from XLRI, Jamshedpur - managed to earn the title of National Winners. 

Read ahead to understand how this journey unfolded. 

The Competition Structure

The competition was divided into three rounds, designed to provide us with the required time and resources to fine-tune our ideas. Let’s take a look at the competition structure: 

Brewing A Successful Story

Our strategy was to try to understand the problem statement in-depth and list the expectations as per the problem statement. Our focus was mainly on consumers, and we tried to get as many insights as possible. Our objective was to address the pain points of consumers. 

Our team was characterized by a remarkable synergy that fostered seamless collaboration. Whenever a team member had additional academic commitments, we collectively stepped in to cover for each other, ensuring the completion of casework as per our strategic plan. This collaborative spirit was a key factor in our success and effective teamwork.

The competition was tough, and other teams had exceptional ideas, making the outcome unpredictable. But the announcement of winners brought immense joy and a sense of accomplishment to our team. Considering this is our first national win, it’s going to be a memory for life. 

Roasting The Challenges

Getting the right information

Our major challenge was getting the contacts of premium roasted coffee consumers, as this is a niche market. We reached out to our immediate contacts and built upon them. This helped us to a great extent and gave us a direction to build on the flow of solution.

Solving inter-team conflicts

The journey had been enriching. When we had clashes of ideas, we would sit down and discuss to finalize the best one. We were always open to criticism and valued each other's input. The strength of our team was the secret behind our success.

Beating a tough competition

There were four teams in the finale. Our team was the last to present, following a pre-decided order. As we watched the other teams' presentations, we noticed that some ideas similar to ours were being discussed. 

Among the tough competitors, NMIMS Mumbai stood out. They presented a comprehensive analysis, covering all aspects similar to ours. However, our team's strength lay in the structure and flow of our presentation, which played a significant role in securing our victory.

The Key Learnings

TATA has always been associated with trust, reliability and goodwill. It was not surprising to see the fair ways of evaluation throughout the competition. The clarity in the problem statement and the clear communication of the task at hand really helped us to formulate a strategy pretty quickly. 

The jury was also very clear about identifying value in the presentations. To list all the key learnings from the competition is a big task, but to name a few:

1. Importance of understanding the market you are dealing with (consumer preferences) 
2. The prominence of the practicality in the solutions we need to provide 
3. How teamwork and trust pay off

There were some things all three of us found very interesting, like the FMCG market, marketing as a concept, etc. This helped us maintain equal amounts of excitement and enthusiasm while working on a project or a competition. 

On the other hand, we also had our own strengths when it comes to distributing tasks. Tanmayee was very strong with market research and deriving insights from the inputs. Chaitanya brought the essential structure to any task we had at hand and was very resourceful in finding solutions. Surya was good at coming up with creative ideas and presenting them effectively. Working in this team has been a great experience, full of learning from each other. 

Clearly, this challenge proved to be a ripe ground for learning opportunities for Team Pitchers. If their story inspires you, then check out these similar reads: 

• L'Oréal Sustainability Challenge 2023 Winners Of Planet Track From BITSoM Dig Out Their Winning Mantra
• XLRI Jamshedpur Team Emerges Victorious At Perfetti Confy Challenge 2023
• Aditya Birla Group Stratos 2023 Winners, ISB Hyderabad, Share Their Strategy For Success
• Hero Campus Challenge S8 Winners Take Us Through Their Road To Victory
• TVS Credit E.P.I.C 5.0 Champions Share Learnings From Their Remarkable Journey!