Home Competition Stories Team SParks from SPJIMR ventured into unknown waters to become the National Winners of PwC Challenge

Team SParks from SPJIMR ventured into unknown waters to become the National Winners of PwC Challenge

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Team SParks from SPJIMR ventured into unknown waters to become the National Winners of PwC Challenge

The PwC Challenge was split into two rounds - the first being on a campus level, followed by a national level competition. For the first round, a market scenario briefing was provided along with a dataset that comprised of balance sheet, product specs, income statement, etc on a global level, to aid in analysing the opportunities of organic and inorganic growth. Along with it, there was a deep dive into each of the potential companies that could be acquired.

The second round further intensified the level of the competition, with the new dataset providing a detailed layered breakdown of supplier evaluation and market movement. There was data on the accounts payable, supplier volume discounts, cost of parts, location, etc. We could use this data to further build on our solution or chose to change tracks and look at the implementation of a different solution.

SParks and their strategy

Working in a team requires each member to essay different roles in specific moments. It also helps bring together multiple perspectives to the same problem as well as complement the skills of each other. We did work through some differences in approaches by opting to present our case before the whole team and then deciding on which direction to choose so as to weave it well with our larger solution.

Our team of four had worked together with each other before, had developed an intuitive understanding of each other’s strengths and built a conducive roadmap for incremental solution development. Considering that none of us had a background of Operations, we realized that there was a need to understand certain concepts to do a thorough analysis. We spent two whole days learning concepts of supplier evaluation and integration strategy.

We started by doing an unbiased analysis of the market scenario of the entire automobile market through intensive secondary research. Based on calculated estimations of government support, current movement of players, infrastructural development and changing consumer needs, a forecast was created for the potential 5-year growth of the electric vehicle market in India, to help cement the size of the prize. Finally, we arrived at the deliverables as required, right up to the final execution stage.

The final battle

There were six teams that made it into the national finals of the PwC Challenge. Each of them had their own perspective on the solution, which were all relevant from a business standpoint making it a tough competition. It was impossible to pre-empt their take on the case and prepare a solution contingent on that. The factor that helped us stand out was the intricate analysis we had done, and the thoroughness in the approach we had adopted.

The final panel consisted of around 6-8 consultants and senior managers, who holistically judged multiple aspects of the solution and were keen to know our thought process behind them. Presenting to such senior veterans of this field required us to be completely prepared with different questions that could be asked, avoiding all possible loopholes in the solution.

The competition was very well organized and served its purpose of giving the participants an insight into the life of a consultant.

Getting prepared for the corporate world

The PwC Challenge allowed us to step into the shoes of a consultant and solve real-world problems, supported with data-backed insights. It also gave us the chance to understand business critical concepts like inorganic growth, techniques of workforce integration and shared services establishment which is crucial to imbibe as we step into the workforce.

In this duration, we also lived a very special moment. The Senior Manager of Strategy and Operation asked how many of us were from an Operations background – owing to the sheer degree of quantitative analysis we had done in our solution. He was pleasantly surprised to know that none of us had any background, but had rather learned it specifically as part of the competition. It was a great pat on the back for all of us to know that the effort we had put had paid off in the end and that too in an area that was completely new to us.

Edited by

Team SParks - SPJIMR

2018-2020

The team consists of Varunkrishnan Ravi, Aditya Kadrolkar, Sai Prahlad Vedantam, and Pranay Jain. It had three people with a background in Marketing, and one from Finance. Having worked together in many competitions before, there was a certain sense of comfort and confidence that they had in each other. Their attempt was to work towards leveraging their strengths to secure a win.

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