NMIMS Mumbai Succeeds At TVS Credit E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge (Season 4)

TVS Credit E.P.I.C Season 4 was back with a bang this year to provide students with a platform to apply their technical knowledge and skills to real-life business problems. Participants got the chance to network with the best minds in the industry, hone their skills through the challenges, and win exciting cash rewards along with PPI opportunities for the summer internship program and MT program. The competition had four tracks- Strategy Challenge, Finance Challenge, Analytics Challenge, and IT Challenge. We chose to be a part of the TVS Credit E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge (Season 4) and are ecstatic to have won the national winner title for the same.

We are Shashank Sharma, Vishesh Goel, and Rohit Wadhwa from Team Brute Force- NMIMS Mumbai. The challenge was open for first and second-year students from all B-Schools irrespective of their specialization. The opportunity garnered 3,65,218 impressions, and 10,070 registrations which made for fierce competition. It was stupefying for us to have been a part of the TVS Credit E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge and in this article, we will share some quick insights from this journey. 

TVS Credit E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge Structure

The competition format was quite crisp, and it was organized smoothly. There was ample time to ideate before each round, which were as follows:

Round 1: Online Quiz
Round 2: Case Study Challenge
Round 3: Grand Finale

After the quiz round, we had about 15 days to submit the executive summary, and post clearing that, we had about a month to prepare for the grand finale. The mentorship session from the senior leadership before the finale was an added advantage and we made the most of mentor feedback and suggestions. The judgment quality during the grand finale was a great learning experience. The senior leaders at TVS Credit thoroughly analyzed our solution, appreciated the things that stood out, and also provided inputs in certain areas where the strategy could be sharpened. All in all, it was a well-rounded and completely flawless competition.

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

Our Approach To Solving the Problem

When participating in these competitions it is important to have a plan that helps you progress through different stages of problem-solving. Here is what our approach to tackling the case problem looked like:

• In order to devise the 10X growth strategy for TVS Credit we started with thorough research on the industry and the other players. We left no stone unturned as we wanted our research to be exhaustive and comprehensive.
• Post this we estimated the current capabilities of TVS and chalked out an implementation plan focusing on new product launches, penetration in the existing segments, geographic expansion, and growth acceleration through partnerships. 
• We also made sure to analyze and include new capabilities that could be built through quick inorganic growth, to fuel overall growth through digitization. 

In a nutshell, we covered all the bases but the foundation was laid through proper research and data collection. We did face a few challenges in regard to the prioritization of various solution avenues that we had built since the target audience for our solution was not that tech-savvy. The solution required a thorough analysis of how to onboard the defined target group. In the end, we managed to get everything done right and built a holistic solution that we are sure will leave an impact. 

Building an Inclusive Solution

As a part of our solution, we were ideating on the new lending categories that TVS can venture into. We zeroed in on Agri-lending since it's in synergy with TVS Credit's existing customer segment. The most amazing thing that happened during this exploration was, we ended up interviewing a distant relative of our friend, who lives in a village in Andhra Pradesh. This person is practicing farming and cultivation so we asked him about the current problems faced in getting Agri-loans, and it was a truly enlightening moment. Some of the problems we discussed were, lack of knowledge/documentation, high lending rates offered by local lenders/family friends, and the inability to pay debts during crop failure. We used this knowledge to shape our idea to address these pain points. This made our solution more holistic by adding the touch of real-life problem-solving to our proposition. We could not have been happier with the complete solution we were able to build.

Key Learnings

The learning through this journey was multifold. And even though everything that we learned during E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge cannot be put into simple words, here are three key lessons we gathered:

• Firstly, we deep-dived to understand TVS Credit as an organization, and the lending industry as a whole. This gave us great insight into TVS Credit's functioning as well as the various players, products, services, and upcoming business models in the industry. 
• Secondly, since the case focused on the digitization aspects, we were able to garner learnings on how the new-age fintech and agri-tech startups are changing the scenario in the lending industry right from the loan application, underwriting, and scoring to final disbursal. 
• Lastly, the 5-year vision of TVS Credit to grow 10X, taught us not only to ideate but to devise the implementation of the strategy within the given time frame to continuously attain short-term wins while also progressing towards the long-term goal.

All About Teamwork

We had a diverse team with members with varied/ mixed yet complementary skills. Our team member Rohit Wadhwa is from a finance background and was quick with the research and always helped us understand the technical aspects of the problem statement. Vishesh Goel was great with the research, strategy formulation, and setting of the overall direction of the whole project. Shashank Sharma was skilled in making the idea and the plan coherent through effective story-telling with his strong presentation skills as well as formulating the financial viability and scalability of the idea. We used this diversity and skill pool to turn the competition in our favor and believe it was one of the major factors that led to our victory.

Hearing our name being announced as the winner of our track was an indescribable feeling. The whole competition was one memorable moment after another, and we feel grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this enlightening journey of the TVS Credit E.P.I.C Strategy Challenge Season 4.

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