Winning the second runners up place in Mondelez The New Normal - Supply Chain Strategy Competition -By Abhimanyu Maharshi from NITIE Mumbai

The initial strategy was to dig deep into the current supply chain of Mondelez through in-depth interviews so that the solutions we suggest are relevant to the existing value chain. Mondelez The New Normal was held in 3 rounds and the entire process took 4 months to complete. Throughout the process, we had to refine our solutions. 

The biggest challenge was getting into the current supply chain of Mondelez because of the unavailability of any information from secondary resources. In such scenarios, validating the solutions and strategies that we suggest becomes impossible. To overcome this, we reached out to industry professionals, college seniors, faculties.

What stood out for us

A total of 5 teams made it to the grand finale. We believe that the team from SJMSOM was our toughest competitor since their solution also took into consideration the current supply chain of Mondelez. 

The most impressive aspect of the competition, Mondelez The New Normal, was its structure. All National Semi-finalists were allotted mentors who were senior officials in Mondelez. The suggestions that we received from our respective mentors helped us refine and restructure our solution which included financials and the implementation plan.

Finally, the level of questions that we were asked during the finale was quite impressive. We were expected to know about the current bottlenecks in the process and have deep knowledge about the value chain. 

“No solution is perfect”

No solution is perfect, the only thing that matters is feasibility and practicality. Our thought process evolved over the period of the competition. We started digging deeper and deeper into every aspect of the solutions that we suggested.

As a team, we always had the dream to represent our college in the National Finale of a corporate case competition in our first year. Before Mondelez happened, we had already won B-school competitions and qualified as campus finalists for quite a few corporate competitions. So, Mondelez The New Normal, being the last corporate case competition in our first year was our final hope. Getting selected among the top 5 teams from the top 9 colleges from India was a thrilling moment for us all.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Our team's forte is data. We believed in backing up solutions and strategies with relevant data. We always added something in our solution that we felt would provide us the required edge over other teams. As a team, we always believed in experience and everyone was encouraged to put forward their ideas. Also, we never changed our members right from the first case competition that we participated in. 

Working with the team Strategic Fit was an absolute pleasure. We enjoyed each other's company which allowed us to solve cases one after the other. In our first year, we solved 31 case competitions and were among the top-performing teams from NITIE. As a team, we experienced both extremes - losing a case competition miserably after putting in the maximum effort and winning a case competition with minimal effort.

We also had our share of conflicts regularly which were difficult to resolve during the initial part. Gradually, we realized that the best way to tackle them was extensive discussion and trust in each other.

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