ACING THE CASE

Winning a case competition is a quite difficult task. The line between success and failure is often thin. In this article we bring the views of Shahzeb Irshad, a freelance writer on acing the case.

Acing the case: how to be successful in case competitions

You’ll be surprised by what you hear when I say that “anyone can ace a business case competition”. Its no wonder why business case competitions are becoming popular by the day. Apart from the monetary motive amassing $50000 to $100,000 per competition, participants gain experience and a chance to meet successful entrepreneurs.

When you talk about “acing” a case competition, you’re not talking about the winner’s business acumen, you’re talking about their ability to grasp the core of the problem and present a viable solution to it while being creative. The one thing you need to know about running a successful business or presenting an idea is the selfish nature of human beings. People won’t come to you or spend money on your business unless you provide them with value for their money. This value can either be in the form of intangible or tangible articles. Keeping this idea in mind, whenever you are presented with a case problem, write the problem on a piece of paper and brainstorm ten different solutions (no matter how they crazy seem at first). It doesn’t matter if you found the optimum solution in the first try. Then list the merits and demerits of each solution and you might be surprised of the outcome. Suddenly an answer might seem more appealing which at first sounded crazy. This is one of the many mistakes students make during these competitions.

Whenever you are stuck with an idea that you can’t grasp for a case, stop thinking of yourself as a vendor and start thinking as a customer. This technique would be sure to bring you a LOT of ideas keeping in mind the selfish nature of human beings. When you are done with your idea and have finalized it, its time to elaborate each part of the plan in the initial report so as to make a clean first impression. The last stage is presenting the idea. It has to be presented in such a way that the audience may feel acquainted with the idea before the presentation is over.

In a business case, much time and effort is often spent on designing a sustainable business model. From my experience, the most crucial catch in a case competition is the value of return on capital. This figure is there for you to know the level of competition that you’re up against. Generally there is an easy solution for all cases like this, called the “linkage” model. It states that ideas in case competitions are more effective if you link them between various projects in a single case. Quite simply put, different entrepreneurial projects in a case may be started by using the profits from a single venture simultaneously e.g. a chain of small restaurants which only require capital from the revenue generated by the first restaurant. This practice entails a prosperous trade environment as there is never a shortage for capital or investment for the projects.

I hope these tips help you to ace case competitions as they have helped me.