How To Prepare for Case Study Competitions?

Case study competitions are getting hugely popular nowadays — whether you want to just use your grey cells, or boost your resume or just gain some more experience and learning — case study competitions have got you covered.

For the uninitiated case study competitions, participants need to develop the best solutions/ give creative and realistic ideas to case studies presented to them. Teams need to analyse the different aspects of the problem and need to pack all their working in a crisp and well-curated PPT.

So how to prepare for it you ask? Well, read on to find out...

1. Choosing the right team — One of the most important components of a case competition is teamwork. There is little time to solve the entire case, and so, your team needs to be diverse. Choose people who have experience with different fields (finance, tech, sales etc.) so that you can have a much broader view towards the problem. If possible, try to keep your team geographically diverse too — personal experiences in different parts of the world might come in handy while solving cases

2. Analysing the problem– It is imperative to read the given problem statement carefully and understand what exactly does it want from you. Case competitions are not about beating around the bush, you’ve got to hit the bull’s eye — and so it’s very important to solve exactly what the problem wants from you. Case problems are usually divided into three broad categories — solution-oriented, idea-oriented, or option-oriented. You need to understand what your problem needs and proceed accordingly.

3. Time management — Time management is a skill that you’ll need everywhere in life and especially in case competitions. Learn how to work with your team on deadlines. Prepare a rough timeline of events for approaching the problem, so that you can know when it is time to stop the research and move on to preparing the presentation.

4. Use problem solving methodologies — There are various frameworks that can be used to solve case problems, so always check if they can be applied to the problem statement. These could be hypothesis driven solutions, MECE issue trees, idea generation or backward case cracking approach. However, don’t stick rigidly to a framework — make sure there’s some creativity in your answers as well. In fact, since most case problems are based on real life scenarios that companies faced, try finding out what they actually did to solve it and stay clear of that solution or else you’ll be thought of as playing ‘too safe’ by the judges.

5. Presentation planning- Plan beforehand everything that needs to be in your presentation. Do not clutter it at the last minute. There should be someone on your team who is well versed with making crisp presentations and there should be people who can present it confidently to the judges. Make sure to use plenty of charts, graphs and diagrams to visually display your information in a more comprehensible manner.

6. Practice, practice, practice — This cannot be stressed enough! Practice cases given in case study books or simply pick up cases from a website and match your solution with the given one. This will help build confidence, exercise your brain muscles and will also help you understand your team dynamics.