Submitted by Cory Reid, Student Exco VP Case Competition

 

The Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Accelerate business consulting competition was held in the Philippines at the AIM campus in Makati, Manila from October 9th to 11^th, 2014. The purpose of the competition is to serve as a venue for young and talented students to showcase their skills and apply what they have learned in school through actual application.

Four students from the Nanyang MBA program were selected for the finals: Vivek Negi, Vishal Bhatnagar, Bhrigu Vasish and Cory Reid.

The competition is in the second year of implementation and this was the first year it was opened up to MBA students outside of AIM itself. The format of the competition is unique in that each team works directly with a local small or medium enterprise (SME) to tackle their most pressing issues while developing a realistic growth strategy for the company.

With over a hundred applicants from business schools such as ISB, NUS and NTU, the event drew talent from some of the top schools in Asia. 24 students were selected for the finals and were grouped into 6 teams of 4 each. Each team was paired up with a local SME about 4 weeks before the finale in Manila.

The Nanyang MBA students said the competition was a great learning experience since they had to collaborate with students from different universities to solve a real issue for a Philippines SME. In fact, they only met their teams and SMEs in person when they arrived in Manila two days before the final presentation.

The competition also featured seminars on ASEAN integration in 2015, faculty and industry mentors and a 30 minute pitch clinic for each team. The finale on Saturday had each team present for 15 minutes to a panel of three judges, followed by 10 minutes of Q & A. After dinner, the winning team was announced and the award was presented to Team Beauchem, which Nanyang MBA student Cory Reid was proud to be a part of.

 

Members from Team Mr. Wilson at the opening event with Nanyang MBA student, Vivek Negi, in the centre:

 

 

Team Beauchem at the finale dinner with Nanyang MBA student, Cory Reid, third from right in the back row:

 

Team Wilkonstruct at the finale dinner with Nanyang MBA student, Vishal Bhatnagar, second from left:

 

Teams on stage:

 

Faculty and the winning team – both students and SME participants:

 

 

The competition was featured in local newspapers such as the Asian Journal and Business Mirror. Articles can be retrieved from:

http://asianjournal.com/news/aim-accelerates-smes-potential/

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/aim-local-smes-need-to-forge-tie-ups-to-compete-effectively-in-aec-2015/

 

For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.

Submitted by Dilina Fernando

 

The Amazon Customer Excellence (ACE) challenge, organized by Amazon India, was held in two phases. In Round 1, 18 top business schools across Asia were invited to form teams to solve and submit three case studies within 96 hours. The case studies were across 6 categories, namely Category Management, Operations, Product Management, HR, Sales, and Onboarding. According to the Amazon representatives, about 3800 teams submitted solutions in the first round, out of which 3 teams were selected from each category into the final round.

One team from the Nanyang MBA, Team Stormtroopers comprising of Dilina Fernando, Sharan Grover and Aditya Bhargava, was selected in the Product Management Category. It was the only foreign school team selected to participate in the final round.

In the finals, the teams were given 5 days to solve a case which involved giving solutions to real life problems of Amazon India. After submission of the solutions, Team Stormtroopers flew to Hyderabad, India to present their solution on 21^st September 2014. The panel of judges comprised of Amazon Senior Leadership in India who evaluated the merits of the ideas proposed.

In the end, Team Stormtroopers did not win in the final round in the Product Management category, of which the team from IIM-Bangalore won. However, the experience was truly an enriching one, especially for a team just 2 months into the MBA program. Working as a team on tight academic deadlines, facing a panel of experienced judges, understanding what they look for and what details they expected provided valuable insights to competing even better in the future.

For more information about Nanyang Business School click here.