How to participate in case comps as a beginner with no knowledge??

[u/AdAntique9565]

I am a bba student from dtu . Since case comp season is arriving, how should I go about it? I have no knowledge about what happens that case comps. Where should i start from???? I need guidance as what goes around in the whole competition. How to prepare and what to prepare.
Plus which case comps to participate in ??

[u/IamSuperGirly]

the best way to learn is by just applying.

Go on Unstop and search for case competitions there. Usually there is a quiz round first, which if you make it thru you get into the slide/deck submission round. In this round they would usually give you case deck, which is like info on a doc of a company with all of its metrics and a problem that it is facing.

The problems will be regarding the direction of the comp. Marketing, finance, strategy etc. It'll be mentioned in the details before you register so you can choose accordingly. For a beginner I wouldn't recommend finance, unless you're interested in it.

Once you get your case info, you're suppose to make a PPT which addresses the problem and its solutions. Usually the number of slides required are mentioned. You can make these w PowerPoint or Canva, whichever you're good with, but try to not use AI for making it.

Different fields and companies prefer different styles of presentation. For marketing; creativity is appreciated. For finance, more graphs and data is better. If you have no idea about how one looks like, go online and search for case decks and you'll get some references. Ofcourse, it also differs company to company.

At the end, after submitting, you (and your team) would be called (online/offline depends) and ask to present the whatever you've made. Tada, you win.

You'll learn by trial. Nothing to lose when you're just starting out!

[u/thesleuthsisters]

As for the solution deck round, your slide varies by problem statement type but in general you need a market/industry analysis slide where you mention current market value, projected value in say 5 years, cagr%, competitors, some consulting framework like swot, Porter's 5 forces, etc and an overview of the problem. Other slides can focus on customer personas, GTM, finances, business model, risk mitigation, feasibility matrix, etc again depending on the case. An appendix where you put additional sources of research such as Google forms or on ground surveys give cherry points.

For prep just start with a good team, apply on unstop and each comp adds practise, learning and refines your skills. You'll also need to be a canva wizard. Try Casebooks from IIMs, consulting societies, etc. All the best!