UK Case Competition

4 March 2020

Last month I took part in the Scottish Case Competition held at the University of Edinburgh for all the universities within Scotland. Among the 10 teams that took part, our team walked away with the first prize and the chance to represent Scotland and the University of Edinburgh at the national level competition: the UK Case Competition on the 29 February held in King’s College London.

Over 20 teams nationwide participated in this event and we were split into cohorts of 4-5 teams each. We were given a case to work on and 1.5 hours to provide a business recommendation. This case was on British American Tobacco’s Next generation product portfolio which includes products like e-cigarettes, tobacco heated products and oral tobacco. We were asked to recommend a strategy for these products for the North western Europe region comprising of UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Nordics.

We created our presentation recommending a diversified product portfolio for each specific region given that BAT had the resources and the supply chain infrastructure to create this competitive position. Post our presentation, we were tested through a Q&A session in which the judges asked us critical questions regarding our strategy.

This experience was very exciting as we learned to work efficiently as a team to come up with a solid analysis. The time constraint enabled us to use our time management skills and come up with clear, concise and sensible answers. The opportunity to interact with business executives from BAT allowed us to understand how they would approach such forward looking and strategic decision-making exercises.

In addition to meeting with executives, we also had the opportunity to network with peers from other universities and see how they approached case solving. Working on a business case requires attention to detail as every decision has multiple impacts across the business line. It is also equally crucial to coordinate well with your team, so everyone is on the same page in terms of what the next steps and recommendation looks like. Solving the case competition was eye opening in that sense as we were very task oriented and co-ordinated well within our team to come up with our recommendations.

This exposure was particularly helpful to me as I aspire to build my career in the consulting space. Such an insight to solving real world business problems is at the heart of consulting. Having the opportunity to work on this has strengthened my business solving acumen and equipped me with more skills that will be useful when I join the industry. After having taken part in the UKCC, I feel much more confident of my skills and abilities.

Raashi Chhalani, MSc Finance