A team from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) has become the India national champions of the KPMG International Case Competition (KICC) 2018, displacing IIM Ahmedabad that held the title in the past two years.
The team received a trophy along with prize money of Rs1 Lakh and became eligible to compete against teams from 22 countries at the KICC finals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
More than 3400 students from 39 leading educational institutions of the country had participated in the competition this year, with only six making it to the finals. The teams were selected for the National finals after three intense rounds.
Congratulating the SPJIMR team for their impressive victory, Arun M Kumar, Chairman and CEO, KPMG in India stated that today’s business challenges require talent and leaders that are effective problem solvers and good decision makers who can think outside the box to create new solutions to improve the industries.
The winners are announced at a gala event attended by senior KPMG professionals. This year’s international final will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April 2018.
“We continue to be inspired by the excellent skills each team brings to the KPMG International Case Competition,” he added.
“Our case study competition provides students with a unique opportunity to gain experience in addressing real-life business challenges. The KICC is a sign of our commitment to development and training, and our commitment to talent,” Shalini Pillay, Office Managing Partner – Bengaluru and Head – People, Performance and Culture, KPMG in India said.
“The challenging case studies and the format of the competition are designed to provide the students’ exposure to the typical work that our consultants undertake across a wide range of industries by simulating a real business context for them,” she added.
KPMG said in a statement that will continue to remain engaged with the SPJIMR throughout the run-up to the finals, handholding and coaching them as they gear up to compete in a global business environment.
The participants in the competition are provided real-world business scenarios to analyze and make recommendations to a panel of experienced KPMG professionals. In each round of the competition, the participants are required to analyze, prepare and present their findings on a case in a limited time frame.
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The students can sign up for KICC as a team of 4 members (comprising at least 1 male or 1 female member) with their institute’s KICC organizers. The competition is open to second and third year students of non-engineering graduate colleges, third and fourth year students of engineering institutes and first year students of the two-year full-time PGDM (or its equivalent) program in business schools.
The first round of elimination in the competition comes during the Campus championship. All registered teams work on a case and present their findings to a selection panel created by the Institute. KPMG provides necessary material to the Institute for identifying the top team which will represent them in the next round.
In the second round, top teams of participating engineering colleges and non–engineering graduate institutes in each zone compete over a case study and are evaluated by a judging panel of KPMG professionals. The winning teams from this round proceed to the regional championship.
Here, the top teams of participating business schools compete with the zonal prelims winners by working on a challenging case study and are evaluated by a judging panel of KPMG professionals. The winning teams from this round proceed to the KICC national finals.
Teams qualifying the regional round compete with each other in this penultimate stage of the competition in the country. The winning team gets to represent India in the international finale and are mentored by KPMG. High potential students identified during zonal, regional and national rounds are evaluated for pre-placement opportunities with the firm.
The International Championship is the grand finale in which national championship winners participate in a 4-day case study competition. Through a series of testing business scenarios and feedback sessions, KPMG experts from across the world select the winning team.
The winners are announced at a gala event attended by senior KPMG professionals. This year’s international final will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April 2018.
