Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune organised a national-level case study competition, ‘Niti Sastra’ in August 2023. A First Year student of MBA from SVKM’s School of Business Management Hyderabad, Shimir Mishra, has won the national-level case study competition.

The ‘Niti Shastra’, is a case study that is designed to challenge the ethical reasoning and decision-making skills of the participants by using a real-world case study. This competition has three rounds. Round 1 has 30 MCQs consisting of questions from government policy, economies, rates, public figures, and current affairs. The participants have to answer a minimum of 26 questions correctly, to qualify for the next round. Knowledge of current affairs and case study analysis helped Shimir clear the first round. In the second round, participants have to make a PowerPoint Presentation based on a real-life case study. They have to focus on the important aspects and suggest solutions in the case study. In the third round, students have to present their proposed solutions that could be implemented in the real world and a jury will judge their work and decide the winner

The Case Study of an emission scandal by the car company, Volkswagen was assigned to Shimir and he had to propose a well-reasoned solution. He checked on various social media portals and his findings included various parameters like ethical frameworks, stakeholders; perspectives, and the potential consequences of their proposed actions. The Main finding of his case study was that managers and decision-makers must follow ethics no matter what the real-life situation. According to him, ethics, rules and regulations play an important role in the professional realm and help in decision-making.

In his preparation, he focused on national and international current affairs as well as read newspapers such as The Hindu and The Economic Times. He regularly studied case studies and participated in the case study competition that helped him analyse every real-life case. He consistently participated in such competitions and this helped him in his academics too. To achieve success, he made certain specific preparations and learned about time management skills for the case study competition to stay ahead of the curve.

He believes that students pursuing an MBA must participate in the competitions like Niti Shastra. It will help them to prepare for the pre-placement interviews and post-placement offers. Furthermore, he added, that such competitions develop the understanding skills that help them in decision-making as a manager. He says, “The deep insights and immense knowledge participants.

He participated in 12 prominent case study competitions, namely, Foresight & Havoc from IIM Bangalore, Flipkart Wired, TVS Credit, Amazon, HUL Lime and more before Niti Shastra Shimir. He succeeded in the preliminary rounds of all the competitions but could not succeed in the later stages. He takes the failure as motivation to participate in more such contests. On his past learning, he said, “The learnings from the previous events have been huge and helped me gain a more mature perspective while preparing for Niti Shastra and other such upcoming contests”.

He expressed his gratitude towards the faculty members at NMIMS SBM Hyderabad who supported and helped him at every competition stage. He said, “All my doubts were promptly cleared and even my PPT was first reviewed by the faculty members at SBM”. Shimir is looking forward to participating in a similar competition soon to polish his skills. He is already competing at prestigious competitions like Trendsetter by DS Group, EY Techlathon, MERCER and more.

Shimir’s journey has been extremely encouraging and motivating for fellow students and has made the faculty members at NMIMS SBM Hyderabad proud. SVKM’s NMIMS Hyderabad provides an encouraging environment for the students to showcase their talent in academics and in co-curricular activities through which students like Shimir Mishra to thrive and succeed in their MBA journey.