As I had expected, most of the participants missed the key objective of Microsoft that I had mentioned in the case. The growth of Nokia is incidental to the main objective of Microsoft, which is to increase the penetration of Windows OS without making it ‘open-source’. Therefore, all participants have talked about how to grow Nokia shares. In the responses, I looked for clarity of analysis and focused recommendation.

Vipul Kabra of FMS Delhi was very focused and succinct and emphasised strongly on seamless integration, making him the winner. Very close on his heels were two teams. One, again from FMS, of Vikram and Pratik and the other comprising Sarvesh and Sarika from SIES. Overall, the level of analysis was very good.

In general, participants put greater effort into generating additional case facts rather than on analysis and recommendation. My suggestion would be to take the case facts as given, unless there are gaps which change the recommendation, and to focus on sharp analysis and a few key recommendations. A laundry list would get less points than a focused few.