In my Campus Placements 2022, Flipkart visited our campus (IIT BHU) for the APM role, the hiring process was simple and was of three steps -

1. Deck Submission (They release Problem Statement and give 5-8 days for the submission deadline)

2. Buddy Round (Generic Discussion/Interview with few Guesstimates)

3. Product Interview (Can expect good level Product Cases and evergreen questions like Fav product)

In this Blog, will talk about "Deck Round" Only, as it's the first & most hard step of the ladder to land this job. In my year, their problem statement for the deck was -

"The world faced a COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 and people from all walks of life were impacted. As we enter into a post-pandemic world, the world faces a new a set of challenges. Find a problem in post-pandemic world that can be solved with a product."

Questions to be answered by your deck:

1. What makes this a post-pandemic problem and what potential impact can solving it create?

2. Who will you solve for first and why?

3. What part of problem will you solve first and why?

4. How would you measure the success of your solution ?

5. What might be the possible pitfalls in your solution?

Stop here for few minutes and try to think of all the possible problems & product scenarios according to the above case. (Just for Brainstorming)

Let me take you through my approach of problem selection in this case: 

Firstly, I thought of what changes did covid brought and what are the problems in those changes?

And i was stuck with the obvious things - like change in education, change in work environment, change in businesses, etc. 

The initial chain of thought was to make a product that increase education environment efficiency, productivity apps for work from home employees, online tools for businesses, etc. 

But Honestly, didn't get the much WOW VIBE out of them, as most of the folks would be thinking in the same direction (It's called Environment Bias, we think same in same environment).

Then after brainstorming a bit, I did come up with something in business space only, not too unique but yes a real product that I even once tried to make on my own. 

So The Problem Statement I selected was:

Realisations in Covid: Retail Businesses has realised the importance to go digital and sell their products online, after covid pandemic completed halted their sales from offline brick & mortar stores during lockdown. Also the user shopping habits have been changing drastically to prefer online shopping over offline shopping.

Problems after this realisations in today’s India: Small/Local Businesses wants to set them up online BUT

1. Lack of Technology Skills to develop website/app

2. Very low tech insights to use Shopify / Seller Platforms

3. Non-affordable charges at marketplaces like Amazon/Flipkart

4. Easy Business Setup Apps like Whatsapp-Business will not be having good visibility/sales due to limited exposure in known circle only

5. For the users, it is not easy to search and shop from such stores, as there is no single place where they can browse them.

And proposed the following solutions and as well as answered the required questions - (Refer Attached Deck)

Well, My deck was not selected in the Top 5 decks, but personally  I think the reason for this after going through the selected decks was that my deck's design was not clean. The content was at par but it was not as clean and plain as the selected decks. So be Cautions with your designs!

Let me know your thoughts on the deck! Hope it helps.

Thanks for reading!