Armageddon, The Red Brick Summit 2020 1

Greetings Future CEOs!

Welcome to Armageddon, the flagship case competition of IIM Ahmedabad organized

annually by the Consult Club IIM Ahmedabad as a part of The Red Brick Summit, the annual
International Business Conclave. Armageddon is the pinnacle of all B-School Case
Competitions, witnessing an enormous 6,000 participants last year. However, do not worry,
we are not saying this to overwhelm you. Our purpose is to pump you up because you are
now a part of this grand festival! And this year, we have designed an exciting resource
allocation based simulation, which aims to test the real skills a CEO needs: decision making,
logical thinking, problem-solving, and resource optimization.

With that, let’s begin!

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 Case Study

It is 2025, you are the current CXOs of Armagi FMCG Products Ltd. After enduring a heavy
battering during the COVID-19 pandemic that engulfed the world in 2020, the then Board of
Directors thought that the company needed some change, and hence, the old board of CXOs
was relieved of its duties. Being the most promising internal candidates at that time, you
were appointed as the new CXOs. The confidence shown by the BoD in you was repaid, as
your team led the company out of the crisis to regain its leadership in the Indian market.
Having stamped your authority in the Indian markets, you are now deliberating to enter
new markets. You have four markets to choose from:

• Africa
• Europe (European Union)
• Latin America (excluding the Caribbean and Central American countries)
• North America (US, Canada)

Your existing product portfolio consists of four major products: P1, P2, P3, and P4. At the
moment, the products are performing exceptionally in the Indian markets, and you feel that
these products are sufficient for any market that you choose.

In order to aid your decision making, your research team has gathered some information
about the costs, revenues, and other aspects related to these products.

1. Each product requires four different types of resources to be ready for sale:
Material, Labour, Utilities, and Other Miscellaneous. The exact units of each
resource that the four products require are as follows:

P1 P2 P3 P4
Material 10 2 3 3
Labour 3 10 6 3
Utilities 5 7 10 2
Other Misc. 4 3 2 10

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The resource requirement for each product remains the same irrespective of the market it is
being produced or sold in.

2. The price of each unit of resource varies in the four markets. Resource prices are as
follows:

Home Market Africa Europe Latin America North America

Material 15 19 16 14 18
Labour 14 12 18 16 15
Utilities 10 13 9 12 13
Other Misc. 20 15 21 19 17

3. The research team was also able to gather information about the price that each
product can fetch in the four markets. The product prices are as follows:

P1 P2 P3 P4
Africa 530 450 410 400
Europe 500 480 450 450
Latin America 520 470 430 410
North America 550 475 440 420

In addition, there is a duty levied on the total revenue earned by each product in the four
markets. These duties are as follows:

P1 P2 P3 P4
Africa 8.0% 9.0% 7.5% 5.0%
Europe 5.0% 15.0% 15.0% 15.0%
Latin America 7.5% 18.0% 10.0% 5.0%
North America 13.0% 13.5% 12.0% 7.5%

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For example, if you decide to sell 1 unit of Product 1 in Africa, your total revenue = Price of
P1 = Rs. 530. Hence, the duty levied on this will be 8% of Rs. 530 = Rs. 42.4.

With all this in mind, your team has to undertake the following tasks:

• Decide one market from among the four given markets where you would want to sell
your product.
• Decide the total resources you need to purchase and the number of units of each
product that you want to sell in your chosen market. Additionally, since the market
is new, the company does not want to place all their bets on one product and decide
that they will produce and sell- at least 5 and at most 35 units of each product.

For this purpose, you have a balance of Rs. 20,000 with which you can buy resources to
maximize your production and sales.

Additionally, you can also choose to save some money and lend/invest it in any project in
your chosen market. Each market provides you with a different rate of interest/return,
which are as follows:

Africa Europe Latin America North America

8.0% 16.5% 18.0% 9.0%

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After working out your answers, please enter them in the submission form provided.

Also, do note the following points:

• The judgement criteria and your goal for this round is to maximize returns from your
capital of Rs. 20,000. The net gains over and above the initial capital investment of Rs.
20,000 will be considered as returns for the purpose of this case. In case the returns are
the same, the time of submission will be considered for shortlisting the top teams.

• The round is of 1.5 hours. The form will stop taking responses at 11:59 PM IST, 26th
September. No requests for late submissions will be accepted. We expect that as future
CEOs, you take into account any uncertainty that may occur (poor internet, power-cuts,
etc.) and time your submission according to that. Also, it is highly unlikely that
simultaneously all the participants in the team face the same issue.

• There is no resemblance to the product cost, product price, duties, or interest rate on
deposits to the real-life situation in these four markets. So, even if in reality, a product
might sell at a cheaper rate in Africa than Europe, that might not necessarily be true in
this simulation.

• All costs and prices are in the same unit i.e. INR. Hence, no currency differential needs to
be taken into account.

• Only one submission per team will be accepted. In case of multiple submissions, the
first submission will be considered.

• Not following the answer format, as stated under each question in the form, would lead
to straight disqualification.

REMEMBER: THE GOAL IS TO MAXIMIZE RETURNS

All the best!

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