ISB Wins Applauds & Runner-up Trophy At HUL FinAce Season 6

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is one of the largest FMCG companies with 65 brands in more than 20 categories. It presented HUL FinAce Season 6, an inter B-School finance and business challenge to give students an opportunity to stretch their imagination and write the future. The objective of the competition was to provide students with a real-life perspective of how the finance function operates in an FMCG major. 

FinAce Season 6 was open to all first-year B-School students from select institutes across the nation. With the pool prize of INR 5 lakh and amazing opportunities for PPIs with Unilever as part of the Summer Internship Process (ULIP 2023) up for grabs, numerous students set their eyes on the title. We- Piyush Agarwal, Rishav Agarwal, and Sagar Motani are students from ISB and we also decided to join the best minds in the nation, with hope brimming in our hearts. We called ourselves Team Triple Ace and it feels amazing to have won the runner-up title for such a prestigious challenge.

HUL FinAce Competition Format

The competition was framed very nicely and the team ensured that everything went on without a hitch. It took a lot of hard work and dedication on our part to come up with innovative solutions to build the product portfolio and back it up with strong financials. The format of the competition was as follows:

• FinAce Business Simulation Virtual Walkthrough (Demo) & Q&A
• Opening Round - Business Simulation Launch
• Qualifying Round - Business Simulation PPT Submission
• Qualifying Round - Business Simulation Presentations
• Semi Finale Round
• Grand Finale

The competition was a perfect blend of marketing and finance domains and that is what made it fun to compete.

Check this out: Challenge Yourself With These B-school Competitions

Our Strategy For HUL FinAce Season 6

Going into the competition we knew that our team will need a proper plan and strategy in place. The core strategy that we followed can be described as follows:

• Stick to the 3 primary issues that were asked to be addressed through the problem statement i.e.
  Product portfolio redesigns keeping sustainability at the center
  GTM strategy,
  Impact on financials
• We conducted a fair amount of secondary and a moderate amount of primary research to collect all the information needed to build our solution. 
• We also cross-verified our ideas with the previous implementation of similar ideas by other firms, globally. And went ahead with an idea only when each of us was convinced about its uniqueness and scaling capabilities. 

We worked on the problem statement for 2-3 days for each of the rounds. It was an invigorating and fun experience to work on the problem statement, collect ideas and build them into viable solutions.

Challenges We Faced

The main challenge that we faced was in garnering sufficient primary data in a short span of time. Another challenge was to come up with innovative solutions for sustainability for a company that is already a market leader in its segment and has left no stone unturned in its pursuits. We tackled these challenges by prioritizing secondary research and brainstorming about other innovations globally and contextualizing them in the Indian landscape. 

The HUL FinAce Season 6 Jury

The judgment quality was superb and the panels were extraordinary. It was a privilege to be judged by a panel that consisted of HUL Asia Region CFO, Mr. Ritesh Tiwary, and other top management professionals. 

Initially, we were a bit intimidated by the fact that Mr. Tiwary was going to be one of the panelists. But after the announcement of the results, when we were celebrating amongst ourselves, he came to our team and congratulated us on our ideas and presentation. He said that he was impressed by the presentation that we had pulled off. It was an amazing confidence boost. He also described the work and life at HUL and discussed some of the key issues facing the detergent industry globally. It was a brilliant conversation and we’ll always remember the warmth and the insights it exuded. 

What We Learned

The most crucial learning we garnered from this case comp is that sticking to the core of the problem and providing solutions that are not only innovative but also implementable, practical, and financially feasible is paramount. We also realized that it is important to not get carried away by ideas that might sound good and pathbreaking but wouldn't be feasible to implement on the ground. Keeping track of the limited time and solving the issues structurally was key for us throughout the competition.

Best Way To Resolve Conflicts

The conflicts were few but they were mostly the classical marketing and finance conflicts that happen in almost all organizations. Piyush (the marketing person) suggested a few ideas on sustainability which did not go well with the bottom line. So, we as a team sat down to rethink various solutions and work out the perfect intersection of marketing and finance. Arriving at a consensus on some of the ideas was sometimes challenging. But we resolved these conflicts by assessing each idea objectively and also thinking about how it would help our team stand out from the crowd. 

How Teamwork Works!

Our team comprised two chartered accounts and one marketing guy. It was a perfect combination in our opinion because the case was related to finance, but coming from HUL, the crux of the problem was marketing as we expected. So, each of the team members had their responsibilities which we carried out well and also worked in perfect synergy. The experience of working with this team was truly rewarding. HUL FinAce Season 6 left us with a lot of learnings and memorable moments. We will cherish our experience throughout the competition for a long time to come.

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