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RULES AND REGULATIONS

1. The competition is open only for students pursuing full-time 1 year or 2 year MBA
programs.
2. All three questions carry equal weightage and are compulsory.
3. Participants are required to prepare a presentation consisting of solutions of the three
questions.
4. Participants are free to take realistic assumptions, however each assumption made must
be clearly specified.
5. The submission must be in the form of a 2-slider presentation excluding the cover page,
references and appendix.
6. Participants are required to submit the solution in a Powerpoint presentation format.
Other formats won’t be evaluated.
7. The file name of the solution must be in the following format:
TeamName_CollegeName_Livewire
8. The opening slide must have the team name, the names of the participants and the
contact details.
9. The submissions must be made through the link provided on the Dare2Compete
website.
10. The solutions will be evaluated on the basis of innovation and novelty of ideas, industry
knowledge and insight, rigour of research and implementation feasibility.
11. Only one submission per team will be accepted. Multiple submissions from the same
team will lead to direct disqualification.
12. The submissions must be made before 30th September, 11:59:59 PM. Any entry
received thereafter shall not be considered for evaluation.
13. All decisions taken by the organising committee will be final and binding.
14. For any queries, you may contact: p20himank@iima.ac.in

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

In recent years, there has been a massive increase in online retail sales. In 2018, the sales grew
by 18% and the total global sales had reached the $3 trillion mark. This phase has seen a boom
of the e-commerce industry and giants such as Amazon and Walmart have increased their
market penetration manifolds. Accompanying this boom in e-commerce is the boom in sales
of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Although the online sales have accounted for
single-digit numbers of the total sales, the growth rate has been in the tune of 40% year-on-
year.

A direct impact of this increase in the online sales has been the increase in the carbon footprint
generated by e-commerce and FMCG companies. With customers holding the central role in
the entire setup, a major focus has been on increasing the capability to deliver to the customer
efficiently by optimising the packaging and logistics network, thereby reducing the delivery
times and increasing customer satisfaction.

Carbon Footprints generated due to the packaging and logistics chain of FMCG companies
were expected to rise by 0.78% in 2020. Even after the pandemic caused shutdowns across the
globe, the expected carbon footprint growth figures remained as high as 0.60% this year.

Many online retailers and distribution companies are aiming at reducing their carbon footprint
as well as the impact from packaging. While Amazon has set a goal of making 50% of all
shipments net zero carbon, Etsy has committed to compensate for their carbon emissions due
to packaging and shipments. Considering the massive growth of e-commerce, meeting the
carbon negative goal will be a huge challenge.

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THE COVID IMPACT

The enforcement and subsequent lifting of restrictions has transformed the packaging and
logistics network of FMCG and e-commerce players. Three major changes that have taken
place so far are outlined below -
1. Safe Packaging - The increasing fear about contracting the coronavirus resulted in an
extra emphasis being placed on safe packaging of the goods with extra layers being
added for achieving the same.
2. Change in Delivery time - With a lot of pressure being put on the supply chains of the
firms due to COVID restrictions, there was an increase in the delivery time of the goods.
In India, only the essential items were allowed to be delivered with a complete stop on
the manufacturing and distribution of the other goods. As restrictions were lifted, the
companies felt the need to reach the pre-covid levels.
3. Hyper-local deliveries - In order to handle the volatility in demand, large players have
partnered with local shops to create a hyper-local delivery network. Further, there has
been an emergence of third-party distributors who specialise in this segment.

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THE QUESTION

Choose an FMCG or e-commerce Firm’s category / product line of your choice. You have to
create a complete roadmap for the aforementioned firm’s category to achieve a carbon negative
footprint with respect to packaging and supply chain logistics while keeping in mind that
businesses now operate in a Covid-19 world. While answering this question, remember to cover
the following sub-parts:
1. Outlining the status quo and the current industry best practices
2. Highlighting the possible strategies and the method of implementation
3. Provide a concrete cost breakup, assess the bottom line impact and business feasibility
of the solutions proposed