This article is co-written by Abdullah-Aat-Tahmidus Siddiquee and Rahnuma Tasnim
In this year’s UFLL edition, Team Bangladesh consisting of Abdullah Azwad Rafeed, Afnan Faruk, and Ferdous Hasan showed remarkable skill and resilience to secure the second runner-up position among 18 competing teams and 54 participants.
The Unilever Future Leaders’ League (UFLL) is Unilever’s annual flagship business competition that offers participants a unique opportunity to experience the essence of Unilever, including its brands, culture, and people. The competition takes place in two stages- local and global rounds. The winners of the local FLL competitions compete on the global round, where they get a chance to work with Unilever leaders, meet other international talents, and learn from an exclusive Unilever experience. Since its inception in 2013, Bangladesh has won 2 championships and 4 runner-up trophies, showcasing the merit of Bangladeshi youth in competing with the global talent market.
All three team members are graduates of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka, and are currently employed at Unilever Bangladesh. Afnan Faruk is a Management Trainee in finance, Abdullah Azwad is a Management Trainee in Go-To-Market (GTM) department, and Ferdous Hasan is a brand executive of Wheel. All three of them are seasoned business competition winners, with UFLL being their last “competition and win”. Their extraordinary journey is worth reflecting upon. In this interview, the team talks about their incredible journey throughout the competition, life at Unilever, and much more!
UFLL stands out from other business competitions in terms of providing hundred percent practical insights. Participants get to solve an actual business problem the company is currently facing.
“In most business competitions, even in the most prestigious ones, certain elements of the case are based on assumptions. But UFLL’s case was based on an actual business problem the brand Axe was facing,” said Afnan.
UFLL gave its participants the opportunity to dive deep into the brand elements of Axe by providing them with Axe’s Brand Love Key (Unilever’s famous tool to establish a framework and common language for a brand). So, competitors could access a lot of information from the organizer’s end, which is usually not the case for other competitions. “What I found to be unique and exhilarating was solving a Europe-specific problem by sitting in Bangladesh, which is a contrast to any other competition I’ve done before,” added Ferdous.
Inspiration from the Past
Bangladesh’s track record in the past ten editions of UFLL has been extraordinary, with two championships, including that of last year. “It showed us that Bangladeshi teams are quite capable of performing well on a global platform. Given prior successes, we were under a lot of pressure to achieve something this year”, stated Afnan. Secondly, since they represented Unilever Bangladesh Limited (UBL), the company and its people also expected the team to do well. For Azwad, the motivation came from the fact that he’d lost in two global competition finals before, and this was his last shot to win at least one international competition. “It’s not easy to get such an opportunity in the first place, so we wanted to make the best use of it,” Azwad reflected.
Conquering the Challenge
Success is not achieved without its fair share of challenges. Any business competition is a challenge given the time constraint and all, whereas, in a platform such as UFLL where top-notch teams from across the world are competing, the stakes are even higher. According to Ferdous, “Usually in local competitions, we had a clear idea of what the judges expected by studying previous cases. But that was not the case for UFLL as we could only interact with the team from last year.” For Afnan, the challenge was elsewhere. Their case was about Axe, a deodorant brand of Unilever which doesn’t operate in the Bangladeshi market. Not having any experience with Axe from the Bangladeshi market, they initially struggled to understand how the deodorant market around the world works and how the brand Axe stands out.
All this is probably the easy part given what transpired next. They got their visas on the morning of their departure and had to directly go to the venue to give their presentation after a 15-hour flight. “We had to deliver our semi-final presentation without any prior tryouts. We had never presented in a final without a trial run. So, each of us had to make some in-the-moment adjustments to finish our presentation in the allotted time, which was definitely a challenge.” Finishing the presentation within time is a challenge in any business competition, let alone UFLL. “It was beyond our expectation to give such a presentation without a trial run. Overcoming this challenge made me believe we could go a long way”, mentioned Azwad.
Disagreement leads to Greater Synergy
Disagreements are normal during the preparation and presentation stages of a business competition. Even though Ferdous was champion in BizMaestros 2022 with his team “Extradrill”, and Afnan and Azwad were right behind with team “Ramen”, they had actually never worked together before. This team dynamic was new to all three.
“Whenever one of us proposed an idea, the other two played the devil’s advocate and refuted it. We always tried to deconstruct every argument very meticulously so that it aligned with the nitty-gritty of the case’s requirements,” explained Azwad.
Another approach they undertook was to research whether the solution proposed had been replicated in some other country that faced a similar issue. Moreover, their time together in IBA for the last four years also helped them to work together by putting aside their differences.
Bangladesh vs. the World, the Difference in Problem-solving Approach
Bangladeshis are inherently risk-averse. This tendency is repeatedly displayed when managers here have to distribute scanty resources in a myriad of places. Afnan has found this phenomenon in the case of UFLL as well. Participants from the Western countries had more idealistic and ambitious solutions, with minimal regard to the usage of resources. Asian countries, on the contrary, were more practical, allocating the least amount of resources.
While most other participants were more solution-focused, Team Bangladesh spent almost half of its time deconstructing and explaining the problem to the judges.
According to Azwad and Ferdous, this may have been the difference that put Team Bangladesh forward. Azwad commented, “Our philosophy was that the solution must come from a thoroughly-deconstructed core problem. This is probably why the judges were more convinced that the idea proposed was more feasible and data-driven.”
The Heros Behind the Scenes
Behind the curtains of every achievement, there usually lies a group of people that, directly or indirectly, plays an unsung yet important role. It wasn’t any different for Team Bangladesh. Azwad says, “We had three mentors. They were Afnan Sayed from last year’s team, Sajid Khondoker, and Shabbit Shafiullah. We received tremendous support from each of them regarding case reading, approach, and frameworks.” Apart from the direct help of their mentors, each member received assistance from their families. Ferdous reflects, “I had to decide to leave for the UK in a very short period. I’m thankful to my family for helping me without any complaints whatsoever.” Team Bangladesh dedicates their win to their amazing mentors and families.
Does the experience of business competitions help in the workplace?
This is one of the most sought-after questions by business students. Having actively participated in and triumphed over numerous business competitions throughout their student lives, Team Bangladesh is the ideal collective to answer this question.
Afnan thinks that the skills needed in the workplace have less to do with participating in business competitions and more to do with the problem-solving mindset that develops along the way.
He adds, “No matter which department you work in, it always boils down to identifying and methodically solving the problems you are presented with. Although business competitions and other ECAs definitely help in building that mindset, it’s not the only way.” Azwad agrees with Afnan. He thinks that business competitions make the participants go through a problem-solving process which ultimately develops a positive approach to dealing with any sort of problem, both professional and personal, in later life.
In addition to the perks mentioned by Azwad and Afnan, Ferdous thinks that business competitions help to develop business acumen in general.
Moreover, it thoroughly helps to develop problem-identification skill sets that are crucial in the workplace. “In branding, which is my current department, a huge part of my responsibilities includes scrutinizing the brand and identifying the problems. As problem identification is a fundamental aspect of business competitions, I was able to hone my problem-identification skills.”
Now that the team has achieved this amazing milestone, each of them is ready to embark on their respective career roles with renewed enthusiasm. According to the team, “We are delighted to have continued the remarkable legacy that Bangladeshi teams have established in UFLL. The next phase is to solve more business problems that we’ll face in our professional career, and hopefully come out with flying colors for each of those.” The journey of Team Bangladesh in UFLL 2022 will definitely inspire their successors to build on this legacy.