HEC Montréal sews it up at Fashion Forward
Case competition on the fashion industry
January 21, 2021
HEC Montréal Bachelor’s in Business Administration (BBA) students won most of the events at the Fashion Forward student competition. Finals were held on January 16.
Our teams stood on the podium for 4 of the 5 events, taking first place 3 times. The School’s delegation also won “Delegation of the year” and its organizing committee, the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires, was voted “Committee of the year.”
The inter-university competition revolving around the fashion industry brought together students from the four Montréal universities, i.e., Concordia, McGill and UQAM, along with HEC Montréal. Fashion Forward was actually the 3rd edition of the Fashion Spectrum competition, but with a new name and renewed formula to take account of the pandemic.
Rather than gathering for a weekend, the participating teams worked remotely for 3 months with Quebec firms in the fashion and textile industry, carrying out a mandate and solving management challenges.
Our teams’ results
Strategy and Management – 1st place
Mandate: Come up with a mainly virtual positioning, launch and sales strategy for a new clothing collection. The team also had to develop a repositioning strategy for the company, to amalgamate its old and new collections.
Team: Louis-Esmel Kodo, Saoudia Ganiou, Justine Paquet and Alexe Constantineau
Coach (from the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires): Catherine Lavery
Mentor: Philippe Lachance
Digital Marketing and E-commerce – 1st place
Mandate: Implement various digital strategies for a firm, using different channels, e.g., social media, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), e-newsletter, and online public relations.
Team: Faye Melissa, Apolline Longeon, Noémie Desmarais and Romane Cabart
Coach (from the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires): Vicki Marcoux
Mentor: Stéphanie Boucher
Digital Transformation – 1st place
Mandate: Develop and plan the implementation of a strategy based on e-commerce, to strengthen the company’s presence on the Canadian market.
Team: Charles Blais-Fortin, Marika Grenier and Marie-Ange Tremblay-Laporte
Coach (from the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires): Jezebel Leblanc-Thouin
Mentor: Émile Robillard
Marketing – 2nd place
Mandate: Develop and implement a strategy to penetrate a new market, and draw up a plan to attract and retain this new clientele.
Team: Abass Alain Khassif Diouf, Marie-Ève Bergeron, Ombeline De-Gryse and Stéphany Cara-Slavich
Coach (from the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires): Corinne Lalonde
Mentor: Catherine Fournier
Operations and Logistics – Team of the year
Award that goes to a team in recognition of its members’ professionalism, teamwork, commitment and involvement in the overall Fashion Forward experience.
Members: Grégoire Mulin, Lysandre Bergeron, Helen Mai and Rosemarie Bérubé-Lachapelle
Coach (from the HEC Montréal Comité Mode & Affaires): Marion Norotte
Mentor: Alexandra Gavrila
The School’s inter-university competition department wishes to thank all the coaches and alumni who helped train the participants. The contribution of Laurent Bronsard, Charlotte Lavigne and Anabel Perron, as delegation co-ordinators, was also much appreciated.