Godrej CraftLab 2026 · First Year Only · Summers 2027 + PPO Track
This one does not end with a trophy. It ends with a summer internship and a PPO conversation.
Godrej Consumer Products has launched CraftLab 2026, the inaugural edition of its campus immersion programme for first year MBA students. Call it a competition if you like, but the funnel gives it away: CV screening, a live FMCG simulation, a video submission, psychometrics, a group discussion, personal interviews, and then the Gurukul Summer Internship with a stipend of ₹4.5 lakh and a pre-placement offer track for the strongest interns. In other words, this is a hiring drive with the energy of a case competition. Here is how the journey actually works and how to prepare for each gate.
Apply first, then read the guide
Applications are open on InsideKampus
CraftLab is running as an invite-driven campus programme, which means it is open to first year MBA students at participating B-schools and your placement committee will usually circulate the details. The application itself sits on a dedicated microsite. If your campus is on the list, apply early: everything downstream, from the simulation window to the interview slots, is scheduled off the application pool.
🎯 Godrej CraftLab 2026 · Hosted on InsideKampus
Start your CraftLab application
This is an individual application, not a team entry. The official microsite is the only source of truth for eligibility, participating campuses, deadlines and stage formats.
First year MBA students at participating B-schools. If CraftLab has come to your campus, your placement committee will share access details.
💰
What you win
A place in the Gurukul Summer Internship 2027 batch, an eight week programme with a ₹4.5 lakh stipend, and a PPO pathway for top interns.
🧪
The signature round
A War Room Simulator, a live FMCG business simulation, paired with a short video submission and psychometric assessments.
🏢
The company
GCPL is the FMCG arm of the Godrej Group. ₹14,000 crore plus in annual revenue, 1.4 billion consumers, 80 plus countries, number one in household insecticides in India.
🚀
The long game
Gurukul interns who convert join GCPL full time as Gallopers, the company's management trainee track.
Know who you are applying to
GCPL is not a case study. It is a shelf you will actually work on
Godrej Consumer Products sits inside a group with a 125 year plus legacy and sells to roughly 1.4 billion consumers across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the USA and Latin America. If you have used Goodknight, HIT, Cinthol, Godrej No.1, Ezee, Genteel, Nupur, Expert Rich Creme or aer, you have used their portfolio. They are the leader in household insecticides in India and the number one hair colour player in India and Sub-Saharan Africa.
There is one story worth carrying into your interview. In 1918, soap in India was made with tallow, or animal fat, an ingredient that carried real cultural sensitivity in Indian homes. Ardeshir Godrej asked a simple question, why does soap need animal fat at all, and went on to create the world's first commercial soap made entirely from vegetable oil. He named it No. 2, because he thought he could still do better. That became Godrej No. 1.
The frame the company keeps using
Poets and engineers. Godrej describes its founder as both, a person who imagined possibilities and had the discipline to build them. Their language for what they look for is exactly this pairing: the poet who challenges convention, and the engineer who ships it with rigour.
Every stage of CraftLab is quietly testing which one you default to, and whether you can do both. Show only imagination and you look unstructured. Show only rigour and you look like a spreadsheet. Pair a bold idea with a clear execution plan and you are speaking their language.
The seven stage journey
From an online form to joining as a Galloper
1
Stage One · The Application
Online application and CV screening
You submit your CV and profile. This is a screen, not a formality, and for a first year with limited MBA output on paper it is usually the hardest gate to control.
Rewrite your CV for consumer goods before you upload. Lead with anything that shows customer contact, ownership of a number, or a project you actually shipped. A pre-MBA role in tech or engineering is not a weakness here, the Godrej framing explicitly rewards engineers who can imagine.
2
Stage Two · The Sketch
War Room Simulator, video submission and psychometric test
The heart of the process. You solve a real world FMCG business simulation, record a short video on what drives you, and complete psychometric assessments. Three very different signals collected in one window.
Do them in this order: psychometrics when you are fresh and honest, the simulation when you have a clean two hour block, and the video last, after you have thought about why consumer goods and not just why a job.
3
Stage Three · The Workshop
Group discussion on a live business case
You collaborate with a team on a business case and then defend the solution against questions from experienced mentors. It is a group discussion in name, but the defence is where the marks move.
The scoring in a case GD rewards the person who moves the group forward, not the person who talks most. Structure the problem out loud in the first two minutes, then pull in the quietest person with a specific question. Evaluators notice both.
4
Stage Four · The Signature
Personal interviews
The final human filter, and the point at which an early internship offer is made. Expect a mix of profile depth, consumer intuition and fit against the Godrej people promise.
Walk in with one product opinion you can defend. Pick a GCPL brand, describe the consumer, name the competitor, and say what you would change. That single prepared answer covers half the interview.
5
Stage Five · The Internship
Gurukul Summer Internship 2027
Eight weeks on live FMCG challenges across sales, marketing, supply chain and human resources, with a ₹4.5 lakh stipend and a presentation of your recommendations to senior leaders at the end.
Interns who convert almost always did one thing well, they scoped the project down in week one instead of accepting a vague brief and discovering the ambiguity in week six.
6
Stage Six · The Confirmation
PPOs announced
Pre-placement offers are announced for the Gurukul intern batch. This is the outcome the entire funnel is built towards.
7
Stage Seven · The Start
Join as Gallopers
Converted interns join GCPL full time as Gallopers, the company's management trainee programme. From an online application in your first year to a full time role, that is the whole arc.
Read this before you treat it like a competition
Everything here is on the record
In a case competition, a weak round costs you a trophy. Here it sits inside a hiring file at a company you may want to work at for years. Skipping the video, rushing the psychometric or being casual in the GD does not just cost you CraftLab, it shapes how the recruiting team reads your name later. Treat every stage like an interview, because it is one.
Inside the War Room Simulator
What an FMCG simulation is really scoring
The organisers have said there is nothing to memorise for the simulation, and that is honest. What it rewards is clear thinking, sound judgment, and the ability to back a decision with logic. But an FMCG simulation still has a shape, and knowing that shape stops you from panicking in the first ten minutes. These are the four dials most consumer goods simulations move.
Dial 01
Portfolio and pricing
Which SKUs to push, which to prune, and where price sits versus the competitor. Watch gross margin per unit, not just volume.
Dial 02
Distribution and trade
General trade, modern trade, quick commerce. In Indian FMCG, availability usually beats advertising. Reach decisions compound quietly.
Dial 03
Brand investment
Advertising and promotion spend is the easiest lever to over-pull. Spending hard in round one and starving round three is the classic simulation death.
Dial 04
Supply and working capital
Inventory, service levels and cash. A stock-out in a strong quarter costs more than a modest inventory build. Read the constraint before you scale.
One habit separates strong simulation players from the rest: they write down the reason for each decision before the result appears. When the outcome comes back, they know which assumption was wrong. Everyone else only knows that the number moved.
Preparation that actually pays
Seven things to do before your application closes
1
Do a shelf walk, not a Google search
Spend forty minutes in a kirana store and a supermarket. Photograph the insecticide, hair colour and soap shelves. Note pack sizes, price points and which brand owns eye level. That one exercise gives you sharper answers than any annual report summary.
2
Pick one GCPL category and go deep
Household insecticides is the obvious one because GCPL leads it, and it has a genuinely interesting problem: usage drops when consumers stop perceiving mosquitoes as a threat. Having a point of view on one category beats shallow familiarity with all of them.
3
Script the video, then throw the script away
The prompt is about what drives you. Write it out once so the structure is clean, then record it speaking, not reading. A specific story about a moment you refused to accept how something was done will land far better than a polished list of values.
4
Answer the psychometric honestly and quickly
These instruments are built to catch inconsistency across repeated items. Trying to guess the ideal profile is the fastest way to fail a consistency check. Answer at instinct speed and move on.
5
Learn the vocabulary of the industry
Primary and secondary sales, numeric versus weighted distribution, ROI for the distributor, trade schemes, fill rate. You do not need to be an expert, you need to not stall when a mentor uses the word.
6
Rehearse the group discussion with a timer
Run one twenty minute mock with five classmates on any consumer problem. Record it. Watch where you interrupted, where you added structure, and where you went quiet. Two rounds of that is more useful than reading GD tips for a week.
7
Prepare for the poet question
Somewhere in the interview you will be asked something that is not about business, about curiosity, creativity or what you build outside class. Do not treat it as small talk. That question is doing real work in a company that recruits on the poet and engineer frame.
What is on the table
No cash prize, and a far bigger payoff
🥇 Selected Candidates
Gurukul Summer Internship 2027
An eight week internship with a ₹4.5 lakh stipend, live FMCG projects across sales, marketing, supply chain and human resources, and a final presentation to senior leadership.
🏅 Top Interns
Pre-Placement Offer
PPOs are announced for the Gurukul batch, converting into a full time role at GCPL as a Galloper.
🤝 Everyone Who Reaches the Interviews
Direct leadership exposure
Group discussions and interviews with seasoned GCPL mentors, which is genuine practice for your summers process even if this one does not convert.
An honest ROI read. Most competitions cost you three weekends and pay out in a certificate. CraftLab costs you a similar amount of effort and pays out, for the people who make it through, in a funded summer internship and a live PPO track at a company that hires roughly thirty Gurukul interns a year from a small set of premier campuses. If you are a first year in consumer goods, marketing, sales or supply chain, the expected value here is hard to beat.
Programme philosophy, the full seven stage journey, the brand portfolio and an FAQ that answers most eligibility and process questions. Read the FAQ properly, it is short and unusually direct.
The company's own post on welcoming its Gurukul cohort from premier B-schools. Useful for understanding the scale of the intake and the campuses it draws from.
A first person reflection from the 2026 batch on seeing the same business from different seats. Good for calibrating what the eight weeks feel like on the ground.
Another 2026 Gurukul intern on the project, the mentorship and the final leadership presentation. Read two of these and the interview answer about why GCPL writes itself.
One page across household insecticides, hair colour, personal wash, fabric care and air care. Skim it once now so the category names are familiar when the simulation opens.
Click any link above to open it in a new tab and explore the resource.
AceMBA · AceCase Pro and Super100
Simulation judgment, GD presence and an interview answer that holds
CraftLab tests four different skills in four weeks. Our mentors work on the ones that decide outcomes.
✓ Business simulation practice with debriefs on where your decisions leaked value
✓ Mock group discussions and interview drills with mentors from consumer goods roles
AceMBA is an independent mentorship platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to Godrej Consumer Products Limited, the Godrej Group, InsideKampus, or any entity mentioned in this article. All programme details, including stipend figures, stages, eligibility and timelines, are compiled from public sources as of the date of publication and are subject to change by the organisers without notice. The official CraftLab 2026 microsite and your placement committee are the authoritative sources for programme rules and campus eligibility. Please verify all details there before applying. This article is for educational and informational purposes only.
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