My MBA Journey- Microcosm of what life entails (Top 50 MBA grads of 2017)

Treading on the insipid yet revered conventional path of engineering followed by an IT stint followed by an MBA, I didn’t really feel that I can move against the odds in this unrelenting rat race. But then, all along this conventional path, I tried to be the best I could, learn the most I could and utilise the resources at my disposal. Be it quizzes, debates, writing, elocutions and now case studies; I have never lost that innate desire to compete and in that tryst, I feel I have made a mark in spite of walking on that tried and tested route.

A voracious reader, an avid blogger and a technology enthusiast, my mantra in life would be, be the best you can in whatever you do. Aim high. Stay humble.

My MBA journey at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade has been an eye-opener with a great learning curve both from a personal as well as professional perspective. The rigour at IIFT gave me an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of brightest minds in the country and learn from a diverse cohort. The biggest motivation to do well arose because of the competitive environment I was subjected to and to justify the brand IIFT has built over years. I have had the privilege of serving IIFT’s Student Council (IMF) in the capacity of Joint Media Coordinator; being the National Winner in corporate competitions like HCL Ace and ShopClues Case Challenge and winning B-school competitions at premier institutes like IIM Lucknow, IIM Raipur, Delhi School of Economics and IIT Kharagpur. In these last few weeks of my MBA, I am trying to hone my table tennis skills and exploring the city.

If you had a magic wand, what is the one problem in India that you would magically wish away? Explain why.

“Cogito ergo sum”

If granted a wish I would love to transform the education ecosystem in India. The reasons are aplenty. Firstly, if we do a cross-sectional analysis of our contemporary society, there are several sects and geographies where education is still not considered necessary for a dignified life. There is a lot of emphasis on earning money via training rather than self-independence through education. So, I would like to chart out a short-term roadmap that would:

1. Incentivise the citizens who encourage 100% literacy rate in their families from tier 2 and rural clusters.

2. Make elementary education free.

3. The pedigree of education in the country is dismal. Not just the infrastructure but also the quality of teaching staff. So, a thorough competency assessment in needed for the teachers too in order to ensure quality and relevant education imparted to the pupils.

The long-term aim will be on tertiary education. This will entail the following:

1. Once a student reaches 16 years of age, he/she needs guidance regarding the domains where a career can be envisioned. So, I shall make a skill assessment and counselling platform where students will get expert guidance on whether they should go for Science/Commerce/ Medicine based on their existing skills and aptitude. This will ensure unnecessary burdens on engineering colleges/medicine schools where the herd mentality persists.

2. There shall be sessions to teach the students how to think rather than what to think. The reason is that in India, there’s a lot of emphasis on rote learning and cramming facts. There is hardly any application. This results in low employability indices and thus unemployment. So, the education system itself needs transformation with business and education separated. The commercialisation of education needs to stop.

3. Strict regulations regarding accreditation of engineering colleges/ b-schools and medical institutions. The plethora of such lower rung private colleges mushrooming in educational hubs and misleading students and parents is something that has become a grave concern. There should be transparency and as less as bureaucracy as possible in the process. Only the institutions that clear all the stipulated parameters should be granted the license to run.

India does not have 1 hospital bed per 1000 persons. It is much below WHO’s average of 5. If you were the prime minister of the country, how would you solve this problem?

 As a PM of the country I would undertake the below-mentioned initiatives:

1. Improvement in primary healthcare facilities at the village level. This will involve in training “health educators” to will create awareness about prevention of minor ailments and provide basic facility to the patients. Also empowerment of the nursing and paramedical staff, Aanganwadi staff under skill India initiative.

2. Mobile clinics in tier 1 and tier 2 cities to reduce the burden on metro hospitals like AIIMS etc.

3. Increase in the percentage of GDP towards healthcare sector to aid in R&D for more modern and world class facilities.

4. The current ecosystem contains only allopathic treatment, but as a PM with the collaboration of Ministry of Health and Aayush, I will promote Ayurveda as an alternative channel and create a policy that emancipates vaidyas in cities so that other alternative ways of medicine can get limelight.

Give us an instance when you failed and how did you overcome that downfall?

Like all fellow interns, I was eager to perform well during my summer internship. My internship was at an e-commerce unicorn- Shopclues, which was a drastic change from the Fortune 200 organisation where I’d previously worked. My project involved data analytics in order to optimise search campaigns but with no prior knowledge of any data slicing tools, I was flummoxed. For the first two weeks of my 8-week stint, I was not able to give any deliverable to my mentor and felt extremely demotivated and down because at a startup, it is extremely difficult for your co-employees to impart you on the job training.

So, then I understood that I need to pull up my socks if I were to succeed in my internship and started to do an online course on SaaS on Sundays via online learning platforms. In this way, my Sundays were spent learning the tool and then during the week, I used to try the techniques to decipher data. The progress was slow but by the time my stint came to an end I was able to successfully do the optimisation for one of the largest categories at ShopClues.

This effort helped me fetch an appreciation mail from the AVP Marketing at the organisation. I was also awarded a PPI.

(InsideIIM's eminent jury comprising of industrial stalwarts have selected the Most Desirable MBA grads for the Class of 2017) The original article can be read here: https://insideiim.com/mba-for-me-has-been-a-microcosm-of-what-life-entails-ahead-udit-bhatia-best50-class-of-2017/

Women Entrepreneurship

“Aerodynamically, a bumblebee shouldn’t fly, but then she doesn’t know about that handicap and goes on flying anyways”

-Anonymous

courtesy- webopower.com

Entrepreneurship is essentially a ubiquitous term in today’s economic as well as social landscape. It has been trending for a few years now and ever since the millennial found a way to be job creators rather than seekers, the term has gained increasing significance.

So, what’s the great fuss about entrepreneurship. It is commonplace. Correct? Yes, to a certain extent. But when the question of women being at the helm of startups and creating a new product or a service, it does raise an eyebrow or two. The world is still under a bit of patriarchal mentality when it comes to women heading new businesses. But, as the saying goes, “Good thing come late but stronger”.

The world coughed when they say an Indira Nooyi heading a global MNC or a Sheryl Sandberg taking strides with Mark Zuckerberg. Women occupying executive positions in leading MNCs and rubbing shoulders with the who’s-who of the industry doesn’t come as a surprise. The world indeed worships meritocracy and if a woman can topple men and be competitive, so be it. This however, sounds utopian. The reality is starker, when viewed from an ethnographic perspective and a regional lens.

If we look at women entrepreneurship in Indian context, there is still a lot of work to be done. Not just in terms of the governmental policies and framework but also the mentality. Women are traditionally viewed as beings with less risk appetite and fear of failure. They are emotional beings who will eventually succumb to the viscitudes of family life and won’t go all the way with their ventures. Well, the Government of India has done its it bit to make the access of capital easier of women to start small businesses and be economically independent but the other obstacles still persist. One of the issues that comes to mind is the mental clot of not being able to make it to the proverbial table. This attitude of low self-esteem and not backing their abilities hinders the risk taking ability in the feminine gender.

The probability of women creating businesses in counter-intuitive. Men led businesses have failed more spectacularly. For women, it is the lack of options and the added burden of family- related responsibilities that hinder their businesses to thrive. A Sheryl Sandberg rightly said, “If Option A doesn’t work out, kick the shit out of Option B”. This is the kind of attitude that budding women entrepreneurs require to succeed. If they keep wallowing for job security and the need of liberalism, it won’t fetch them the success they need. They need to think big and long-term.

The statistics and the personal attributes support women. Women are naturally more imaginative and intuitive. They have superior communication skills than their more famed counterparts. Women also need not be clouded by the “tech surge” and feel that they’re out of place. We can take the example of Shehnaz Hussain and Ekta Kapoor- two women who have made it big in the glam world which are conventionally easier for women to venture into.

The icons of women empowerment like Oprah Winfrey and Angela Merkel dwell on the citadel of aggressive entrepreneurship and urge women to try and build a next Apple or Microsoft and not stay limited to an in-house pickle manufacturing unit. In India, the starts would be small, the steps would be tiny but then the aforementioned examples show the capability and potential in store. Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs (FIWE), is a dedicated governmental organization to promote self-dependence leading to economic and social liberation among Indian women. In addition, the Skill India program being run by the incumbent government further consolidates the confidence of women vying to enters MSMEs etc. There are several Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Stree Shakti Schemes which offer credit and platform for women to collaborate and network with respect to business. The need of the hour is to think beyond the social stigma and vagaries of feminism and embrace the new economic landscape that is glittered with opportunities.

The American and the European notions are more inclined towards ambition and this is something the Asian women can learn. It is their right to sit at the table and not the sidelines. They need not be apologetic about devoting more towards their work and dreams rather than kids. They need to pay that opportunity cost if they are to succeed. As Charles Bukowski said, you need to die a few times before you can really live.

“The day isn’t far when the dollar will have a female printed on it”

Written by:

Udit Bhatia

MBA (IB)

2015-17

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

The mirage

Ticking clock, years on my back,
Arriving at a juncture on a fast track.
It occurs, flipping through the pages,
Some things are fixed rest our the changes.

Not quite the sine curve, life has been;
Some goods are never to be seen.
Happy is small, sad is like an eon;
Darkness is eating into the dawn.

The hell is empty, it is crowded down;
A gentle noble soul equals a clown.
The angelic entity standing on a precipice;
Staring ahead at a giant abyss.

Shallow people shallow times;
The purity is on a decline.
The kalyuga couldn't have become graver;
Sucking goodness giving a burnt flavour.

We swipe right to find love;
We gather more than we can shove.
Farcical are people, mechanistic emotions;
Earth may be warmer, but the teardrops get frozen.

The world is a jury, ready to pounce;
A mistake you made amounting to an ounce.
Notwithstanding their own follies, they levitate;
Aiding the air of the earth to suffocate.

Parochial views, xenophobic world;
bounded rationalities, abuses hurled.
The human race's actions grave and succint;
Karma if a racial thing would make us extinct.

To jog around life unfazed;
Is only a dream, pictured like a haze.
Yearning for time to freeze;
To experience the warmth and the azure breeze.

To see the beauty, ignore the morose;
Appreciate the friend, wary the foes.
Hope inspires to forget the bygone;
Letting go is better than holding on.

The illusion has never been starker;
Grit though has never been fonder.
Margins are paper and path is a knife;
Walking to decipher the mirage called life.


-Udit Bhatia