It's the first day of MBA at IFMR, 4th of June is the date on which we commence this beautiful journey. So genius minds from 22 States were ready to fight it out and challenge themselves to be the best of the lot. It all started at the HC Memorial Kothari Hall and in a flash, everybody was up and ready to be greeted with some sheer knowledge from a very distinguished group of experienced and well knowledgeable minds.
It all started with the ceremonial lightening of the lamp and then came a welcome speech by our Acting Resident Director Prof. Kamal Ghosh Ray Sir. Let me just let you know all of you reading this that it was much more than just a welcome Address, he made us think why are we here. It's not those repeatable corporate Jobs (Machine and artificial intelligence are already working), it's not studying either (everything in today's era can be searched and acquired through the internet). He made us perceive that we are here to "Research". It's important to explore avenues and this was one thing he enriched us with. Getting an MBA from a university that has names like Anand Mahindra, Raghuram Rajan, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw as its members can certainly boost the confidence of young brains and Krea University was the one that would render this to us. So the next person to address was Vice-Chancellor of Krea University Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy. He highlighted the importance of the 4th industrial revolution going on and to be competitive we need to unblock our potential in today's era. He explained to us that it's good for a manager to be quant oriented but it's better to be human-oriented more and with his vast experience both in India and abroad he explained how rapid the world is changing, how new challenges are on the rise almost every day.
Since cricket commentary is my passion, I am a huge Cricket fanatic and when someone talks about cricket, my jubilation goes to a different level! So then came the special address from our guest of honour Mr. T.A. Verghese who serves as Global Business HR Head of TCS. He is a huge cricket fan and through his address, he explained the importance of learning basics and remembering the fundamentals no matter at which juncture you are in your life. When ball seams laterally and wobbles in the air too, no matter how difficult the pitch is, if your batting basics are right, you are bound to do well! IFMR is the place where we can learn those basics and collaborate with everyone to produce results. It certainly helped me to leverage my thoughts and understand the essence of doing MBA. So an address worth paying concentration!
But as they say
"Picture abhi baki hai mere dost!" The finest lesson was yet to come and in came our Cheif Guest, Mr. Vikas Gupta who works as M.D-Talent, Delloite consulting India Pvt Limited. A very lively person who gave us an equation to remember not only for this 2 years but for throughout our professional career. E=mc^2, physics equation Right? Well, actually not exactly right. The equation certainly needs no introduction. As cited earlier that this is the 4th industrial revolution going on, it has become evident that managers need to be equipped to connect technology with an organization. And thus the equation can be amplified to
Experimentation = Mindset X Communication^2. A manager needs to be open to Experimentation, should have the positive or entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to communicate. It's his own version of the equation and an important Mantra in today's competitive environment to remember.
With this we came to the vote of thanks by Dr. Vinodh Madhavan, PGP Chairperson at IFMR and his address had a deep meaning. He explained us the importance of using unlimited resources available to us wisely and to be at our best every day for the coming next 2 years. The inauguration was something that went way above what I thought it to be. It wasn't just a routine inauguration that any b-school has. It was much more than that in a very short span of time and believe me all this inauguration part was not even half of our opening day schedule! This conversation explained me and I hope everyone around the importance of what we are and what we can achieve by keeping things simple.
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About the Author:
Chinmay Bindal
"First-year MBA student at Institute for Financial Management & Research"