They say, "If you fall once, attempt again." But at what cost? Today, we bring you someone who made two consecutive risky decisions to pursue his passion for supply chain and lean thinking. His knowledge of "knowing what is best for him" and the innate desire to make processes better landed him amongst India's Best-50 Most Employable MBA Graduates!
The following is Giridhar Gopal's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 most employable MBA graduates of the Class of 2020. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated by the Founder of InsideIIM-Kampus Konversations, Harshvardhan Gautam's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his words.
"I'm Giridhar Gopal, a PGDM graduate from SPJIMR, Mumbai. I was offered the role of Assistant Vice President of Business Initiatives at WorkIndia where I will be joining in June. I developed an immense liking towards solving business case studies which helped me win accolades in various corporate and B-school competitions. Besides it also sharpened my problem-solving skills and creativity. This also helped me in my internship with Future Consumer Ltd were my recommendations helped reduce the average days of inventory by 30%. Prior to SPJIMR, I worked as a Manufacturing Engineer at Elgi Equipments Ltd, a Deming Prize-winning compressed air solutions company. I was responsible for ensuring the availability of assembly capacity on the line as per the market demand. In this role, I had initiated and implemented various projects which improved the productivity of the line by 18% in a year. On a personal note, I'm also a poet and I have authored more than 30 poems."
Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
"From 79 percentile in CAT 2016 to 98 percentile in CAT 2017 and SPJIMR 2020: After a disappointing attempt in CAT 2016. I decided that I had to up my game for CAT 2017. The unpredictable nature of my job had posed as a serious deterrent on my preparation in 2016. Therefore, I decided to make a choice despite being lined up for a high-profile project in another 2 months. I decided to resign from my job with a single-minded goal of 'Belling the CAT'. Exactly 11 months later, the admission mail from SPJIMR seemed like the perfect ending for a risky adventure. A failure in this pursuit would have meant difficulties in finding a job later and settling for a lower rung college. But, a calculated risk and persistent efforts helped me come out with flying colours."
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
"During a conversation with a friend, I happened to know that one of her friends was admitted in with a serious lung condition. She was in urgent need of financial help. I soon contacted 'Together we can', a privately managed fund in which I was an active donor. After making the case I appealed to them to release some fund for the cause. With the help of the existing funds and from some individual contributions we raised Rs. 3 lakhs which we forwarded towards the cause. The girl was thankfully saved."
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
"During my job at Elgi, I noticed that the operators moved substantially during the process. When I presented this insight to my manager he felt that the returns from addressing this issue might be limited and suggested that I focus on other areas. Convinced of my insight I decided to analyze the problem and prepare a proper business case for the same. Further analysis revealed a potential for 17% productivity improvement through continuous improvement initiatives and some design changes. On presenting this to my manager after a few days, he was convinced of this and gave me the green signal to implement the same."
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
"I consider Lean Thinking as my expertise. Working at Elgi, where Lean formed the cornerstone of every initiative, helped me develop an efficiency-based approach to problem-solving. This expertise helped me during my internship at Future Consumer Ltd where I recommended a distribution strategy for 800+ SKUs across multiple warehouses which reduced the average days of inventory by 30% for the firm."
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
"Assumption: This amount is besides my regular income.
Short term investment: 15% of the wealth will be invested in hybrid mutual funds. The purpose is to generate sufficient money to fund my aspiration of a second MBA from a Silicon Valley-based B-school.
Long term investment: 50% of the wealth will be invested in direct equity. A major part will be in promising start-ups to help them scale their ideas. The other part will be in blue-chip stocks as a risk hedging to the start-up component. This will help generate wealth for expenses relating to my children and their education.
Community service: 20% of the wealth will serve as seed capital to found an NGO which will work to upskill rural youth with vocational skills and basic computer literacy. The idea is to make them self-reliant to run their own garages or workshops and help earn their daily bread. Personal use: 15% of my wealth will be used in buying a piece of land in a south-Indian hill station where I shall build my retirement home."
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