With the current COVID-19 situation, the world is facing a serious economic impact. With an uncertain future looming ahead of them, many students are worried about what they should be doing with their study plans, reorienting their priorities and aspirations. Amidst this, we bring you a very insightful interview with Mr. Prawin Tiwari, who has a whopping 16 years of experience in the banking sector. Perhaps his insights will help you figure out your plans for the future.
Mr. Prawin Tiwari did his MBA in Marketing from IFMR, a B-school that is renowned for Finance related education. Following graduation, Mr. Tiwari joined ICICI Bank, which led to a long and successful career in the banking sector. We got the opportunity to talk to Mr. Tiwari about his MBA experience, his career journey, as well as the emerging trends in the banking sector. If you aspire to build a career in Finance or Banking, this interview is certainly for you!
Excerpts from the interview:
Q. What made you pursue an MBA? How did you go about making that decision, and why did you choose IFMR?
After my undergrad, I was associated with an FMCG distributor in Patna. It was a part-time job, where I assisted him in territory expansion through larger beat coverage. During the campaign, I got an opportunity to interact with a senior manager from Gillette India, who had recently joined as a management trainee through campus placement from S P Jain. He suggested that I pursue an MBA for wider exposure and better career growth. His advice helped me pursue further studies, and that's how I decided to do an MBA.
Through contacts within the family, I met Mr. Arun Sharma (author of many Books related to CAT preparation) who had started an MBA coaching institute in Patna. This coaching institute connected me with a couple of alumni from XLRI who suggested IFMR as a prominent option, as they had stayed in the IFMR campus during their summer internship, and they had a very high opinion about the institute.
Q. Any memorable moments from your days at IFMR?
During the group projects, the formation of groups for market survey in Chennai used to be a challenge. Our batch was a mix of students from all across the country, and we faced linguistic challenges during market surveys. However, the scholars representing our group were excellent facilitators in that sense.
Another memorable moment was organising a college trip to the outskirts of the city, followed by organising the first Holi event on our campus.
One of our professors, known for his powerful and straight thinking was Prof. Venugopal. His sessions were always thrilling and full of adventure, and extremely useful from a learning point of view. Though I liked attending every professor’s classes, somehow I had a natural inclination for subjects like Organisational Behaviour, Services Marketing & Strategy. I found all classes interesting but particularly enjoyed sessions by Prof. Raghuraman, Prof. Venugopal and Prof. Vishvanathan.
Q. From IFMR, you were placed at ICICI Bank. Why did you make this shift from Marketing to Finance?
Though IFMR had the reputation of finance as the core subject, I had opted for Marketing. Since ICICI Bank had its training & research centre in IFMR, the bank was one of my preferred companies to work with. During my study at IFMR, many ICICI Employees used to visit our campus for training. Their feedback and guidance helped me a lot .
In ICICI Bank, I had joined their Retail Assets Division which was linked with Customer Relationships.
Q. Any memorable project you worked on while at ICICI?
In ICICI Bank, I was in the Risk & Recovery Department in Bangalore. I suggested an “Inter State Tracking Mechanism” to trace missing vehicles financed by ICICI Bank. As per my suggestion, the bank launched an internal portal called “TRACE” at a pan India level for the entire collection department, in Auto Division.
Have you read: Cryptocurrency: The Future Of Money?|| Jay Kumar Patel || IFMR GSB Krea University
Q. From ICICI, you moved to IndusInd and then to Citibank. Why did you make that move, and how different were your experiences?
I have made these switches with the intention of better career growth. These career movements gave me widespread exposure on various fronts, experience of different products and functions in different geographies, as well as the opportunity to work in different work cultures.
My work with ICICI Bank in Bangalore gave me exposure to Western India, including many rural parts of Maharashtra in the Two Wheeler & Auto Division. Later, I joined Citi Financial in the Mortgage Department, where I worked in Nagpur & Delhi. Such wide exposure helped me have better stability with the next level of growth in the latter part of my career.
Q. After a brief stint with Standard Chartered, you moved to HDB Financial Services, where you’ve been working for close to a decade now. What is it about HDB that has made you stick around for so long?
HDB Financial Services is a subsidiary of HDFC Bank. Here, I joined as an Area Manager in 2011, and have been associated with the company for the last 9 years. I had joined HDB when the company was only 3 years old, so I had a golden opportunity to work in a new organisation where I could utilise all my prior experience to be the part of a winning team. During this journey, I was promoted from Area Level to Cluster Level, and then to Zonal level.
The company is now one of the most valued NBFCs in India. HDB upholds the values of fair work practice, transparency, and integrity. Freedom to share ideas, constructive feedback, and access to top management is what I think makes HDB unique.
Q. From Customer Manager to Zonal Manager, how was the transition? What are the differences in responsibilities in both roles, and how did you cope with them?
Transitions always take us through new learning processes. At the cluster level, I was more into the front line role, where specially sales skills are required. The Zonal role demanded a different skill set, where sales is just one part of the deliverables. Managing the scale is the most crucial thing, where one is accountable for both input and output. Manpower cost, team productivity, business sustainability, distribution cost, sales cost, audit, collections & compliance are the key areas which get added at the Zonal level.
My prior stint with organisations like ICICI, IndusInd, Citi Financial helped me to adapt quickly in the new role. Since I had worked in multiple products and geographies, it helped me get along with people in other functions, helping me get work done within the company framework.
Another important learning was on treating your junior colleagues with care and respect. The transition phase is very crucial when someone gets promoted among your colleagues, and later when they become your subordinate or part of the team. Even after my promotion to Zonal Level, I always treated all of my team members as my colleagues and friends. This helped me establish trust and confidence within my team, and also helped in quickly getting accepted in my new role as their supervisor.
Q. You’ve been in the Banking Sector for about 16 years now. Looking back, do you think doing an MBA in Finance would’ve been better? If yes, why? If no, why
One must be aware of their interest and inclination before they choose any field or subject. Understanding of Finance is equally important for a sales/marketing guy who wants to work in the Banking sector.
What do you do if clients have queries related to core banking or finance? You can't say that you are not aware since you work in marketing. If you are choosing any sector, one must have a broad idea of the industry and sector. However, for a core Finance professional, it is recommended that he invests more time to become an expert in the subject.
MBA in Finance will be helpful during job placements if you want to do a Core Finance job in the Banking sector. Even for someone who is opting for Marketing, he should not avoid other key subjects like corporate finance, accountancy, statistics, etc. Understanding these subjects helps during career progression. One may not need to get a masters in these subjects but must have the basic overview.
Also read: Next Wave Of Global Debt Crisis And Globalisation || Amit Agrawal || IFMR GSB,Krea University
Q. What skills do you think are a must to thrive in the Banking Sector? How can an MBA prepare you for that?
MBA education and the reputation of the institute provides you with the initial platform to make an entry into the Banking sector. Before one decides to get into the banking sector, he must be sure about the stream he wants to opt for- Core Finance or Marketing.
In any case for both Finance and Marketing aspirants, 1
st year of MBA college is very important to help prepare the basic foundation. Acquiring knowledge of basic Finance & Accountancy is a must for even Marketing aspirants. If one is opting for core finance he needs to have a comprehensive understanding of subjects like Financial Management, Economics, Corporate Finance, Accountancy, Ratio Analysis, and so on.
An MBA Graduate with a Finance background may face competition from Chartered Accountants, who have an edge because of their specific qualification & domain expertise. Since IFMR is renowned for its Finance course through the global alumni network, this will certainly help students who want to pursue a career in Finance.
Q. At present, the world is dealing with a global pandemic. What are the emerging trends in the Banking Sector in response to this situation?
Banks have started lowering the rate of interest in the wake of some regulatory relaxation given by RBI. The home loan rate has already gone down, which will make home loans cheaper. Since there will be a correction in real estate prices due to the effect of coronavirus on real estate, lower rates of interest will work as an incentive for end-users to purchase houses.
For SME funding, RBI has given additional grants to banks to lend to small NBFCs who have much larger footprints in the country through their branch network. There will be some caution sectors, where banks will act ultra-conservative in lending. For eg. Auto, labor-intensive plants, real estate, Hotels, Hospitality industry, etc. will take longer to revive their business operations. Agro-based industries like food grain, dairy, grocery, pharma, FMCG, and e-commerce companies are going to be immediate beneficiaries of the banks’ lending plans.
Q. How has the global pandemic affected you as a professional? How are you coping with the same?
Even after the lockdown was imposed across the country, some sectors were allowed to function in phase 2. NBFCs are yet not allowed by authorities to open their offices, so we are unable to resume work properly. Assuming that the lockdown will be lifted systematically in many parts of the country, we are working out on modalities to operate under new guidelines of social distancing.
We are looking forward to growing demand from some key sectors. Due to growing demand, these sectors will need funds to meet their working capital requirement. Hence, there is going to be increased demand for retail loans.
Q. People are comparing today’s situation with the financial crash in 2008. What are your thoughts regarding this comparison?
2008 was the impact of the global recession predominantly by the impact of the subprime crisis. The present situation is different from 2008 as the economic activity is on complete hold for the past 50+ days. This may cause larger socio-economic impact through rising unemployment, disruption of cash flows for many export & import oriented companies, leading to diversification for many from their core business. This will also impact government revenue due to poor tax collection.
Q. There is a lot of anxiety around job-loss and an economic slump. Amidst this situation, current students and fresh graduates are worried about their futures. What would you like to say to these students/graduates? Any advice you would like to give them?
Many big companies have honoured their commitment by on-boarding candidates whom they had issued the offer letters. However, they have also deferred their business expansion plans, and many have simultaneously started implementing pay cuts, and reducing other overheads and expenditures.
The following year is going to be a challenging one for the economy. Students should try to review their prior aspirations for preferred sectors considering the post COVID-19 economy. They need to re-identify the sectors which will continue growing like pharma, FMCG, e-commerce, retail chain, digital education, and so on. There will be many startups venturing into these sectors; many big players may plan to diversify into sectors which have high potential of growth. This will open an opportunity for freshers as they will be the ones the companies can hire at lower salaries than the experienced lot, who are already on higher payrolls.
That was a very insightful interview. We hope you learned something more. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share in the comments section below.
You might also like:
What It Takes To Get Into JP Morgan Chase Ft. Prabhu G, IFMR GSB
MBA Is A Time And Money Commitment - Michael Jebadurai, Piramal Capital
I Did An MBA For Better Marriage Prospects Ft. Arun Ramnath | Konversations Cafe S04
Your Resume Is Not Enough For A Job Application, Ft Amandeep Singh, VMLY&R | Konversations Cafe S04