After a good induction session with the top leaders of the Group, it was time for us to get into our respective projects. I was given the project in Mahindra Finance in their SME division. My Project Guide was the head of sales of the division. He explained to me everything about the functioning of the company and his vertical, in our first meeting itself. He was very optimistic with the project and explained with what he expects from me in the end. He gave me full freedom to design me the path and timeline and even the milestones of the project, keeping in mind the final outcome.
My guide suggested me to go on to the ground and see what is happening in reality and where are we excelling or lagging against our competitors. After basic secondary research in the first 2-3 days, my guide informed the Regional Manager of West India to take care of everything for my visit to different clients and customers. I met a good number of existing and prospective customers in Mumbai and surrounding areas including Thane, Vasai, Palgadh, Navi Mumbai and other places, and understood what the real issues are on the ground.
My second week started with the meeting with the Vice Chairman & MD of Mahindra Finance Mr. Ramesh Iyer. He took the project very seriously and asked every minute detail of the project, and asked us to make the best use of this opportunity in understanding the business and the sector.
I returned from the field visit with an initial report and discussed everything with my guide. After a few days, when I believed that I had a lot of missing links, I talked the same with the guide, he called his managers and asked them to arrange for my meetings and made them even work on their off days, just to get everything in place for me. This made me feel very special and how seriously the guide and the organisation were taking this project.
However, after meeting a lot of clients in the region, I found my views skewed towards the issue of West India only, where Mahindra was comparatively very strong. We had a long weekend coming up due to the Elections and Maharashtra day, and I thought I could better utilise these holidays, and discussed with my guide that I could make visits to other parts of the country and analyse the situation in those areas. My guide was very happy with my initiative and immediately called up the North and South India’s Regional Managers and asked them to plan my visit. I visited Jaipur, Delhi, and Chennai for a day each and returned to Mumbai with insightful information about how different markets were reacting in different regions of the country.
My fourth week ended with all these visits, knowing and understanding, how policies are implemented on the ground. I have started my work on identifying the gaps and opportunities and will develop a strategy on improving the process in the coming weeks. I am delighted to work with a manager who gives so much freedom and importance to every individual and the project. These all factor motivates me to work hard and stay with the Mahindra Group for long.