Manan Soni from Xavier School of Management(XLRI Jamshedpur) is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2022!
The following is Manan Soni 's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst incoming MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Promising Incoming MBA students of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Manan's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his words.
My name is Manan Soni and I belong to Delhi. I graduated in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani this year and have subsequently joined XLRI Jamshedpur. I love to play cricket, chess and the keyboard. Another hobby of mine is analysing advertisements and sales campaigns run by organisation over the years.I have interned at startups like Industry ARC, Qurhosity and Rupifi in the Growth and Business development roles which gave me a peak into the sales and marketing domain and ignited my passion for the same. Considering my interests and aspirations, I humbly believe that I would be a good fit for a Marketing or a Consulting profile.
Tell us more about your extracurricular achievements
- Jr. Executive Member, AXIOM, XLRI:Selected out of 391 eligible candidates for 13 member team after a 4 round rigorous selection process. Responsible for sponsorship pitch, branding & crowd engagement plan of national conference Cygnus. Assigned with organising guest lectures, Excel analytics workshops & AXIOM Lounge for 700+ students. Entrusted with design of AXIS operations magazine & Six Sigma Green Belt program for 150+ students.
- Sr. Consultant, The BITS Goa Consulting Club:Spearheaded a 12 membered team for 18 consulting projects focused on go to market strategies. Partnered with IIML to train 200+ students on consulting & guesstimate basics via lectures & projects. Organised 4 placement training projects (along the lines of McKinsey's PST) for 250+ junior students.
- Sr. Member, Finance Club BITSG Organised MarketSutra with a footfall of 3k+ during Quark, one of Indias top 10 college festivalsLed the Stock Market Investing Fund with INR 2L+ AUM | Trained 300+ students on finance basics
- President, Student Council, DPS Ranipur Selected from 100 applicants in a 250 students batch to lead 48 membered Student Council of 9 units. Led the organisation of the 11th Inter DPS Sports Meet attended by 350+ students from 32 schools. Represented interests of 3000+ students from all 14 standards before the faculty & administration. Helped students in academic & admin problems | Tasked with efficient class schedule implementation.
- Social Volunteer, Nirmaan NGO Project Disha: Provided career guidance to 15+ underprivileged high school students of 3 Goa schools. Conducted 10+ counselling and mentorship drives to increase educational outreach & social inclusion.
- Ed. Volunteer, Abhigyaan, BITSG: Mentored 10+ children of Zari slums on their academic subjects & worked on honing their social skills. Taught BITS Goa staff members, security guards and mess workers basic verbal & written English.
Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
In the summer of 2020, I interned at Industry ARC, Hyderabad as a Financial analyst along with a team of five other interns from my college. We were given the task of developing Python codes to prepare an automated web scraping tool to extract real- time key data from the EDGAR database. This was a very important project for the firm as it would help them to streamline their financial analysis of the US pharma sector. We researched on the task given and developed our web scraping tool through a lot of efforts and patience. After presenting the same to our industry mentor, we realised that the python libraries we imported in our code weren't able hold the real time updating data volume that the firm wanted to import. Thus, we had to modify our approach from the start and use new libraries. We didn't lose our calm and stayed focused and after a lot of upgradation and revamping due to the guidance of our mentor, we were finally able to submit an effective product. This incident taught me the importance of staying calm and composed upon facing challenges.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
I belong to a business family that owns two printing and packaging production units in Delhi and Haridwar that manufactures corrugated boxes and mono-cartons. During July, 2020, when the country-wide lockdown was lifted and production plants were allowed to reopen, we faced a critical business challenge. Due to the limited labour force and other restrictions, my father moved to Delhi to focus on our Wazirpur factory. This led to a management vacancy at our Haridwar production plant. I took up this challenge and soon realised the problems in front of me. We had a massive labour shortage due to the migration of our labour to their villages. The sales of our clients had plummeted during the lockdown resulting in a steep decrease in their order quantity from us. The price of kraft paper and glue, our main raw materials was up by 20% due to a global supply crunch. To solve these challenges, firstly, we onboarded local labourers by paying advance wages. We started outsourcing cheaper boxes by partnering up with Okhlas manual factories, after buying our own Kraft paper. Thus, we were able to supply our local clients with competitive prices helping us to capture the local market in the initial stage of reopening. My takeaways from this experience were:1. Efficiency comes from tiny incremental changes. One tiny recipe tweak here, swapping out that troublesome belt, or adding a fan in a sticky spot. Little things add up.2. The faster you can measure product quality, the faster you can react. Long lag times decrease your ability to respond.3. Networking with the right people gives huge dividends in the end.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
- My most significant academic achievement was scoring 95 percent in my Class 12th CBSE exams. I, like any other candidate, was under extreme pressure to perform well in these crucial examinations. I hadn't scored up to my expectations in my Class 11th exams and was dejected and worried, but I decided to learn from my mistakes and make all efforts to improve. I also was preparing for my engineering entrance exams simultaneously, and knew it was important to score good in both areas. I encountered several distractions on my way and at times wasted a lot of my precious time due to them. There were also times when I started doubting myself and lost all hope. Still, through perseverance, hard work, and the support of my parents, teachers, and friends, I finally performed under pressure and scored the highest overall marks in my school in the Science department.
- Even before my final year of engineering began, I had the dream of studying Business Management at XLRI. Being a Male Engineer along with a Fresher, I knew I wouldnt receive marks for diversity and work experience and to give myself a shot I had to score very high in the XAT exam. After a lot of perseverance, I finally managed to score a decent 97.76 percentile that was enough to fetch me an Interview call from the college of my dreams. But the challenge was not over. I had to compete against the 98 and 99 percentilers who already had an edge over me leading to the interview. To secure a seat, I had to perform exceptionally in the interview round. As luck would have it, I had a motorcycle accident that fractured my right wrist which hampered my interview preparation for some weeks. With all odds against, I didnt loose hope and kept my preparation going with the same zeal and efforts. When the interview day arrived, I was nervous but I knew I had given my 100% percent and would be proud of my efforts irrespective of the results. The interview had its ups and downs but thanks to my preparation and hard work, I was confident of a good performance. When the results came and I finally achieved my dream, I knew I had learned my lesson of never giving up.
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
I foresee myself as a global entrepreneur in the future. I belong to a business family that owns two printing and packaging production units in Delhi and Haridwar that manufactures corrugated boxes and mono-cartons. I aim to take this production business to the next level while preserving its culture and ethics. I plan to expand our business to penetrate more deeply into the global paper conversion market by manufacturing new products that open up new sources of revenue both in India and abroad by inculcating the use of industry-disrupting technology and professional organisation framework. My aspiration is to create a significant impact in a dynamic and ever-changing industry and to advance the development and growth of my corporation. Five years from now, I see myself as a successful enterpriser from the skills and knowledge gained throughout my career. I aim to build a business with excellent work ethics that stands the test of time along with contributing to societys development as a whole. I want my services not to be just limited to the firm I work for but also extended to serve the society as well.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
I have experience of designing new initiatives in the social work space that aims at reaching a larger set of audience and touch more lives. As part of education volunteer at Abhigyaan, BITS Goa, I advised in expanding our education program to even include the underprivileged adult population in our campus apart from the children in nearby slums. Thus, our team worked on teaching basic english and maths to staff members, security gaurds and mess workers. The satisfaction that resulted in seeing our efforts reach more people made all our hardwork worth it. Thus, taking initiative and trying to more than what is expected of me is a skill that I am most proud of.
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
In my humble opinion, the most important skill in management is creatively solving problems and thinking outside the box to find new ways of doing things. It is very important to be flexible in working on different stints. With the rapidly evolving customer preferences, there is a dire need for firms to become more agile, sharper, and quicker in terms of targeting and innovation. Also, adapting to the ever-evolving marketing landscape becomes very vital. Therefore, one needs to be at the forefront to understand and carve the right management plan aligned with the customers' preferences. For a manager to be successful, they should be creative and have a fresh perspective in the corporate domain.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
We recently concluded the week long committee and clubs selection process at XLRI. I was shortlisted for two of the committees that had same deadline for the next rounds submission. Hence, I had to prioritise as it was not possible to complete both tasks. I ended up completing submission for one of the committee but was anxious because then this would be my one and only committee selection chance. One of my friends offered to share his submission which I could edit and submit as he was already out of the process. I realised that this would be very unethical and unfair from my side and decided to not take this path even though it would have helped mitigate the risk. I eventually got into the committee for which I had completed the task and was proud of myself for not taking an easy but unethical route.
If you were the CEO of any company of your choosing, which company would you choose and what would your first action be as CEO?
I would be honoured to become the CEO of Apple. My first action would be to set up an MVNO (Mobile virtual network operator) development team because its high time that Apple made its own MVNO. Google showed that carriers would be willing to allow this with Project Fi as long as they use smaller carriers (T-Mo, US Cellular, and Sprint). Google did this in the US - Apple should do it bigger. Bigger carriers shouldn't care, and the smaller carriers shouldn't have a problem with getting more users on their networks without spending marketing money. Globally, the market is far more fragmented and so it should be easy to get carriers to support the initiative. Apple has lots of cash, so it could even pitch in some to build out networks in poor reception areas in exchange for better terms for providing access. It should be noted that Cook nixed the idea publicly by saying that Apple didn't have the expertise in the carrier space and that Jobs used almost the exact same language when there were questions of an Apple Phone. However, this only works if Apple double downs on providing services efficiently.
Any Other Comments Or Factors You Would Like To Highlight About Yourself?
One of the resolutions I took at the start of 2022 was that I'll read more books this year. I started by setting a target for the number of books but this was challenged by just the first book that I picked- Atomic Habits by James Clear that believed in focusing on ever improving systems rather than temporary goals. From here began my journey of reading diverse books from different fields. These included masterpieces like The Lean Startup, 12 Rules for Life, Good to Great, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Shoe Dog, Emotional Intelligence among others. Thus, I savoured knowledge from diverse domains from the pens of a multitude of brilliant writers. I got a flavour of diverse spheres like a fresh approach to look at startups working in extreme risky environment, a self-help manual to become more disciplined, what it takes for ordinary companies to become great and outperform their competitors, an outlook on what wealth really is, how to achieve financial freedom, importance of emotions and the list goes on.