Mridul Gupta, IIM Lucknow - India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2021

Mridul Gupta from IIM Lucknow is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2021! About Mridul Gupta: "I, Mridul Gupta did my Mechanical Engineering from IIT Guwahati. During college, I was the elected UG Senator, representing 2700+ UG Students. I was selected as one of the 3 (out of 300) for an internship with ITC Limited where I successfully worked on quality improvement of their renowned brand 'Classmate'. I was given a Pre-Placement Offer, the only one from IITG based on the performance. Post that I joined ITC Limited as Assistant Manager Operations and single-handedly looked after production of its notebooks category with a customer spend of 1400+ Crore. After working with ITC for 3 years, I joined IIM Lucknow in its flagship PGP course. I strongly believe that nothing can ever be perfect and there is always scope for improvement. I apply these things to my personal self too. I periodically do self-analysis and see what are the qualities or skills I need to develop or if something didn't go well in the last period, what was the reason and what needs to be done to ensure that it doesn't happen again. After that, I start to work that with perseverance and make myself better each day."

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The following is Mridul Gupta's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst incoming MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Promising Incoming MBA students of 2021. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Mridul's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his words.

Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?

I was working for ITC Limited in its institutional operations. I was looking after end to end production of the customized notebooks order from institutional customers.In the initial days when I was new into the company and moved into the role and huge amount of data started to rolled in about the order and the timelines were strict. Any delay in the timelines would cause order cancellation and direct revenue loss to the company. Being a fresher from an Engineering background skills to organize tasks and work were yet to get into me and one of the orders got delayed. This led to multiple escalations and hustle, but the situation was controlled finally through faster delivery to the customer location by the logistics team. This made me realize the importance of well-organizing tasks and working systematically.

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Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.

I am a completely independent person. I can survive in any kind of environment. I have lived in Jaipur, Guwahati, Chennai and now moving to Lucknow. I can cook, drive all kinds of vehicles, I work out every day, maintain my garden, read novels, watch TV shows, organize social gatherings etc.

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What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?

My first big success in life was when I got through IIT JEE and got admitted to IIT Guwahati. The importance of this was the journey of an ordinary student working on himself and getting an extraordinary result. This achievement gave me a sense of self-confidence and made me believe in myself. The biggest achievement to date for me was getting selected among the top 3 students from a pool of 300 students for ITC Limited's internship program and finally being the only one to get a PPO. The internship was the first step towards creating a difference for me. My experience with ITC, right from the internship selection process day to 5 years later from that day helped me develop as a person, helped me gain skills that may not have been possible in a lot of other locations. The best skills learnt were time management, stress management and people management.

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Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?

In five years from now, I want to have a command over my field of work ( intend to be the best in the field of marketing and work for the same). I see myself leading teams and working in an impactful role. I see myself using my skills in helping my organization of work grow while continuously working on myself to become better each day.

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What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?

I learnt various skills after joining ITC Limited in 2018 and added a lot of skills to my skill set. Some of them were particular to work or technical skills and others were soft skills. The skill I am most proud of is my time management ability. Time management is a skill a person will need throughout life and not just a specific point in time. It helps ambitious people in achieving their goals in the most effective manner.

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In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?

Good networking and communication are the most important qualities of a manager in my opinion. Networking helps a manager in stakeholder management and keeps him resourceful.A manager needs to create a plan that defines what needs to be done, when it will be done, and how it will be done. To implement the plan, managers must convey this information to everyone in the organization. For conveying the message, a manager needs good communication skills.

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Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.

I was working for ITC Limited in the production planning of their notebooks business. The manufacturing there is entirely 3rd party-based, done by 24 vendors across the country. One of the vendors on Diwali sent expensive gifts to members of my team. The dilemma was to whether accept the gift or not since it had already arrived at our homes. If we didn't accept the gift, it would be disrespectful to the person who had sent it and if we accepted it, it would be a violation of the policy. So before accepting the gift, I called the vendor and explained to him that I liked his gesture of gifting on the festival but as employees of ITC, we should not accept the gift given the roles for which we work. I thanked him and he agreed to take the gifts back. Then I asked my team to not accept Amazon deliveries that arrive at their homes and resolved the dilemma.

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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?

If given a chance to be a CEO of a company, I would choose ITC Limited.ITC Limited has some great products and brands. ITC is said to have been launching new products every week. The new products launched are good but are not available across most markets. The company's focus is right now more on developing new products and categories. As a CEO, my first action will be to divert major focus from creating new categories to building the existing ones, that have a high potential. For example, ITC has a dairy business where they also supply packed milk. But this product is not available across most of the markets. I will act to make categories like grow.

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Check The List Of InsideIIM’s 50 Most Promising Incoming Students 2021 Here!

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For the Class Of 2022, we are back with the 8th season of InsideIIM's Best 50 - India's Most Employable MBA Graduates - Class Of 2022! If you're graduating from a B-School in 2022, you're eligible to take part in this competition! Grab the chance to bring out your best side and impress your recruiters and peers. Take the opportunity to show the world why you are special, on your own terms. If you're using a web browser (Mozilla or Google Chrome), then you can take part through this link. Otherwise, please download the Kampus App (Android | iOS), and head over to Competitions.