In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2021-23, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out! One of those featured in today's story, Saptangshu Sarkar, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!
The following are Saptangshu Sarkar’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top 50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2023. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Saptangshu's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his own words.
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.
In order to tell you about the biggest risk I have taken in my life, I need to mention few details about my profile. My acads are 7-7-5 in 10th ,12th and undergrad respectively, with 2 years of gap year between my graduation and first job.Now let us come to the actual story. I was working as a Probationary Officer in SBI, which is a fairly well-paying Government Job. But although I had job security, the job never excited me and I felt that if I keep doing this job then I will not be able to learn things which are necessary to excel in career. It was July 2020 when I started researching about IIMs, what kind of opportunities lie ahead after passing out from an IIM, how to get into one etc. On one hand the opportunities really excited me, but on the other hand I got to know that a person having similar profile like me might never get into any old IIMs no matter how much I try. Then after talking to some IIM students, I got to know that even if I get into an old IIM, it will be very hard for me to get a placement. But, after a lot of confusion, in August 2020 I finally decided that I will appear in CAT 2020. It took a lot to convince myself that all the efforts towards CAT preparation might just go to waste as I might not even get into any good b-schools, and even if I get into one I might not get good placement. Still, the thought of studying in an IIM drove me crazy. I did pretty welly in CAT and got shortlisted by IIM Indore for their flagship PGP program. Now came the biggest dilemma, to resign a government job knowing well that I will be letting go off the job security for a particularly uncertain future given my profile, or to not resign and let go of all the opportunities that may come in my way. Well, I took the risk and chose uncertainty with the hope that I am strong enough to tackle any problem that will come in my way.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act?
I would like to think I have helped others in many instances where I did not get anything in return, but there is a particular incident where in order to help my friends, I created a problem for myself and also broke a rule of the organisation we were in.So, the incident took place during the term 1 of PGP1 (1st Year) in IIM Indore. In order to compensate my poor academic performance in 10th 12th and undergrad, I was very determined to stay in the top 5 %ile in any particular subject so that I can write that in my resume during the final placement. I targeted finance subjects as I had interest in finance and comparatively above average expertise in the domain. In term 1 there was a subject called Financial Accounting and Control, where I was in top 5%ile in all quizzes and exams, but there was an individual project component which carried 20% weightage. When the project was given to us, the companies had already started coming for summer placement and many had already published their shortlists as well. It appeared that all my friends got shortlisted for one company or another, and in my friend circle I was the only one without any shortlist given my poor pre-mba profile. So, when I saw that my friends are really struggling with their Group Discussions, Interviews, and end-term examinations, i offered to help them with the individual project of Financial Accounting and Control, knowing well that I have a very good chance of staying in the top 5%ile if I do not help them, and by helping them not only 5-6 people will get similar marks which will bring me down from top 5%ile, but also we might be penalised on account of plagiarism which will bring down my marks even more. So, I think this is one of the most selfless act from my side, as just to help my friends in making the most out of the opportunities which are not available to me, I completely disregarded my strategy to build a good academic record in MBA which would help me in final placements. Unfortunately, I was not in the top 5%ile in that subject because of the individual project component, but then with I came in top 5%ile in other finance subjects in next term, so, I do not have any regret for helping my friends.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
I will not share all the details explicitly as it is related to the organisation where I had worked for more than 2 years. So, me and my immediate superior were part of a campaign where our goal was to source as many accounts as possible in one month. As a result of the campaign, many of the potential customers showed interest, but unfortunately not all of them met the requirements without which the applications would be rejected at some point in the future. I did not want to send those applications which I knew would be rejected as it would just increase the work of us as well as other officials uselessly and cause inconvenience for the customers as well, but my immediate superior did not share the same opinion. He wanted to meet our monthly target by sending the applications, as we would be judged only on the basis of number of applications and not on the basis of acceptance rate. So, I wrote an email to the regional head describing the whole situation, and he wrote back to me giving strict instructions to only send applications which were meeting the requirements, and my immediate superior had to follow those instructions.
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 that has led you to do deep work in that field?
I believe I have some level of expertise in Finance. So it basically started while working in MSME Loan department in SBI. It was the first time when I learned the science of estimating the health of a company by looking at the financial statements. Then I took up a financial modelling and valuation course in order to learn more about it. Then I applied my knowledge to invest in stock market and learned more from that. After entering IIM Indore, I became part of the Investment and Equity Research club where I got to learn more about the domain from club seniors and peers as well. I also tried to learn as much as possible from the finance related subjects offered in IIM Indore. During my internship, I actually got the opportunity to work on an M&A deal where I created actual financial model and investment pitch book. After that I also learned about the subject while preparing for CFA L1 exam.
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?
I would like to invest the money in one of my ideas that I have been thinking about from a very long time. The idea is related to creating a Metaverse for Banks. While working in a bank during Covid-19 pandemic, I realised that customers were coming physically to bank branches in order to avail banking services that can be accessed from their home, and employees were coming to banks in order to provide services most of which can be automated, and risking their lives in the process. I tried to understand the reason behind it, and I found a few of them. Firstly, many customers are not tech savvy and thus cannot browse confidently through all the all the services available in the mobile banking apps or online banking portals. Secondly, the works executed in banks are subjected to high due diligence, and thus requires repeated verification at different levels, so, many of the task cannot be automated with the available technologies. Thirdly, many people like to interact with bank staffs as it provides them with a human touch in the whole transaction. I feel that all these problems can be addressed with a Banking Metaverse, where we will used blockchain technology, NFTs, smart contracts etc to replicated a physical bank branch in a virtual metaverse.
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As per government tax payers' data and our assessment, only about 6,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn an annual 'salaried' income of INR 30 lacs or above. And only 11,00,000 Indian taxpayers earn a 'total' income of INR 30 lacs or more.
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