For the ones who believe in the institution of hands-on experience for a healthy understanding of the management domain, there was nothing more apt than Tata Steel’s
Steel-a-thon. Succinctly, I would call it a marathon of business ideas and a conflux of some of the brilliant minds of the nation.
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th December, 2014 witnessed one of the best confluences of intellect at the Centre for Excellence Auditorium, Jamshedpur where the finals of Steel-a-thon 2014 was organized. Before I share my experience, it would be apt and customary to give a brief hint of what the event was. The event was a case study based event, where candidates were thrown real time business issues faced by the giant ‘Tata Steel’. The purview of the cases extended across three broad domains of Sales and Marketing, Human Resource Management and Corporate Social Responsibility. We,
Team Ativirya a four member team including me (Ansuman Mishra), Apoorva Sharma, Saket Hawelia and Swati Pamnani, final year PGDM students at IIM Shillong, got an opportunity to represent IIM Shillong at the nationals having been adjudged as the winners of the campus round.
The feeling of having bagged the opportunity to represent your institute at an event as grand as Steel-a-thon was certainly overwhelming but what just raised the bar was the sheer elegance of hospitality which was meted to us by Tata Steel right from the first day, after we were declared the campus winners. It was ensured that we get the perfect guidance in terms of relevant market practices and information regarding the particular line of business on which we were supposed to present our analysis. The entire travel and accommodation was seamless. Hence it just left us with the time and luxury to focus whole heartedly on the case at hand. Came the much awaited moment and we were there at the auditorium face to face with 13 other teams from the best B-schools Pan-India. It posed itself as an uphill task to prove your mettle to the absolutely professional and exuberantly capable and knowledgeable jury which includes- Mr Peeyush Gupta (VP, M&S, Tata Steel), Mr Suresh Dutt Tripathi (VP, HRM, Tata Steel), Ms. Deepa Verma (Chief, HRM Services, Tata Steel), Mr Debashish Chowdhury (Chief, Business Excellence & New Projects, Tata Steel), Mr Biren Bhuta (Chief, CSR, Tata Steel), Mr Ashish Anupam (EIC, Tubes, Tata Steel) and Ms Swastika Basu (Chief, Procurement, MRO & Services).
Nevertheless for all the efforts and sincerity we had put into our analysis, it just gave us the impetus to go all out and prove a point, more to ourselves and make our institute proud. Seven hours of anticipation and a grueling battle across teams was the icing on the cake. Nothing could have just done the tiring day any good but the fact that Team Ativirya was finally adjudged the National Runners Up. The feeling in itself bought to our entire team a plethora of joy to take pride in and a feeling of bountiful contentment for the days of effort, hardwork and anticipation that had gone into the work we presented.
The very feeling of lifting the award alongside the jury members who happen to be the best in the business was one which no soul would deny to treasure for a lifetime. Indeed it was a moment that we cherished and longed for.
Hopefully we have done our institution proud with this minuscule effort of ours. Thank You IIM Shillong, Tata Steel and Team Ativirya for having gifted me such precious moments that are worth being inked in the most ebullient pages scripting my life.
By Ansuman Mishra
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Second-Year student at IIM Shillong
