Team Mantra From IIFT - Mahindra War Room - Season 11

The most exciting thing for a b-schooler is to work on real-world problems of one of India’s top federations. And what better way than to do it with case study competitions? Mahindra War Room is a unique opportunity for business school students. In this series of Mahindra Warriors, we feature the 20 teams – the finalists. The ones who have made it to the last leg of the competition. The series comprises of the Warriors’ journey. Meet the Mahindra Warriors in this series and tell us who do you think has what it takes to win this year’s Mahindra War Room. Let us know in the comments below!  

Introduce each member of your team!

P Ramya Kanth

Ramya is a true believer of the saying, "an idle mind is the devil's workshop". She likes to stay busy and the hectic life of an MBA student fit in perfectly. When not attending classes, she stays occupied with assignments, her work as Senior Club Coordinator of Operations club of IIFT and in helping her team solve corporate case studies. When in need of a break she likes to read and play badminton. She also enjoys going on high altitude treks and is a wannabe travel enthusiast. She hopes to be able to dedicate time to explore at least one new place every year.

 

Anshu Tomar

Anshu Tomar is the force and the force is with him. He is a basketball player, and Stephen Curry fanboy. He loves to sketch in spare time and an avid trekker. He has a keen interest in biographical and sci-fi movies. His mantra is ‘the show must go on’.

Aditya Narain Mishra

“Cinemaholic” and “Football Fanatic” would be the best words to describe Aditya. He likes to devote his free time either to organizing activities and workshops as part of his work as the Senior Coordinator of the IT Consulting and Analytics Club, or to finding success in corporate and B-school competitions. Complementing his weird taste of music and lazy writing skills is his undying love for FC Barcelona and Martin Scorsese’s films.

Gulfirdaush Kalam

For Gulfirdaush it’s all about work and fun. To be focused when the time comes and to enjoy the moments. MBA life keeps him busy with assignments, cases and competitions. He is also the Hostel and Mess coordinator for the batch. He likes poetry and has written a few poems himself.

 

What made you to participate in Mahindra Warroom Season 11?

We as MBA students are always looking for challenging business problems and ways to solve them.  Mahindra War room is one such platform where we would be able to showcase our knowledge on one of the most coveted competitions in India. Hence, we were excited to participate in Mahindra war room season 11.

  After getting to know the group better through the competition, what does Mahindra Group stand for, in your mind?

Mahindra group to us represents ambition. The humble beginnings of the now globally recognized names goes to show how the vision of a few highly motivated men can reap huge benefits not only for the company but for the world at large. The 17 case studies each relating to diverse industries reflects the scale at which Mahindra now operates. By exposing MBA students like us to real life business cases, Mahindra proves that they are invested in the continuous improvement of their business processes.

 

How did you go about picking your case and solving it? Tell us a few team anecdotes.

All of us first read all the cases and tried to identify those in industries we were familiar with. After shortlisting about 10 cases like this, filtered out those which didn't have majority votes of the team. Of the 4-5 remaining, Automotive Business and Agribusiness caselets stood out because we had some initial groundwork with us for both the cases. Finally, we chose the former because we were curious about what the output of the simulation would be. While it was a challenging case, it was also fun to develop a model that would allow us to change multiple parameters to see varying results

  How are you preparing for the finale?

We are very enthusiastic about the finale in Mumbai. We are focusing on refining the presentation a bit more and trying to incorporate all the suggestions that were given along the way into our solution. We also would be trying to make sure that we utilize our given time to the fullest way possible.

  What is the one question you would like to ask Mr Anand Mahindra when you meet him in person?

Mahindra Group has grown immensely from its humble beginnings 70 years ago. Achievement of such scale would surely involve accepting a certain level of risk at some point. How do you decide on the level of risk that is tolerable in a business venture?

  Your plan with the prize money?

We plan to utilize the prize money for our professional development so as to increase our area of knowledge and be of more help to any organization and also to the society