Team Praetorians From IIM Shillong - 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!

Q1. Introduce each member of your team.
Indrasis Roy is an ardent enthusiast of Consulting and Strategy who loves to search out problems and their solutions. He is a dedicated individual on whom everyone can reply on for helping them on the path to success. Creativity and Innovation is his forte and when it comes to formation and depiction of an idea or strategy, he is the go to person.

Sabyasachi Dasgupta is a finance and marketing enthusiast and he loves to make these two ideas merge. With his presence in the student’s council, he is the x-factor that the team relies on in moments of fall. He picks the team up and motivates all to work together on the pathway to stardom. Subhabrata Mukherjee is a Marketing and logistics enthusiast who is the “I’ll get it done” guy of the team. He knows a guy who knows a guy who knows how to get some specific things done. With years of experience in his bag, he is the calm member of the group and always comes to aid whenever the group is divided to make them unite again to walk on the right path at the right time.

Subhrajyoti Saha is a marketing enthusiast who can sell you the world and back with his dedication and practice. He keeps the group alive with his witty jokes and helps everyone to keep track of each and every detail they have mentioned at some moment of time and are eventually to forget. Be it keeping track of deadlines, or reminding others on their to do list, to selling the ideas that are innovative and crazy enough to make the list, he is the person that holds the bonding of the group.
Together, all four facets come together to make their differences their strongest ally.

Q2. What made you participate in Mahindra War Room Season 11?
Last year, we had missed out on a lot of opportunities due to the fact that we hadn’t realised the potential of our team. When we came together to succeed in Hult Prize 2018 at Dubai, we found out that our strongest ally was the utilisation of the differences that we had for making a great team. When Mahindra War Room was floated in the campus, we all had the ringing words of hard work, good analysis and a successful future. With all the perks that MWR entailed, and the lucrative opportunity to be a part of GMC Cadre, including the fact that we wanted to pursue a career that pushed us to our limits to bring out our true selves is what merged at the forum of Mahindra War Room Season 11.

Q3. After getting to know the group better through the competition, what does Mahindra Group stand for, in your mind?
Mahindra Group stands as a synergic application of domains that thrusts the individuals as well as the group to a collective success. Through the competition we understood that no department or business can exist in silos in this compacted entangled world of today and hence it was required to have a holistic understanding that complimented each business unit and proved to be a major success factor for all individual BU’s. Mahindra Group has shown that it is ready to go big and go bold through the implementation of the ideas and renovate India towards a bigger and brighter future. Overall, Mahindra Group has synergised all its business and is the culmination of years of dedication, loyalty and boldness.

Q4. How did you go about picking your case and solving it? Tell us a few team anecdotes.
We realise and acknowledge that no individual can be great without utilisation of the strongest points of his team. Hence, we looked at the background of each one of us to choose our pathway for success. Our team members had the power of consulting, strategy, marketing and logistics. Moreover, the work done previously by some of the team members in engineering electronics and combination in automotive sector was a thing to consider. Previously the team had also been part of a change in the energy sector that had proved to be quite successful to them. Having a background in automation, electronics and communication and combined with the singular advantages that we had, there was only one choice remaining that gave us impetus to lead a generation to boldness. We just had landed on the knowing unknowingness regions of Electric Vehicles.

Indrasis was already a part of research work involved in the domain of Electric Vehicles. Sabyasachi wanted to work on automotive domain to add another skill point to his bag. Subhabrata and Subhrajyoti were clueless enough to help the other two with an introduction to each case. When we realised we were differentiated in our ideas, we fought for two days to finally conclude that fighting was getting us nowhere. Subhabrata, the always calm one finally laid down the points of strength and Subhrajyoti found that we were actually complementing our weaknesses for each other in one particular case. It was then we all realised what a team could achieve and pecked Indrasis to a brain freeze moment to collect and come up with the brilliance of Sabyasachi effect – x Factor that was the unity in our differences. Cool name we gave it! That was where we realised Electric Vehicles was the ultimate choice.

Q5. How are you preparing for the finale?
We are not thinking anything special about the finale. We are considering it as just another presentation. This helps in keeping calm and avoid unwanted pressure. We will stick to our style as that has worked till now and we are confident that it will work out in future also. There are lots of brainstorming session going on to refine our presentation and tackle question and answer session. We are also consulting our professors and industry experts so that we can fill any gap that might be present. Our Mantra is not to think about the opponents, but to give our best and ace it!

Q6. What is the one question you would like to ask Mr Anand Mahindra when you meet him in person?
You are the idol of many people, who is your idol?

Q7. Your plan with the prize money?
As part of the IIM Shillong experience, we plan to spend a part of the money in the upliftment of the students of our voluntary teaching for the underprivileged students of the north east. Our idea is to make the north east better with whatever we can contribute.

We have also decided that a part of the money be used to develop the idea into a small prototype including filing for Journal and White papers post the completion and validation of the idea. Finally, we would like to give a part of this whole prize as a gift to all our parents without whom nothing would ever have been possible and we would never have been where we are. And with whatever is left, we would like to surpass the mess food for better options outside for whatever time we have left at this college. And maybe use the remaining part to finance our ever together trips that we have in the pipeline! A little enjoyment of the well-deserved prize money!