Over the past two years, the world of business has demonstrated a resolute will to bring in diversity through transformed talent acquisition practices. The decision is based on the belief that multiple perspectives in problem-solving encourage creativity and significantly improve the end result. Responding to this growing trend, business schools across the country, are looking to create leaders who stand out.
In a recent conversation, InsideIIM spoke with two current PGDM students at TAPMI, who are breaking the monotony of stereotypical careers.
Dr. Suhani Jindal
Having completed your BDS in Dentistry, what inspired you to pursue an MBA and in which field are you looking to build your career?
Ever since I was a little kid, I have had versatile interests with a desire to do and achieve more. While I was pursuing dentistry, even though I enjoyed performing delicate surgeries and procedures, I found myself to be more content when I indulged in the managerial activities of the clinics. Having held a position of responsibility, being a part of the Students’ Council, I recognized my leadership and teamwork qualities early on. Being actively involved in my family’s business, I had a desire to bridge the gap between my education in healthcare and my interest in the business sector. It was then that I knew I had to do something unconventional rather than following an obvious path of pursuing an MDS. Fortunately, I found myself at TAPMI’s campus time and again, representing my college at their event, BrandScan, wherein I found an opportunity to interact with the students from a business school. That enabled me to identify that I resonated with the idea of being a marketer in the healthcare industry, paving an unprecedented pathway. Once I finally decided to take an attempt at CAT, everything else started falling into place. The idea of switching to a completely different field of education, as scary as it was at the time, seemed comfortable when I found my family and friends believing in me.
How did you go about securing internships in the field of marketing and what kind of experiences did you gain from them?
I am a self-motivated individual who is constantly looking to upskill myself. When the whole world found itself in the middle of a pandemic, I knew I had to make use of the time and learn something new. So, I did what every student does these days, picked up a few online courses. But upon finishing those, I had an urge to apply those concepts practically. Being a doctor, it was an unexplored territory and I had very little knowledge of the what’s and the how’s. That is when I accessed the LinkedIn profile, I had created ages ago but had never used and decided to take advantage of the power of the internet and social media. I wanted to do an internship, but I didn’t know where or what to look for. After fanatically browsing the portal, I came across a few opportunities and sent in my applications. And well, my efforts paid off and I landed myself two internships in marketing.
Ambika Gautam
Before pursuing your MBA journey, you were working as an advocate, how did the events conspire and where do you want to take your professional journey in the future?
During my tenure in Law School as a student, I was fortunate enough to intern with some of the leading Intellectual Property Rights firms. While working with high-value firms I was introduced to the world of Branding. Post-graduation, I went on to join one of those firms as an Associate in the Trademark litigation department. From there on I developed a real interest in how brands position themselves, the nitty-gritty of branding and the lengths to which companies would go to protect them. This genuinely fascinated me. Being an Advocate much of my time and effort went into the legal technicalities and procedures however, I wanted to work more closely with the marketing aspect. I realized that to really sink my teeth into branding and marketing, I needed to acquire domain knowledge and hence I decided to pursue an MBA in Marketing.
Tell us about how you cracked your summer internship in the field of consulting and your role at People Business Consulting.
In my first year of MBA, I was often told that with my profile I would have to work harder in order to procure an internship and become industry-ready. I admit that the journey was not easy and I faced multiple rejections. However, I continued to make all efforts on my part that I possibly could. I took a deep interest in the marketing curriculum and tried to ingrain the concepts taught in class. I tried to keep myself abreast with the marketing strategies and campaigns while trying to link them to the concepts learnt in class. I also pursued certification courses to gain the skill sets which would make my profile relevant for the roles being offered. Finally, I secured a marketing internship with an automobile firm. However, as luck would have it my offer was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I turned to LinkedIn to market myself as a prospective intern in the Marketing or Digital Marketing domain. My colleagues at the Corporate Engagement team of TAPMI reshared my post due to which it caught the eye of one of the Senior Partners of People Business Consulting – an HR consulting firm. People Business Consulting was kind enough to offer me the role of a digital marketing intern. Here, I got a well-rounded exposure of working on the social media campaign for the organization as well as sales efforts. It turned out to be a wonderful experience and was a stepping stone in my quest to become a marketing professional.
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Now, let's find out about, how TAPMI is embracing multidimensional talents from Prof. Vrishali Bhat (Associate Professor & Chairperson – PGP & Co-Chair International Accreditation) at TAPMI
Professor, how according to you has the classroom learning at TAPMI evolved over the past 5 years owing to academic diversity?
We can look at academic diversity in multiple ways – profile of students, use of different pedagogy, use of different tools. Over the past few years, TAPMI has made a conscious effort to have students of diverse backgrounds to be part of our batch – so we have students with different undergraduate educational experience (Chartered Accountant, Law, Fashion Design, Technology, Bio-Technology, Dental & Life Sciences etc.), professional work experience (Audit Firm, Power Plant, Logistics Firm etc.), geographical diversity (…), gender (…). This diversity helps as students bring different perspectives to the classroom discussion, challenge each other’s beliefs and improve the overall quality of learning. This diversity also helps them to learn how to harness the strengths of a group for collective gain (in group assignments/projects).
Faculties at TAPMI do not restrict themselves and explore various pedagogy to ensure effective learning. Apart from case discussions, simulations/games, in-class activities, role-plays etc. are used widely. For instance, the game of “Monopoly” was used to introduce students to the mechanics of preparing Financial Statements, in Business Research Methods student groups design questionnaires & collect data to address marketing problems, in Personal Selling a student plays the role of an ERP developer trying to sell Student Lifecycle System to the Dean-Administration of a college. It is generally true that students are more likely to recollect concepts taught using such innovative pedagogy even years after they graduate from the Program. We have also introduced mandatory/core courses which focus on Sustainability, Ethics and appreciation of community needs. These sensitize students and help them appreciate the impact of the adoption of sustainable business practices. In keeping with industry trends, we have also introduced courses like Marketing Analytics, Descriptive & Predictive Analytics etc. which introduce students to R, Python and other tools to aid analysis of complex data. The consistent high rankings by various domestic regulators/agencies as well as international accreditations (AACSB, AMBA, UNPrme) are testimony to TAPMI’s continuous efforts to harness diversity.
How does the academic curriculum &culture at TAPMI embrace multidimensional skillsets?
“Integrative Thinking” (ability to identify inter-linkages among functional areas within an enterprise and assess the impact of external environment on its performance) is one of the Program Learning Goals (PLGs) at TAPMI. We try to achieve this through many different ways - Case discussion is a widely used pedagogy to introduce/reinforce concepts. Many cases require students to integrate knowledge gained in other courses – e.g. cases in Marketing require a thorough understanding of Profitability measures, concept of Fixed-Variable Cost, the elasticity of demand etc. Quite often such cases are co-taught by faculty from different domains. Faculty teaching Business Communication are invited to assess project presentations for other courses and provide appropriate feedback. Thus, effective communication strategies & skills are honed in various functional courses. Additionally, students are also expected to choose at least 1 course from the Humanities (Social Psychology/Neuro-Economics/Reason & Persuasion/Music, Social Action etc.) or Foreign Languages (French/German/Spanish/Japanese etc.)
In year 2 of the Program, students are to choose their domains of specialization. We encourage & advise students to identify a domain but also complement their learning by choosing a suitable mix of elective courses from other domains. This helps students of TAPMI in their careers as they can get profiles like Business Analysts, members of Strategy teams etc. Co/extra-curricular/cultural/sport activities provide ample opportunity to demonstrate & use multidimensional skillsets. Various student committees plan activities and execute all aspects (selection of team members, budgeting & financing the activities, marketing them to target audience, and the actual conduct of the events) without any continuous monitoring by administrative setup.
Which unconventional streams according to your experience, would see a growth of business postgraduates in the coming years?
Globally there’s increasing recognition of Climate Change, Sustainable Development Goals and focus on integrating the marginalized with the mainstream, reliance on “local”, PPP etc. So, business postgraduates are likely to see increased opportunities in these sectors. Governments and International agencies like WHO are likely to need managers will multidimensional skillsets which business postgraduates are more likely to possess rather than other postgraduates.
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