My First Lecture At IIM Raipur
It was the first day of class in a B-school for me. I came from an engineering background and had very little knowledge about business subjects. The name of the Professor was Dhananjay Bapat and the course was Marketing management 1. The professor asks “What’s the difference between a consumer and a customer?”. Suddenly I saw around 25-30 hands eager to answer the questions. I never saw a batch of enthusiastic and vibrant students fighting for a chance to answer the question. I remembered I was in a class of CAT toppers who cleared the cutoff, interview and are sitting beside me. These people are going to be tomorrow’s managers and are definitely some of the great minds of India. This was my first step in Management education. Someone gave a theoretical answer to the question. It was followed by a spontaneous answer “If my Dad bought a toffee for me and I ate it, My Dad would be the customer and I would be the consumer”. That was one of the best ways of answering such a simple question which was straight to the point and anyone can understand and relate to the situation. I was learning my first lessons in management from that class. Being an engineer without any work experience these lessons were very important to me. Even though I hadn’t thought of future specializations I could see a very good future for me.
