Fast forwarding to a night before the event we received a couple of case studies at midnight and also the reporting time for the competition which was around dawn the very next day. The following night was pretty much involved in solving the cases and trying to come at logical and valuable solutions. In the beginning of solving these cases I was a little apprehensive as to what will happen in the following two days, should I really participate, what if I am not able to perform well. Well today when I look back at those continuous 50 hours for which the event lasted, I feel that participating in the event was one of the best decisions I have taken. It has also helped me to ascertain the fact that fear of failure will always restrict us but we should realize what our true potential really is and go ahead fearlessly always. After surviving for a day and half I thought, even if I fail after this then I wouldn’t be having any regrets because I tried in the first place and that showed me what my true strengths and weaknesses really were. Had I not participated I would have just kept on thinking and anticipating about all these things.
Going back to the next day morning of the competition, it started with a little ice breaking among the participants who had come various other colleges and we got to know each other a little bit.
The only motive I had when I first registered for the competition was to give my best and win the event for the college. But I never thought about how this journey would end up giving me so many learning experiences that I feel I am going to cherish these for the rest of my life. While solving those cases I felt challenged to a point where I was forced to take note of the minutest details and it made me realize that the core of any problem holds the solution and even though it is right in front of us we often tend to ignore it. Solving more case studies during the day and getting those evaluated by the esteemed judges further made me change my thought process and during this time I struck upon the fact that how much value these kind of competitions add to the overall personality of an individual.
During the afternoon of day 1, we had some fun events wherein my batch mates were given specific tasks to distract and dissuade me. I feel that my bonding with all the batch mates which was only restricted to being cordial earlier also strengthened and we as a batch stood up for the successful co-ordination and functioning of “Prayaag 18”. I had never seen the whole batch come together and stand up in unison earlier. The kind of energy and enthusiasm shown by them filled me up with determination and zeal and it propelled me to perform even better because I didn’t want to underperform in any way when everyone around was so pumped up and full of energy.
Moving towards the latter part of the day, all of us participants had minimal interactions with each other as everybody was busy with their own case studies. And then bang came the announcement that all of us have been divided into two groups and we had to work in teams with people we hardly knew. The next thing we realized that it was 12 a.m. at night and 4 of us as a team (people had met each other for the 1st time few hours ago) were roaming around in the streets of Mumbai searching along for clues, hints, volunteers for help and collaborating with each other for reaching to the common goal of completing the task. The sigh of relief heaved after spotting a volunteer and the quantum sense of achievement felt after decoding a hint cannot actually be expressed in words. They can only be experienced and the happiness only be relished at that point of time. The second day involved similar activities and case studies. One event which really made me feel all refreshed and inspired after so many business case studies was moot court. Now that was something really new for me and all the discussions and debates during the competition were so much fun, I still remember all of it as if it had happened yesterday. It also gave me a chance to portray myself into a profession I had only seen on television and the whole courtroom enaction was a wonderful experience. Apart from the value addition, such kind of tasks also add a little pint of fun to the monotonous life of an MBA graduate. Eventually in the end with newly found ties with the batch and those competitor participants who had ended up becoming more like my friends then, I believe that the event was one of the best spent times of my life wherein I actually had this sense of fulfilment of achieving something. I decided to focus more on the learning and the most important part that I realized was to enjoy the process rather than waiting for it to end. Focussing too much on the end result only hampers our current contribution of efforts and eventually we are not able to give our one hundred percent. In the end, the only thing that matters is that I had given my best without any constraints in mind.
I secured the 3rd place in the competition and it still happens to be a prized possession for me. The learning for me during the whole festival was immense, particularly the part wherein I worked in a team with people from different colleges all over the country and realized that even though we didn’t know each other but then we all came together and put in our one hundred percent as a team to win a lot of competitions within the event. I think that having a result oriented mindset and a well co-ordinated team effort helped us in winning. It taught me that whatever the task in hand is I have to give my best with all the available resources.
I have realized one thing that being successful does not always mean that one has to win, it means that one has to constantly keep working on oneself and thereby improvising and progressing from what one was before to achieve the targeted goals and get the desired results by proper execution.
ULTRATECH CEMENT LIMITED
UltraTech Cement Ltd. is the largest manufacturer of Ready Mix Concrete (RMC), grey cement and white cement in India. UltraTech as a brand embodies 'strength', 'reliability' and 'innovation'. I graduated in Civil Engineering and I have always been fascinated by the field of construction. Now I am majoring in finance and am keenly interested to study and work with the financial aspects of the cement industry. Cement is the key ingredient of infrastructure which stands as the back bone of the Indian economy. I have always looked up to the ABG group because of the way the group has supported intrapreneurship. Giving flexibility to the employees for solving the problems at hand and making sure that everybody has a chance to go out of the standardized procedure and think out of the box to achieve the desired goals and targets is something that has inspired me to a great extent.
Construction contributes to around 7.75 % of the total GDP and with the growth in the number of smart cities being planned and launched this number is bound to increase many folds. In Budget 2018-19, the Indian government announced setting up of an Affordable Housing Fund of Rs. 25,000 crore (US$ 3.86 billion) under the National Housing Bank (NHB) which will be utilised for easing credit to homebuyers. The move is expected to boost the demand of cement from the housing segment.
India’s total cement production capacity is nearly 455 million tonnes, as of 2017-18. Cement consumption is expected to grow by 4.5 per cent in FY19 supported by pick-up in the housing segment and higher infrastructure spending. The industry is currently producing 280 MT for meetings its domestic demand and 5 MT for exports requirement. Due to the increasing demand in various sectors such as housing, commercial construction and industrial construction, cement industry is expected to reach 550-600 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) by the year 2025.
UltraTech has a capacity of a little less than 100 MTPA and with recent acquisitions of cement businesses of Century Textiles and Industries this capacity is bound to increase.
The motto of “Big on growth based on strong fundamentals” is truly reflected in the financial numbers of the company as well as in the fact that the company truly believes in getting more out of less which indicates about the high emphasis the company has been placing on energy savings and pollution control. UltraTech has used innovation in astounding ways to reduce the consumption of conventional energy sources.
UltraTech has also touched more than 1.3 million families by investing in education, healthcare, infrastructure and sustainable livelihood. All these factors have made me look up to UltraTech and ABG as a group and I would want to work with the same to learn and contribute towards the future of the company.
Rajat Chaturvedi
JBIMS
MMS 2
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