Tag: IIMInTheNorth

Acquiring PPO in Flipkart by acing Flipkart Wired 4.0

Corporate competitions had always been a key area of focus in my MBA journey as they gave me a platform to take my classroom knowledge to the real world. Having worked in a fortune 500 organization I was always fascinated with the use of technology to elevate the human experience and hence E-Commerce was a domain of my interest. When Flipkart launched its flagship B-School competition Wired I pounced on the opportunity to apply my acquired management knowledge backed up with my technical skills to solve challenges faced by a giant like Flipkart. Since I was preparing for this competition for a long time (and well yes, the chance of scoring a PPO made it more lucrative), I was closely following the developments in the E-Commerce supply chain industry regularly. After understanding that how crucial E-Commerce had become to an average Indian in the times of COVID-induced lockdown, I wanted to dive deep into the sector and develop models on how E-Commerce can penetrate in a challenging country like ours.

The case competition required us to develop a model using which Flipkart could cater to the Tier 2 Indian customers with their day-to-day purchase needs. Understanding the importance of this problem statement in the context of Flipkart’s business situation and the national lockdown scenario, our team’s objective was to design an easy to implement supply chain model that could be easily replicated across the country within a time frame of 1 year. After clearing a series of rounds our team had the absolute delight to reach the national semifinals of this coveted competition. The very fact that this competition provided me with a platform to present my solutions and ideas to the top leadership of a dynamic organization like Flipkart tremendously added to my learning curve.

Having missed a chance to be a part of the National Finals, I was overwhelmed when I was called up for an interview with Flipkart in the form of a pre-placement interview (PPI). Well as Flipkart rightly claims “Ab har wish hogi poori” they certainly fulfilled my wish by providing me a chance to kick start my career with an organization like theirs. The interview process which had three rounds (a general aptitude test followed by 2 rounds of interviews) gave me enough opportunities to understand how I as an individual could contribute to Flipkart (technically and behaviorally). The interviewers were very keen on understanding what skill sets I bring to the table and what do I look for in terms of growth and opportunity. After those three rounds of virtual interactions, I finally got to experience that most sought-after day of MBA life when finally Flipkart offered me THE job!

The entire experience of participating in corporate competitions, learning bit by bit in each of them is a continuous journey. A journey that I believe is different for every individual. I cannot be thankful enough to be a part of an institute like IIM Kashipur where the entire atmosphere focuses on making you ready for real-world challenges. With competitions taking the center stage of academic focus it was my institute that played the pivotal role in grabbing my dream job opportunity.

About the author :
Pranav Bhardwaj is currently pursuing MBA from IIM Kashipur, with majors in Analytics and Marketing. He is a part of various student bodies like the The Consulting & Strategy Club, TEDx IIM Kashipur and Prep Cell. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

Journey of winning ‘ICICI Bank Beat the Curve 2019’ – A step towards being 4th in D2C Competitive B schools 2021

From the beginning of the campus rounds, we focused on the aspect of bringing the youth’s (millennial) perspective to our case solution. For the competition, ICICI Bank Beat the Curve 2019, we chose to suggest an innovative product that will help attract people from 20 to 30 years of age towards the services of the Bank.  

The Challenge

We started by gathering a lot of primary data by getting responses from more than 1000 individuals of varied age groups and localities. The competition had three stages – a campus round, Stage 2 (semi-final), and a Final round. We spent close to 20 hours on the semi-final and the final rounds. The mentorship provided during the semi-final round was particularly very useful. There we understood what aspects of our solution we need to focus upon.

The Winning team – Team Ideates

There were 6 teams who made it to the Grand finale of the competition. They were from institutes like IIFT, FMS, JBIMS, IIM R, etc. During the presentations of the final round, we particularly felt that the team from JBIMS had put in a lot of research in building their solution. But we were confident about our solution as well as the presentation. Both Shubham and I were part of a winning team even in the first year of our MBA. The experience and learning during that competition certainly helped us here. We had confidence in each other. While preparing for the presentation, we helped each other out in finding faults critically and correcting each other. One of us was a late-night worker and the other was an early bird. Instead of quarreling over finding a common time to work, we took it as a plus point. We worked over this across time, building on each other’s work and just cross-checking before submitting the work when we were short on deadlines!

The moments that mattered

The panel of judges was from the leadership team at ICICI Bank. The competition had a unique and amazing judgment criterion. Along with the jury panel, the audience that comprised 50 senior-level executives of ICICI Bank, scored the different teams on 4 parameters. It was based on parameters like research depth, presentation quality, innovation of the solution, and the QnA round. One key learning in this competition was that the delivery of your presentation is as important as the hard work done while building the solution. Also, it is important that you look at your solution from the audience’s perspective. This helps you judge your own presentation before anyone else does! Well, there were two amazing moments for us. One was during the QnA, where we could justify a question put up by a senior executive sitting in the audience. Later, when we took our seats after the presentation, he came to us and praised our solution. That was really reassuring. The second was obviously during the declaration of results when our team, ‘Team Ideates from IIM Kashipur‘ was announced as the National Winners of ICICI Bank Beat The Curve 2019 and we were called on stage!

About the Author:
Chirag Dixit, MBA from Indian Institute of Management Kashipur and currently works with Bloomberg in their Financial Products team.
He has also been a part of the Placement Committee of the institute for both years and has worked in fostering relationship between the institute and industry on various levels. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.



IIM Kashipur emerges as a rising star in the Dare2Compete Awards 2021!

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”  – Rabindranath Tagore 

Let’s start with the journey of a student who gets admission in a prestigious institute like an IIM after persistent preparation and trading off career opportunities. With dreams of flying higher and higher, this student has a feeling of great achievement and an equivalent responsibility to do justice with this success. He sees a glorifying career ahead in the upcoming two years and is highly enthusiastic about making the most of his MBA life. But how does he paint the canvas of these two years? Which hues does he select? This entirely depends on his strong will and determination towards learning clubbed with the opportunities and motivation offered by his institute. 

IIM Kashipur takes pride in playing a phenomenal role in the life of this student who enters the institute with the thirst for knowledge and the zeal to realise his dreams. During two years of post graduation, the institute instils in the students the feeling of “never settling down”. One of the integral parts of the culture is motivating the students to participate in case study competitions. IIM Kashipur faculties, the Placement Committee and Team Corpus leave no stones unturned to cultivate this culture of corporate and B-school competitions in the current and upcoming batches. They dedicatedly work round the year in this direction to bring the institute to unfathomable heights.

With these constant efforts, the institute has exceptionally performed in Dare2Compete (D2C) Awards 2021 securing 4th rank in D2C Competitive B-Schools 2021 Rankings.

Achieving this milestone, IIM Kashipur has joined the league of other older prestigious institutions like IIFT, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and IIM Kozhikode that appeared in the top 5 ranks. Not only this, IIM Kashipur has become the only 2nd generation IIM to have made its place in the top 10 ranks.  

This remarkable success is a reward for the diligence and determination of the students. Each and every honest participation and winning has contributed to the achievement. Throughout the year, students of both the years have meticulously planned for the competition season burning the midnight oil in the quest for their holistic development. Team Corpus created Corpus Community – a student group that dedicatedly works together to discuss and ace in the case study competitions. This community boosts collaboration among the students and with the resources as well as mentorship provided by them, it helps in optimising the hard work of all the participants. This creates a competitive environment and acts as a continuous source of motivation for the students. Also, viewing it from the other lens, Dare2Compete provides an excellent platform to the students to hone their skills in various domains by giving them a chance to participate in real-life case study competitions floated by eminent institutes and reputed companies. Hence, there is an air of unstoppable learning and fuelling the competitive spirit surrounding the student community. 

The enthusiasm of the students can be reflected in the level of participation in a large number of competitions ranging from B-school to corporate. With these sincere initiatives, IIM Kashipur has got 8 National Winners, 5 National Runners up, 4 National 2nd Runners up, 24 National Finalists and 12 Semi-Finalists throughout the competition season who have bagged positions in reputed competitions like L’Oréal Sustainability Challenge, Xiaomi Mi Summit 2.0, Virtusa Business Cipher Challenge, CarEasy Spark, TVS Credit Analytics challenge, and many more. These competitions encompass different domains of management and thereby help the students to develop various skills like problem-solving, teamwork, creative thinking, fact-finding, and mental agility, especially relevant for employability.

Also, it is a moment of pride for the institute to see 9 Champions from the institute who have secured positions in the Top 100 Dare2Compete Competitive Leaders 2021. Shubham Vispute, Rahul Choudhary, Deepansh Goyal, Prajwal Vaichalkar, G Prashanth, Vishesh Jain, Himanshu Singasene, Abhinav Yadav and Udit Arunav have exhibited a commendable performance and their relentless hard work has helped the institute in accomplishing new heights. 

IIM Kashipur is soon going to complete its 10 glorious years of establishment. This achievement has added to the magnificence of the celebration and has entrusted bigger responsibilities upon the fraternity.

This recognition is just the beginning of an extraordinary journey that will go on and on adding colourful feathers to the hat of laurels!

Journey in IIM Kashipur

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. –John F. Kennedy 

I came across this quote by Kennedy as a part of a case study in our management curriculum. At that point in time, this quote did not mean as much as it does now, as I retrospect on what has been the most crucial learning curve in my life. 

Readers of this article would associate with terms like ‘rigor‘, ‘job opportunities‘, and ‘return on investment‘ with an MBA degree. While all these terms are equally important, there is so much more propagated here in the Red-brick campus of IIM Kashipur that leave an everlasting impact in honing your skills and abilities, all the while accelerating your growth as a manager worthy of the title of an MBA.

Speaking from experience, the culture here at IIM Kashipur is structured in a manner to promote hands-on learning through the functioning of various student bodies, which has helped many students like me to improve our soft skills, learn how to delegate and prioritize pending work, how to respect deadlines and most importantly, how to push the boundaries of what is considered impossible through sheer hard work, resilience, and dedication. 

Yes, at times things can get difficult, but here at IIM Kashipur, we believe that it is our network that defines our net worth. It is this thought process that has enabled me to meet different kinds of people, learn their ways of handling difficulties associated with different problem statements, and ultimately pull through, no matter the novelty of the challenge.  

My greatest learning at IIM Kashipur has been to not get overawed by what all needs to be done in a short period, that too at a breakneck speed. Yes, it involves a mountain of work with hurdles aplenty, but when you surmount the peak, the view is beautiful from atop. 

These invaluable additions to my skillset lead me to believe that my two years worth investment at IIM Kashipur will remain etched in my mind as a bunch of happy memories, replete with learnings, challenges, and victories galore. 

About the Author:
Sahil Sondhi is currently pursuing MBA from IIM Kashipur, with majors in Marketing and Analytics. He is a part of various student bodies like the OYM-The Marketing Club and Team Insite-Admissions Support Body. He is fond of playing the guitar, going for long drives and reading novels in his spare time. You can connect with him on LinkedIn

Probable impact of US Elections on global supply chain post-Covid

As the entire world went into the first-ever lockdown of the century, all except the medical staff were confined to their homes. This ensured that everyone stays safe, but every sector of business went into a state of despicableness.

Reason? SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION!

Such is the power of supply chain network especially in this era of Globalization! Any wrong decision can lead to a world full of chaos and violence.

Fortunately for us, the world leaders ensured there was enough supply of essentials required for survival. And now that Covid-19 vaccine shots are being administered, the hopes of Supply chain normalcy seem to be cropping up.

However, one major event that took place towards the fag end of 2020 that could potentially change the way International trade and supply chain worked until now was the U.S. Elections.

As I write this article, Joe Biden is the president-elect and what could it mean to the Supply chain?

During the Presidential debate, Joe Biden emphasized negotiating with the Pacific nations to restructure the international trading rules in order to reduce dependence on China. This would help other Asian & Arabian Countries to improve their economy as they would have the liberty to export more with limited competition from China.

Joe Biden is particularly wanting to support the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) so that the United Nations’ powers in terms of framing laws for international Supply Chain & International Trade are strengthened. The manufacturing sector in this region will see a boost as North American Countries are given incentives for Automobile manufacturing, especially that of Trucks & cars. With strong agricultural laws, the farmers will get access to the markets in all three countries.

Manufacturers in the US who offshore production and sell the products or services back in the US, have to pay a heart wrenching cumulative tax of 30.8%, to solve this issue. Biden’s policy focuses on local manufacturing, he promised to direct $400 billion in federal procurement towards manufacturing and emphasized on Made in America label.

The federal department many times in the past has claimed that manufacturing certain products is not feasible in America and that has given a huge market to other countries. Biden, while addressing this point, stressed using IT Technology to publish it on a specific website built for the same purpose. Once such requirements are posted on this website, tenders can try their hands on producing such products thus getting eligible for the 10% advance tax credit policy.

During almost all his campaign rallies, Biden mentioned the need to directly support small manufacturers, especially those headed by women, this would ensure the creation of jobs and keep the national per capita income increasing. Biden said he would direct $300 billion towards R&D of electric vehicle technology, 5G, Artificial Intelligence – this ensures procurement of parts required for the same and to ensure smooth supply chain, he promised to amend Custom laws and make it easier to buy.

He said & I quote “While medical supplies and equipment are our most pressing and urgent needs, US supply chain risks are not limited to these items. The US needs to close supply chain vulnerabilities across a range of critical products on which the US is dangerously dependent on foreign suppliers.” This prepares the U.S to be ready for a probable 2nd wave of Covid-19 & any kind of crisis in the future.

Biden spoke about how supply chains laws and the federal Government’s purchasing power can ensure smooth manufacturing of critical parts used in the United States’ defence systems. In this way, not just the end product but also the supply chain of manufacturers receives a boost. Biden mentioned the need to be environment friendly and has pledged to utilize the $500 Billion federal government spends on Zero Emission & 100% clean energy vehicles. This would again create more manufacturing & thus more jobs & thus a bigger growth in the US economy. He also mentioned he would bring in stricter laws that would govern the readiness of environment-friendly technologies in all infrastructure projects, thus, giving opportunities for renewable energy innovation & thus impacting supply chain networks.

All in all, most of Biden’s policies focus on reducing the dependence on China for products & supply chain services. This would only help America as they are moving towards becoming leaders in Mass production, Supply Chain services.

We’ll have to wait & watch how the American labour class reacts to this, since the labour costs are higher in America and the Chinese workforce is almost 5 times larger than in the U.S, the next 4 years is expected to witness intense geopolitical tensions. All the countries that are in Joe Biden’s good books might receive some goodies. In the Post Covid-19 era, America might overpower China on these lines & India must continue to maintain cordial relations with them by being diplomatic on issues & at the same time strive hard to increase in-house production of goods & services through schemes like Atmanirbhar Bharat.

–Sumanth S (MBA Batch 2020–22)

The irrationality of human behaviour in the Finance world

A career in MBA Finance is one of the lucrative and sought-after opportunities in the business world. But the irony in India is that when we go back into a student’s education journey, commerce subject which deals with all the basic nuances of finance & accounting is still not preferred as the desired subject as compared with science stream.

We often tend to confuse Finance with just accounting and calculations. But, the application of real finance is not just about numbers and calculations. It’s much more beyond that. It requires you to have: 

  • Strong calculative abilities of Commerce
  •  Analytical thinking process of Science 
  •  And behavioral understanding of Humanities 

This third aspect of finance which is been ignored for decades but recently is becoming one of the hot topics for researchers. Due to the complexity and irrationality of human behaviour, it becomes difficult to take this factor into consideration for organized analysis. But this factor builds up the basis of most of the previous innovations in finance. Behavioural finance is like salvation to mathematical finance just like Friction is to Newton’s forces. For example, the birth of one of the major financial instruments in history is Insurance which is a result of irrational human behaviour explained by Kahneman and Tversky in terms of Prospect Theory.

When the fear of loss and uncertainties prevail, insurances emerged as a strong instrument for risk management. Thus, encouraging people to take risks and invest, leading to an increase in the liquidity of markets. It clearly explains human behaviour in cases of profits and losses.

Prospect Theory of Finances

The Prospect Theory graph clearly depicts that when we lose Rs. 100, our pain would be much more in comparison to the happiness in gaining Rs. 100. Thus, the magnitude of happiness and pain doesn’t vary linearly with the amount of money.

On the basis of this human behaviour, insurance policies proved to be very successful in monetizing the irrationality of human behaviour. There are various other such phenomena in human behaviour like social contagion, cognitive dissonance, anchoring, overconfidence, etc. which answer the events like the randomness of the stock market, people’s decisions and other such cases of the finance world.

Out of the 74% literacy rate in India, only 24% have finance literacy which is one of the major factors responsible for the economy of any nation. When people lack the ability to manage their own personal finances, how can we expect a nation to have a strong economy? Many people are still unaware of the power of compounding, time value of money, credit opportunities, etc. to make use of it for their improvement of financial status. Thus, it becomes very necessary for financial managers, strategists, and policymakers to discover innovative ways to bridge this gap. It is high time that we move away from the narrow approaches of finance and introduce new frameworks in the correlation between accounting and behavioural finance which will include markets, people and their behaviour.

There lies a lot of opportunities in the domain of financial risk management using behavioural finance. Though the implication of this concept has various challenges due to randomness and complexity yet it can be accomplished when the researchers and corporate leaders will work together in the right direction. We are heading towards a more complex world where simple answers are not suitable anymore. We will have to develop an ecosystem to sustain and grow in future.

One can refer to works of researchers like Professor Robert Shiller, Daniel Crosby, Kahneman and Tversky, etc for more understanding on the subject and topic of behavioural finance. This is a potential field waiting to get explored to its core. A lot of new developments can be seen in this direction in the upcoming time.

–Raksha Agrawal (MBA Batch 2020–22)

Demystifying Stock Market and Economics

Few lingering questions which every common investor has in his mind are how can the stock markets and the economy growth move in the opposite direction? Will the market crash due to poor economic growth anytime?

While the Covid-19 pandemic forced all economic activities to a total halt, pushing major economies into a recession, the markets around the world on the other hand had a mixed response showing a steep fall during the initial pandemic breakout and steadily recovering over time to race all-time highs in Indian and US exchanges.

The empirical analysis of the annual GDP growth rate and the historical market performance of leading stock exchange indices of major countries such as USA, Japan, China, and India respectively over the decade show little correlation between the growth of countries’ GDP and performance of stock markets.

Japan faced one of the worst decades of economic growth battling recession and unemployment having a maximum GDP growth rate of a mere 2% in the last decade. While Nikki_225, the benchmark index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange had lost more than 60% of its value over the decade, sharp falls in the index during this period was the result of external events such as Fukushima’s nuclear crisis and the European Sovereign Debt crisis in 2011. The rally in 2013 which surged more than 70% due to the weakening of Yen and expansive economic policy was short-lived as the market plunged by ~60% at the end of 2013 due to the weak GDP growth of China and quantitative easing of US Federal Reserve during the same period.

Though China’s economic growth declined gradually from 10% to 6% over the decade, it was still having the highest growth rate among the developing countries. The Shanghai composite index grew a mere 16% over the decade despite the country having the highest GDP growth among the major economies. The Chinese exchange majorly influenced by the domestic investors who were largely inexperienced and traded using borrowed capital persuaded by the Chinese state-owned media during the period of 2015, saw a bubble in the market with the index soaring more than 150% over the previous year despite the country having poor manufacturing and economic growth. However, the bubble was short-lived and consequently busted as it lost 40% of the value in the month of June and continue to fall subsequently due to the devaluation of Yen.

The turbulence of Chinese stock markets combined with slowing growth of China’s GDP, falling oil prices, and weakening of the Japanese Yen against the US dollar and Brexit event resulted in a global sell-out during the period of 2015–16 which impacted all major stock markets around the world including US and India. 

Despite having low GDP growth of around 2% over the decade, US markets have continued to grow over where the leading indices such as Dow Jones Industrial average, S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite have yielded returns of over 200% primarily driven by innovation and technology. FAANG companies due to the power of the platform model, network effects have had a compounded annual return of more than 20% individually over the decade. Markets also saw an emergence of new business models and sunshine sectors such as electric vehicles, e-commerce, AI & Cloud computing, alternative energy, OTT etc which continue to have positive investor sentiments.

Globalisation and foreign trade are also important factors to consider why the performance of the Indian stock markets has little correlation with economic growth as the manufacturing sector contributes only ~15% of total GDP compared to China and Japan which has ~ 30% and ~20% respectively. The major sectors such as IT, Pharma, Breweries and Distilleries, Precious Metals, Automobiles are export-oriented which relies on the US and the global economy. Sectors such as Refinery, Paint, Aviation are highly dependent on the price of crude oil as India is one of the major importers.

FII also has a significant factor to play in controlling the direction of the stock markets. Indian equities saw a record inflow of $23 Bn (Rs. 1.6 Lakh Crore) in 2020 as the global investors were optimistic about the strong economic recovery, vaccine progress and low mortality of Covid-19 in India compared to western countries. This liquidity provided by FII continues to drive the market sentiments forward leading the prices to soar all-time high across multiple sectors.

The performance of the stock markets does not rely only on the economic growth of the country. Other factors such as the nature of its constituents, the impact of FII, technology & innovation and global events can also impact the markets. Markets can be both forward-looking and reactive to economic events and will correct themselves in the event of any bubble during times of weak economic growth.

– Arjun R. (MBA Batch 2020–22)

How to fill the MBA(Analytics) registration form for IIM Kashipur?

Here is a step by step guide on how to fill the MBA(Analytics) registration form of IIM Kashipur

Step 1:

Go to the link: http://iimkashipur.ac.in/academics/mba-analytics

The official website of IIM Kashipur will open with the registration link for MBA Analytics

Step 2:

Before registering you need to pay the application fee as per your category. The details of the same can be found under the Application fee tab.

You can pay either through NEFT or SBI collect. In case you choose to pay via SBI Collect the following dialog box will appear

Click on the check box and proceed further.

In the ‘Select Payment Category’ option, choose the MBA ANALYTICS — Application Fees option and proceed further.

On the next page that appears,

Provide the necessary personal and account details. Pay the fees, download the receipt and note down your transaction ID

Step 3:

Go back to the link: http://iimkashipur.ac.in/academics/mba-analytics and click on the registration link 1 or 2.

The following dialog box will appear

Click on the ‘New User Sign-up Here’ option. It will direct you to the following page

Fill in your name, valid email ID, Mobile Number, and set a password. Click on REGISTER NOW.

Following this, you will receive an activation link on your registered email ID.

The next step is to click on the activation link which will direct you to the following page

Following this, you will get a message that your account is activated. Login with your credentials and move ahead with the registration. After logging in, the form asking for your personal details will open.


Step 4:

Fill in all the details in the next step. Ensure the desired file size limit when you upload your photograph and signature. Fill in your temporary and permanent address details.

Finally, fill in your transaction details, name of the bank along with other details, and click on NEXT.

Step 5:

In this step, you have to fill in your educational background and related details. Make sure you fill in the exact figures as mentioned in your original documents. Further, you need to fill in the details of your qualifying exam (CAT or GMAT)

Also, fill in your scholarships and professional work-experience details. Click on NEXT

Step 6:

The next step is to upload the mark sheet of your qualifying exam. Post that, you can preview the entire form and check for any errors. Sign the declaration and submit the form.

The Operations and Supply Management CLUB|IIM Kashipur

The Operations and Supply chain Management (OSM) club at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur incessantly works in operations, production & manufacturing, supply chain management, operations strategy, operations research, and project management. The club acts as a perfect medium completely dedicated towards the students. It helps them enhance their domain knowledge and explore new horizons by assisting them in pursuing their interests related to the field. Being established in the initial years of the Institute, the OSM club is one of the oldest academic clubs in IIM Kashipur. By successfully carrying out several inter-college events and interactive sessions, the club has marked its supreme presence amongst the corporates & fellow institutes and has been a front runner in demonstrating excellence & commitment in educating as well as in spreading the domain advancements.

To bring out the best from the Institute’s students, the club organizes different activities throughout the year. This ranges from quizzes, case study competitions, knowledge sharing sessions to guest lectures and industrial visits. The club believes in the philosophy that sharing knowledge is not just a single-day activity and thus operates open platforms in various social media handles for continuous debates & discussions on different topics, sharing recent trends, and molding the students for case study competitions related to the domain. The club, which had already been connected to a vast network over mediums like LinkedIn and Facebook, has chartered its Instagram presence in the AY 2020-21 and regularly posts different articles and updates through these social media handles.

Certifications

The club perfectly aligns with the Institute’s philosophy of ‘Learning by Doing’ and provides a medium for students to understand the practical applications of the theories they learn. Working on these lines, the club leaves no stones unturned on gauging the batch’s interest and facilitating relevant certification courses that can help in imbibing the culture of continuous learning & improvement. This also allows the students to learn new concepts and apply them in real-life business scenarios and case studies. In the AY 2019-20, the Club organized the Six Sigma Green Belt Certification by KPMG where around 40 students had participated and successfully completed their certification. Through the CII certification opportunity facilitated by the Club, 9 students were able to gain valuable inputs on notions such as supply chain analytics and warehouse management. The Club had also been successful in connecting with ISCEA (International Supply Chain Education Alliance). It was able to gain benefits through access to practical implementations, certification courses, and easily connect to the Industries in Operations. The Club had also thrown up a CDDP certification program for the IIM Kashipur student fraternity in the AY 2019-20.

Industrial Interactions / Guest Lectures

The club also bridges the gap between academia and industry by organizing interactions and lectures with industry stalwarts where the elite industrial professionals share their experiences and guide students to make them acquainted with the relevant skills required to excel in the industry. The club conducted the operations summit of Coalescence on 14th Sept.’19 and erudite speakers from leading organizations like McKinsey, Emami Ltd, Patanjali Ayurved Pvt.Ltd, Globelink India Pvt.Ltd, and IVY Technology India enlightened students on the topic of Process Re-Engineering.

Knowledge Sharing Sessions

The club also emphasizes conducting knowledge-sharing sessions and their effectiveness in helping students, especially those who don’t have any pre-requisite knowledge about different Operations and Supply Chain domain courses. Through this, a platform is being offered to the students to improve their public speaking skills and be on the other side of the table. The club also seeks guidance from the esteemed faculties and helps students embrace the academic culture & rigor of IIM Kashipur.

Industrial Visits 

To bring clarity and exposure to students in a practical working environment, the club organizes industrial visits at different manufacturing facilities. It leverages the most densely industrialized regions in the country with over 180 industrial plants in and around the area. This also serves as a platform for budding managers to understand the manufacturing facilities with a practical lens and learn about best practices opted by different companies. The club has organized industrial visits to companies like Ashok Leyland, Mahindra & Mahindra, and IOCL Bottling plant. 

Events

The club believes that the knowledge without application is like a book that is never read and challenges students to work on their toes and organize different intra-college and inter-college competitions throughout the year. The events include treasure hunts, marshmallow games, quizzes, case study competitions, etc. which allow students to put on their thinking caps and understand the constraints from different cross-functional aspects.

The club has organized intra-college events like Opstruct’19 and Ops-Hunt in the AY 2019-20 and AY 2020-21 respectively to make students aware of the various basic terminologies in the field of Operations and Supply Chain Management. In Opstruct’19, students played Marshmallow Game which revolved around inventory management, analytical decision making, and lean concepts. The game tested how efficiently the participants utilized their resources while keeping inventory and lead time in mind. The Ops-Hunt event amalgamated the fun & excitement of treasure hunt with the domain knowledge of operations. The student teams were required to solve different picture perception clues, objective questions, and crosswords to reach the destination.  

Operatius is an annual case study challenge organized as a part of Agnitraya, which is IIM Kashipur’s annual management festival. The event was well received and had witnessed participation from students across the top B-Schools in the country. Operacle is a PAN India case study competition. The club collaborated with different companies like Hesol Consulting to formulate the case study by striking the right balance between relevance & complexity and encouraging students to provide the most efficient & feasible ideas. Osmosis is a PAN India quiz competition organized every year by the club. It comprehends three rounds where participants are tested on different domains like Operations, Quality Management, Supply Chain Management, and their business applications. These inter-college events serve as a base for students to interact with each other and build long term connections.    Hence, in a nutshell, the club functions as constant support to the IIM Kashipur student fraternity in pursuing their interests in Operations and Supply Chain Management and works in association with different internal & external stakeholders to maintain and uplift the academic rigor that the

TFC-The Finance Club|IIM Kashipur

The Finance Club is one of the pioneer academic clubs initiated towards enhancing knowledge in the field of finance through innovative activities such as events, hands-on workshops, knowledge sharing sessions, and guest lectures from industry experts.

The club organizes innovative events throughout the year to enhance the knowledge of finance among the student community in various concepts such as trading, risk management, and investment strategies. BullsEye, a virtual simulation game that was conducted online recently saw overwhelming participation where students had an experience closer to real-time trading. Accrual Madness, Trade Wiz, Aestimatus, Open Outcry, The Simulation Challenge, High Stakes were some of the events conducted over the past year where students from various top business schools actively participated and gained exposure to various financial concepts such as risk management, portfolio management, fund allocation, etc.

TFC believes in practical application of financial knowledge and hence, Pragati, IIM Kashipur’s student-run investment fund was set up during October 2019 to foster investment knowledge among the student community. The fund was set up with the objective to provide investors with an opportunity for long-term capital appreciation by investing in a diversified portfolio comprising large and MidCap Securities. Students and alumni of the institution have actively participated in the fund by investing through multiple fund-raising windows and gained knowledge of its working. The fund is managed by the members of the club under the guidance of Prof. Dilip Kumar and has consistently outperformed its benchmark index Nifty 50 since its launch. Members of the club are actively involved in carrying out market research, portfolio tracking, and publishing monthly factsheets on the fund’s performance. The setup of the fund helped in real-time tracking of the securities market for the club members and other student’s investors during the challenging times of the pandemic which helped in formulating and analyzing various investment strategies to effectively monitor the risk volatility and performance of the portfolio.

The club published articles and newsletters regularly on current financial events through Vit Pratiti and The Financial Gazette. The club has started to post a new series of articles and content related to the working of various financial instruments and analysis of individual companies and conglomerates on social media in order to collaborate and share knowledge with the external community

Recently, the Club has partnered with StockGro, a mobile application for virtual trading and investing where students from leading b-schools get real-time experience in trading and portfolio management. Over 200+ students actively registered and participated in daily contests which helped them to stay updated with the current trends in the stock markets

The Finance Club conducts a number of knowledge-sharing sessions throughout the academic year. A variety of topics such as personal finance, investment, and trading strategies are discussed over a series of sessions which enhances the knowledge of working of stock markets and trading. Special sessions were also held on the discussion on Annual Budget 2019 and its special features which saw participation from more than 100 students.

The club hosted Coalescence – The Finance Summit in association with the academic forum to bridge the industry-university gap. Rakesh Singhania, CFO of Wells Fargo Bank, India, participated as a keynote speaker and shared his experience on how industries navigated adversity in the new era of the post-pandemic. The lecture was attended by over 100 student participants who had an opportunity to interact and gain insights on challenges faced by the financial markets. The club also hosted Money Matters, a guest lecture session in the presence of Prof. Dilip Kumar on discussing various investment-related topics concerning Pragati. The club also aided the students in preparing for competitive examinations by participating in FLIP National Challenge and CFA Research Challenge.

In this way, the club ensures that students get the essence of finance as a domain of management. It helps the students to learn about the scope in this domain and select the best course of action for their future choices. In nutshell, The Finance club fosters a culture for finance within the realms of IIM Kashipur.