Appreciate Diversity and Learn from Competition | Lessons from B-School

Alekhya Chakrabarty, IMT Ghaziabad, Brand Manager- Vivel, ITC | Unilever | Emami | MakeMyTrip; talks about the lessons from b-school that stayed with him from his MBA days. Marketing runs in his blood. If he is not thinking of how to disrupt how we sell things, he is busy winning quizzes. A voracious quizzer was born with a competitive streak.

Reminiscing about the 2 odd years at B-School, Alekhya can recount a myriad of lessons from b-school that have helped shape him into the person he is today. Be it the professional or personal front, B-School days have provided him the perfect platform to launch himself into the world of success and excellence.

Talking about B-School being the perfect platform, he lists out the 2 most prominent learning channels that have stayed taught him invaluable lessons:

1. The competitiveness
2. Diversity of the batch

Diversity of the batch

He explains how these 2 things were the great lessons from b-school and learning opportunity for him. He goes on the explain how his batch had people from all walks of life. There were batchmates from all over the country, and they brought with them their regional nuances.

He elaborates on his interaction with a batchmate who hailed from down South. On interacting with them, Alekhya discovered a whole new ideology and take on things that he never knew existed. It is these very perspectives that he uses to date when he is addressing his audience. Our great nation can be too great when it comes to diversity, from a marketing perspective. What sells, in say North India might not sell at all in the East!

The diversity of his batch has, in essence, opened up his mind to the multiverse that is our country. This can very well be extrapolated to the consumer!

Competition in a B-School

One can find cut-throat competition in a B-School in greater abundance than the India-Pakistan Cricket match! Any B-Schooler will agree. Maybe Darwin was referring to B-Schools when he devised the Survival of the Fittest Theory!  

Furthermore, competition brings out the side of you, you never knew existed. It moves you to keep pushing irrespective of the bruises and burns. The competition also forces your mind to see perspectives that you wouldn’t have in an ordinary set up. We as Humans have managed to reach the top of the food chain and it can be very well attributed to “competitiveness” that comes naturally to us.

Finally to sum it up, 2 years of B-School are laid out such that they will be the most scintillating years of your life. The friendships you forge, the placement you bag, the experiences you experience, the emotions you feel, these are all unmatched. Amidst all this, what you learn here is the foundation of the professional you will be.