Bajaj Finserv ATOM gave us the vision we never imagined | Shashank Kamath - TAPMI Manipal

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It was 15 minutes past 10 o’clock at night. I walked to my bench mate’s dorm and said, “Shomit, we need to participate in a competition. We have to prepare a team of five members.” We entered our classroom where we started checking the names printed across each seat. I was not familiar with all in my class, neither was he. We had just entered the first year of our MBA life.

When I began to form a team

We started counting each student by roll number and matched their names with their faces. Roll No.13, our first stop. She was Shomit’s working group member. Done. Roll No. 14, our next stop. She was a good friend. Done. We kept checking all other roll numbers in the class and we stopped at the second last number Roll. No 42. 

“He is my working group member”, I claimed. Done. Our team of five members had roll numbers 13, 14, 29 and 42. I never met them before but who knew that one day we would change our fortunes with the same.

When we conceptualized the idea for Bajaj Finserv ATOM

We were sitting in the class and that's when I picked up a chalk and wrote 'Bajaj Finserv ATOM' on the whiteboard. I was sitting on the professor’s desk and the team was up for discussion sitting in the first row. It all started with the whiteboard. Anything we discussed, conceptualized and fought was on that whiteboard. It was my favorite place. Slowly, we started changing places to write on the board. Also, we conceptualized the idea and discussed how it would be executed. The campus round was a thriller. A VC call with the senior leadership at Bajaj decided our fate into the competition. 

We had an idea which was not out of the world, but it was something we had faith in. We cleared the first round. It was showtime. We were determined to fulfill our promises. Seven nights after class, we came up with a robust solution. I got a call on 16th October 2018. We were flying to Pune for the National Finals of the competition. We were among the Top 12 teams in India. The energy was high and the campus was full of joy. The next five nights that we spent were the longest at TAPMI. 

Prepping for the finale 

From night discussions to almost dozing off in the class, we did everything we could do. For some institutional reason, we decided to not travel for the finale. We were dejected, frustrated and demotivated with the situation we had. I was sitting in the academic block in the rain when my team came. That is when everything changed. Did we do our best for the final round? Finally, we traveled for the finale to Pune. Things were back to the place all because of those four members who stood like a pillar during the crisis. 

We left the academic block completing our presentation at 5 AM on 24th October. And we had our flight scheduled at 8 AM. And our presentation time was 6 PM. Although, we were all sleep-deprived. We took a morning run around the campus before packing our bags. Most of us had a disheveled look on our faces. When we entered the magnificent hall of Taj Vivanta in Pune, we were high on adrenaline rush. I started the presentation and was almost about to ruin the same. I glanced at my team. The anger and concern got me back on track. Well, the presentation did start on a bad note but ended excellently. 

Mr. Ganesh Mohan, Chief of Strategy at Bajaj Finserv gave a brief intro of the winners of the competition. We were standing close to each other in unison. The crowd started shouting “TAPMI! TAPMI! TAPMI!” 

We held our breath tight. And guess what? We won the competition! And that moment changed our lives.