L&T OutThink Case Study Challenge 2018 National Finalist IMT Ghaziabad's Piyush Kalra's Story

Being the National Finalists of L&T OutThink Case Study Challenge 2018 was an experience in itself! Where do we begin to describe this nerve wrenching roller coaster of a ride! When we first checked the results in the morning, our name wasn’t there! Down the drain all our hope. But lo-behold we received a call in the evening that we are to travel to Mumbai for the Finale! It felt like a prank but oh boy was it real. Imagine traveling to another city (that too the city of dreams) for a National Finale in the first year of MBA! If there ever was a situation where “Dream Come True!” could be used, this was it!

L&T is a renowned organization and when they came to campus for the competition launch, I decided to take part in it. We had to work really hard for long hours as the case was lengthy, around 13-14 pages and full of technical jargon, unlike other competitions. Being the only core engineer in our team, I found it a bit of a challenge to make my team understand all the terms and then brainstorm the solution.

The most challenging phase was managing the submissions of the case along with preparing for our end-term exams and other activities happening in the college. The team that I worked with for this competition is the best team till date. We used to divide the work amongst us and then carry it out smoothly. The first round literally felt like a cakewalk. We had some conflicts related to solutions towards the end which we resolved using the two vs one theory.

Everyone in our team had a unique attribute to contribute. Shubham was the excited one, always enthusiastic about working on the case and asking the team to sit together to work after classes. Tanvi was really good at finding stuff online and documenting it, in a really professional manner. I was the PowerPoint guy here along with the technical knowledge to contribute.

There were 8 teams in the finals of L&T OutThink Case Study Challenge 2018. According to me, the team from IIFT was really good as their Q&A session was engrossing. In terms of judgement, the judges had already worked on the case in real life. So, they knew what did and did not work. This made them extremely critical of our solutions. This meant that the judging was going to be extremely tough and real! The organizers were really great and we got a stay and travel from L&T. Overall, the competition was well-organized.

There have been a lot of learning, the most important of which is to ‘Improvise and Implement’. Problems will come our way but we shall not get demoralized or disheartened and shall always be ready to move ahead. The exposure and experience I gained here are priceless.

Piyush Kalra - IMT Ghaziabad

(Batch of 2018-20)

Piyush Kalra, an MBA student from IMT Ghaziabad, is an EEE Engineer from GGSIPU; believes that being positive about a negative situation helps us to move ahead for the good. His is constantly looking at the bright side and it is this attribute of his that makes him indestructible!