Vedanta Awarded These Students INR 10,00,000+ And Pre-placement Offers Via XStrat!

6 mins read

“It was a magical moment when we were announced as the Second Runners-up of Vedanta XStrat and it felt really amazing to see that all our efforts were worth it.” - Ankita Mohanty from MDI Gurgaon

“The feeling was really amazing. It took a while for the result to sink in. It is a monumental win that was achieved by loads of brainstorming sessions resulting in many sleepless nights for us. It will be one of the fondest memories for the rest of my life.” - Mayukh Roy from IIM Calcutta

“I feel very proud for winning a national competition. I'm happy that I get to represent ISB on a national level. I'm speechless at the thought of working with a great company like Vedanta and the best people from all over the world.” - VishnuKiritee Guttikonda from Indian School of Business

This is the feeling of winning a B-School case challenge of repute. Apart from getting an opportunity to interact with world leaders, seasoned industrialists, and bagging huge prize money, one gets an unparalleled experience - something no classroom can give you! 

In this piece, we bring you the exclusive interview of the Winners of Vedanta XStrat - how they strategized their win, their learnings, and more. Keep reading!

Explore competitions, quizzes, internships, and jobs here!

A sneak peek at XStrat

A quick brush-up: Vedanta Limited is one of the world’s leading Oil & Gas and Metals companies with significant operations in Oil & Gas, Zinc, Lead, Silver, Copper, Iron Ore, Steel, and Aluminium & Power across the globe, with current operations in India, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Ireland, and Australia through various subsidiaries. 

In order to give brilliant young minds of the country a platform to work on real-life business challenges and get mentored by the Senior Leadership and Management of Vedanta, it conducted a B-School case challenge - XStrat.

Spanned across 4 rounds, XStrat went around for 2 months. From Preliminary Quiz Round to Virtual Grand Finale, each round kept the participants on their toes. However, from 5815 registered students, only a handful of them were able to strategize their idea for the bigger picture.

Here is the winners tally:

The winners were awarded INR 10,00,000+ along with Pre-placement offers! Not to forget to mention the Cash prize of INR 30,000 to the qualifiers!

“We started with reading about the goals, mission, and vision of Vedanta”

When we spoke to the National winners about their winning strategy, Akhil from Team United Chariot said -

When asked about the preparation strategy, Sanjana Rout from IIM Calcutta said, “It was especially helpful to share our ideas and get inputs from our mentor, Mr. Varun Kapoor who guided us immensely.” 

She continued - 

Garima from Team JaiSR, IIM Ahmedabad said, “Preparing for XStrat was a difficult task because each problem statement was distinctive in its own right. We chose the ESG track as our topic since it fascinated all of us. So for the preparation, we read annual reports of all the big mining & metal industry players. We also looked at what non-mining companies have done in terms of ESG.”

She continued, “After the top 8 rankings were released, we had around two weeks to create our final ESG strategy. We noted down numerous initiatives that Vedanta can do to be a major player in the Green Economy. However, the requirement to create a coherent framework on what the Vedanta needs to do and how it aligns with its mission & vision statement. Creating the crisp & clear strategy was really the most challenging part for us.”

“Half the battle is won if you gave a great team”

Talking about the importance of diversity in a team, Mayukh Roy from IIM Calcutta said, “All 3 of us come from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds. We also worked in different industries and are looking to specialize in different domains as well. This diversity is our biggest strength, the experiences we have had till now helped us bring different perspectives to any problem we encountered, and helped us overcome all obstacles on the way.”

Vishan Khadke from MDI Gurgaon also saw eye to eye and quoted -

“We learned how to approach a case and frame different perspectives around it”

From structuring a problem into manageable portions to presenting and communicating ideas better, case competitions impart exceptional learnings.

Sharing his learnings, Pradeep Kumar Bodige from the Indian School of Business said, “I got to learn about corporate restructuring and various methods involved. What all aspects to consider while making a decision regarding corporate restructuring. Applying all these concepts to a real-life current business problem was so satisfying.” 

To this, Sandip Binani from MDI Gurgaon said, “It was a great competition, to say the least. The judgment seemed fair, quality in terms of guidance was also of great value addition. Talking about the learning curve, it has been a steep one and I hope to take inspiration from this to solve the upcoming case challenges.”

From the Runner-up team, Richi Mishra said -

Supporting his teammate’s statement, Siddharth Nagpal said, “As the topic of ESG was new to us, there was a lot of learning during the preparation phase. I can confidently say that we are much better versed with ESG and think about problems going into the future. The sessions and meetings with our mentor, Gaurav Sarup Sir, were really thought-provoking and gave us wonderful insights into the world of ESG and the impact it has on a company's strategy. 

“It was a great competition, to say the least”

Appreciating the framework of XStrat, Dharmesh Dubey from IIM Calcutta said, “The competition was very smoothly conducted. The judgment quality, organization, and framing were all spot on.”

“It was a level playing field with all the finalist teams being very amazing with regards to the proposed solutions,” said Ankita Mohanty from MDI Gurgaon, expressing her thoughts on Xstrat. 

The National Winner of XStrat from the Indian School of Business, Akhil Ruttala added, “The senior leadership of Vedanta on the judging committee was very encouraging and supportive. The organization of the event was very well structured. The mentor assigned to us helped us refine our solution and gave us a structured pathway to follow. Also, the leadership encouraged new ideas and innovative thoughts which kept us highly motivated throughout the competition.”

All in all, this interview with the winners is a testament to the great judgment quality and framework of XStrat!

A big congratulations to the winners. Your feat will be inspired by many for ages to come!