Alumnus Jaideep Sengupta’s success story
Jaideep Sengupta, GMBA (Batch of Nov – 2013) who holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering belongs to a high achiever family of IIT qualified engineers, with his father, sister and brother-in-law working with organisations of global repute. His wife is an established designer entrepreneur from NIFT and Parsons New York. Jaideep is categorical in reminding us that his mother has been the backbone of the family. She was instrumental in instilling a strong sense of ethics and values, which he holds dear and is able to apply in his daily personal as well as professional transactions.
Before venturing onto a Global MBA degree, Jaideep had accumulated an experience of almost 12 years working with organisations at various scales of operations in areas of strategic business development within sectors like automobile, printing and packaging, fertiliser manufacture. At this critical juncture in his career, Jaideep realised that the knowledge and experience of sales & marketing, finance and other operational aspects of business and management that he had acquired so far were rich but a little unstructured and compartmentalised. He felt that he lacked the foresight and business acumen to see the complete picture, which would help him manage all aspects of business and enhance the decision-making process. With this thought, he began assessing the value of an MBA program and concluded after extensive study and experience sharing from peers that a structured program would not only contribute to knowledge but also assist in developing a well- rounded personality.
Once convinced of the need to do an MBA, Jaideep considered various factors such as his existing level of experience, costs that he would incur, the reputation and standing of the Institution. He was adamant to select a Business school that offered opportunities for international exposure, academic rigour, well achieved faculty pool, teaching methodology, affordability, recognition in the Indian market and his own career aspirations at the end of the course while shortlisting a number of reputed Institutions which fitted his bill. In his list were IIM-A, IIM-C, ISB, HEC Paris, Melbourne Business School and of course S P Jain. He finally settled on S P Jain following non-selection from a few highly aspirational schools of his choice and non-affordability of a few of the others. He further elaborates his choice of the GMBA program by explaining that the course structure was excellent, pedagogy involved case study method; presentations; simulations and real time projects, which were relevant, and the faculty were comparable to none that he had interacted with.
If there is any area in the program that needs development, Jaideep feels that this is the build-up and nurturing of a structured alumni network through different events so that both the school and its students might benefit. He also suggests that involving the alumni in addressing students through guest lecture sessions or informal meetings for sharing experiences and good practices could benefit both existing and past students.
On completing the program, Jaideep was able to meet his career aspirations of re-entering industry and leveraging his seniority and experience with the support of S P Jain’s Career Advancement Offices. He has been effectively able to use his knowledge to put into practice at his current workplace, several activities based on the costing approach, which he has learnt at the school to plug revenue leakages. He is now able to approach decision-making from a more comprehensive platform involving aspects of marketing, finance and operations but this he feels is ‘still a work in progress’. He hopes to work in a few sectors that are more varied and leverage on the diversity of his experiences to increase his knowledge base, ability to adapt better to situations and circumstances and build on his capacity to deal with change and chaos. Professionally, he continues to work towards becoming a highly proactive and pre-emptive manager whereas personally, he feels inspired and grateful for having the opportunity to learn from outstanding faculty with who he would like to remain connected in whatever capacity possible.
When asked to comment upon the ROI of the program, Jaideep suggests that there are different perceptions about how one goes about calculating ROI and this can depend on their cultural and educational backgrounds. His own view states that if one expects to have a career span of 25-30 years or more, the cost of the program comes to less than a lakh per year, which is a relatively low investment. This however was only financial viability. He however highlights that returns like lifelong knowledge base, peer circles, professional networks, interpersonal skills, life experiences and change in perspectives whose financial worth is difficult to estimate.
Jaideep concludes with a quote on how his perspectives might have changed because of global exposure and real world skills training. He says: “If I were to answer this using a rating scale of 1-10 and 10 being a higher value, I would say that before embarking on the program, I would have rated myself as 4-5, if I’m kind to myself; after the program, I would rate myself an 8 going on to 9 while always aiming for a 10’.
He wishes all aspiring candidates the very best in their choice to study at S P Jain Global and we in return wish him a very bright future and hope to see him soon in the ‘C’ Club (I’m assuming that this implies CEO’s Club) of his aspirations.
