SP Jain’s Postgraduate Students Ace Industry Interface Projects Despite the Challenges Posed by COVID-19

Industry Interface Projects offer practical learning experiences to our students and this helps them translate abstract knowledge into practice. To help students gain the best real-life industry experience, the scope and deliverables of the projects are finalized in consultation with SP Jain’s corporate partners. These are strategy-focused projects where our students work as consultants on real-life challenges faced by companies and recommend business strategies by synthesizing the program learning outcomes.

Recently, even amidst the numerous challenges posed by COVID-19, students from our Global MBA (GMBA) and Master of Global Business (MGB) Class of 2020 completed their Industry Interface Projects with our leading corporate partners under the guidance of academic mentors.  Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi (Dean of GMBA & MGB programs) Dr. Veena Jadhav ( Asst. Dean GMBA & MGB programs) and the Area Heads Dr. C J Meadows, Dr. Rajiv Aserkar, Dr. K Kumar & Dr. Tristan Chong congratulated student teams for their commendable work.  

Let us hear from the team!

Global Immersion Projects or Industry Interface Projects are an integral part of the postgraduate curriculum at SP Jain. During this project, students work with different companies as consultants and provide them with strategic solutions for their real-life business issues. This is a great learning experience for the students as they get hands on experience with these projects.
Many of our senior alumni across campuses engage with our students and mentor them through these projects, and we are highly grateful to them for this. We look forward to the continuous support of all our partners for these projects.
– Anu Madan (Deputy Director – Alumni Relations)

This year, our GMBA and MGB students completed their Industry Interface Projects with our esteemed corporate partners including Cisco Systems (USA), Infosys, Dell Global BV (Singapore Branch), Vietnam Airlines, UPS Asia Group, The Australian Chamber of Commerce (Singapore), Property Guru, Detrack Systems, and Tech Mahindra.
We involved our student teams very early in the process by sharing with them our project scope discussions with the clients. This helped the students in understanding the business environment of the client, analyse specific business issues, identify the opportunities and make effective and impactful business recommendations. Beyond classroom teaching, such real-world experiences groom and nurture our students to be future global leaders.
– Sanjukta Srivastava (Deputy Director – Global Immersion Projects)

Here’s what our mentors had to say about working with our students:

I thoroughly enjoyed guiding the high-energy student team from SP Jain over the past few months for their Industry Immersion Program. Keep up the good work, Ayan Adak, Nikhhil Agarwal, Akanksha Palak, and Ashwani Thawani! I would also like to thank Irina Pismennaya, Dr. Tristan Chong, Sanjukta Srivastava, Dr. Veena Jadhav, and Anu Madan from Team SP Jain for all their support during this period. Showcasing the final presentation virtually was bit of extra fun! Let’s build this further into one of the strongest Industry-Academia relationships in the region.
– Sojish Nair (Infosys Project Mentor; Director – Sales, Infosys South East Asia)

Great job, team! This project was a great demonstration of your strong analytical capabilities, strategic thinking, and coherent and structured communication skills! Very well done!
– Rahul Setiya (CISCO Project Mentor; Strategy Lead – CISCO)

I was very impressed with the quality of the final presentation. Well done!
– Yasser Helmy (CISCO Project Mentor)

Congratulations, team and thank you for the insightful presentation!
– Fanny See (Detrack Project Mentor; COO & Co-Founder, Detrack Systems)

Absolutely brilliant piece of work by Suhyun You, Sandeepan Roy, and Chunmei Li. I am sure that Dr. CJ Meadows, Sanjukta Srivastava and everyone else from Team SP Jain are very proud. Thank you for coming up with so many great and easy to implement ideas. Keep it up!
– Ayush Khetan (Tech Mahindra Project Mentor; Business Head – South East and North East Asia, Tech Mahindra)

Thank you, Sanjukta and team.  The students were able to put together a brilliant project even though they were not able to brainstorm at one location. I’m looking forward to final submission and meeting the teams in person to celebrate.
– Sandeep Bhuyan (Dell Project Mentor; GCM – SSD & EMMC Storage, Dell)

Congratulations, team! Wishing you the best!
– Om Agarwal (UPS Project Mentor; Director – Strategy Development and Data Science, UPS)

Student learning experiences:

I still remember the excitement we had to kick start the project. We wanted it to start even before reaching Singapore, and so, we began our research right from our second term, while we were still in Australia.
Once we reached Singapore and started the project officially, I realised how difficult it was going to be – it was like swimming across an entire ocean. However, thanks to our industry and academic mentors, this journey was made much easier for us. Even when COVID-19 struck, the SP Jain team and our industry mentor were by our side throughout, ready to help in whatever way they could. My team and I are thrilled that in the end, we could deliver a project that exceeded the client expectations.
– Ayan Adak (GMBA Intake of May’19)

The Industry Interface Project is one of the most exciting parts of SP Jain’s MGB curriculum. It is a perfect opportunity for us to learn, blend, and understand the functioning of the real business world.
For this project, I was in a team with Aman Aggarwal (Marketing Specialisation), Kamran Wani (Logistics & Supply Chain Specialization), and Sri Ram Kashyap (Logistics & Supply Chain Specialisation). We were assigned a project with Elastic Route (a route planning company under the parent company – Detrack).
Although we faced a lot of unforeseen problems due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the overall experience of working through the unique challenges was enthralling, to say the least. We were able to learn so much! We started the project in January 2020, and ended it with a lot of learning and exposure. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who made this possible – our industry mentors, including Fanny See (Chief Operating Officer), Terence Yee (Business Development Manager), and Iqbal Ghani (Senior Marketing Executive), and our academic mentors including Dr. Triston Chong (Associate Professor and Area Head of Marketing), Irina Pismennaya (Senior Manager – Academics), Sanjukta Srivastava (Deputy Director- Global Immersion Projects), Dr. Veena Jadhav (Assistant Dean – MGB and GMBA), and Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi (Dean – Global MBA and MGB) for their enormous support throughout this tenure, guiding and motivating us to give our best.
 – Archit Dhawan (MGB Intake of May’19)

Yasser Helmy and Rahul Setiya from Cisco provided us an environment where we never ceased to learn and think. When they shared a brief about the Industry Interface Project in January 2020, none of us knew how vast its scope would be. Over the 16 weeks that followed, what unfolded was a vast expanse of learnings. Yasser and Rahul were our pillars of knowledge throughout this project, and their vision, support and resources were what guided us throughout. One of the main lessons they taught us during this project was this – Businesses don’t succeed by eliminating the competition, but by forging alliances with them.
As a team, we are thankful that SP Jain helped us build a relationship with Cisco. Even our academic mentors including Dr. CJ Meadows, Pushpa Rani Balachandran, and Irina Pismennaya were immensely helpful throughout. Additionally, Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi, Dr. Veena Jadhav, and Sanjukta Srivastava were instrumental in this endeavor and helped us showcase ourselves as strong SP Jain ambassadors.
– Vinay Narayanaswamy (GMBA Intake of MAY’19)

It was wonderful to be able to work with Vietnam Airlines for our final Industry Immersion Project at SP Jain. I am especially thankful to our industry mentors, Ms. Hien, Mr. Amir, Clinton Hong Jie Ng, and Mr. Suhaib for providing us with consistent guidance & support.
Additionally, this project would not have been possible without the support of our Academic Mentors Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi, Nitin Palande, Sanjukta Srivastava, Irina Pismennaya and Dr. Girija Shawarikar.
Special shout-out to Shubham Vasisht, Prateek Agarwal and Nihel Jaison from my team who worked tirelessly against all odds and made this project successful.
– Sumit Duggar (MGB Intake of May’19)

Working with Dell on supply and demand planning forecast was, although challenging, one of the most rewarding projects I’ve undertaken. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, there were a lot of unexpected challenges during the project, but we also got to learn a lot and put our MBA learnings into practice.  I am thankful that I got to work with a fantastic team, and the successful completion of this project was truly a cumulative team effort. I would like to thank our industry mentor Sandeep Bhuyan and our academic mentors Dr. Rajiv Aserkar, Sanjukta Srivastava and Dorrin for guiding and supporting us throughout the project.
– Vegi Manoj Babu (GMBA Intake of May’19)

I’m so thrilled to have successfully completed our GIP project with UPS (Singapore). This project could not have been possible without the support of our industry mentors – Om Agrawal, Mr. Benjamin and  Anne Coppens, and our academic mentors – Dr. Rajiv Aserkar, Ms. Dorrin and Sanjukta Srivastava. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your endless support and guidance throughout the project.
Three cheers to my teammates – Kshitij Prasad, Prerika Arora and Sohail Mohammed. We did it, folks!
– Kshitij Mehrotra (MGB Intake of May’19)

Working with Ayush Keshan and Vijay Runwal from Team Tech Mahindra for our Industry Interface Project was a great learning experience. As a team, Suhyun You, Chunmei Li and I worked closely with mentors and were successful in delivering a high impact presentation. Special thanks to Dr. CJ Meadows, Sanjukta Srivastava, Pushpa Rani B, and Dr. Girija Shawarikar for your consistent support. Lastly, I want to thank Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi for giving us this tremendous opportunity to work on this project, which proved to be a great learning experience for all of us.
– Sandeepan Roy (GMBA Intake of May’19)