MANAGING FAILURES AT MAVERICKS

I was riding back home. As usual I was trying to schedule my activities at home in the back of my mind while negotiating pathetic PUNE TRAFFIC. There were many tasks which were lined up. One of which was to write a post on "Mavericks Consults" about AMAETHON IIM-Ahmedabad Success Story. I went home.Logged In. And as a ritual, checked my INBOX. It was my APICS MODULE - 3 (DSP) Result. I was shocked, frustrated and demoralized to see that I FAILED... AND THAT TOO BY A WHISKER... by 3 Marks... (300 was the qualifying grade)...

It feels Terrible to be a FAILURE at MAVERICKS...

It feels Disgrace to be a FAILURE at MAVERICKS...

The first and foremost thing was to communicate this to them for whom it mattered the most.. MAVERICKS CONSULTS....!!!

Got some consolation and condolence from all...and it was not just that...

It was more of a Motivation, Internal Empowerment, and igniting a spirit within me...

It feels much better now.

Now I am FOCUSSED and IGNITED...

ALL SET TO ROCK for the RE-TEST....

In Gajanan Patil's words -

There is no one on the planet who has not failed,

Success and failure is part of life,

To keep fighting is the ART OF LIFE...

At mavericks Success is habit,

At Mavericks we might also fail but just to rise strongly the next time, and WIN...

Just thought of sharing a Failure.

and I now pronounce that THIS is the starting point of practicing the ART OF LIFE...!!!

The Culture: Vision, Mission and Sustainability Challenge

Gajju had focussed a lot on what we do. The hard skills that every Mavericks Consults had sought to develop. I wanted to write a bit on software part. The internal culture of Mavericks Consults. Together, the hard and soft part are what lends and we hope would continue to lend Mavericks Consults a Sustainable Competitive advantage.

Mavericks is essentially a Esoteric group.

Vision: Mavericks Consults believe that its possible to develop skills and knowledge base within oneself that is at worst as good as a top B-school Student and at best better than the best.

Mission: The current state of management education must be continuously updated and oriented to wards growing challenges of the market place. Mavericks Consults believe that growth and rise of PUMBA would payback in kind to each Maverick Consults in future.

Enabler: Mavericks Consults believe that Internet has been the most disruptive force ever to occur in this world. This had made the landscape much flatter. The competitive advantage of most Education institution that had been as a result of the Course orientation, content and pedagogy as a result has weakened a lot. This provides a unique opportunity to leverage the strength of internet to fulfill a Budding Manager a Consultants dream.

Given the above basic premises on which Maverick Consults work, there are inherent cultural attitudes that its people display and seek to reinforce. 

• Mavericks Consults continuously scan the business environment to develop itself for emerging challenges.
• Mavericks Consults believe that it can accomplish much more if every individual does whats good for themselves and for the group: The John Nash Principle.
• Mavericks Consults also have inherent apathy towards any NPA within the group.
• Mavericks Consults seek excellence in every activity that it indulges. Valuations or Operation or Branding.
• Be Competitive, ambitious , egoistic, humble and respect other person.
• Lastly Mavericks Consults are Mavericks at the core, rebel and believe that inherent paradoxes in choices do not lead to an OR choice but a choice of AND. e.g. Innovation and Discipline. 

The challenge in Mavericks Consults 1.0 was in developing a model. The challenge in Mavericks Consults 2.0 and 3.0 would be to reaffirm and calibrate this model with more focus on Sustainability and POOGI : "Process of Ongoing Improvement".

The Future looks exciting and challenging from the vantage point of Mavericks Consults 1.0

Maverick Consults rule the roost at VISTA the flagship event of IIM - Bangalore

IIM -B, rated amongst the topmost B schools in the country organizes an international event which happens to be their flagship event - VISTA.

The event has many competitions in various fields, most of the events being INVITE ONLY.

A maverick group from not such a highly rated institute, is furious about the fact that their college is not invited to the event for the invite only competitions and decides to take on the might of the best in the field.

They participate in two highly intellectually challenging events - Finesse and Optimus

And to the surprise of all others (and as per the expectations of the mavericks), the mavericks emerge triumphant.

My heartiest congratulations to the winning teams and to all those who gave the other top rated B schools a run for their prizes.

Kudos to all of you -

Chaitanya Keker

Rohan Sarode

Chetan Galage

Omkar Vaidya

Ashay Walambe

And

Tushar Padwal

What was the event "Finesse"?

The event was conducted in two stages -

In the first stage a comprehensive 30 question on Private Equity was conducted. It comprised of Numerical questions and some fundamental based questions. The first round had 60 teams comprising of 3 members each. The event VISTA had participants from the most reputed B schools of India including IIM-A, XLRI, FMS, ISB - Hydrabad, IIM-Indore, IIM - L, NITIE, KJ Som etc

Out of these 60 teams, 10 teams were selected. Out of which 6 teams were from IIM-B, 1 from

XLRI, 2 from PUMBA and 1 from some other college.

Stage two of the event -

Sectoral reports of 4 sectors (Pharma, Automobiles, FMCG and Steel) were provided to the participating teams. The sectoral reports comprised of comprehensive data on the expected CAGR, the associated risk factors, the potential for growth drivers for the sector. A risk return model based on probability of Favorable, Neutral and Unfavorable event was provided.

A list of 16 companies, 4 from each sector was provided along with the related financial information. Each team had to value all the 16 companies independently for themselves and decide for the fair value of acquisition for each firm. Each team was given Rs. 3,00,000/- and was asked to submit their bid based on their valuations.

On acquiring these companies, the organizers floated a news on each of the 4 sectors. Based on the news and the judgement of the teams, we had to decide where we wanted to invest

our money to ensure growth of our companies. The decision was based on the our understanding of Corporate Finance related to our companies. On allocation / reinvestment the organizers calculated the net worth of our company and conveyed the same to all of us.

At the end of this we entered a Mergers and Acquisitions round. We were allowed to sell our companies and to acquire new companies from other participating members. This was based on our Corporate Strategy and our view on the growth of the sectors and our expectations on the future growth in various sectors.

Again this was followed by a similar round of news and we were asked to make our reinvestment decisions again. Then the net worth of all the teams were recalculated and the winners were declared.

And the winners are ........................ MAVERICKS from PUMBA, with a net worth of Rs. 7,75,000/- and the runners up was a team from IIM-B with net worth of Rs. 5,25,000/-

It was a day long exercise, which was a great learning and an equally entertaining experience for us.

MAVERICKS CONQUER OPTIMUS...

OPTIMUS was one of the two highly coveted Operations Management Events (The Other was MILESTONE) at IIM-B Vista 2010. It was a tough luck for Team Nemesis (100% subsidiary of MAVERICKS CONSULTS) comprising of Chetan Galage, Ashish Palkar, Omkar Vaidya and Rohan Sarode on not getting shortlisted for MILESTONES (Operations Case Study Event).

The Case Solutions proposed by Team Nemesis were on similar lines to those presented by shortlisted teams and sometimes better and analytical in nature than those presented. The team was feeling a little down and demoralized at this time. But was pumped up and charged up towards the OPTIMUS EVENT.

And the D-Day came. 3rd October 2010...

The day will be long remembered in the history of MAVERICKS CONSULTS.

OPTIMUS - THINK, APPLY, CONQUER....

Amazingly enough, Mavericks Consults are really good at the first two things. Think and Apply. We were competing to Conquer.

Team Nemesis's competitive Strategy was simple - IDEATE, IMPLEMENT, ACHIEVE.

In the Optimus event, we were put up in the shoes of a rescue agency. The Operations Strategy was a Real Life Mission simulation undertaken in different situations of emergency.The skills of efficient networking, scheduling, inventory and stockout management and much more through the Operations Strategy Implementation pathway was tested.

The event was held in 2 rounds with a maximum duration of 3 hours.

Round 1 : Quiz of 30 minutes in the form of a Written Test

The first round was a written quiz which was an elimination round. This quiz tested the participants’ knowledge on almost every facet of Operations like Inventory Management, Quality Management, World Class Manufacturing, TOC etc.

Six Teams made it into the Final Round. Amongst these teams, Two teams were from PUMBA. Team Nemesis was amongst them. Other teams were - NITIE, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Ahmedabad. It was a proud moment to compete against the supposedly best talent of the country.

Round 2 : Game of 2 hrs which is a Live Strategy Implementation event

It was a live strategy game where the selected participants were given a situation that challenges their operational and managerial skills. The Participants were expected to come up with optimal/suitable solutions/decisions to tackle the situation. The situations were aimed at making decisions related to operations based on real time problems in the FLOOD RESCUE OPERATIONS. The event tested the understanding of Operations Concepts and its application.

The teams were supposed to provide key decisions regarding parameters of the various managerial decisions regarding the optimal and efficient management of FLOOD RESCUE OPERATIONS.

PUMBAites were creative and innovative in their approach and at the same time they were methodological in arriving at the best optimal solution.

TEAM NEMESIS were composed and perspective in their approach. They used a very analytical approach towards resource allocation, scheduling and inventory management. They showed tremendous temperament in cut-throat situations and logically applied strategies to beat the opponents. However they just lagged a little behind the BEST TEAM - NITIE. Though the difference was very less, that what mattered. TEAM NEMESIS finished at the 2nd Position.

Team NEMESIS' ACHIEVEMENT was well registered amongst the top institutes and the BRAND EQUITY of PUMBA was increased owing to the success of the team. It was applauded at the NATIONAL STAGE and PUMBAites won an important MindShare at IIM-B.Unfortunately the other PUMBA team couldn't find rank in top 3, however they finished ahead of 2 teams.So finally we can conclude it by saying just 2 words - OPTIMUS VICTORIOUS...!!!

Who are these Mavericks and What do they do?

WE ARE A GROUP OF STUDENTS WHO BELIEVE THAT IT IS NOT THE INSTITUTE BUT THE STUDENTS ATTITUDE THAT DETERMINES HIS/HER PLACEMENTS.

I will start this with an introduction to how this group started and what all we did last year.

Last year around the same time, we, the founder members of Maverick Consultants, with an intention to improve and hone our management skills and knowledge decided to start with a study group - "MAVERICKS". Over a period of time this study group matured into a consulting group - MAVERICKS CONSULTS".

Activities of Mavericks in Academic Year - 2009-10

MS Excel Workshop - Mavericks held an extensive workshop for its members and other interested students of the college, where all the basic MS excel skills necessary for a manager were taught.

News Insights - This time was exclusively devoted for analyzing all the latest happening in various sectors of the economy both domestic and global

Case study solutions - Various cases, covering different aspects of management were studied and analyzed for deeper insights into the related industry problems and associated possible solutions.

Detailed application oriented study for Academic course related subjects - This ensured that the student consultants did not have to spare any special time during exams in understanding what ever was taught in the class. This also gave them enough practice to master the subject.

Participation in various inter collegiate events - The student members participate in b school competitions organised by various B schools and have always returned victorious. We have won many competitions at top tier B schools in India, including IIM - Ahmedabad, IIT - Kharagpur (B school) and NIT Warangal to name a few.

Improvement in basic power point presentation skills - Each student having to present almost 3 presentations per week gets sufficient practise and continuous feedback which them to improve their presentation skills.

Extensive rounds of Group Discussions and Personal Interviews - Just to ensure that the students are on track and well equipped to target the placement opportunities, they are grilled with mock GD's and PI's through out the year.

Another point worth mentioning is that despite such a hectic schedule, Maverick Consultants is proud to have the 2010 first year topper of PUMBA , Tushar Padwar as its core team member.
Other founding members like Ashay Walambe and Rohan Sarode are also closely following Tushar for the glory.

This year too we wish to follow the same set of activities for our junior batch and hence we have announced a recruitment procedure for the same.

All those who desire to be a part of the same can register their name following the link given bellow. Those who have already registered need not register again.

click here to register

In order to maintain our sustainable competitive advantage, we follow a certain policy.
We do not allow NPA's (non performing assets) to be a part of the team. Every participant has to prove his eligibility to be a part of the team, for which regular assessment is done by the core committee by means of both overt and covert examining criteria.