SPJIMR shines on GE Day - Part 2

About GE Day: http://www.ge.com/in/imagination/index.html

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11 November 2006: Rachit was geared up for his maiden flight, I was freaking out, and somehow we made it to the airport on time, thanks to Loki and Dheelu aka Vinit. Lucky Rachit and Addy had a beautiful damsel for company on the flight…Rachit even gave up his window seat for her!! They went on discussing the business model with her, RJ was almost feeling ‘J’ coz he had Ranjan and me for company. Anyways, 2 hours and we were in Delhi.

12 November 2006: The day started as usual, I was the last guy to get ready. We left for USI, that’s where the Semi Final was being held. We went round and round Delhi, till we finally reached half an hour late. We joined the presentation and were just in time to attend the one on IMLP (Information Management Leadership Program) at GE.

The presentations began, and trust me guys, there is a dearth of ideas on this planet. The first few were not that impressive. Then came our chance. My hands were all sweating….it was my first presentation in front of a formal, unknown audience and that too standing on stage. Our presentation went well (as said by my team-mates, don’t want to sound like I’m bragging ;) ). We finished well within our time limit and we handled the questions from the panel quite well. There were some rather insightful questions from the audience but we managed to convince them as well.

It helped to get a lot of compliments from the other B-schools. But the competition kept getting stiffer. The best compliment for me came from Mr Sunil Khurana, Director, GE Commercial Finance, he said “This was the best presentation I have seen and I enjoyed it”. GE decided to announce the Top 6 teams the next day, and whoever was chosen would have to present right at that moment at “The Grand”.

13 November 2006: We reached the venue “The Grand” on time. Those were moments of anxiety. We were sitting there waiting for the best to happen to us. However, I guess life isn’t that easy…I mean to win a PPO at GE…just 6 months into this program, against second year students from the best B-schools in the country would have been a stupendous achievement. Yeah it didn’t happen, but what was heart warming to see was the professionalism with which each one of us handled it. Three Cheers !! To all of us….Cheers!! Cheers!! Cheers!! We knew we had a job at hand and Addy (The placom guy) immediately got to it.

By the way, the 6 teams that got short-listed were very good and had brilliant ideas. There was a lot of learning for us, by just watching their presentations. I am listing down some of these…because we did sit down and analyze where we lacked and some things that came up were:

About the presentation...

The Positives:

1. Visually the presentation was very good to look at.
2. The business idea was very innovative and unique (We still believe it was the best idea in its segment that day)
3. The delivery was very good. (Everybody was convinced, even the judges)

Improvement Areas:

1. The presentation needed to be more STRUCTURED. This would have made it self-explanatory and increased CLARITY.
2. The DEPTH of research, should have been much more.
3. Our technology should have been emphasized and we should have looked at maybe a more implementable technology solution
4. We worked hard on the financials, but we were not able to present them properly.
   
5. Though we had a lot of winning propositions, we could have projected them better and should have identified and stated some of the others. What I am trying to say here is that we should have left any room for ambiguity.

However, GE DAY was not just a B-school competition, it was much bigger. The magnitude of the event may be understood by the fact that the GE DAY happens each year in a different country and this was the first time it happened in India. The people who attended, were the top leadership at GE, in the lines of Director, VP’s etc. Most GE employees were not even invited. The exhibition that showcased the different businesses and products of GE was one of the best I’ve seen and the Directors themselves were guiding us through what their business does and how.

All in all…it was a great learning experience to be an ambassador for SP Jain at GE DAY.

Cheers,
Kartik