JULY 2020 | ISSUE NO.

12

ALUMNI  R
   ETREAT

Inside:

Rendezvous 2020

Cover Story : Virtual Induction

Corona and the Batch of '20

Introducing SAC 2020-'21

 CONTENTS

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Dear Alumni,
Rendezvous 2020 Pg no. 01

It gives me immense pleasure to bring to you the July

2020 issue of the Alumni Newsletter which covers all

Virtual Induction in Pg no. 02
happenings and events on campus, even as most of us
times of COVID
students continue to attend the term away from it.

Bringing to you many firsts that IIM Indore saw in the past

Alum Writes : Corona Pg no. 03 few months, this issue covers Rendezvous 2020 - the

annual fresher-alumni meet which was conducted online

and the Batch of '20
this time and received record participation. Next up, we

have an article on the first virtual induction which was

Alumni Achievements Pg no. 04 conducted for the EPGP batch of '21.

This issue includes a heartfelt piece from an alum from

Webinars by Alumni Pg no. 07 the batch of '20 recounting how the pandemic affected

his batch. Further on, we congratulate our alumni on

Chapters
some of their achievements and have a mention of the

various webinars that were conducted by the Alumni City

Alum Writes : Post Pg no. 12 Chapters. We also have an insightful piece from an alum

COVID : The New from the batch of '19, decoding the impact of COVID-19

on the retail sector.

Retail Experience

Last but not the least, we have a mention of the incoming

Student Activity Council for 2020-21 as we wish them

Introducing SAC Pg no. 13
luck for their tenure.
2020-'21

Creating this newsletter has been great fun and an

immense learning experience for all of us. I hope you

enjoy going through it. Feel free to write to us for any

suggestions/improvements for the upcoming editions!

Warm regards,

Rituparna De

Secretary, Media & PR Committee

 Pg No. 01

Rendezvous 2020
The Annual Fresher-Alumni Meet

A glimpse into Rendezvous 2020:

IIM Indore's Alumni Committee conducted first of its kind,  virtual Alumni-Freshers’ Meet, Rendezvous, on

21st of June, 2020. The meet which is generally held in premier locations in five cities around India-

namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad, had to be conducted virtually this year given

the outbreak of COVID-19. The event witnessed a participation of approximately 400 people at its peak.

The meet was first addressed by the key speakers Dr. Himanshu Rai, Prof. Ranjeet Nambudiri, Prof. Rohit

Kapoor, Prof. Nobin Thomas, Prof. Manoj Motiani, Mr. Rahul Razdan - CEO, JioChat and Mr. Vivek Bajaj -

Founder, Kredant Enterprises. This was followed by a series of presentations to familiarize the incoming

batch with the activities and opportunities on campus including the Rural Immersion Program, Student

Exchange Program and the Himalayan Outbound Program.

To facilitate interaction, the incoming batch participants were assigned virtual break-rooms wherein they

could get answers to their many questions about life on campus and beyond that to the alums and their

PGP2 seniors.

The meet was conducted smoothly without any technical glitches and was a huge success!

Photo credits: Sphoorty, IPM 2017-21; Instagram - @sphoortydhannur

 Pg No. 02

Virtual Induction in times of COVID

Welcoming the incoming batches!

In light of the present times, IIM Indore

decided to start all its programs in virtual

mode until times are conducive for the

participants to come on campus. In a first, IIM

Indore welcomed its 12th batch of Executive

Post Graduate Programme in Management in

a virtual inauguration that took place on June

22, 2020 with Chief Guest, Ms. Vinita Bali,

Independent Director & Strategy Advisor.

In her inspiring inaugural address, Ms. Vinita

Bali outlined resilience, empathy, and

inclusiveness as the attitudes which will be

needed for future leadership. This was

followed by a welcome speech by our

Director, Professor Himansu Rai wherein he

spoke about redefining the acronym ‘COVID-

19’ to "Creating Opportunities for Visioning,

Introspection and Discovery". The first term for

the EPGP batch commenced on June 23,

2020 in virtual mode.

The virtual induction and commencement of

the first term for the PGP and PGP-HR batches

of 2020-22 is slated to take place in early

August.
 Pg No. 03

Corona and the Batch of '20

" Wejuniors
could only put up a brave face and reassure our even more worried
that it will all be fine soon, without knowing our own fate!
"
On the evening of our farewell, we all clicked It’d almost been a quarter into the lock-down

pictures with one another, hugged and danced but we hadn’t expected our jobs to be delayed

together with our friends, who had been a part or denied especially after graduating from an

of this magnificent MBA journey. Promising to IIM! MBA teaches us to be prepared for

meet each other soon on convocation, we were uncertainties and challenges, but this was not

just not ready to say goodbye, neither to those only unprecedented but also came without a

wonderful people, nor to our home Planet-I. time-frame. We could only put up a brave face

Grad trips were being frantically planned and and reassure our even more worried juniors that

packing was in full swing while our last it will all be fine soon, without knowing our own

semester exams were underway. Little did we fate!

know what was in store for us!  

  However, human spirit is resilient and resurgent.

As the pandemic started gripping India, the Just like the economy is getting back on its feet,

Batch of 2020, still much oblivious to its it’s only a matter of time until things become

consequences, managed a few grad trips and really fine. We will all start our jobs, thrive at our

booked tickets to meet for one last time. As the workplaces, meet our friends and celebrate the

date for convocation neared, the lock-down gift of life! The pandemic has instilled a sense

happened and everything was called off of humility in us all to appreciate the little

including our convocation. We still clung on to things in life. So the next time you can’t make

a glimmer of hope, maybe, just maybe, we up your mind whether to take that trip, meet a

might have it in May or June. After all, none of friend or go to work on Mondays, think again

us had seen a pandemic like this unfolding in and don’t let it go! Spread that smile, help

India in our lifetime! others and make your alma mater proud of the

work you do, always. For all the missed smiles

From a personal example, in the end of March, at our convocation, missed grad trips and those

I decided to read Financial Times through the parting goodbyes, the only thing I can say is 'We

college subscription. I was informed that our Shall Overcome, Someday!!'

access had expired since we had become

alumni. That’s when it struck, and boy the blow

This piece has been penned by Kushagra

was hard!
Bhatnagar from the PGP Batch of '20. He is

currently working as a Management Consultant

at EY Strategy and Transactions Division

All information contained herein must be construed solely as statements of opinion made by the author.
 Pg No. 04

Achieving Great Heights

Congratulating our Alumni on their Achievements

We take pride in informing you that Mr.

Ranjith Boyanapalli, alumnus (Batch of

2006) has been promoted to Senior Vice

President at Flipkart. He is currently the

Head of FinTech and Payments Group at

Flipkart and has been with Flipkart for

more than 6 years.

We wish him all the very best for his

future endeavours.

Click here for the full Story!

We would like to congratulate our alumni,

Mr. Vivek Bajaj (Batch of 2005) and Mr.

Vineet Patawari (Batch of 2008) for the

remarkable accolade of 1 million

registered users on the StockEdge

platform.

StockEdge is now the largest non-broker,

non-media and non-VC backed

profitable platform in India.

We wish them all the best for their future

endeavors and to scaling even greater

heights!
 Pg No. 05

Achieving Great Heights

Congratulating our Alumni on their Achievements

We would like to congratulate our

Alumnus, Mr. Vaibhav Singhal (EPGP

Batch of 2016-17), for being a speaker

at the 7th Energy Storage Solutions

Meet, a virtual industry conference

organized by India Energy Storage

Alliance (IESA) on June 24, 2020. He

currently heads the Solar Business for

Jakson Engineers Ltd.

At the conference, he spoke on the subject of Rooftop Solar & Energy Storage for Commercial

Industrial Consumers and opportunities in Renewable Energy-Storage Deisel Genset Hybrid space.

We are proud of him and wish him all the very best for his future endeavours!

We would like to congratulate our alumnus, Mr. Vikas Bansal (Batch of

2001) on the success of his book titled 'BE YOUR BOSS'.

Humans, by nature, want to be free. They want to control their destiny

and live life on their terms. The book explores three pillars of

entrepreneurship which can help achieve success faster and will help

answer some fundamental questions like "What does it take to become

a successful entrepreneur?" OR "How does one develop the

entrepreneurial mindset?"

The book is an Amazon #1 Best Seller in the US, Australia and India, in

its category.

You can pick up the book here!

 Pg No. 06

Achieving Great Heights

Congratulating our Alumni on their Achievements

We are proud to inform you that Farm

Infinity, an Agri-Fintech start-up by our

alumnus Gunajit Brahma (Batch of 2012) has

been selected for IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL

Pre-Incubation Launchpad (virtual)

Programme.

The startup was also one of 31 start-ups

under Assam Start-up that got Financial

Grant from the Government of Assam under

the #MASI scheme.

We are extremely proud and wish him all the

very best for his future endeavours!

 Pg No. 07

Webinars by Alumni Chapters

Last year, IIM Indore took its first steps towards forming an Alumni Association, to strengthen the Alumni

Network further. Continuing with the initiative, we had many of our City Chapters conducting various

online webinars over the past few months. The details of a few of them are stated below:
      

Acuity: Learning from the Experts:

A webinar was organized on 7th June by the Mumbai City Chapter of our Alumni Association, wherein

our alumni Chandan Kumar, IRS and alumni Sukhad Chaturvedi, IRS joined in for a candid conversation

as they spoke about their journey from IIM Indore to the Indian Revenue Services.

The Mumbai Chapter of our Alumni Association also presented a webinar with Saurabh Mukherjea, CFA

who has an ear to the ground on India’s capital markets and shared his mantra on investing for

compounding wealth and picking winner stocks.

 Pg No. 08

Caravan: Down the Memory Lane:

Delhi – NCR City Chapter of the Alumni Association is organizing a series of webinars titled “Caravan:

Down the Memory Lane”. The first webinar’s speaker was Rahul Razdan (Batch of PGP 2000), CEO of

RJMSL (Jio Chat), and was held on May 2. He walked us through his journey on creating a structural

narrative around Products and Services with an empathetic approach to UX with reference to a story-

telling narrative and his newly acquired comic-making skills.

The Delhi – NCR City Chapter presented its second webinar on 23rd May in which participants joined

“Super Cop” Siddharth Kaushal (PGP 2009), IPS, where he walked us through his journey on policing

India - Reinventing Government to Pandemic Control.

 Pg No. 09

Business Transformation Strategies- 2020 and Beyond:

TN Chapter of our Alumni Association presented a webinar on “Business Transformation Strategies-

2020 and Beyond” on 10th May. The Speaker was Arvind Raghavan, Ex-Deloitte/KPMG Organisational

Behaviour and Human Capital Consultant. The session explored new perspectives in building an

organization that can sustain and accelerate organizational efforts to drive the organizational vision,

and challenge traditional organizational design practices.

Managing Wellbeing in the Current Crisis:

TN Chapter of our Alumni Association presented a webinar on "Managing Wellbeing in the Current

Crisis” on 3rd May. The Speaker, Captain JV Avadhanulu is an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur, and is a

visiting faculty at IIMI since 2009. He founded the Himalaya Outbound Program in 2010. The webinar

explored some simple, powerful scientifically proven techniques for experiencing higher levels of

wellbeing in this unprecedented crisis.

 Pg No. 10

The Road Less Travelled:

Bengaluru City Chapter of our Alumni Association presented the 1st webinar of “The Road Less

Travelled” series (talks on the unconventional entrepreneurship journey of the people with tenacity and

resolve) on 26th April 2020. Participants tuned in to listen to the entrepreneurship journey of Dr. Nikhil

Sikri, Co-Founder and CEO, Zolo, India’s largest Co-living and Student Housing brand. An AIIMS & ISB

Alumnus, Dr. Sikri has over 10 years of diverse experience in start-ups, management consulting,

establishing companies’ sales footprints.

Steering Business Dilemmas During COVID-19 Crisis:

Bengaluru Chapter of our Alumni Association presented a first of its kind webinar on 12th April 2020.

The speaker of the webinar was Rajesh Srivastava. He talked about his journey across industries and

roles, and how he believes business should stay relevant during COVID times. An alumnus of IIT Kanpur

and IIM Bangalore, Rajesh Srivastava  has donned many hats in his 30+ year long career - Brand

Custodian, Faculty, Corporate Trainer and recently an Author.

 Pg No. 11

The Story So Far:

Mumbai City Chapter of our Alumni Association presented the 2nd webinar of “The Story So Far”

series on 11th April.  The speakers were Vivek Bajaj (2005) who runs multiple financial market-related

startups including StockEdge which has over a million users, Vikas Agrawal (2007) who has his options

trading practice at Vikabh Securities and Devam Modi (2007) who founded Ardeko, a Wealth and

Investment Advisory firm.

The 3rd webinar of “The Story So Far” series was held on 19th April. The speakers were Nitin

Kaushal (2007) and Chakradhar Gade (2007) and they took us through their entrepreneurial journey of

co-founding Country Delight. Started in 2015, Country Delight aims to bring natural, fresh,

unadulterated milk directly to the doorstep of the consumer. The venture is backed by Matrix Partners

and Orios Venture Partners, among others.

 Pg No. 12

Post COVID : The New Retail Experience

This piece has been penned by Sonali Singh from the PGP Batch of '19. She is currently working as a

Management Consultant at EY as a part of M&A Transactions Advisory Services.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unfolding event However, while e-commerce can be a

which continues to bring uncertainty across sustainable model for food and groceries, it is

businesses. Like most other sectors, it is also expected that for apparel and footwear,

expected to bring massive changes in the retail customers will still prefer an in-store experience.

ecosystem. As per a recent Fitch report on The reason being, these categories require look,

Consumer Sector-Retail, even after the 3 months- feel and fit. Now, with the fears of COVID-19,

long lock-down was lifted in China, consumers customers will have greater expectations from

are still majorly shopping for essentials (food and store owners since they would like to have an

groceries, non-alcoholic beverages and health). online like experience in stores. Customers will

This essentials segment has a growth forecast of prefer to go into stores with better queue

9.73%, much more than pre-COVID estimates. The management, digital payment options, easy and

reason being, most people staying at home have queue free check-outs, pre-booking of slots for

been cooking and consuming more food. store visits, innovative solutions to replace trial

Hoarding behaviors have also been largely rooms and physical display of stock in the stores.

prevalent. On the other side, retailers will want to get as

big an order from the limited customers visiting

" While e-commerce can be a

sustainable model for food and
the

access
store

to
as possible.

maximum
They

customer
will want

data to
to get

give

appropriate recommendations to these

groceries, it is expected that for customers, the way it is being done in digital

apparel and footwear, customers channels.

will still prefer an in-store

experience " All in all, what we will

experience will be a combination of what we

see as a new retail

This Fitch report also forecasts the clothing and know as online and offline shopping and the lines

footwear sub-sector to have a de-growth of between these channels will get blurred. The

9.91% YOY. This would mean that the sector will dependence of companies on technological

continue to see lower demand for a few more solutions like AR and VR will increase even further

months, at least. To counter the lower sales from and the next that these companies will want will

closed store operations and fears of consumers to be to gain capabilities in technology, whether

shop in stores, brands have increased their organically or inorganically through M&A.

presence and expenditure on e-commerce

channels

All information contained herein must be construed solely as statements of opinion made by the author.
 Pg No. 13

Introducing SAC 2020-'21

We introduce to you the Student's Activity Council 2020-'21, wishing them
all the best for their upcoming endeavors

SAC Coordinator Treasurer

Raj Patel Namrata Nerurkar

sacc@iimidr.ac.in treasurer@iimidr.ac.in

Academic Affairs Alumni Affairs Cultural

Shivani Sharma Shaina Moraes Kishan Sahu

acadcom@iimidr.ac.in alumni@iimidr.ac.in culcom@iimidr.ac.in

Infrastructure Media & PR

Siddhant Varma Rituparna De

infracom@iimidr.ac.in mediacom@iimidr.ac.in

Placement Placement Preparation

Anand Sinha Aishwarya Acharya

placement@iimidr.ac.in prepcom@iimidr.ac.in

Sports Students Exchange

Ria Tyagi Manashi Chandak

sportscom@iimidr.ac.in stepcom@iimidr.ac.in
 Pg No. 14

Introducing SAC 2020-'21

We introduce to you the Student's Activity Council 2020-'21, wishing them
all the best for their upcoming endeavors

Consulting Club Currenc-I E-Cell

Kamakshi Mahajan Versha Choudhary Abheek Bose

consult@iimidr.ac.in currenci@iimidr.ac.in ecell@iimidr.ac.in

Equit-I Humain-I

Shivangi Sahu Manjit Kalgutkar

equiti@iimidr.ac.in humain-i@iimidr.ac.in

Infinit-I Kaizen Merchand-I

Aishini Sinha Dinesh Yadav Dhruvi Unadkat

infiniti@iimidr.ac.in clubkaizen@iimidr.ac.in merchandi@iimidr.ac.in

Mercur-I Voyage Capital

Arpit Vijay Kartik Kohli

mercuri@iimidr.ac.in voyagecapital@iimidr.ac.in

Aperture Arena DebSoc

Rohit Hembram Hitesh Bokolia Akash Kumar

aperture@iimidr.ac.in arena@iimidr.ac.in debsoc@iimidr.ac.in
 Pg No. 15

Introducing SAC 2020-'21

We introduce to you the Student's Activity Council 2020-'21, wishing them
all the best for their upcoming endeavors

Harmon-I Idanim ManCan

Pratik Sonkusare Saumya Gupta Saismita Mohapatra

harmoni@iimidr.ac.in idanim@iimidr.ac.in editor_i@iimidr.ac.in

Pragat-I Quiz Club

Nisha Prabha Ram Sirisha Konathala

pragati@iimidr.ac.in quizclub@iimidr.ac.in

Vibes ShARE

Riddhi Mahajan Sahil Bharti

vibes@iimidr.ac.in share@iimidr.ac.in

Spic-Macay i5 Summit

Rishab Biswas Abhisha, Sharath

spicmacay@iimidr.ac.in i5summit@iimidr.ac.in

IRIS Utsaha

Priya, Toshendra Amandeep, Rohit

iris@iimidr.ac.in utsaha@iimidr.ac.in
Thank you for reading. For feedback and submissions for the next
issue, write to us at mediacom@iimidr.ac.in

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: RITUPARNA DE

CREATORS:

NANDINI TYAGI | PRACHI UPADHYAY | RISHIKA SRIVASTAVA |

SUMIT SURESH | TANMAY PAL | VANSHIKA KHANNA

Made in association with Alumni Committee

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iimialumcom
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/iimindorealumni/
Email: alumni@iimidr.ac.in