LESSONS FROM IM-10 – Shri Nikhil Kulkarni

Who says learning can only be achieved in an academic subject class? Yes this was a class in the academic building but the ingredients were not quite the same. It was the first time that we were getting to interact with a NITIE alumnus. The alumni are the assets of any college and we were having the first glimpse of the assets that NITIE possesses. Courtesy Prof Prasad (our beloved Mandi Sir).

Shri Nikhil Kulkarni passed out of NITIE as an IM-10 batch alumnus and is currently a consultant in KPMG. He had come for a guest lecture alongwith his batchmates Shri Hemant and Shri Aribit.

Prof Prasad had sent to all of us the link for Nikhil Sir’s blogs. Most of us had read that one blog regarding ‘Experience Vs Freshers – MBA’ as it related to all of us in one or the other way.

Shri Hemant Kulkarni with Prasad Sir

Nikhil Sir started out the session asking us why would one go for entrepreneurship rather than going for a job. Everybody in the class had his/her opinions but a logical rationale was given by Nikhil Sir regarding the difference between starting out as a professional with some firm and starting out as an entrepreneur. He reminded us that when we talk of having to manage an enterprise, the same kinds of responsibilities are imposed after some time in any job. One would be responsible for profits/losses in an entity as is the case in entrepreneurship. The crux of the matter is that only if someone has the extreme urge and passion to take up something of his own should he go for entrepreneurship. He also said that setting up a company would take only 30 minutes. The only things required would be an idea and a domain name. The website would be established and your business will get running. What would sustain your business, however, is the fact that how you make use of your resources and how fast you embrace innovation.

Talking about entrepreneurship, Nikhil Sir and Hemant Sir discussed the idea of their brainchild ‘Mastishk’ which was setup by them. It was an online portal involving simulations of business-like situations which eventually became a big hit among all the students. They discussed how nobody was initially interested in ‘Mastishk’ and they had a difficult time selling the idea to ‘Prerna’ – the organizers of the NITIE’s premium annual event. Everything right from coding to developing the interface for the online portal was done in-house. Buoyed by the response, everybody eventually wanted to be a part of it. Sponsorships started coming in and the business started rolling on its own. Their interviews for placements also revolved around Mastishk.

Touching upon other aspects of their professional life, they provided us subtle inputs about how their life actually is. Nikhil Sir told us that he did not return home back from office before 11.30 pm for 3 out of 5 working days at KPMG. It’s important to maintain a work life balance when you are faced with such long working hours. He also talked of the politics that usually happens in every workplace and it is up to the individual to tackle it.

In between all this, we had the energetic Hemant Sir who before saying anything had asked us all about the NITIE pond and the 96 steps (there are actually 94). He is one of the few guys who have been selected for an HR role which is a rarity in NITIE. Talking of his placement, he said that he had written his responsibilities for Mastishk in his CV as C2C, which means ‘Chaprasi to Chairman’. He had the zeal for human resources which was quite evident in his CV and mannerisms during his interview. And because of this zeal and enthusiasm, he was taken for an HR role even though the company had come for some other profile. His simple advice to all of us was to do what we had passion for.

The first session from the alumni cleared a lot of doubts for all of us. We hope to frequently have these sessions in the future.

After the session, I read some of the other blogs of Nikhil Sir like ‘Salesman Vs Professional’ and ‘Should one drop out to become an entrepreneur’. Each of these blogs had been very analytical. I would be reading his other blogs soon as each of them deals with one or the other real life experiences. And I hope that I would be able to again meet these alumni at some point in my professional life.