Business on the ‘RISE’

MPOWER War room stood true to its name. 24 participants, insightful case studies, fierce competition and rebuttals being tossed across the room, the power packed daylong session lit up the campus of IIM Ahmedabad. The event happened on the 2^nd of July, 2014 with the participants of MPOWER sharing how they applied the learning from the sessions to excel and take their transport business to greater heights.

The journey to MPOWER War Room started with Mahindra’s Truck and Bus Division’s pioneering Management Development Program ‘MPOWER’, designed in association with the prestigious IIM Ahmedabad, with the objective of bringing professionalism to the trucking industry through young transport entrepreneurs. After completing three phenomenal batches, ‘MPOWER War Room’, gave an opportunity to the participants (of the first two batches) to share their outperformance story with their peers. 

The process started in mid-april with the delegates being invited to participate through a 1500 word case study on the subject ‘Success and Challenges in implementing what I learnt during Mahindra MPOWER at IIM, Ahmedabad, back into my business’. A screening jury comprising of IIM-A faculty and MTB Team and agency went through the case studies and provided inputs to delegates to further embellish them. The delegates were then mentored into creating a presentation out of their case studies for presentation to the expert and grand jury. On the 1^st of July, a senior jury comprising of Transport Experts and IIM-A Faculty evaluated 24 case studies and 6 finalists were firmed up.

The top 6 finalists- Jehaan Dhalla, Manoj Sahu, Mitesh Shah, Nishi Singl,  Vandana Laddha & Vineet Huria shared their success stories, which were filled with inspiration and vision. The application of what they learnt in the ‘MPOWER’ sessions was visible. The incremental innovation and tweaks inspired everyone in the room, who responded to such bits with a constant clapping.

The process saw the involvement & presence of many stalwarts.

From the practitioner side, following were the Grand Jury members:

o   Dr. Pawan Goenka, Executive Director and President – AFS, M & M Ltd as the Chairperson of the Grand Jury

o   Mr. Rajan Wadhera, Chief Executive - Truck & Power Train Division, and Head - Mahindra Research Valley

o   Mr. Nalin Mehta was the non-voting member of the Grand Jury

o   Dr. Bhaskar Das, CEO, Zee Media Group

o   Mr. Rakesh Batra, Senior Partner – Automotive Practice, EY

From the academic side, four IIMA Faculty members were on the Grand Jury:

o   Prof. G. Raghuram, Dean Faculty, Transportation Expert and the prime architect of the MPOWER program

o   Prof.  Dheeraj Sharma, Professor of Marketing and Organizational Behavior and Coordinator of MPOWER

o   Prof. Rekha Jain, Professor of IT and Systems

o   Prof. Debjit Roy, Professor of Supply Chain and Logistics, who brings in the academic perspective on the logistics and transport business

The MPOWER War Room was won by Mr. Vineet Huria, who was followed by the first and second runner-ups Mr. Jehaan Dhalla and Ms. Vandana Laddha, respectively.

MPOWER WAR ROOM, along with other brand initiatives by the division, like Outperformers’ League, Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards, MPOWER, etc. itself have emerged as strong and popular initiatives which are driving positive change in the transport community by imparting knowledge, creating platforms for sharing knowledge and initiating dialogue and also providing avenues for celebrating and recognizing excellence and outperformance. We are confident that these initiatives, which honor the brand promise of RISE in letter and spirit, will help make the division a strong force in Indian CV industry and eventually, help in our journey to be the most trusted CV brand of India.