Business exercise at SIMS pune

Today was our 4th day of orientation program and the day before we were told of some business exercise that was to happen today. We were told to report at 8:15 AM in our class room after the regular early morning jog.

When I entered the classroom, I had very little energy left. But after listening to Kamath Sir’s lecture on how a good student manager and a future CEO of a company is different from an ordinary manager by taking that extra step and getting out of comfort zone, I was really charged up and ready to go for this business exercise.

We were told to make buddies and we were a group of e people comprising of Tarun Shakya, Sneh Sagrika and me, Subal. We were told to go at one of the 4 places given to us and get a job till 4 PM. We had to do any kind of job and earn a minimum of Rs. 100 per person. The placed were: Tilak Road, Baji Rao Road, Mukund Nagar and Satara Road in Pune city. Then came the surprise element, or rather, the shock element. We were told not to spend even a single rupee from our pockets and were to reach our destination. We were to take lifts in anything that we could find. Be it a truck, auto, tempo…just anything! All of us just rushed out of the institute and were trying to get lifts before the other group could get one. We stopped a car and the gentleman agreed to giove us lift till ESquare mall. I got in the front and before I could call my 2 buddies, people from other group got in and took our seats. That left us fuming. The gentleman who had given us the lift had given his bag which was kept on the front seat so that I could set comfortably. But then I gave my seat to Sneh so that she could reach E square while Tarun and me could get lifts on bike or scooter. I gave Sneh the gentleman’s bag as she was sitting in the front seat.
Tarun and me then waited for a lift and we got a lift on 2 bikes. When I reached ESquare mall, I saw Sneh waiting there for us with the gentleman’s bag in her hand. I was shocked to see the bag in her hand and she was equally shocked when she learnt that it was not my bag! She had thought that it wqas my bag and so had brought it with her. We became tensed, but we knew that the guy had come to the mall. We then went to the mallo and started enquiring aboutb him and his car. We opened the bag and looked for some phone number, We found his gym card which was in the mall itself and went upo till the gym. We asked for the help of the gym staff to trace the guy in the gym,In the mean time we also found his card with his number on it and gave him ca call. He was relieved to find his bag and told us to meet him at the entrance. We met him and returned his bag back to him apologizing again and again!

We had lost a good half an hour in this episode. We then started walking towards Swar Gate. We tried to flag down a few cars but then wouldn’t stop. Finally there was an open tempo going which came to our rescue. He agreed to drop us till Swar Gate. I climbed back in the tempo and was standing there in the open.. It felt a little embarrassing first standing in the back of the auto with a sari clad lady and me in a tie but then afterwards it felt good, like an adventure and I started to enjoy the trip. I took pictures from the tempo. Finally we reached Swar Gate and st6arted asking around for lifts. No one was giving us lifts and we wwere starting to become desperate. Finally help came to us in the form of an auto driver named Ganesh, who was noticing us for a liong time. In I asked him if he could drop us near Baji Rao road and to our pleasant surprise he agreed to take us for free. We were pleasantly surprised and we became talking with him. After a while he agreed to drop us till Baji Rao road. Finally we had reached our destination. We spotted a sweets shop and went to the owner and asked for a job for a day. The owner started laughing and told us politely that he had no job for us. We thanked him and went to a Yamaha showroom next door. There we found another group of our batchmates talking to the manager about a job. We also went up to him but then he said that were was no job for any of us. Not disappointed we went further up ahead where Tarun had spotted a Samsung dealer. We went up to the manager and asked for us. He asked for our institute name but as naming our institute was against the rules of the exercise, we politely told him that we couldn’t name it. He told us of a promotional event that was to happen on Wednesday and told us to come on Wednesday. We told him that we couldn’t do so as the exercise was only for today. He finally agreed and gave us brochures of a new Samsung printer that was lauched just today. He told us to go to Shivaji Courts district as the printer was targeted only for advocates and lawyers. He agreed to pay the fare for the auto and allo 3 of us went to Shivaji Courts which was around 3 kms away.

A disappointment was in store for us there because today being a holiday, the courts were closed. But there were a few advocates roaming around and we managed to give them the brochure and introduce them to the product. They inturn gave us their numbers and names for us to take back. We then returned to the dealer and he gave us an address of a court near by to try our luck with the advocates there. Before going to the court we had a quick lunch and spend some Rs 100 on it. The court was at walking distance and it took us around 15 mins to reach there. The advocates were all sitting outside the court and while we were just thinking of whom to approach when an advocate called us and asked us what we were selling. We told her the features of our printer nd she seemed interested. She took the brochure and gave us her card. She then also told her friends about it and we managed to get the numbers of around 5-6 advocates who seem interested. The main pitch was that there was a 10 % discount for advocates and also that legal size paper could be printed at the cost of just 20p. Happy and motivated we then started for the dealer’s shop and came to an advocates office on the way. Sneh and Tarun went inside to him and managed to convince him to get the printer. He seemed keen to buy 2 printers, Happy with the work we had done we returned back to the dealer’s office and he offered us cold drinks, He seemed impressed with our work and offered us part time jobs on weekends. He even said that he could help out with our summers placement at Samsung. He then reimbursed the lunch money and gave us Rs. 100 each and also gave us a letter of recommendation to take back. Happy with the success we went back walking to Parvati Temple where we had to meet our seniors and Kamarth Sir. It was quite a hike till the temple and I was feeling happy for the calories I was losing. There we were briefed about what all needed to be done for the exercise and then finally we returned back to the hostel by hitching rides. In all it was a really good experience that will be remembered for my liftetime. I was happy that I did a job in the field that i will be taking up as my majors, that is marketing.