Statement of Purpose

Dear Sirs,

Could you please review my essay?

Churchill once said, “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.”

But how does one do it when most of us are working a 9-5 corporate job which tends to get monotonous in a couple of years. This thought constantly bickered my mind during the campus placements. Maruti Suzuki was my go-to company till then considering I graduated a mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology. On the other hand, I had an offer from PwC as a technology consultant. It was then the PwC HR said to me, “Consulting is primarily dealing with people and people are never boring” and I knew this was my calling.

Though I was hired as a technical ABAP consultant, owing to my business acumen, I was made a material management consultant for SAP. It meant me interacting with well experienced teammates and directly facing the clients. My time as the manager of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) BAJA team involved speaking to juniors, seniors, college administrations, sponsors, vendors and pretty much everyone involved. It was then I realized how communication is. With that, I went on to win the presentation event at SAE BAJA ’16, the world’s largest amateur level racing event.

In my initial year at PwC, I had to work countless nights to meet deadlines as it was all so new to me but it didn’t trouble me one bit. It was no different from working late nights in the workshop during college. I simultaneously worked with multiple clients across multiple sectors from all over the globe. I had to develop bonds with not just my clients but with my own teams too. All I had to do was extrapolate my experience from college. I knew I was the perfect fit. To confirm any doubts I had, I was given the dazzling debut in my first year.

In the subsequent years, I continued to work high pressure time-bound projects where it was important for everyone in the team to do their part and support each other. There were times when we hit a road-block and being the junior most, I tried to lighten everyone’s mood and made sure we kept at it. I didn’t know how they would take it but looking at how sportively everyone took it made me feel confident. We bagged the best team award for two consecutive years.

Though still a junior, I was made the module lead for the western region for the pan-India support team. During my tenure here, I understood how important communication was and learnt some tricks of the trade. Looking at how well I bonded with clients, I was the sole consultant to be included in the pan-India Ariba pre-sales team.

It was all perfect until I worked on a project where we had to collaborate with a management consulting firm. It was then I realized where the actual power laid. It was the business team or the management consulting team which was calling the shots on how to run the company or optimize the processes. There were also times during that project, the client did not let us run things in spite of our impeccable work only because they assumed the technology consulting team lacked the required business knowledge.

It was then I realized technology was only an enabler. I just don’t want to implement passed-on ideas but also want to come up with ideas that help companies make the world a better place. Through my experience in technology consulting, I’ve understood the importance of the symbiotic relationship between technology and management. I believe this is the right time to make a switch to the other side and put down my roots in the management consulting realm. The best way to do it is by formal education from the very best college that supports my goals.

My goal is to be a leader in a management consulting firm and be the go-to guy in the automotive sector. Considering my background as a mechanical engineer and a functional SAP consultant, there isn’t a better country than Germany. HHL tops my list because of its advanced track and the student consulting project. The advanced track will not only give me ample time to cover electives like corporate management, and negotiations and public relations but also learn German before stepping into the market. The high intake of international students will not just account for a diverse learning environment but will also expose me to the international culture.

Looking at the class profile, I’ll be one of the youngest candidates in the class. I hope to bring to the new class a fresh perspective to things and make everyone comfortable by connecting with them on a personal level. Professionally, I will, to my best of ability, try to inculcate in everyone my team skills and my never-back-down attitude and at the same time learn everything possible from the more experience candidates.

A good leader should not just produce results but also generate growth and create an impact on others and HHL provides with the perfect ingredients necessary to become a leader.

In the long run, I don’t want to impact just the business world but the world itself!