New Delhi: Vedanta’s XStrat B-School case study competition came to a grand culmination, with the team from ISB Hyderabad winning the maiden season. IIM Ahmedabad lifted the 1st Runners Up award, and IIM Calcutta and MDI Gurgaon jointly bagged the 2nd Runners Up award.
Launched in November, Vedanta XStrat B-School case study competition gives India’s talented student community a sneak-peak into the interesting spectrum of business cases in the metals and oil & gas industry, which they are not traditionally exposed to, at a time when India is emerging as a global manufacturing destination. The case studies spanned interesting themes such as new market development for Oil & Gas business, innovations in ESG excellence, creating greater value for the conglomerate, etc. In the first season, the competition saw participation of over 6000 students from 30 premier management colleges of India. 20 CXOs from Vedanta’s group companies mentored the students as they competed through various rounds.
Congratulating the winners, Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta, said, “India’s youth is its true strength. They have the entrepreneurial drive, passion and outlook that is required to capitalize upon the land of opportunities that is our country. Vedanta is a young company with a young employee base.”
“Our learning curve is steep, and we make sure to provide our employees with opportunities that accelerate their career progression, as we build India’s self-reliant future together. This initiative is our endeavour to encourage critical thinking and problem-solving abilities in our future leaders. Hearty congratulations to the winners and their alma maters for winning the first season. We look forward to having the talented students as part of our vibrant team at Vedanta,” he added.
Speaking at the event, Madhu Srivastava, CHRO of Vedanta Limited said, “At Vedanta, we strongly believe in our human capital that has transformed us into a world-class natural resources conglomerate that leverages leading-edge technologies, strong analytics, and global collaborations to create immense value for our customers and country. Our industry leading people practices have nurtured a culture of meritocracy that enables our employees to explore their potential to the fullest. Nurturing the right talent, with the desired attitude and skills, is fundamental to shaping Vedanta’s growth strategy and our case study challenge XStrat, is one such interesting endeavour in this direction. We are delighted to welcome the winning teams to the Vedanta family.”
The students from ISB Hyderabad, Vishnu Kiritee Guttikonda, Akhil Ruttala and Pradeep Bodige, stood out amongst all participants for their insightful analysis on unlocking greater value and capitalizing on emerging opportunities for Vedanta and its group companies.
“Kudos to Vedanta management for the event! All members of the jury and management of Vedanta group were very encouraging. We received valuable feedback and suggestions from our assigned mentor. It was a great learning experience all together.” – Pradeep Bodige
“I feel very proud for winning a national competition. I’m happy that I got to represent ISB on a national level. I’m speechless at the thought of working with a great company like Vedanta and some of the best people from all over the world.” – Vishnu Guttikonda
“The senior leadership of Vedanta on the judging committee was very encouraging and supportive. The mentor assigned to us helped us refine our solution and gave us a structured pathway to follow. The leadership encouraged new ideas and innovative thoughts, which kept us highly motivated throughout the competition.” – Akhil Ruttala
Vedanta recruits nearly thousands of high-quality talent directly from over a hundred top-tier management, engineering, technical and finance institutes across India. Vedanta also hires talent from global B-schools for its global programs. As one of the most progressive manufacturing companies, Vedanta is also recruiting talent from specialized new age programs like Digital, Data Science & Analytics, Sustainability, Forensics, Quality, R&D etc. with a focus on ensuring a healthy representation across genders, geographies and demographics.
Vedanta strives to identify high-potential talent early on through several industry-leading assessment programs and providing them avenues for holistic growth & development through empowering job roles, best in-class benefits, accelerated career progression, opportunities to take up cross-functional assignments and mentoring by CXOs. The company believes in providing employees with high-impact roles that provide them a ring-side view of global best practices and exposure to strategic projects, enabling accelerated learning and skills required to take up CXO roles in the Group very quickly in their career.
Testimony to its vibrant people culture, Vedanta and its group companies have been certified as ‘Great Place to Work’ many times over. The company continues to be one of the preferred employers for India’s top talent across specializations.