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IdentityI am Ashwani Bajaj, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Delhi Technological University. I worked as an Associate at Axtria India Pvt. Ltd. for the over 23 months where I use my analytical skills to provide business solutions to US based pharmaceutical clients. I did my schooling from Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar securing good scores in both 10th and 12th board exams. I graduated from DTU in 2016 with a distinction. It was the place where I learned the most about the need to form an identity in a crowd of over 6000+ students who are all similar to you many aspects. My work at Axtria is something I had really enjoyed. A wide variety of projects coupled with a smart and helpful peer group was the reason for my instant affection towards the organization. At Axtria, I worked as part of a bigger team which used data analytics to provide business solutions. For more than a year I had worked closely with a big US based pharmaceutical client and provided advance analytical solutions. This engagement with the client has allowed to me work on various advance analytics projects such as Marketing Mix, Open Payments Database, PRM, Test Control Analysis, etc. In one of the projects I was assisting the client in trying to achieve $1 billion in sales of drug. Axtria, being a slightly younger organization, had given me tremendous opportunities to work on projects independently and provided a platform for extensive peer to peer learning. I thoroughly enjoyed my work at Axtria, I realized that single domain knowledge may limit me in future and that is why decided that an MBA would help me engaging myself with wide variety of horizontals and verticals.
I believe myself to be persistent. I remember this one instance during my tenure at Axtria where I was required to reduce the run-time of a process. This was quite challenging task as it would have required starting from scratch, identifying each aspect where run time can be reduced and even revamping the entire algorithm. I worked on it for 2 days straight, in fact, I chose to work on it during the weekend as well. Part of me liked the challenge and thrill that came with problem statement. Finally, I was able to reduce the 10 hours run time to 10 minutes. I was very content with myself for being able to complete the task at hand.
I believe myself to be methodical. At Axtria, I was working on a unique project. Very few people had expertise in the same. The client was also not very informed about the nuances of the project. Fearing that the scope of the project is likely to change along the way, I decided to structure the input processing steps in small units with enough dynamic allocation to accommodate for any 11th hour changes. The process was so well worked that even now when a refresh of the same project is required, it is being executed by using the same framework.
I have displayed ingenuity from time to time at my place of work by developing ingenious solutions to some of the most complicated business problems. In one of the projects, I was able to reduce considerable run time by changing the methodology from loop based to matrix multiplications based.
The end of November'17 was particularly strenuous for me. Under some misguided self-belief I had register for CAT 2017 and CFA Level 1 exam which were 6 days apart and their syllabus were not even remotely similar. Also, I was working on a solo project at work. A month before the first exam I thought I would have to focus on one or I stand to lose them both. But I didn't want to give up on one or the other exam because I feared losing the year or the hard-earned money. In the end, I was able to obtain decent scores in both exams and was awarded â??Employee of the monthâ?? award for the same month. What helped me in navigating all the three fields, was I able to manage my time well. I used to stay back in office after finishing my work, so I could prepare for the exams knowing that it would be difficult to do the same in comfort of home.
During my first year at DTU, I started working for a networking marketing firm. The reason I chose to do work for this organization was that I thought that it would put me out of my comfort zone. And indeed, it put me out of my comfort zone. I realized that selling to unwilling parties does take a toll. I also learned that, selling a product is less about the product and more about idea of network marketing. In the end I was able sell few business volumes for the company, but the learning was far more.
