Reflections - An Inside View

Pre-placement talks late night in the chilly December of 2006 was my second tryst with Patni. The first happened six years back at my REC campus. An amateur first attempt to woo was rejected while a more mature second one got me in and here I am to recall and reflect my Patni experiences, although a few.

What hit me six years back and later a few  months back  during those  recruitment brushes about Patni,  was the  feeling of “exclusivity” the brand patni carried along. Unlike ‘the big others’, who drove  in and  drove out  with ‘cattle’ herds from the campuses, patni recruitment was slow, highly selective and in some sense ‘lethargic’, then & now. This feeling of Patni exclusivity lingered on and transferred over to me as I was the only one selected from my batch of MBAs. This was duly reflected for quite some time on my proud gtalk messenger status (which read “I found my Patni”)

Unlike in the southern parts of the country, Patni, I found was a known name among the general crowd in Mumbai with its extended employee transportation service which covers almost the whole of Mumbai and suburbs (Couldn’t believe that Patni had Seepz-Kalyan or Seepz-Virar buses!)

I was surprised to find a large batch of 49 MA’s for the induction program which started on the seventh day of the fifth month and continued till the end of the week. The length of the program and coverage was just right enough to give us a peek into the organization and its way of doing business.  The one week was also a time for informal interactions with the other MAs, most of them from non-IT background just as me. Although, the 49 of us have been allocated to different Business units and functions, the camaraderie developed during the early days still keeps us in touch through group mails and birthday wish mails which at times act as great stress relievers too.

Ten of us were  allocated  to the  corporate marketing  business  unit and seemed to be the largest number of MAs  allocated to any  unit apart from EAS.  Marketing  is quite a new function at patni and hence the role and scope of work I realized were not as clearly defined as in a traditional industry. However, this also gave each of us an unbounded opportunity and freedom to explore, experiment, learn  and  apply – some of these missing in traditional text-book defined roles in other places.  So, the last five months of my stay at patni has kept  me involved in  assignments and projects, many of which at times, had no clear stated deliverables but which  nevertheless  made me  apply my  knowledge and researching skills  accumulated  during my two years of management education. The guidance, trust, appreciation and the warmth that I get from my seniors has been clear-enough an indication for me to understand and realize the importance of my value-add to this organization.