Statement of Purpose forPre-doctoral programme in Marketing

The emergence of Data Science field is playing a major role in ongoing fourth Industrial
revolution by transforming most industries and services by bringing changes at an
unprecedented rate. It is impacting our daily lives with Amazon recommending products,
Facebook pushing customized advertisement, Uber cabs operating on the street tracking
every movement, the popular TV show Netflix recommending video contents. I am amazed
by what today's large volume of data and cutting edge technology could achieve, while
helping individuals or organizations to make wise decisions.

In fact, apart from the applications mentioned above, data-driven analysis has been also
widely used in Marketing, Sales, Human Resources, Travel, Delivery Logistics, Product
recommendation, Risk Management, Healthcare, Government policy and every possible
industry where data gets generated. As one might imagine, the use of data science will
become more ubiquitous. I feel excited about the wide application of data science nowadays,
especially in tracking infectious disease, curing cancer and personalizing education which are
meaningful for the whole society. With my strength and interest, I want to contribute to that
age of evolution. Thus, a Master Degree of Data science is a logic culmination of my passion
for solving such problems through data analytics.

I am really curious about numbers how different meaning can be drawn from their
interpretation. Thus I chose my undergraduate in Engineering and after that I prefer to start
my career in field of services, where I had lot to experience in studying the consumers and
their need. From my illustrious 14 years of work experience across multiple industries, my
understanding of how to leverage data and mathematical technique to solve realistic
problems grows. As probability and mathematical statistics are my strength and the idea of
drawing conclusions and making decisions in the face of uncertainty fascinates me.

From my undergraduate study in Engineering at National Institute of Technology, Jaipur (NIT,

Jaipur), I learned statistical theory and their applications in depth, which are fundamental for
my later work. Over the course of graduate study, I tutored undergraduate students the
computer language like C & C++. During my internship, I played a major role in the team to
perform end-to-end quantitative analysis using tools like MS Excel, MS Excess, VBA, STATA
etc and present result to senior researcher.

After graduation, I joined an IT company Onmobile Global Limited as a Business

Development and Project Manager. During 2006, I received "Excellent employee of the year"
award from the company. While working at Onmobile Global Limited, I applied my statistical
analysis knowledge and programming skills to a wide variety of data-oriented assignments.
One aspect of my work as Project Manager was that I created a program to process the Raw
data where client can use the billing data. This helped the organization to optimize the billing
data and minimize the losses along with improved client relationship. In the next few years,
this framework was replicated across all the telecom clients.
I worked on a tool to process the raw data for improving cross selling of the products. As
Manager for executing data processing plans, I was in-charge of Core administrative data
collections, and supported Report and Dissemination team by providing descriptive statistics
for answering client's research question and for reporting purpose. The project involved
issues like customer segmentation as per demographic, GDP, mobile recharge pattern, age-
group and content usages, etc. This allowed me to build solid data processing foundation.

Another aspect of my work involved conducting statistical analysis for various research
studies. For example, one project involved predicting mobile content consumption in different
demographic to create new content of their choices and tie-up with local media for marketing.
Another example is the implementation of bootstrap method to determine Mathematics and
History assessment framework for content coverage variability. Throughout my work at
Onmobile Global Limited, I found a great sense of fulfillment in answering questions through
data analytics.

After learning technology and analytical skills from Onmobile, I got an opportunity to work
with Sistema Group of Company, with a Telcom brand named ”MTS India”. Here I was
assigned to rollout of telecom services with a challenging task to setup the Network
infrastructure. To meet the objectives, I had to plan the estimated network bandwidth
utilization, based on population density and consumer behavior, for optimizing the network
infrastructure. One aspect of my work involved conducting statistical analysis for placing
new brand in different demography. In this assignment, I used my analytical ability to
analysis the population language study, so that we can place the brand in their language. I
got an opportunity to work with voluminous data for the customer segmentation and
demand to rollout appropriate mobile based products. There are many instances where I
used my analytical skills to generate and grow revenue, retain customers, new products
development, new product/service launch, procurement of new IT service/tool and many
other issues. I gradually realized the core concept of data analytics and mindset that can be
leveraged to wider settings as I mentioned earlier.

With the advent of big data and data science algorithms, more enterprises are incorporating
data analytics when building strategic applications and making decisions. I want to formally
enter the data science-field in the recognition of the fact that repositioning my career in this
direction is essential for me to remain relevant, effective and employable. However, after
doing some initial research on data scientist responsibilities in industry, I realized that I need
to acquire additional data science skills, such as machine learning, latest coding skills and
business communication skills. That aims me to invest myself of future learning in Degree of
Analytics to bridge the gap between me and data scientist.

While my immediate career goal is to be a data scientist after obtaining the degree, my long
term career goal is to build my own enterprise focusing on providing data analytics
consulting services in the future. With this goal in mind I decided to study in an institute that
helps me further my goals. I am looking for a school that provides professional skills, hands-
on experience and networking opportunities needed to be successful in a business setting.

At IIMB, I want to learn from its unique interdisciplinary structured curriculum in the field of
data science, covering mathematical and computational technical skills while providing
business communication and management skills. In addition, the program will provide me a
distinctive practicum opportunity. Due to the University leading position in the field of
technology and data science, I will have an opportunity to work on cutting edge projects.
Further, the well placed alumni network working with world’s leading companies like
Google, Uber, Facebook, Dropbox and many more, will help me connect with the leaders of
the industry. Last but not least, the multidisciplinary faculties with background in
Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Finance, Business, and some experienced data
scientist in the program, will bring their theoretical knowledge and industry experience
through instruction which is exactly what I desired. Overall, the program will provide me a
great foundation that are essential to success in the industry in short term and also provide
networking opportunities that is beneficial in long term. Thus, IIMB is my choice for the
higher studies. I am very optimistic about the future of my career, by being there.
I wish to contribute to the class with my technical knowledge and professional experience
across wide variety of projects. As field of Data Science is not only about mathematical
problem solving, but it also requires lot of insights from real world with behavioral
understanding. I would like make the classroom learning an interactive process by sharing
my experience of real world cases, while learning from young technocrats and
mathematicians.

At IIM Bangalore, I hope to get an opportunity to meet the expert from academic and top
management of some high-tech companies, and gain hands-on experience in running
groundbreaking data analytics projects. I would also believe that I will make excellent
contribution to the atmosphere at IIM, Bangalore and subsequently be a successful data
scientist with my passion and aspiration.