“Failure is nothing to fear from. When you fail you learn, and come back with more passion,” said Dilip Khandelwal, speaking at the Mohali campus of the Indian School of Business (ISB).  He was addressing the ISB community at the inaugural session of the ISB Alumni Dialogue Series – an initiative designed by ISB to acknowledge and showcase the success stories of its alumni to the larger community which would inspire many others to lead a life less ordinary.  Sharing his success mantra, Dilip advised ISB students to learn and work in every department of the company, and have no fear in taking risk.



Commencing the Alumni Dialogues series Professor Dishan Kamdar Deputy Dean, Academic programmes, ISB, said, “This alumni dialogue is one of our initiatives to primarily showcase the success of our alumni. The series will use a dialogue format to discuss their journey to the top, their successes and challenges, providing an insightful learning experience to those who aspire to make it big. We have more than 7000 alumni now with a good number on CEO and CXO level, and having their own ventures across industries. Through this dialogue series, the school would like others to learn from their experience and success stories.”

Dilip Kumar Khandelwal is MD, SAP Labs, India, and Executive Vice President and Global Head of Suite Engineering, SAP. Dilip Kumar Khandelwal has been associated with SAP Labs for 13 years, and is responsible for driving operations for SAP Labs India facilities across Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Pune.

Answering one of the questions about technology and big data, Dilip said, the technology that is available today is making processes disruptive. In SAP our strategy is to leverage all of these technologies in transforming the business models of our customers, who are using these technologies, into a result oriented digital enterprise,” Sharing the Philosophy of SAP, he further said, “It is to make life easy for our customers. With the technology we offer, we provide solution to our customers to move their business processes and be market leaders in their segment.

When asked about his advice to students he said nobody will empower you, rather you can empower yourself by taking a job in hand and doing it fearlessly with full conviction. He also advised students not to change their style and be unique; treat the work as their own rather than just a job. He spoke about his journey in SAP from a consultant to Managing Director, and touched about various other topics such as cloud computing, focus area of SAP Labs, importance of digitisation etc.

The talk and the Q and A session generated a lot of interest, and prompted high levels of engagement from the students, alumni and staff.