In the second 'Guest in Classroom' session of the winter semester the MBA International Management program had the immense pleasure of welcoming our alumna, Ms. Swapna Phadke-Virkar back to campus. She is currently the Head of the Digital Business Platform at Mercedes-Benz AG and works in Stuttgart. Her rich international experience, deep knowledge in digitalization and passion for technology was evident from the moment she took to stage.
Swapna elaborated about how digitalization is one of the key drivers for transformation at Mercedes-Benz. She explained the range of dimensions it involves from Marketing, Customer Interfaces, , E-commerce, Service Delivery, to Human-Machine Interface and the continuous efforts made to  enhance customer experience along with the  technology that defines and drives it.
It is Swapna´s and her team´s primary focus to build a strong online sales platform which enables the Omnichannel Commerce for Mercedes Benz Sales and Customer Services. Thus, driving the holistic transformation. She emphasized on how the right processes, technology and architecture saves time and energy, fosters sustainable growth and delivers an unmatched, luxurious user-experience. 'Without digitalization, everything is nothing!' was the guiding principle of her talk.
The students actively and curiously asked questions, to which Swapna presented her perspectives along with several real-life examples and instances. Along with domain knowledge, and a positive mindset, she explained how significant it is, to learn the German language and to respect and integrate into the culture to grow professionally and personally.
A big THANK YOU to Swapna for sharing her invaluable knowledge and experiences with us and for being an inspiring leader who leads by example.

text and group picture: Aditya Yardi and Gnanendra Kumar Berigai Anand, Class of 2025