May Colours @ MakeMyTrip

The month of May was green and pink all the way. But how, I hear you ask. Well, green, owing to all the environment related activities that took place in the office and pink, for all those things that kept our lady Trippers busy!

Wondering why our lady Trippers are looking prettier than the usual? Well, knowing how important it is for our lovely ladies to look and feel their best, a beauty and grooming session by a famous cosmetics brand was organised in the office. The workshop focused on skin, body and hair care, make-up tips and general beauty and grooming. And it wasn’t just beauty advice that the ladies took away. There was also a fun quiz at the end of the session and lucky winners took home exciting gift hampers!

A health talk on Cervical Cancer was organised in association with Max Healthcare. Conducted by Dr Kaushiki Dwivedi, the aim of this session was to spread awareness about Cervical Cancer, which is the second most common form of Cancer affecting women.Letting people know that timely prevention and treatment can help fight this deadly disease is the first step itself in the battle against Cervical Cancer. We all know the importance of environmental conservation. Though a lot is being done to save the environment, there’s a lot more that can we can do. As an organization, MakeMyTrip has taken several initiatives towards conservation of environment and carries out numerous activities on a regular basis to promote eco-friendly practices.

From dressing up green to going on scavenger hunts; May was a designated ‘green’ month and a plethora of activities were conducted to make our Trippers go all environ-mental! And like everything else at MakeMyTrip, the ‘Go Green Drive’ too came with a bag full of prizes and rewards.Trippers went all out for the eco-drive and came dressed in green, donated books for reading and volunteered for the Green Cleanup Drive. Many lucky ones also received free couple SFL passes and Jhumroo passes at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon.

In addition to all this, WE sent out regular emails with tips on saving energy, advantages of paper versus plastic bags and a carbon footprint calculator to help trippers calculate their own carbon footprint on their gadgets such as the iPad.

The icing on the cake was the exciting Scavenger Hunt; the get-out-and-explore-the-world-around-you hunt wherein more than 50 Trippers participated in teams of 4. Each team went in and around the office searching for green plastic items, pieces of garbage (yes, garbage!), flowers, plants, animals, people wearing green clothes, vegetarians and much more! The team that ticked all or the maximum number of things on the list won the hunt and bagged exciting prizes.

From dressing green to beauty and grooming sessions, the month of May was quite an eventful one. But the ‘green’ fun does not stop here and there’s a whole lot more to come. So keep checking this space for more updates and keep the eco/green drive going!

The Month That Was

With India having the largest youth population in the world, it is not just important but crucial to be concerned about issues that affect the youth of the country today.  And education or rather the lack of it is perhaps the most critical one of such issues. We at MakeMyTrip believe that nurturing children today and helping them gain knowledge and education will lead to a better and brighter future. And we are doing our bit through MakeMyTrip’s corporate mentoring program with Udayan Care, which runs homes for orphaned, abandoned and abused children. This month, employees who have volunteered to mentor children, spent time with children between the age group of 5 to 17 years at their home on MG road and discussed their career interests, future goals, further studies and part time jobs. The evening ended with what we do best – eat and have a super fun time!

Trippers with Kids of Udayan Care

At MakeMyTrip, it’s not just work but a whole lot of play too because we all know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! And there could be no one better to endorse this theory than our very own CEO, Mr. Deep Kalra, who, along with our CPO Mr. Amit Somani joined other Table Tennis champs of the office for an exciting ping-pong tournament. Not only was this a chance for all the TT aficionados to showcase their talents but also pure fun and entertainment for the spectators. The battleground was the 4^th floor cafeteria and the champions’ weapon of choice, the paddle. And what were they all competing for? Pride, honour? Naah...to be the TT champ of champs at MakeMyTrip! Watch this space for the results and more details on the tournament.

And from Table Tennis, it’s now onto Cricket. This month, as the nation is gripped by the IPL 5 fever, so is everyone at MakeMyTrip! ‘We’ decided to run a cricket quiz or ‘Cric Quiz’ with IPL tickets up for grabs. From IPL trivia to ‘green’ initiatives to face painting; a loWinners of IPL Quizt happened in the name of IPL and more than 100 tickets were given away in prizes! The face painting competition took place on April 26^th and after much fun, coloured hands and faces, some 300 plus votes and a massive counting task, we finally got our winners. The winning team oola la la la le o-ed their way to the top, bagging couple tickets to Jhumroo at the Kingdom of Dreams. Other two teams, which also received Jhumroo tickets, shared the runners-up position. Kudos to all the face painters!

Winners of Face Painting competition

Is there is any such award for ‘The Most Happening Workplace’? Well, if there is, guess who’s going to be the most deserving candidate? No prizes for guessing eh!

The month of April in particular has been quite an eventful one. From Table Tennis to IPL fever to social initiatives; no single day has been the same at MakeMyTrip.

MakeMyTrip Enables ‘Social’ Travel in India with Tripalong

Travel becomes fun as you enjoy the journey, and not just the destination!

New Delhi, April 17, 2012: MakeMyTrip, India’s leading Travel Company, announced the launch of Tripalong, a revolutionary social application developed exclusively for travellers. Tripalong integrates with your favourite social networks and maps your travel itinerary to help connect with friends while travelling. Users enter the details of their flights on Tripalong and are notified if they are ‘intersecting’ with members from their social network (who are also Tripalong members). Once users share their flight (L-R) Keyur Joshi, Ramesh Srivats, Purab Kohli & Manish Kalradetails they can catch up with their friends who may be on the same flight, at the airport and even in the city they are visiting.  Users can also make new friends on Tripalong based on their profiles and interests. The application was unveiled at a press briefing in Delhi today by Purab Kohli, actor and an avid traveler. The app has been conceptualized and developed in association with TenTenTen Digital Products, a company that helps brands reach out to today's connected customer by creating large, social apps that become brand properties.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Keyur Joshi, COO & Co-Founder, MakeMyTrip, said, “MakeMyTrip has always led from the front, using technology and innovation to deliver more power and choices to the traveler. We are extremely delighted to introduce Tripalong to India. Keyur JoshiThis is a social application that will enhance the ‘fun’ quotient of your travel experiences.  A unique platform to engage with old friends and meet new people, Tripalong extends our brand promise of creating Memories Unlimited!”

Mr. Ramesh Srivats, MD & CEO of TenTenTen Digital Products, added, "Social networks are more than just new "media". They have changed the very way in which people interact with each other. So there's no point in using them as yet another channel to pump brand messages. In fact, in this world, brands are built by actions, not words. Tripalong helps MakeMyTrip do just this. It's useful and cool. And leverages the customer's own networks to make his or her travel a lot more fun. And the fun has just started. We have lots of features that will be added to Tripalong as we go along, to make it even more powerful and even more useful."

Tripalong is extremely simple and easy to use. The application allows users to register on www.Tripalong.in. The user can link their Tripalong account with their LinkedIn and / or Facebook accounts which will provide access to their friends already on Tripalong. Upon adding flight schedule (date of travel and route), the application auto-prompts the user for Airline detail and departure time. It then shares details of friends registered on Tripalong who may be travelling on the same flight, or be at the same airport with opportunity to ‘intersect’. Friends can then choose to connect offline and check-in together to get a seat next to each other or meet at the airport. Tripalong also updates users on friends who are in the same city as they are travelling to – it’s like a helpful assistant that facilitates interactions on the go. In addition, whenever a user adds flight details, he/she is also able to see other registered Tripalong members on the same flight, along with their brief profiles. The user can then choose to send an invite to connect with any of them. Once the invite is accepted, users can plan their interaction off-line or via e-mail. Tripalong also enables users to notify members in their social network of their itinerary. Members can share flight details on Tripalong irrespective of where they have purchased their ticket from - although MakeMyTrip flight purchases can be directly synchronized with the app.

MakeMyTrip is sensitive to traveler-information protection and no other user-related data is exchanged with Tripalong members who are not authorized by the user. The privacy settings and networks/groups are auto-imported from Facebook/LinkedIn – thus only other Tripalong Members and the friends/social connections who the user wants to connect with, are privy to their travel information. 

How to use Tripalong – it is a few simple steps!

1)      Open Tripalong.in and Click on “Sign UP NOW”.

2)      You can click on fConnect to connect through Facebook, or your MakeMyTrip account, or even create a new account on Tripalong.

3)      Upon logging in, you can link your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts with Tripalong and also directly import information pertaining to flights booked through MakeMyTrip.

4)      Enter and save the key details of your profile - mandatory fields are ‘Name’, ‘Email ID’ and ‘City of origin’.

5)      Once you add a flight on Tripalong, you can select the origin, destination and date following which you will be able to choose the airline and time of departure from the drop-down menu.

6)      Upon adding a flight, you will be able to see other “Trip Pals” on the flight.

7)      You can then choose to connect with old friends or other Trip Pals based on profile and common interests.

Please Note:

• Tripalong works best with Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox 8 and Above, IE 8 and above
• When logging into the app through Facebook, if you click on “Allow” to post on your behalf, the message that you have joined Tripalong and the Flights you wish to share will be posted on your wall –  you can change the privacy setting regarding access to view your wall-post any time through Facebook privacy settings

Town Hall Meeting-March 2012

The bi-annual Town Hall Meet (THM) of MakeMyTrip came back this nineteenth; bigger, better and louder! Like always, this THM turned out to be grander than the last one in August 2011. Instead of hunters and animals like last time, this time Trippers were in Retro and old school attires. The polka clothes, hairdos, white pants, bell bottoms and wide frames were dotted across the venue, the indo-baroque hall in Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon.

MMT’s own band (Gaurav Sajjanhar, Ojas Patil and Siddharth Dehl) kick-started the THM with some foot-tapping numbers from Kailash Kher to Elvis Presley. Next, MMT’s own Rapper E-Raize (Ekesh Tewari) rocked the stage with another singer (Tilak Prakash), as the duo wittily reprised the song Maeri from Euphoria.

Showstoppers- Rapper and Singer DThen our Founders Deep, Keyur and Rajesh spoke in their unique and captivating styles. Analogy between business & cricket, a story called 'My car doesn't like Vanilla ice-cream’ and exciting business figures aren’t something you hear every other day, do you? The sound health of the company, the recent partnerships across the world, the upcoming incentives for the employees and the importance of their happiness were on the agendas of L-Team members. For the first time in a THM, we had some very special guests, the family members of MMT employees.

Every THM, a reputed industry figure comes as a speaker and interacts with trippers on just about everything. The speaker this time was a dear friend of Deep, Mr. Shailesh Rao - Vice President International Operations at Twitter. Shailesh has worked as MD - Google India - and Director - Local Search - at Google’s headquarters. This young and candid (he donned a yellow retro wig!) leader mesmerised trippers with his simple fundamentals on following your passions, loving what you do and his stories at Google.Mr. Shailesh Rao interacting with Trippers

Hey wait, the best is yet to come. And that is performances by the new joiners.  Like each time, the new trippers rocked the stage with some awesome plays and comic acts. Alternate versions of characters like jury of Roadies, Siddhu Paaji, Basanti and Veeru came alive on stage, leaving a rib-tickled audience. In what seemed a duel between comedy and entertainment, some delighting dance sequences and a Tabla session also enthralled everyone in the hall. This was followed by a brown bag session where Deep and Purva (our new HR Head) answered questions on performance management, appraisals, strategic partnerships and another upcoming offsite.

THM is also a platform to acknowledge and award the best performing trippers, which we fondly know as ‘Star Performers’. Apart from the big batch of achievers, this time there was a special award category: Awards for employees working for a) FIVE and b) TEN years with MakeMyTrip. That wasn’t really unfathomable for a 12 year young dotcom that listed on NASDAQ and ranked amongst top 3 in Great Places To Work survey, twice!

Star Performers with their TrophiesThe glamorous red-carpet show ended perfectly with free food for trippers in the famed Culture Gully of Kingdom of Dreams. We devoured Lucknowi kebabs, Hyderabadi biryani, Goan curry, Mumbai vada-paos, Amritsari kulchey, and delicacies from every Indian state. With the unspent money in our cards, we indulged in some retail therapy.

An account of this THM will be incomplete without applauding our HR team for their flawless planning and execution of the event. The most exciting part of the THM is that it comes back!

Life @ 243 Udyog Vihar

Usually stories and journeys start with a ‘Welcome ‘and end with a ‘Goodbye’ but this is no ordinary story. This is the short and spicy story of Trippers moving from our old ‘Partyvilla’ to our new ‘Las Vegas Partytown’. It was on Saturday, February 11, 2012, that we bid adieu to our old office and were welcomed with quite a celebration in to the new office. For those of you who were there, you know what I’m talking about. For those who missed the moving day ‘funathon’, here are a few snippets of all the craziness we indulged in on that day.

Happy TrippersI reached the new office by 11:20 a.m. and was in for a surprise the moment I stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor. I saw a swarm of fellow Trippers hovering over four plates of paints (of different colors). I was with my colleague, Ekesh, from the Content Team and while we were still figuring out the meaning of the paint plates, a Human Resource Tripper came to us and quickly explained the reason. Within a minute, we had paint on our hands and gladly put our hand prints on the MakeMyTrip whiteboard. Next, we wrote down our very best wishes for MakeMyTrip and hung it on the ‘Wish Tree’. Next, we moved inside the actual office lobby and were taken aback by the intricate interior décor of the reception area as well as the work stations. At the reception, we got our 1000 MMT dollars each to be later used for bidding during the scheduled auctioning! We sauntered in and were welcomed to our work stations by our manager (Devika). Like a couple of delighted teenagers (or “giggling teenagers” as Devika put it!), we moved to our new work stations and got to work. Ha! There, fooled you! By work, I meant, quickly going through the welcome kit and devouring some of the delicious soan papdi.

...And Auction!The HR team (kudos to them!) had arranged for various fun filled activities that included a treasure hunt, bidding war, and arm wrestling. Of all the activities, the bidding war in the auction hogged the limelight. And why not! After all, we had Amit Somani running the show in his usual jolly manner.

With only 3000 MMT dollars between us, there wasn’t much that fit our budget in the auctioning. But we were quite happy to see all the people go nuts over the variety of objects on the bidding table. There were t-shirts, watches, a hockey stick, books, tiny Buddhas, and much more that were put out. But the one thing that had all of the guys drooling and sparring mercilessly with each other during the auction was the 2012 Kingfisher calendar. Now, you would think ‘why would a simple calendar be the subject of such passions?’. For answers, Trippers should seek the advice of Amit who was obviously delighted with the auctioning of the calendar or better still, ask Deep  who humbly pointed out during the auctioning that he was the one who procured the calendar in the first place!

The calendar with the lovely ladies on it was eventually sold for a whopping 33,000 MMT dollars!

Food was next on the menu! We had hired the services of ‘Bittu Tikki Wala’ and after stuffing myself with all the items at least twice during that day, I could say with some precision that the food was awesome. The dishes included chaat, panipuri, chilla, chole kulche, and of course, kulfi.

All in all, it was one rollercoaster ride with no speed bumps but plenty of screaming! The Human Resource, Housekeeping, Technology and the Administrative teams deserve a special mention and standing ovation for the mammoth efforts on their part for not only the smooth transition but also for making it so much fun.

The new MakeMyTrip office address in Gurgaon is - MakeMyTrip.com, 243 SP Infocity, Udyog Vihar Phase 1, Gurgaon, Haryana - 122 016. Map & Directions.