The Term Begins

I can understand how much effort was put into the Fedex Case by the whole batch. Everyday, there was a Group Meeting. People used to have meetings over lunch and dinner. The Atrium was full of jargons and words from the case. Some of the IT guys were putting fundaes on Postal Service Software projects they had worked on. Some of them were giving gyan about what they Googled. It was fun. Go anywhere, and there was someone discussing the case.

During my analysis of the case, I came across a good book on Innovation Strategy - done by Fedex over the last two decades or so. It was an interesting book, though it did not actually provide insights to the case.

So, the first day was quite interesting. We had a finance class to begin with. Our Prof was from Kellogg. Before I forget - the best aspect of the finance course was that, no class participation was required. The Prof started off with a brief outline about the course and its demanding nature - 10 weeks of normal course that is actually crushed to 5 weeks to suit the ISB pattern. Following up various aspects of the Accounting Principles and Statements with examples from real life situations, he got the whole class involved.

When it came to Balance Sheets, we had about 20 mins to go. Then the cold calls started. It was me first. Luckily, I had an easy transaction to start off with. And with about 2 mins to spare we finished the problem.

It was surprising to see that whatever was covered in the pre-term accounting class was completed in less than 20 mins and the whole class had no problem whatsoever.

The next class was Marketing. Prof from Columbia. Isnt that sexy!! So, the Fedex case was open to discussion. Puzzling, there wasnt even a single arbid CP. All points were relevant to the case. But yes, after a while, people started beating around the bush. Once we got down to analyzing the numbers was when a lot of us actually understood certain specifics about the case. It was informative compared to what I felt when I was doing my pre-read.

Its evening now and post dinner I have a ToastMasters meeting. Lots to read in Stats and Economics.

Its really a Wild Wild World.