Some things never change

I was in the Strategic Partnerships class today. We were discussing the airline alliances case, specifically about Star Alliance - dunno if you have heard of this. I hadn't. I just new BA's One-world alliance. This was new to me. Anyway, thats not the point here.

Some things I realized after the class discussions in Term 8. Maturity levels are still the same. I mean - they were quite low to start with and have pretty much stayed there. One thing that didn't interest me is that we were actually discussing case facts. Whats the point in talking about something that someone has already written. Anyway, that was the structure of the lecture, so we cant debate that. But then lets turn around and look at the so-called MBAs who are going to graduate out of this place in a little more than 2 weeks. They still talk like politicians. They just know that they have to say something - in all probability, whatever they say will be totally unconnected what the Prof is asking. But still, they would make their point. Its felt like sitting in a Summer session of the Indian Parliament. So, the Prof asked one student about his reaction to someone's comment. Clearly this person did not have an answer. I could see that stupid look on his face. But then he had raised his hands and the Prof asked him. And this was his only opportunity to get those 2 marks for class participation. He promptly replied - "Actually, I have a different view" and I was like - "Yeah, you will".

I had this idea in my mind that somehow things will turn around, the placement season would set things right for a lot of people, it would change their attitude. I thought they would get wiser by the day. Its been a total let down. Even though the MBA has taught so many jargons; marketing & financial models, it has still left a big hole in the personal skills space.

The buzz on campus is about graduation passes. People have generously invited their uncles, aunties and everyone beginning from their three year old cousin to attend the graduation. And now they have started spamming the batch asking for someone to donate extra passes to them. Well, we spamming doesn't really work well with MBAs. So what do we need? Yes, an EXCEL Sheet. A new excel sheet has been created in the shared drive for this purpose. After all, what are MBAs for. They can make good presentations, write some numbers in an excel sheet that no one can understand and comment about anything and everything in this world. I am sure that Bill Gates must be a strong supporter of B-Schools for having propagated the use of Microsoft Tools. And I am happy that he has kept most of them on the consumer side and not a part of his business.

Leadership Lessons from 22000 feet

It was time to know what the ultimate essence of leadership was. And considering the kind of jobs we were going to get into in the next few months, it was important that we heard it from someone who had been there and done that because we'd probably never do such things in this lifetime.

It was time to meet Capt. Raghu Ram who was working with Mahindra. He was in the army for 11 years and he was on campus to talk to us about "leadership lessons from siachen". A thought provoking speech for one hour. At the end of it, I felt that I was fortunate to do what I was doing. Nothing could get better.

So, what do soldiers give their lives for? Answers from the student body said - will, love for country, awards, fighting spirit, sense of duty etc. But we were all wrong. The only reason was the superior officer. Soldiers never want to be there and do that. They are there only because someone has inspired them to be there. Thats the dedication a leader brings at that level.

Most of us didn't even know where Siachen exactly was. After looking at some of the pictures that he had shown us, I was horrified. A place where you can't return until you have completed the allotted duration of stay, which could range from 3 months to a year. The glacier is famous for more than 50% not returning back home. The temperatures are close to -35 degrees Celsius and your bofy metabolism drops to 20%. There is a good chance of loss of life. Avalanches are very common. You eat very less and answer the nature's call once in 2 days. Sometimes people have to wear warm clothing that just weighs 17 kilos. But you have to live and bear it. Sometimes even letters from home with unhappy messages are not given. Letters following that unhappy letter never get through too. All letters are screened so that people don't lose their spirit and concentration.

At the glacier its all about guarding your post and keeping it. It the Pakistani military captures a post, then the next time Indians have to get it. There is enough exchange of ammunition everyday. But thats the life there.

If you remember the movie Vertical Limit, where in the climax, the guy cuts off the rope to save the woman from falling into the crevasse. I cant imagine such things. But all this is bound to happen in Siachen and that incredible amount of leadership is required to make such decisions. It is a matter of life and death. But as a captain, you are responsible for the lives of your team. So, you also decide whether they are going to be with you or not. There have been situations when a comrade has been dead and you have to keep the dead-body till the next copter arrives to pick it up and that might be even 3 months. Its total trauma and everyday is a nightmare.

Imagine being there and making such decisions. Imagine a team of yours is not responding to you at night and you need to make a call whether you have to send another team to search. In fact, the lost team would just be less than 100 mtrs from your camp, but you still cant locate them due to harsh weather conditions. The enemy is watching you always. They can open fire anytime. Even your team cannot distinguish anyone at night. So, there is sufficient probability of your team killing you too.

Towards the end, I could never imagine myself making such decisions in my life. I can't do it at all. Being responsible for a person's life is not a joke. The cries of the family members after that message reaches them. Its you who's got to tell them too. At every point, you need that extra courage and balance of mind to do that. And they say - Trauma Transforms.

Reflections from Term 4

We are working on the yearbook. I definitely need to write more on that. Reserve that for the next post as Term 4 is very important considering the fact that the next batch will be here in a month. Term 4 was the one that most of us wanted to be scrapped out of the ISB MBA program and perhaps convert it into a one month internship. This would have helped in getting more finance jobs on campus. The ELP wasn't doing any good at all. And moreover, Term 4 was adding zero value to the MBA.

Government Society and Business - taught by Mudit Kapoor and Shivakumar(one of the few profs in ISB who has a wikipedia page dedicated to him). Anyway, Shiva is one great person who is part of the National Advisory Council and works closely with the Prime Minister and people like Sonia Gandhi. So the insights he brought during the second half of the course were pretty good. He touched upon the realities quite well and gave us the clean picture. Not like the cliched bottom of the pyramid crap. He talked about harsh realities, the way forward for the country and its poor people. The first half of the course was total gas. We talked about taliban, china and just wasted time.

Investment Analysis - the last finance course you are forced to take up. Taken by Tom Nohel. It was his first time on campus and he really didn't know what to do. He was teaching us the same stuff that we had done in corporate finance for almost 5 classes. Then he shifted gears and talked about something that I don't even remember vaguely. That was my interest in the class. I was also sitting in the last row this term. So my enthu to listen to the prof was zero and all of us in the last row had our laptops open. We didn't bother.

Management of Organizations - totally intoxicated with management gas. Taken by Mary Watson, all we did during this course was filling out survey questionnaires for the professor. And this happened in every class. Mega time pass. The only thing I remember about this course is an article about "Selection Bias". The second half was taken by our Negotiation Prof Dishan Kamdar. He was quite good and lenient too. The exam was horrible. All theory and total nonsense.

Strategic Analysis of IT - The only IT course in the core terms handled by Rajiv Banker and Sandra Slaughter. This course was also a bit on the waste course category. We could have still managed without doing this course. Almost half the batch is from the IT industry and all this course talks about is outsourcing, off shoring, in sourcing and multi sourcing. So, for a non IT guy, this course is a nightmare because he'll find that the IT guys have their hands up all the time to talk in class. The in-class quiz is good fun. It accounts for 40% of the grade I guess. This course also had an end-term quiz, but then in our batch, we had to go through the major fiasco of getting the exam postponed and things like that. It was fun.

Global Social Venture Competition

The GSVC Asia Semi Final has started in ISB today. We had the elevator pitch and it was awesome to see 16 teams on the stage. Our team is there as well. I am thrilled that we are part of a global competition. Our team is one of the 16 and we have 5 ISB teams in total. I hope ISB wins the semis.

For the people from the next batch who read my blog, I am going to be in campus for the orientation. I have been nominated - Can I say that? You get invited to be here to meet the next batch. Its a privilege rather. Whatever.

I remember the last new product development class and the Prof by mistake asked the students to relate their work experience to the case study in hand. I guess she would have definitely realized that she had made the worst mistake in her 5 classes at the ISB. The students never stopped. They went on and on and on about their experiences in the IT firms they have worked with. I mean its all the same. Its the same alcohol in different bottles. And you know the MBA students at the ISB - given a chance to talk and also the fact that there are points for class participation, they will talk till their last breath. And there will always be one extraordinary creature who will add on to what one guy has said, because he doesn't have anything to say from his own mind. Rather he is too dumb to talk something sensible.

We had Leadership lessons from World Literature too. Our group did an awesome presentation on Shakuntala and Dushanta - the Kalidasa version. Well, I made use of my leadership development program to the best. Walked into the leadership space, took control of the audience, made the right gestures and pauses. Pretty impressive I must say. Oh Narayan, would you please stop this nonsense. But yeah, it would have helped if I had done some more preparation. And yes, speaking to a big crowd is a piece of cake - ain't it?

Strategic Partnerships is another course that is leading me into a totally different plane about strategy and decisions. The course content is phenomenal. Its a must for all, no matter what major you are doing. The kind of insights that you get from this course makes you think like a CEO. Well, thats too much gas for a day eh.

So thats the status about my courses this term on campus. When its weekend, people just take off for a nice vacation to anywhere nearby. Official countdowns have begun, people have started writing that as their status message on GTalk and Yahoo. Some people are just getting wasted every day.

And last Tuesday was my worst day on campus. I had 4 classes the next day and 5 assignments to submit on the same day. And then about a 100 pages to read too. I was totally stretched for time. I am the only guy on campus who had this misfortune, that too in Term 8. Ciao.

Happy Women's Day

To all the women I have met at the Indian School of Business,
(please switch on the speakers)


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All the very best for a great future.

Cheers
Narayan

Reflections from Term 3

The weekend was very tiring. I think this would happen in every ISB student's life. He or she would have the best Holi party ever, only on campus. It was awesome. Six glasses of Bhang and in about four hours I was floating. It was an amazing feeling. I just loved the whole day. A riot of colors followed since 9.30am in the morning. Towards the end people started tearing the t-shirts of the men. You can see my Flickr Tab for some photos that I have borrowed from Doc.

By Term 3, you are almost done with your studies. I mean, the people who wanted to catch the best of the grades would have done that by now and from now on, for them, its just keep sailing the right way and stay on the good side of the tide. For the others, this term is to catch up for all that was left behind in the last two terms.

Corporate Finance - taught by Bhagwan Chowdhry for three sections. The rest have another prof. One Prof, who will let you know clearly as to what he would expect from you in the exam and what you need to study. Although I wasn't too keen about knowing stuff in finance, his classes were interesting. I vaguely remember Black Scholes, Modigliani Miller, WACC and CAPM. He always drew parallels to his family and the students in general, so you wouldn't really fall asleep. His exams were purely multiple choice. Make sure that you read, I'd rather say mug up, all the sample question papers and the answers. You will get around 30% questions from that stuff. Also read some extra stuff available from the textbook's webpage. That might be useful too.

Managerial Accounting - Two accounting disasters in one term. Thats something you can avoid this term. Its definitely a pain if you had assignments to submit for both. The other sections had assignments every day for Corp Fin. Thank god, we had none. But we had some horrible case studies where we had to crunch numbers. My group mates were my saviors for accounting assignments. Prof Sri Sridharan was the ManAcc prof for us. Before him, Prof. Khalid Nainar took the first 5 classes and introduced us to the course. Once Sridharan was in-charge, the assignments started pouring in. This was the term where we had something like three or four assignments due the next day, all due at the same time. I remember the night-out I put for a silly case in ManAcc. It was called Kota Fibres and I still don't have a clue of what that case was all about. Sridharan is a very nice person to talk to. You must try and catch him during breakfast and engage him for a nice conversation. If you are a CA, then be prepared for some questions about Indian Accounting. That's a forewarning.

Entrepreneurship - taught by S Venkataraman and Rama Velamuri. Awesome course. They say that entrepreneurship cannot be taught in a classroom. Yes, that is definitely true. But this course exposes you to some of the best entrepreneurs, rather entr-based case studies in different industries such that you get a very deep understanding of the whole idea of entrepreneurship. Lots to read and we had 40% class participation. A very well organized class, handled extremely well by both professors. Prof. Venkat, being a BITSian, gave us some of his insights about the field and his BITS days. Imagine learning from a person who wrote the initial business plan for the Wipro Information Technology. This Darden Prof had done work in WIPRO that was worth 7 yrs in less than 2.5 years. If you prepare well for this class, then you will rock.

Operations Management - taught by Prof Sridhar Seshadri and Prof Sudhakar Deshkmukh. Prof Seshadri is perhaps the best prof i have listened to for operations related stuff. He is amazing. The insights he brings into the OPS case studies are awesome. He deals with a few simple case studies but the way he handles the case is just enough to throw your thought process off-guard. It helps to prepare yourself for his class. You can get a few CP marks because not too many people would study to make a CP in OPS. Prof Deshmukh, the Danny Devito of the ISB, is a great man. His book is the recommended reading for the course. His concepts on supply chain management will totally bombard you. He'd always play this music on his laptop when you go for a break. When the music ends, he will start the class, no matter what. Each Prof has his own way to handle his students.

Reflections from Term 2

So, after two lazy days in which I didn't do anything relevant to coursework, I finished yet another day of 4 classes in Term 8. The first party of term 8 was started by section D. The next party will be during the weekend - that's for HOLI.

People literally aren't bothered about attending classes. They come late to class, never do reading. And some never attend. The MBA life has taken a totally different turn. Its a new world that I am seeing. The strangest of the people are in the recreation center these days. Those who I haven't even seen walking on the side of the center lawns are in the gym for almost an hour!!! Nowadays people spend more time at the REC Center. They swim, then play Frisbee, then workout, play tennis, finally finish with yoga and then reach the dining hall. This is a complete new phenomenon. I have never seen such a thing before. The swimming pool looks like a pond with a new ecosystem.

Competitive Strategy - One course in Term 2 where most of the cases actually gave me the MBA flavor. New frameworks were taught - especially the Porter's Five Forces for industry analysis. Nandini Lahiri took the first half of the class. The second half was handled in the most skillful way by Harbir Singh. Watch out for Prof. Harbir guys. You just can't mess with him. Do your readings properly atleast before his class. If you put up your hand and try to just live by saying something, then you are in for a big joyride. You'll definitely regret that.

Global Economics - The course where you learn about macroeconomic policies, trade between countries, some strange laws formulated by great economists who lived in the industrial era. Prof. Krishnakumar taught the first half of the course where he introduced us to the Asian Financial Crisis, Keynesian models, Commanding Heights (you'll definitely love this movie). Then Ravi Bansal would talk about monetary policy, exchange rates, interest rates, savings, and inflation. Interesting stuff. It keeps you thinking about what the FED and the FM does. Also helps you understand why the RBI changes the rates and its effects.

Optimisation - handled by Sandeep Juneja and Milind Sohoni. Lots of work on Excel modeling problems and making interpretations out of graphs. If you don't listen to what's being told in class, then you can be happy that you'll get a B-Neg. Nothing below that. The Profs are quite reasonable.

Marketing Decision Making - handled by Pradeep Bhardwaj and Jag Raju. Bhardwaj is quite good although you will not spend a lot of time listening to him in class, which I think you should try and avoid. The concepts he talks about in class are quite useful for the exams. Most of the time during Bhardwaj's sessions will be spent making MarkStrat decisions with your group. So, you'll be asked to compete with 4 other groups in an industry, launch products, track expenditures on production, sales and distribution - everything that's part of the whole chain of deciding to make the product and launching the same in the market. Its fun if you get it right and then work out the best way to make more money. Once you start crashing in the revenue graph, then there is no chance of getting back, unless you realize that pretty early on and change your strategy. Don't ask me the best strategy to win. And don't ask anyone else. Its no fun and you'll NEVER LEARN by asking your alums for the right answer. Raju will come during the second half and he'll screw around with your happiness. This course was so bad for so many people on campus. I lost my interest in marketing after his 5 lectures. Anyway, thats about me. There were so many people who loved his class. They can talk for days about him. I'd rather spend less than a minute.

TIPS FOR THE NEXT BATCH

* The Radio Station has been taken. So, maybe you guys can start a TV station. The Radio station has got publicity like its the first radio station in the country. Maybe you guys can do something!
* This year we had 50 participants for the Hyderabad 10K. So, one of you can start a new RUNNING CLUB and have a president and few vice presidents and some directors.
* We had a new Arts and Creativity Club. So, next thing can be a Drama Club, Dance Club.
* Make you sure you know to send out colorful emails to catch the attention of Professors and the Management. Keep thanking them once in a while so that they remember you. It doesn't matter what you did. The publicity you make is the most important criteria.
* There is a lot of value add if you can make movies using flash and windows movie maker. You can keep showing it around and get credits.
* Since the Radio Station is here, we can have a Radio Club too. It can create room for some presidents, directors etc.

I am sure a lot of you can get extremely creative and form more clubs and do more work. But yes, the more you do such kind of things, you can run for all the awards and attention on campus. It doesn't matter whether your club does any work. You can just claim that you did something of great impact and nobody will have time to verify all that.

Reflections from Term 1

I am bored and I don't have any class for the next two days. My first attempt at attending 4 classes in a row was quite successful. I slept for about 10 minutes during the last class. Couldn't resist that. I suddenly realized that I hadn't written much about the professors and the courses I had done. Given the fact that I would definitely forget all of this when I walk out of this place, I might as well write something. And yeah, this would definitely help the class of 2008 in some way.

Financial Accounting in Decision Making - Mark Finn was our professor. If you are lucky, then you'll get him. Otherwise you will definitely regret doing this course with another professor. Section C was perhaps the most lucky section in the whole batch. In some course or the other, all other sections got one not-so-excellent prof, but we just got the best always. Finn would take you by surprise. You wouldn't realize that he is going so fast and very soon you'd be calculating deferred taxes, which even the CAs wouldn't have done in detail.

Managerial Economics or rather microeconomics taught by Amit Bubna and Rakesh Vohra. I wouldn't be surprised if you mistook Amit to be an MBA student. He'll just be like the guys you'll meet on campus. But yes, he'll expect you to understand a lot of stuff on your own. You'll realize some things after the mid-term and perhaps you'll start cursing and swearing. Rakesh was the best Term 1 Prof I would say. His lecture on game theory was amazing. He used same two OHP sheets for all the 5 classes. Again, his exam would drive you nuts. But then, economics is always like that. If anybody could understand it easily, then there wouldn't be any worry about competition and pricing.

Marketing Management or Marketing 101 as they popularly call it in the US was taught by Asim Ansari and Jagmohan Raju. I heard from a few people that Ansari wouldn't be here this term. Anyway, you wouldn't miss him much. He makes some good jokes on the students. And the first half of marketing isn't anything that you really wouldn't know. Raju is an excellent Prof. But he has high expectations from the students. He expects us to know KOTLER in and out. That's outrageous. Whenever he asks a question in class, he will put up a photo of a student and ask him/her to answer. And that's how you earn class participation. He will make you feel embarrassed about your decision to do an MBA. I frankly think that he should not be invited to teach the MBA students, but I don't think that ISB has an alternative. So, he'll be around to trouble you guys in Term 1 and 2. Unless you perform extremely well in marketing, you'll regret his presence for sure.

Statistical Methods for Decision Making taught by Bob Stine and Richard Waterman. Both profs are just amazing. They'll bring an extra dimension for statistics. Bob is is this highly energetic prof in class. He is extremely animated and his comments will keep you totally interested in the class. Waterman, with his awesome British accent would just throw some new stat tests into you. You probably wouldn't understand a word of it during the class. But you better read the stuff. Our exam was a multiple choice paper. So you either get it or you don't.

Happy reading and I'll be back with Term 2 in a day or two.

PS: Term 1 and 2 are the terms you have to study really really hard, especially at the ISB. So be prepared.

Term 8 starts tomorrow

I don't know in what state of mind I decided to take up 4 courses on a single day in Term 8. This term is supposedly the term where no student talks about classes, coursework and grades. They don't come to class. The whole batch makes sure that they use the "you can miss 2 classes per course" policy. And here I am, with 4 classes, 8 hours of class on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on the contrary, yippee hoo, no class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So my weekend starts on Wednesday evening. So, there is always a better side. I just have to keep waiting for Wednesday evening every week.

The last 5 days have been so tiring. I was at the Control Desk of the placement cell all day and helping out with the placement process. Mixed emotions were flowing through groups of people. Some of them were frustrated that the shortlists weren't justified. Some were unhappy about offers, well most of them were. Especially the kids from the IT Industry with 2-3 years of experience. They have this feeling that they are the nations next best managers. You must see the kind of expectations they have about their salaries. Its effin crazy and baseless. Finally they had to settle for something they weren't too happy about, but thats the reality. If they hadn't done that, they would be jobless.

All said and done, as of Friday, I think we had less than 2% of the batch that had not been placed. I haven't been to the placement office today. I am quite sure that the remaining would have got placed in the last two days. Its just amazing to see that 400+ students have been placed in the last 5 days. I truly appreciate the efforts of some of my friends in the current batch. They stayed around. They tracked all the people who were getting dinged and tried to push their resumes to other recruiters. This way, they ensured that everyone had one offer atleast.

Anecdotes to make you smile before I write something else. During one of the interviews, the recruiter gives the offer letter and asks the candidate to write a salary figure on her own. She writes 15 Lacs. Then he says - "Our minimum offer is 20 lacs and I hope you will write a figure above that". Same recruiter makes another offer of 20 to another person. The candidate is not sure whether to sign or not. Within few minutes the offer goes up to 25. The candidate is shocked. He leaves the room asking for a break. Comes back within 5 minutes and still says that he is undecided. Recruiter immediately says 30. Candidate is literally dumbstruck and runs out frantically.

A new BPO that is setting up operations in the north recruits for its whole team in ISB starting from the directors in the top management. One guy got the job for one of the director roles bang on day one. And on day 5, he declined the offer as he wasn't too sure whether he was making the right decision. The company's CEO calls up the placement director in ISB in the next hour and immediately asks whether he can get a replacement director as he cannot start the company without these guys. Howzaaat?

During the last two days of placements, there were more recruiters on campus than the number of students. We were literally spamming the whole batch asking students to participate in the placement process. People had just taken off to Goa and other places. Yesterday, we had 10 students who were interviewing with all the firms on campus. So the recruiters were actually waiting for students to come and meet them. I know its disheartening and not a good practice to do this, but what can we do. Maybe this is a cue for the next year students to think about.

How to keep the last day recruiters happy? This might be one of the challenges that you can try to address.

Those funny moments

FYI, All salary numbers quoted in the post below are in the Indian Metric System of Lacs Per Annum.

Today was quite an exciting day. For the first time I decided to sit in the Control Room and figure out what people were up to. For once, I also got to witness that under chaos, even B-School grads can be funny and sloppy managers. Anyway, thats one part of the story. Coming to some of the people who were still in the placement process. One incident, as heard from another trusted friend. The company offers 19 and the guy asks for 30. There was no scope for negotiation. The offer never happened. The guy is one of the best people in the batch. He lost out because he had insane expectations.

And there were few others who used their other offer to bargain and get more from another firm. This was total bad behavior as the companies themselves did not like students doing this. They clearly mentioned to the students that they were not here to match another firm but to match the skills to their organization. And these were all the fledgling MBAs with less than 3 years experience. All they had evaluated was what they could earn in the next month and nothing about their future in the organization. Their aim is to get as much as possible and then quit in the next 6 months for some more. I hope none of these mindless people join with me at work. I wouldn't want to listen to them at all.

Today being the fourth day of placements was a key determinant for a number of people who still did not have a single offer. Some of them got really offended by the way the single offer owners were acting. Frankly, you don't have two horns just because you graduated from the ISB. You still don't have the experience. And the companies here value your experience and decide to pay you. You can't expect a run of the mill IT company to double or triple your salary. If you wanted that, then you should have been smart enough to get one of those finance or consulting jobs.

And the other norm that is being followed on campus is calling up people and asking them to attend interviews. Off late, people have decided by themselves not to appear for the interviews for which they have been shortlisted. The reason might be because they have opted to be out of the placement process or they have one offer and want to pick the next one carefully. But they are not polite enough to get their asses to the venue to let the people know that they will not attend the interview. They expect the student coordinators to call them to find out his/her royal highness' preference. I was asked to call a few people today. After a few phone calls, one guy asks me on the phone - "what is the current salary that's being offered?". Full of frustration, I tell him a number that I remember from nowhere and then he says "Oh thats low. I cant come". Then I decided to stop calling any of them. If required, they'd come by their own. The jobs needn't wait for such people.

Actually, some people here are just so greedy and foolish. They don't know that they are not worth the money they are demanding from these firms. They also don't understand that they are jeopardizing a number of people who haven't had a single offer as yet. And they still do it. Till now, I was blaming the system for a number of reasons. But there are so many others (so called MBAs) who are also at fault. Only god can take their case.

One Down and Thanks

The first two days of placements were crazy. I wasn't in a mood to write about what I was going through. I hope you can imagine how tough it would have been for a lot of us here. Even today, when I write this, I am not sure how many offers have been made or how many have accepted offers, but the situation today is a lot better than what it was when the day began yesterday morning. As of today, I believe that almost 250-300 offers have been made. And thats really wonderful considering the fact that this is just the end of day 3 and we have a month to go.

My first day was horrible. My first interviews was with a major bank for an OPS job. After my interview, the guy said that I was over-qualified. I was horrified. I asked him why I was shortlisted and he didn't give me a great answer. Till the end of the day, they did not respond back to any of us who had interviewed that day with them. So, I gave up. They came back today and asked me to interview again and I refused with due respect.

Then another Hyderabad located product company called me. They needed truly technical people and I was trying to tell them that this was a b-school and not a science school. They did not believe me and started asking me questions on systems and architecture. I was totally taken aback. I would have been happy if they had given me an option of not taking an interview with them at all. But they forced me to do a round one with them and then dinged me. I knew that was going to happen. And for all this, they made me wait for more than 3 hours. Sincerely pathetic.

The third one was one of the largest conglomerates in India. I wonder why they got a day one slot here. They should be on day 3 or maybe even day 10. They'd advertised for almost 10 jobs and shortlisted only 20 people. and finally, they made only 5 offers. not even one per listing. in their IT division, they had like 4 jobs and they made only one offer. my interview with them lasted for 15 minutes. After questioning me for a while, the guy asks - "so, you are a statistician by profession?". I was amazed. It was just 5 minutes back, the same guy had asked me about my engineering degree. He didn't even know whom he was interviewing. He had my resume pinned up with someone else's expression of interest! Thats the height of comedy of errors during the placement season.

With all that fun happening, I entered day two. I had two interviews scheduled - both IT. I am not going to explain what happened. There wasn't much of a drama here. Things just got terribly delayed and I got an offer with an IT firm in Chennai. Just what I wanted - the company, location and the package. I got it all. Today, I pulled out of three interviews I had. I just have one more to wait for, which would take a few days.

Coming to the thanks bit - I sincerely felt that I haven't thanked all of you who have been reading my blog since whenever. So this is to all my dear friends living in - India, Africa, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, UAE, The entire EU, Britain, USA, Chile, Argentina, Canada and the rest of the world. Thank you guys for being a great support. The journey till today in this place has been just great. Another month and half to go by and I hope to write more.

I still have more to write about what the others have been upto. There have been some funny incidents and some angry ones too. Well, ones that made me angry I meant. We'll talk about those people maybe tomorrow.

The heat is on

Reporting live from Day Zero happenings here at the ISB. Its been a great day I guess. I did not have any interviews. The big names from the consulting world have already setup their camp here. There's people running in suits every nook and corner of the academic center. Shortlists for the way forward are out once in few hours. Its just crazy. Some of them have had more than three rounds of interviews and I hear that some of them have got offers verbally. Although official declarations will be made tomorrow evening.

Some of the big private Indian banks are here too. And I like this new dictionary feature in blogger. its cool. anyway, apart from case interviews and HR interviews for consulting firms, GDs have also started. Interviews are expected to run till pretty later today. Some junta have received their shortlist in the afternoon and interviews have been scheduled in the evening.

The heat is really on! I haven't had my interviews, yet I am having the "butterflies in the stomach" feeling. I can imagine how it would be for the people who have given more than three interviews today for three different firms. there are no words to write about their state of mind.

I don't think I can write anything more. There isn't enough juice to write about anything. But for the first time it seems like the number of consulting offers are being aimed at expanding the pie. I hope some of you can understand what it means. I can't really explain the whole damn thing. Its not complicated but at the same time it cannot be publicized.

Go for it - Class of 2007. Let's Rock!!!

Southern India and more

It was just about a week back that I was reading a few articles in the Economic Times about South India. It was a complete feature about the four Southern States that are actually rocking the shit out of the North - in terms of growth, employment, contribution to GDP - you name it and the South on a totally different graph compared to the North. This was the new Great Indian Divide.

Madras is the number one destination for healthcare and Tamil Nadu has the largest number of engineers graduating every year.
Madras has the largest number of bloggers. Its called the Mecca of Indian Bloggers.
Madras has the highest number of internet users out of all the major cities in South India.

And yeah, there are bits of information about Bangalore and Hyderabad as well. most of the information was definitely an eye-opener. South India contributes to 25% of the country's national domestic product. South India alone has a GDP ranking of 29 on the global rankings ahead of Ireland, Iran and Finland.

Coming back to Campus Chronicles, nothing funny has happened as yet. The shortlists have started flowing in. Looking at the way things are going, I am confident that by day one, atleast 300 people will have shortlists for some company or the other. and the rest will definitely get it as the next day comes. so you know, its not that far away. the companies are pretty smart too - especially the milk-round recruiters. they have come up with postings that have stunned everyone. each of these companies have created atleast 20 jobs with the weirdest of names. one such job posting that is worth mentioning is opportunity manager and business explosion team - know what that really means only to the companies, but it definitely means something different to the onlooker.

The next thing you will hear if you are on campus is how people will start talking about the changing interest rates and inflation and other related things. they will try and bring a connection of all these macroeconomic factors to anything and everything happenign around them.

by the way, this is something i thought i must share with all of you - we got a statistic on campus about the kind of savings all the 418 students have made for their previous companies in the last so many years of their work experience. the total amount if added to the GDP of the country would bring the GDP up by about half a percent!!!

i think they always say - say it with Poetry. So, the first time I decided to write one and the rhymes rolled, they rolled around my head and my mind started spinning for a while. it wasnt love, it was the headache. the outcome - "i love you. i love your shoe. i like your hat. have you got a cat?" you know what that could have ended up in for me. it was time to find love again.

anyway, its all in the game. i found this rather offensive poem on the web today. its hilarious, atleast i think that way.

If I were a dog, And you were a flower,
I'd lift up my leg, And give you a shower.

Something for the advertising folks

I found this picture in a Marketing website based out of the Netherlands and it was referred to by someone whose blog I often visit. She is based out of London. Anyway, forget the connections. Here it is.



This new concept is called Snowvertising. I dont know who coined this term. But its damn creative.

Ranomoto Gulsar

Well, thats the level to which people can get creative. Ranatunga Motors in Sri Lanka has launched a new bike. Its not their own design, but a Chinese bike manufacturer has helped them launch it in Lanka. The Chinese manufacturer's website can be accessed at www.chinamotorcycleparts.com - I guess, I neednt tell you what this bike resembles. Anyway, to help some of you, here is a picture.



So thats the latest news apart from the regular nonsense from Campus. The number of companies registered for placement has had a steep rise this year. Almost 30% I would say, which is really good for the incoming batch. We have seriously new firms, that havent placed their foot on other campuses and are offering senior roles for the people here. And this brings me to the debate that is happening in the isb-pgp groups where people questioned the importance of experience. I think we have a straight answer here. If you look at the companies!! They are badly in need of people in the middle and senior management roles. And these companies are not just the multinationals. These are 500 plus crore family owned groups and partnerships that are in dire need of experienced hands to make their business competitive. They know that they can demand such talent only from a niche school like the ISB and thats why they are here. Obviously, the external people will not know all whats happening on campus. But let me tell you, the companies that have come here are offering roles that are tailor made for people with experience. These are not the jobs that they can offer on their website and ask people to apply. In a way, I am happy that the companies are also recognizing the need for people with experience. This also puts some pressure on the school to get people who can fit such roles. Sooner, we'll find that minimum 4 years experience cap for applicants.

I look around and I find people hooked on to the jobs website. Then some of them are busy reading RSS Feeds from BitPipe, SlashDot, InvestorNews and what not. The knowledge building drive is in the cruise mode now. In a few days, it will get into top gear. Although, its not in my interest to get to know all of this because I just need that IT Job, I am trying to get some so called Gyaan (Knowledge). Now, this perspective building will also take a new turn as the budget is coming up. So interviewers would be keen to know your views about personal and corporate taxes, deficit, excise duties, imports of foodgrain, and a host of other things. For people who havent laid their hands on today's Economic Times - Nooyi's interview is awesome. It talks about her journey in PepsiCo. Lots of business knowledge about corporate restructuring, financial planning etc. Although she speaks at 30000 feet, it gives us a feel of how companies work when they do a rejig.

And for some humor....

With a pile of 300 résumés on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

"Throw away 250 résumés?" I asked, shocked.

"What if the best candidates are in there?"

"You have a point," he said. "But then again, I don't need people with bad luck here."

www.tolmolbol.com

Today's post is going to talk about this cool website that my friends have launched. Its called tolmolbol. You can click on that to see the website.

So, before we go into what the website is all about - lets talk about the people. My batchmates from BITS Pilani who had this entrepreneurial urge to do it really big embarked on this great journey of running a software services firm. They quit their jobs in Morgan Stanley and the biggest of names in the IT Sector and made a bold start. They did extremely well for themselves. In fact, I hadnt met them for more than 4 years and I had the opportunity to meet them yesterday. I was totally amazed. I was telling them that I wouldnt have done this. You can read more about the people on the ABOUT page of the website.

Anyway, the new venture called tolmolbol.com is based on the WEB 2.0 concept. This website is getting to be what every other information exchange wants to be in the next stage of their business. In the business of providing content to the visitors, it has become imperative that the Googles and the Yahoos in the various locations they are present, to focus on the needs of specific segments of people. In a study that we made on campus about Google and the future of the search industry, we found out from a lot of secondary data that the next step is to get more local. Something like the yellow pages. People now have graduated to a level where they are looking for just the right information. And this is not about some news item or some research report. Its more about information within a city for movies, restaurants, theatre, transport etc. TolMolBol is trying to exactly achieve that purpose.

I have registered under their Hyderabad users community. There are so many other cities under which one can register. Not just the metros and the next best ones. There are so many tier-2 and tier-3 cities on the site. The primary motive is to get net savvy people from all these cities to contribute and make information about their city available to other visitors. The concept of GLOCAL kicks in here. Even though this might sound a bit cliched and common to a lot of people in the West, it plays a key role in a country like India where there is a lack of quality information. And this site is trying to achieve that purpose by giving the members the choice to comment and make stuff about their city popular.

And yesterday, my friends who have also conceptualised the website walked me through certain aspects of the site that I hadnt spent time on. The restaurant search was one. So when you type "coffee" in the search tab and then "banjara hills" in the location tab, it shows you the list of all 24 Hr Coffee shops in that area. that was actually awesome. i mean for people like us in ISB who keep fishing for restaurants and other places ti spend the weekends, this is actually cool. Further more, you can SMS the details of that particular place or whatever new item that was to your mobile phone. So you neednt necessarily go back and visit the website to know the address of the place or whatever. You get the details on your phone and you can just zip off to that place.

And again, any community based portal work only because of the members within the community. so, we go back to Metcalfe's Law that states - if there are n people in the network, and the the value of the network for every individual is proportional to the number of other users, then the total value of the network is proportional to N-Square minus N. Well, this is MBA funda, but basically this states that the power of the network is what helps the network run. Very simply said, if I were the only person who bought a cell-phone, then what use do i get from it? I maximize my utility only when others buy it. Thats the bottomline.

In conclusion - please visit this website and contribute to your community.

Whose job is it anyway

Everyday we attend PPTs. And this goes on - as I said before. There is not end to it. Previously, people were very scared about the 25 jobs going down one by one for every mandatory PPT not attended, but now they are not bothered. Shorlists rejects are so common for a lot of people that they are happy with even 20. So the next step is to bunk some of the PPTs without a slight consideration of other consequences such as - what if the company doesnt come to campus next year? Why should I be bothered as long as I get a ob and get out from here. Its not my problem.

My aim is to get a job and go Onsite to US or Europe. I just cant believe that some people who belong to the 250 odd IT community on campus are so friggin finicky about going to the US and Europe. The only question they ask to the recruiters is - Are there oppurtunities in the US? How long will you take to send us there? And they come to every IT company's PPT and ask the same question. It was so funny today when one asked - will we be posted directly to the US? I was like - gimme a break. you are not a GC Holder to fly you to Georgia from Gachibowli!! The great american job dream has still not left the indian management grad's mind. And its so happened that news of such a dream has also reached the ears of the exchange students from the US. But for a bunch of people who are so bent upon catching the earliest flight, a good number of us want to stay in india.

and there are people like me. my criteria for a job is like - chennai. if not, then hyderabad. definitely not delhi and bombay. what about bangalore - i'd rather live in hosur. next criteria is IT Services firms, which is a lot in number and then focus on the Banking vertical which is also quite predominant. But, when all these conditions join together, it reduces the job postings on the career website by like 70%, which is very good. I dont need to spend an awful lot of time writing EoIs and resume.

coming back to the ppts - in the one during the weekend, i found someone asking questions and then indirectly trying to sell his business plan. if it was a one-t-one conversation, then i wouldnt have had any problem. but then, this was in front of a 70 strong audience.

then there are doctors and chartered accountants who have applied to jobs in the IT Practice of a company - they say that they have the IT experience of using a laptop and logging service complaints to the helpdesk. in that case, i'd say - I consume Crocin almost every month and I can understand the drug's effects pretty well. Can I apply to GlaxoSmithKline in their Drug Marketing Group. I also interact with Doctors on a regular basis (whenever I fall sick!!!), so I think I qualify for HealthCare Consulting as well. Hmm, all this is just a beginning. I think there is lots more to come by.

Lamp-holders and Bulb-fitters

Quite a lazy weekend this was. I didnt do much. Had a marketing assignment due tomorrow and I finished one part of that. The second part has come for review from my group. I have to do that during whats left of today. We had a few companies visiting us during the last two days and today. Although I dont really plan to apply to some of them as they are nowhere in the are of my interest, it was still good to know their LOB and understand some of their future growth strategies.

The Run for Fun event was organized today. This is a precursor or rather run-up to the military games that will be held in hyderabad during october this year. 10 people from campus had volunteered to do the 6km run today and as we came close to the event, this number reduced to 2. still, we decided to do the run and it was quite refreshing.

After all that nonsene that happened with Shilpa Shetty in the last two weeks, now I hear that she could probably end up winning the Big Brother. I just cant believe this. Can someone in the house please vote and evict her? This is so funny. Wrong fame ends up doing such things to people. The typical indian sympathy factor has jumped in. the last time chantelle houghton won the big brother competition, not only did she manage to contrive to separate Sam Preston from his longtime girlfriend, but this known-to-no-one sussex girl also won some modeling contracts worth a few hundred thousand pounds. no wonder, if shilpa wins, then she might be on her way to hit british tv screens and do something stupid rather. am sure that Davina McCall who presents the show will have enuff questions for her and i already see that shilpa has a weird english accent. god save such people.

coming back to ppt gossip. today i heard at the dinner table that in one of the ppts given by an fmcg giant, the presenter talked about postings anywhere in the country and then one enthusiastic guy wakes up - "will we get posted in south india too?". the recruiter was flabbergasted and he replied - "well, i think we said, we'll post you anywhere in india. so, yes, to answer your question, south india is a good probability." i think the last statement was just made not to sound very cynical.

after a round of discussions, lets call it debate, with a good number of people on campus, i decided to have this particular title for this post as a tribute to some of my dear friends on campus.

Roger Federer wins again. Reminds me of the days when Pete Sampras used to scare the living daylights out of the som many players. Roger us just like that. He is unstoppable. I had the opportunity to watch him practice at Wimbledon. It was awesome.

I dont understand the rationale behind a 100% rise in the minimum fare being charged to passengers using the auto in Tamil Nadu. The school of management at Anna University had done research and a report was produced, but a number of proposals that were part of the report have been ignored. We talk of moving towards better governance and people friendly rules. Even auto fare changes seem to have political motives.

Negotiation Impasse

So I guess I have to write something about my Negotiation Analysis course atleast today. We have this course in this term and its mostly the talk of the day when we are done with our role plays.

We did one on one negotiations for a while and we learnt some things. And then we had the group negotiations. I was part of the Union and we had a four member team. We were pretty aggressive and it was quite good. We also had a management team with whom we had to negotiate. I'd rather not comment anything on them. Then I'd be called a chauvinist and what not.

So in our first round, we had to negotiate on production terms, wages and some clauses that had benefited the workers. At the end of the negotiation, we were quite sure that we were going to give away some to the management. That was quite clear and we were going to accept that in some way or the other. But then we pushed hard for pay rises and incentives. It was fun trying to convince them. And you know how management sees all this. They were like - gimme a break. u r not getting a single penny more. So that was what it was a week back.

And the second round came today. Both teams clearly knew that this time the problem was with the wage. We had to make a deal with the wage scene and we knew that the management was going to reduce the wage anyway. Although we werent supposed to give out some of the case facts, we actually told them what we could least agree to. We did tell them that we were no way going to get down to that rate because that was 20% lesser than our current wage. Management quoted 40% less and we just got effin pissed. Then our negotiations started. Initially, we didnt budge from our original 10.69 and management told us that they cannot go more than $8. This carried on for a while and the union came down from 10.69 to 10.00 to 9.69 to 9.5 while the management came up from 8 to 8.67 to 9 to 9.25. We came to a stage where we had like 5 mins remaining. And then one person from the management realises that this activity was being graded and an impasse in the negotiation would affect the grades a bit. We still didnt budge. After some more talks, we came down till 9.4 and still they werent happy. They said 9.33 and kept quiet. These are the people who first said that they cannot offer more than $7.5.

The drama came to an end and we had an impasse. We couldnt agree on a wage. The management finally realised that even in the case of an impasse the wage rate stays at 10.69. And they didnt even read that clause. While we as a union had planned for every move in today's negotiation, the management read the material only today and they took 10 mins out of the 45 mins negotiation time. And then they were like "oh my god, we didnt know that". There was also a mistake on our part though. In our case, the impasse results in a wage reduction to $8.69. But our argument was that we we have already come down more than a dollar per hour per employee and still there was not result.

The Prof listened to us and told the management - Sincere lack of planning. And this goes back to the first class of negotiation. Planning activity in a negotiation occupies 80% of the negotiation and this time the management had done zilch of that. And it was more like brooding over spilt milk.

For a change today's negotiation was highly emotional. In some other groups, it almost led to a serious fight. People were upset and disturbed. It clearly showed to us what situations would one face when working with unions.

Oil and Gas

As I look back at the last few days, maybe weeks too - its not justice done for people here. the number of companies on campus everyday is crazy. and they come loaded with the facts and figures about the company and jobs. im looking at myself more like a machine that has been wandering around and trying to act human. amidst this, lets not forget those dreadful assignments for which we have never been spared by any professor or teaching assistant.

for atleast this reason, shouldnt we have a rolling placement process. why clutter all the 200 odd companies in between 30 days before placement and then bombard students with emails asking to attend and attend and attend. now, its almost like one ppt everyday for me.

anyway, we had this oil and gas major who had come to campus to visit us. they were here a few months back too. they made a very impressive presentation and it was extremely professional. and they were recruiting for positions for which they usually tripped to harvard and the likes. so you can imagine the quality of the presentation that would have been made. ok, so during the presentation they mentioned that they would want people with international exposure/experience because that would be good for the job profile they are offering.

question time - one guy asks "do we need international experience?". the presenter was stunned. he said - well, yes preferably (he was thinking whether anyone heard his presentation). and then anoher student goes - "i have lived all my life in north india and have worked for a few years in the southern region. for me that is international experience. does that count towards your requirement?" you can possibly guess who can ask such kind of questions. well we have some representatives who we call the LIONS OF ******. second attack on the presenter. he was absolutely grounded. he had no answer whatsoever. and third question - "what is the compensation?". by now, i would have lost my temper, but the guy on the other side was calm and composed, that he handled it pretty well. my view is - if a company is recruiting someone for a post that was usually filled by people from harvard, do you think that they are recruiting in india to create that cost arbitrage? i mean, why would a company ever want to do that. shouldnt we understand that they are here because they are happy with the talent we showcase?

whatever, this post is part of my regular ppt happenings update. i am quite sure that things like this will keep happening more this week and in the weeks to come. keep reading and have fun.