Xmas ----- Exams

Well it is a sight to behold management grads being led from one festival to another within the shrouds of exams; completely unaware of the dates and days that their current hobby involves betting on which day it currently is based upon the MESS menu (which also unfortunately revolves something like - Orange color curry = Monday while a White colored = Wednesday and definitely the Yellow colored liquidish thing = Tuesday (reason ==> Orange + white = Yellow; and in between Monday and wednesday we only have tuesday))

Leave it to an MBA to really befuddle you with his own round-about logistics and on top of it making you pay him all of your dough for the process improvements which he had forseen in his mental crane but unfortunately implementation had totally mis-aligned the goals.

Nyways, coming back to our agenda for cribbing - Exams that too on a merry christmas day; while cherubic santa would have been singing christmas carols and howering over chimney's belching out HOHOHOs and loads of gifts, here were a bunch of kids who weren't even affected by the spirit of joy nor the Holy Ghost....

Praying for Phantom (cause he is the ghost who walks) at least to come save us from this definite recipe of disaster called Exams


To the only SANTA that did visit our Campus ;)

Confessions of a graduating MBA student

If you always wondered how much should an MBA student should be paid for an ability to prepare Power-point slides... well this article clearly resounds very similar feelings ;)

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/26mba.htm

The best part was the discussion of the case study in the end of the article, enclosing this for a quick read

"For one of my final electives we read together the tale of a new MBA graduate who runs into trouble when hired to establish a local mobile phone franchise. We were full of advice for his bosses, including the inevitable demand for more training and mentoring, but strangely short on tips for dealing with the nitty gritty of rolling out a phone mast network or placating local politicians.

Our hero works hard but makes bad decisions, misses deadlines and is sacked. The shock in class was palpable. He can't fail, can he? His strategy seemed sound. He had an MBA from a good school (not as good as ours, but never mind). Surely he can't just fail? No one ever mentioned that while recruiting"

I believe this article would definitely make more sense to an MBA pass-out who realizes the exact value-add on-the-job

Another lenghty but pleasant read is Bill waterson's commencement speech at keyton college :

http://bridgerack.com/index.php/Brain_Rain/bill_wattersons_philosophy.html

Both the reads are courtesy my seniors ...

Shortlist for SPJIMR Batch 2010 PGDM course Announced

With Moments of Deja-Vu, as i check across the first short-list for Admissions Interview for the 2 year PGDM course for 2010

RESULTS

First shortlist for Admission Interview for 2 year PGDM Program for the year 2008-10

Shortlisted candidates need to fill in and email to us the Profile sheet by 5th January 2008 The profile sheet can be downloaded from the website.

The interview will be conducted at Mumbai starting from 14th Janaury onwards. The shortlisted candidates can select their own slot of date and time on the link that will be provided at the website from 27th December 2007. The slots booking will be on first come first serve basis.

There will be a second round of interview for candidates selected from the first round. The second round will be held on same day and place.

NIPPLE-ing effect

Brief in-between one of those soporific operations class (in-fact most of the first lectures of the day have been degenerated to HBL (Heads behind Laptops) periods); as all of us were amidst completing the much-required 4 hours of sleep/day; and i was doing the usual nodding position (Eyes half closed and brains already drifted into sleep) and then suddenly everyone awakes as the prof says :

"NIPPLES"

Naturally, for all of us sex-educated (read perverted) minds; this was like a caffine implant and right it shot all of us out of our stupor.... and then all of the sudden, the prof says, "let me draw a picture of the Nipple for all non-engineers"
Suddenly Operations became such a awe-inspiring subject; everyone closed their laptops and for the first time in their lives drawed their eyes upon the Black-board avowing their renewed interest for SCM.

More about NIPPLES ;)

Rocked Konflux'07 : Global Forum organized by IBS, Mumbai

Yet another show-stealer, myself and Jagnoor singh had gone across to Reliance Business School, Mumbai as the finalists for Konflux'07, the global forum organized by IBS, Mumbai.


The theme this year was BRIC, and each of the finalists had to represent one country among Brazil, India, China, Russia, US & South Africa perform a detailed analysis on the country and present it before an eminent panelists of economists showcasing the merits and strategy growth-plan for each of our country; and then there was a intense debate session among all the finalists.
Unfortunate for us, we were the first team to present and had a really intense gruelling Q&A session with almost everyone of the audience brimming with questions about Brazillian economy and stuff; but the applause from them also thundered as we kept on answering all of the questions brilliantly. I distinctly remember one of the questions from the judges which quizzed us about Brazil having a declining sugar export trend for the past two years; and suddenly something quizzed in my mind and i somehow related it to the ETHANOL manufacturing of Brazil and how this affected the production of Sugar; and immediately the entire crowd went brimming with applause.
We also had a brilliant stance during the debate session thanks to jagnoor's resounding voice and clairvoyant thoughts .
Overall, this was a day we made great friends and also great prizes.

The Top Two winners of the event

Winners of the NASSCOM IT Case Study, FMS Delhi

Freezing in the delhi cold blast, chugging along in a cycle-rickshaw with hardly any break-fast little did i know that this would be one of those days which i would remember for long.
It was as finalists of NASSCOM's IT case study on "IT enablement in the Auto Ancillary Sector" that made myself and Anindya Gupta knock on the doors of FMS, delhi. Reaching there a day earlier, we enjoyed the hospitality of a single bed-room and amazing night-canteen food (all thanks to Arvind, my childhood mate there); we almost finished our PPT during the entire night, and myself had to brush through my presentation just 4 hours before the final presentation in front of the judges.
The CASE study given to us can be accessed in this link
Briefly speaking, the case highlighted the need for IT enablement in the Auto Ancillary sector (or as u might add almost every other sector in India) with elaborate Charts and Graphs of the current scenario. And then we were asked to prepare a IT budget for the Auto Ancillary Clusters and forecast how this should be implemented.

We took an altogether different path in our Presentation, and instead of presenting the boring IT budgeting we went ahead with detailed analysis of the Auto Ancillary sector, their actual requirements (and not as formulated in the PPT) seeing if there was any ROE for these IT enablement and then predicting the formulation of a perfect IT spending across the Auto ancillary sector, separately for LARGE and later for Medium size companies.

And Glad that i must mention it paid off, and we won first prize in the competition; surpassing IIMs, XLRI, FMS and IMT-ghaziabad.

Later on, in another on-the-spot event we once again rocked the show and won the first prize..
I must add, "LIFE is HAPPENING"
Couple more of our chauvinistic pics

Nick of Time

It doesn’t happen every morning that you wake up directly into the class-room, finding yourself facing the entire 160 odd people who are still into their phase of REM sleep and a professor who is determined to make you sweat it out; but that was exactly what happened today.

4.30 AM – managed to finish the PPT slides for DAS (which stands for Decision Analysis Simulation) which were supposed to be presented the same day.

After finishing the formalities of morning ablutions, reclined back into oblivion or sleep as few of the MBA folk experience for 3-4 hours in a day.

8.30 AM – Get a call from my team-mate whispering “WTF are u ? presentation has started and your slide is coming up next *&^#$*&^#@$*@#&^$” along with a equally exciting sms in-case I hadn’t listened to his obscenities appropriately.

8.31 AM – Jolted from Xanadu back into reality, jump from the bed and rush across (luckily managed to put along the right combination of Shirt and Pants)

Reached across the Presentation room with six-sigma efficiency level as far as punctuality is concerned, exactly as my slide arrived upon the team’s presentation. (IF only it was a operations lecture, I am sure that the prof. would have given me full marks for utilizing JIT (Just-in-time) Toyota methodology to practical demonstration)

Unfortunately it was our Fin. Prof and his temperament and attention to details were as sharp as Rajinikanth’s punch lines.

Somehow, my over-efficient team mates sensing my punctual past has foreseen that I would have given the presentation a miss and had relegated my slides to the end of the presentation and with only 1 minute of time left, they reasoned they could put across general GYAN across them.

Unfortunately, for me and equally so for them I reached across…. Thankfully, just as I got on stage from my entry through the door; our prof. mentioned the lacunae of time; condescendingly (rather thanking god) I descended and our PPT just ended.

That was quite a quick entry from the Door to the Stage and back to our seats ;)

Thankfully, the Q&A session provided the much required grace, and sure I would get something above “D” grade.

p.s : Reclining on my thinking chair later on, I suddenly get a brain-storm of how a “REMINDER service” would be an excellent B-plan targeted towards B-Schoolers and also to over-efficient CxOs .

Couple of my Debate Topics

Was trying to clean up my virtual room (i meant my lappie's Desktop) and then suddenly came across a few points i had noted as a preparation for my debate....

Topic One : Branding , "Branding is Dead... Long live Branding" - we were asked to speak against the topic.

Topic Two : Compensation, "An Employee chooses a company only for its compensation" - for the topic.

Storing them here, for historic reasons ;)