Towards the end of Fourth Term

The last of the core terms i.e. the fourth term will soon be ending. Today the results for electives for the next term have been declared. I am enrolled in Options and Futures, Fixed Income, Marketing Research and Logistic and Supply Chain Mechanism.

One of the criteria that I adopted for selection of courses is the least weightage of marks for the class participation. As discussed in the meeting with out faculty mentor, someone commented that he got a 9.5 on 10 in Class Participation (CP) without having said a single word in the class while reverse is also true for some. Two marks here and there mean a full grade in the course, so its time to be more selective.

I have also enrolled for Experiential Learning Project with four other friends of mine. We are working with a Venture Capital firm on developing the term sheet models for the deals that firm might like to make.

As the term end comes closer, a sense of change- in the groups, teams and comfort zones- is looming large. One of the mail summarized the mood, ‘Wanted an IITian with a GPA of *.** to complete our group in courses X, Y, and Z’.

'Bandhan' and PDS

I am sure the last weekend was the busiest we can expect to have at ISB. I wanted to write something about two important events of the last week, but could not. Even though it is 1 week since we celebrated the event ‘Bandhan’ on the Independence Day, I am putting a few photographs of the event now. From sports, dances, drama and singing, the visiting kids participated in every thing and wanted to perform more, even beyond the timings of the programme. Some of the moments were specially very touching.

Then there was another event which became important from my perspective. The 8 members BCG team visited the campus with two Principals. In their previous visit some of us had requested for information about the actual projects handled by the consultants. So this time they were prepared with presentations on three projects: on launching a product, on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and one on the IT Sector.

What actually drew the maximum attention was the project on improving the delivery of the PDS. The first hand experience of Ashish on the topic and the information he had gathered working in the Orissa and Chattisgarh villages was eye opener for many. Despite all the complications, social sector remains one of the most exciting and tough sectors to work in. But the satisfaction of, may be, having been of help to poor, helpless Indians is immense.

I might write some of my experiences with the PDS after the end of third term next week. And that reminds me, time is flying at ISB. Only one more core term to go and then people will be opting for their specializations. Doesn’t that mean making some of the most crucial decisions of life in next one and a half month? Any advisors?

Indian Railways' Turnaround: The story retold

Here ended another weekend which I passed clearing the backlog of studies. I just submitted my second assignment for the evening, though the one on Finance was due for Wednesday.

This week General Management Club organized a speaker session with Mr Sudhir Kumar, IAS. The presentation about the turnaround of the Indian Railway has already been covered by some other B-Schools. However, it still mesmerizes the audience. It was a good learning experience for many to see how the organization could earn profits despite providing services at huge subsidies. The fun is that the change was managed once again by the age old bureaucracy. May be when it comes to the ‘people skills’, where conflict of interests is common, bureaucratic experience has no parallel.

This weekend we also concluded the Leadership Development Module, making presentations on diverse topics. We also discussed and watched some of the famous oratory skills demonstrations in movies and literature. Al Pacino in his Oscar winning role in Scent of a Woman was the favourite of the class. But my doubt remains; how many times can one create such sensation and excitement in business boardrooms, through speeches that are made without ‘Re-takes’.

My immediate concern remains about my inability to find out time to complete two of my literary projects. And as Ghalib had said, ‘Hazaaron Kwahishen Aisi….’ Every time I promise myself to comeback to my incomplete tasks- I end up beaten by the speed of the time.

The Next Billion

In our Corporate Strategy project on Nokia India, we saw how Nokia could foresee in early nineties the forthcoming telecom revolution in India. Most of the other companies then would have found the idea of the illiterate villagers evolving in mobile technology users as amusing. Today, Nokia India is an important unit of the parent company, to the extent it even makes up for the lost sales in some other parts of the world.

There are a number of similar revolutions which have only started to unfold and their real impact will be visible in a few years from now. One of them is in the field of Agriculture i.e. in the procurement and marketing of the food grains. Some years back we were learning the ways to protect the small and marginal farmers, from distress sale of their crops, through the intervention of the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Today in parts of the country, FCI faces problem in meeting its procurement targets as market forces are paying more for the farm produce. ITC’s chaupals signify the tip of the iceberg.

In the field of Agricultural Commodities exchange, a lot of changes in the legislation along with the ways and means of food grain procurement could be expected in days to come. And to make the field more exciting, trade based upon the expected future prices of the grains could be common. And the prices could be governed by the global market prices instead of those dictated by the local trader in local ‘haat’ or ‘mandi’.

Beyond trade when we talk of services- ask the experts and they will enlighten you that in the days to come Government will be mainly involved in Health, Primary education, and infrastructure and defense sectors. But that is similar to the oversight of the basic facts about the telecom sector many years back; but which revolutionized the sector i.e. the importance of communications for millions of out migrating rural people.

So as long as the poorest of the poor rural people continue to pay more than the people in cities to the ‘quack doctors’, there will be necessity of organized industry intervention. And as long as untrained individuals continue to flourish with their ‘Montessori’ schools on Bangladesh border, there will be requirement for organized teaching institutions. This coupled with the fact that most Government employees have ‘permanent’ postings and politicians need re-election every five years, the delivery of the ‘official mechanism’ can be improved but at most ‘little’.

And it doesn’t take a genius to guess the magnitude of the ‘industry’ which is waiting to be organized by proper ideas and the knowledge of the grass roots; and about the size of the market, may be the ‘next billion’ for the first step.

The Third Term begins

We are into the third term at ISB. The last two weeks were completely devoted to the studies for the end term examination. And then a five day break in a 1 year MBA programme is a privilege that permits a quick 3-4 day home visit.

Many of us landed late last night and today morning at Hyderabad only to realize that there is an assignment waiting for a 6 am submission for the course in Entrepreneurship.

About the third term, we have Corporate Finance taken by Professor Bhagwan Chowdhry of UCLA and his reputation had traveled to this place before he arrived. And today’s lecture was a confirmation of his excellence, though we wait for more to learn from him. We will also have courses in Operations Management, Managerial Accounting and Entrepreneurship along with ELP and the continuing Leadership Development Programme.

And for a friend who asked to post more photographs, here are a few: One from the LDP session, another of the drawing room in our ‘Quad’ and another of the view from our ‘Quad’.

Another hectic weekend

This weekend was more hectic than I had expected. We had almost a full class day on Saturday. And Sunday was the French language class. In the mean time, there were two Modeling and Optimization assignments.

Amidst this I called on one of the seniors from the service. He had resigned from the service last year and is presently working as a Managing Director in a Private Sector company. Luckily his office is in Hyderabad and I wanted to learn about his experience of switching career.

There were two very useful talks in this week and three major consultancy companies have made an introductory round at the ISB.

Today I also participated in a Quiz of Marketing club. I got all the answers right but there were 5 other people who had right answers as learnt from the coordinators mail, and I was not lucky enough to get the chocolates. Chalo, better luck next time.

With Raikkonen making two back to back wins in F-1, life is becoming better every Sunday. Backlog includes an article that I have to write and a lot of studies. So let me try to catch up with latter for the time being.

News Update: Entrepreneurs and Marketers

Last one week was intense for the budding entrepreneurs. There was a lot of brain storming for the Entrepreneurship course and the topics which the groups would like to take for their studies. The concerned club also organized a discussion forum where people seeking new ideas for opening enterprises could meet people who already have plans for future.

In Markstrat our team is now second amongst the 18 teams in Industry I, courtesy the failure of our most ambitious plan. As a group we are sad on the failure of our attempt to beat the much larger and resourceful industries 'E' and 'O'. But at least we are happy that we tried to win with a budget of 8000 against the teams with a budget of 25000. Yes, we couldn't do that and lost our first position in Industry 'I' in the process, though no regrets for the same.

The classes for foreign languages have also started and I am enrolled in French class. Though at the moment we are translating the instructions in English and Hindi scripts to make those understandable later.

Next week we will have the trial bidding for the electives in fifth term and the end terms are also approaching (OK, I shouldn't have said that as still over 10 days to go). But before that a lot of things are expected during and around this weekend and I will be back with those.