Hypocrite's oath

Recently on a trip to Mumbai, I met a guy working with the largest consulting firm in the world (in terms of projected revenues as the consulting LLP firms never really publish their revenues). He was a pass out from a top B-school in the country and has been at his work for last 2 years. We spoke about various things and somehow the discussion came to the high fees charged by B-schools and how a high salary is imperative to pay off the loan. What I heard next was unbelievable, the consultant from the firm started boasting that he never ever paid even a penny of his educational loan back. He should be earning a minimum of 25 lacs every year and still is finding it impossible to pay off a loan worth 8 lacs. The hypocrisy from an highly educated Indian surprised and disappointed me at the same time.

I was more surprised to find out that consultant from the firm was not alone in his 'heroic' act. There are a lot of students, graduating out of top institutes of this country, creating more NPAs for the poor public sector banks which gave them loans at the time of need. To find out more, I spoke to the manager of a bank near a top educational institute. The bank was into giving educational loans to students earlier but stopped the practice as NPAs went through the roof. He told me that nearly 50% of the loans given to the students were NPAs and the only data they had of the students were mobile numbers which were disconnected and 'permanent addresses' which didn't exist. It sounded to me that the systems in PSB were so full of loop faults that students found it easy to cheat. The incentive to cheating grew when they found that people who cheated are getting along without any issues and the domino tumbled.

When one look closer into this phenomenon, one can see that the deluge of NPAs started in ayear when the top Indian B-schools increased their intake and economy ran into a bad patch. Students who came into these institutes with hopes of high salaries suddenly found themselves with an average job and a high EMI. They found it easier to default the EMI. The defaults may have started with an intention of delaying the payment. But when they saw there were no repercussions, they got bolder and got used to the defaults. Soon the people who landed up with good jobs found that their own batch mates were enjoying a privilege unavailable to them and wanted to join the bandwagon. So the domino effect started.

My reasoning may give you a hint that that I'm putting the blame on the banks and the system rather than the meritorious professionals who decide not to pay their dues. If the education they received at India's top schools have not given them even so much values, I think we are a failures as a nation. We have failed at creating individuals who cannot separate the right and wrong and lacking long term vision and we have failed at establishing institutions which could create such individuals.

10 OCT, 2011, 06.43PM IST, PTI India Inc's fresher hiring up 21 pc in Jul-Sept quarter: Report

(This is an adopted report from Economic Times)

NEW DELHI: India Inc has witnessed 21 per cent growth in fresher recruitment in the July-September quarter, say experts.

"We have seen overwhelming response from clients over campus hiring. Industries like energy, infrastructure, consulting, media, IT and retail has grown up by over 20 per cent in Q2, FY 11-12.

"Whatever the slowdown in the US and European countries is, Indian market are showing more growth," Ripples Consultancy Services CEO Rishi Raman said.

Echoing view, Prachi Kumari Director of Sat-n-Merc Manpower Consultant said, "We had seen increment in campus recruitment activity and companies are focusing more on campus hiring because of cost effective module".

According to a survey by MyHiringClub.com which was conducted among 879 employers and 1,274, institutes across the country said that the second quarter of current fiscal year has seen 21 per cent upward hiring activity in campus vis-a-vis first quarter of 2010-11.

"The campus recruitment market had seen growth in terms of number of hiring and salary as well," MyHiringClub.com CEO Rajesh Kumar said.

Arjun Mohan, Placement Committee Member at IIM Kozhikode said, "Hiring season at IIMs started amid fears of global slowdown but we are now getting good response from companies on summer internship and final placements".

Experts believe that energy and enthusiasm of campus graduates as well as the right training make them the best possible combination of adaptability, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

"Now globally companies are paying more attention to hire from campus, because they find skilled professionals at very low cost. Besides, these graduates can easily adapt the company's culture," Kumari said.

Among the sector, the IT and ITes, infrastructure and FMCG sectors have done maximum freshers recruitment. In terms of pay package, IT space stole the show.

City-wise analysis shows that Bangalore has witnessed highest campus recruitment with 24 per cent, followed by Delhi NCR (21 per cent), Chennai (18 per cent), Mumbai (15 per cent), Hyderabad (13 per cent) and Kolkata (10 per cent).

Although, campus hiring in Tier II and Tier III cities is still very low.

"There is a major concern is hiring from Tier II and Tier III Cities. These cities need more attention in terms of campus recruitment," Kumar said.

Chips wars- Lays Vs Everyone else

PepsiCo, through its Lays brand, created a market for potato chips in India in the nineties. The brand which is now a household name is extremely popular among the young Indians. But lately, lays is facing a lot of heat in the market it created.

It all started with ITC banging the market with Bingo followed by copy cat solutions by Parle, Haldiram and Balaji. These players used the supply chain and retail network Lays painstakingly build over years. They bought potato from the same contract farmers and sold in the same shops side-by-side Lays products. Last 2 years have seen the competition intensify with local players such as Prakash snacks (Yellow Diamond) entering market and Parle relaunching its product (under Parle's brand) with a 20% free offer. With so many players, the competition on price points intensified and customer loyalty enjoyed by the segment eroded. In the 3 year war period, market share of Lays eroded from 66% to 58%, with the major share erosion in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat where Balaji snacks, Prakash snacks and Parle Agro had a strong product portfolio and distribution network.

2011 began with the AC Nielsen report above which pointed at PepsiCo's losing grip on the chips market. But the legendary marketing of Pepsi is not the one which will accept defeat that soon. The strategy adopted by PepsiCo India to counter the insurgence of its competitors was nothing less than legendary and in all probability will go in as a Harvard case study.

The company realized that in India there exists a market for both cheap chips and premium varieties. So PepsiCo started exactly the way Kotler suggested, by segmenting the chips market. They positioned their flagship product Lays in the premium segment and made numerous changes to the product. The quantity was increased to 32 g from 28 g and price increased to Rs. 15 from Rs. 10. The package was also redesigned by making it thinner and taller than the standard packaging adopted by the industry. This allowed Pepsi to differentiate their product from the Parle, Diamond and Balaji. To add on to the perception of the customer, they erected the retail stores with special shelves exclusively for Lays chips and paid the retail stores to give exclusive racks for lays. The new retail planogram just had one motive - "Never keep Lays side by side with cheap competitors". No wonder the second largest marketing expenditure incurred by Pepsico after mass media advertisement is retail promotions.

For the cost conscious segment, Pepsi launched a new product - Lehar potato chips. Lehar copied it competitors in packaging and pricing and was positioned side by side with Balaji, Diamond and Haldirams. While the premium product Lays was always backed heavily by advertisements and promotions, Lehar received absolutely zero marketing allowing PepsiCo to compete heavily on price. With this master stroke of copying the copy cats, PepsiCo is turning the tables around and eating into the market share its competitors chipped away from it.

Lehar, the JV partner Pepsi used to enter India is a brand Pepsi uses for most of its products for the 'aam aadmi' such as its soda and now its chips. Pepsi also entered the namkeen segment with Lehar creating a strong competitor for Haldirams and Balaji. One cannot really understand if Pepsi is interested in capturing this segment which is concentrated in a few central Indian states or its strategy is just to prevent Balaji and Haldirams from growing strong(Both Balaji snacks and Haldirams made their money selling namkeen).

When I saw both Lehar and Lays in a shop in Mumbai, the first thing that came to my mind was the possibility of cannibalization. But if you look more closely, PepsiCo has launched Lehar potato chips only in the markets where it's facing competition from cheap copycats. In all other markets, they have launched lehar namkeen alone. Recent market studies shows that this strategy is immensely successful with both Lays and Lehar showing increase in market share and sales. Will this strategy be successful in long term before competition catches up is something we will have to wait and see.

Fuel Woes

GOI jacked up the prices of diesel and cooking gas today. The reason was the usual one, oil marketing companies are losing money due to the subsidies. This is interesting as the price of crude has been dipping. Oh! but we can't complain, diesel, cooking gas and kerosene is heavily subsidized int his country. In fact, we are the only nation in the world where kerosene is cheaper than drinking water. Let us understand this subsidy more -

Crude oil price (25/6/'11)

WTI crude - $92

Brent crude - $105

India calculates the price as a weighted average of WTI and brent in the ratio 5:4

Price of imported crude - $97.77

Price paid to ONGC for a barrel - $55

We get the crude at a discount ranging from 10% to 80%. I am adjusting the discount with the transportation expenses incurred during import. As India imports 75% - 80% of its oil

Average price paid per barrel - $89.26

Quantity of oil in a barrel - 158.9 liters

So the price we pay for one liter of crude oil is $ 0.56 or Rs. 25.27

According to refining companies, the operational costs of refining a liter of crude is 52 paisa. So the total cost of refined oil should be approximately Rs. 26.

As of today, petrol costs Rs. 71 and diesel Rs. 43 (Bangalore rates). In other words, there is a 200% and 100% additions of price due to government taxes and high costs incurred by petroleum companies.

Taxes on oil in India include -

1. Import/Customs duty on crude oil

2. Excise duty

3. VAT imposed by states

But this is not all, oil marketing companies are another big group of money guzzlers. These organisations which run on one of the most inefficient and bureaucratic organisational structure are a big reason for the hikes. We keep hearing about the oil companies losing $5, $10 or $2 per liter of petrol sold in India and the petroleum minister goes out of the way helping them out by issuing oil bonds or hiking the prices. What I don't understand is that why is it that these companies are never asked to cut costs internally. Why does not the corporate cost cutting mechanisms and concept of leaner organisations apply to them? These companies run some of the most inefficient supply chains in the world, give exorbitant commissions to their dealers who don't need to do any marketing to sell and carry outrageously overstaffed and inefficient organisational structures.

Every time when a hike happens, there is a lot of hue and cry about bringing down the taxes on oil. But this never happens because oil is the biggest revenue source for GOI and GOI needs all that money to feed its staff who sits at 5 levels of bureaucratic maze and passes files at a rate of 2 per day. The entire system which requires 5 people is run by 500 people now and we are forced to pay more for our daily needs. The significant cost and time overruns is not the only bad aspect of this structure; the system also results in high levels of risk aversion and indecision. Because one has to justify one's position, everyone wants to be part of the decisions and significant amount of ego clashes ensure that good ideas are nipped off at inception itself.

If you think about it, government is jacking up the cost first and then giving a discount on the increased cost and calling it subsidy. What an irony?

Comparison with katta koothara

After the posting of ads, some of my batch mates came to know about the existence of this blog and more importantly my "About Me". The effect was the ad you can see here (Courtesy - Tony Sebastian, Shashi)

IIMK has got talent :)

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The ads were created by AD RATS (Ansa, Devarajan, Razy, Arjun, Tony, Shashi) for our MM 2 project. To take the associated survey, please visit -

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5 point idiots

The best way to market your blog is by writing about the breaking news :) As high court rulings on religious hatred and Srinagar bombings are not of interest to my already depleted reader base, I thought I will give my views about the raging controversy between 3 idiots and 5 point someone.
I read 5 point someone when I was in college and just loved the book because I could identify with the life at a national college depicted in the book. The book will remain as one of my all time favorites. After seeing the movie 3 idiots, I cannot think about a better treatment that book could have met. Rajkumar Hirani has successfully created a motivating story perfect for a movie of mass appeal(read it as complete bollywood movie with all key ingredients- heroism, masala and romance)out of a book which was a simple, honest portrayal of Chetan Bhagat's exposure at IIT Delhi. The way the director has stitched together an entertainer while keeping the backbone intact is admirable. If you have noticed, the director has filmed the movie in such a way that all the sub-plots of the book - Hari's love story with the director's daughter, Ryan's perpetual machine, prof. Veera etc have either got removed or tweaked or merged together to make it look like a single rhetoric. The key aspect of the book which was loved by people like me- the iconoclastic Ryan(Rancho), the deep rooted friendship in the jungle of competition, an egomaniac professor and the life at IIT forms the basis of the movie.
Some key changes introduced by the script team has been a superman Rancho(he topped instead of finishing at the bottom of the class like Ryan), the humor touch given to the Chathur's character, the wrapper plot in which Rancho turns out to be an impostor and most importantly how the 3 idiots successfully change the system and become successful subsequently. Over and above, the script has incorporated some contents from e-mail forwards very cleverly at key areas. For eg:- pencil and pen on space. All in all, I reiterate the movie is brilliant and has been able to fix every single problem the book had.
Coming to the controversy, I really don't understand what is Chetan Bhagat claiming now. According to the contract uploaded on Vidhu Vinod Chopra's website which CB signed he has sold his novel for 11 lakhs allowing VVC and Hirani to adapt it any format they want. Now when the movie made 240 crores, he realized that his price tag was too less. I used to respect CB after I read 5 point someone. But his next 2 novels "one night at call center" and "3 mistakes of my life" were abysmally poor works of literature and were no better than a third rate bollywood movie. After wasting time on those 2 books, I decided that he was just a one book wonder and "Five point someone" had more to do with his life at IIT and his observations there rather than his skill as a writer. Anyway I heard the "2 states" is good, may be he followed the same old formula again, only difference is this time it is life at IIM. :) I agree that the books I mentioned were "best sellers", so may be he is keeping his reader base happy. So please see the above details as my personal opinion. The worst thing, CB could have done is the unwanted press interviews after the controversy. In an interview he gave to TOI, he was literally wailing like a child. The immaturity with which he was complaining to the reporter about how his mother missed his name in credits and how he plans to leave writing and join ISKON is not accepted from the IIT-IIM educated India's best selling English author.

Ajab CAT ki Gajab Kahani

I have not included any details of the CAT paper in this blog which will give you an idea of how the question paper actually was due to the non-disclosure agreement. But I felt that I should speak out on how the test is getting mis-managed at certain places. My advice to you people is that to go there with an attitude that "whatever happens I don't care. Anyway I will get complete 2.25 hours to complete the paper in a good environment, so whatever happens before that or after that, I don't care."




I reached CMR institute at 7 am as the scheduled appointment required me to report by 8 am. By 7:30 am, we were promptly allowed into the venue. The security and infrastructure arrangements were elaborate. My ID and Admit card were checked at every entrance. "Good start, Prometric is making them worthy of the $40 million they took from IIMs" I thought. At 8, we were allowed to enter our block and asked to wait inside a waiting room. Then started the series of mismanagement. Every now and then, a guy would come and make an announcement in broken English. I didn't quite catch the announcement initially, but then realized that he was calling people for photo and finger print scanning. Anyway I sat and watched the drama where a bunch of people will run towards the entrance whenever an announcement was made and only 5 out of them were allowed in for the photo shoot. There was a poor guy who tried 6 times (yes, I was counting) and was returned back every time. Anyway when my turn came at 9, I realized that there was only a single personal for an entire group of students. (No wonder, you are asked to come at 8).Basically, the whole process of security check and photo-shoot takes only 10 minutes, the 2 hours bracket is only because Prometric don't have enough employees and volunteers to complete the process smoothly.
By 9:15 am, we were done with all the proceedings and all set to take our tests. By 9:45 am, all the students other than people belonging to my room were allowed to check in into their respective rooms and an announcement came that the test in our room will be delayed by 10 - 15 minutes. "Tests are getting canceled right-left-center and he is talking about a 10 minutes delay, no problems" I thought. But I was too optimistic. 10:15 came and went, so did 10:30 and 11:00 am, still no news about our CAT exam.As the prometric people were tightly hunched up inside the testing room, romour mills started churning out various scenarios - Servers are down; we won't be able to take test today. I was lucky to have bumped against 2 of my friends from NITC, didn't get bored at all during that long wait. But I could see people exhibiting a wide array of emotions. Most of them were extremely tense; that is understandable - such a big day in their life is getting marred with unpredictability. Finally the information came from the officials at 11:55 am. The servers are indeed down; none of the people in our block are taking test. All the ones allowed in are just sitting in front of the computer :). We were lucky we could at least sit and chat in the waiting room. The announcement continued "If the servers doesn't come up by 12:30 pm, the tests will be rescheduled". By 12:25 pm, I have almost made plans for the afternoon when the announcement came "The servers are up, take your seats". Within 3 minutes, I was frisked and seated in front of the computer screen. After that, things were smooth (except for the couple of usual windows read only register errors and date mismatch issues) and we completed the exam by 2:45 pm. Please make it a point to take the tutorial on using the computer apparatus; I was unable to do it because an invigilator while trying to fix an issue with the software directly clicked the "start test" icon.

Basically after this, I feel that Prometric has not effectively handled the gigantic volume of nearly 25,000 people a day, may be they were never ready for it. Their other exams such as GRE generally have around 50 - 100 students in a center per session. The metamorphosis of CAT into an online format was an indispensable affair considering the humongous volumes involved and to a very large extent it has been done well. The test interface is pretty good and the guts the IIMs have shown in doing this is commendable. I will aver that everything else are good, except for the way Prometric has managed the full affair - untested processes and under rated servers are marring the success of this fascinating exercise and as far as the IIMs and Prometric are concerned, the issues may be a few technical problems at a minority of their centers, but for every student who went through that time of unpredictability before his crucial test, each and every second seemed like hours of trauma.

CAT and Mouse game

The hottest topic of discussion in any CAT website nowadays is about CAT going online. Let me give you the facts first.
1. CAT is going to be online and will be conducted by Prometric International Testing Authority. (They conduct the popular GRE and TOEFEL exams)
2. It is going to be a Computer based test and not a Computer Adaptive Test.
3. The test will be conducted over a period of few days and a student can get a slot in any 1 of these days. The students taking test on different days will get different question papers of equal difficulty.
4. The scores or marks may be displayed soon after the test is submitted.

The CAT has exploded in last few years and was taken by 2.25 lakh people in 2008. Due to the exponential increase in number of takers, the IIMs are finding it increasingly difficult to conduct the test. So they decided to take the test online. The online test will make the correction of the paper and result publishing very easy. This means that the intention was only to simplify some of the processes, so the paper should ideally be the same. In effect, computer based CAT will be just like taking a soft copy of the CAT question paper.
IIMs have clarified the point that CAT is only going to be a Computer based test or a CBT and not a Computer Adaptive Test or a CAT (so CAT is no longer a CAT!!). In spite of this, many coaching institutes are trying to speculate that it could be an adaptive test. The arguments does not seem to make any sense to me as this will result in test takers getting papers with different levels of difficulty and hence result in flattening of marks. This is totally undesirable for a test like CAT where the basic idea itself is to eliminate people.
Another associated question that is discussed all over the net is that if the interface will provide a navigation tab to move around the question paper. As I suggested earlier, if the intention is only to take CAT into a computer, the interface should behave exactly like the question paper and hence should have a navigation panel. Time management is one of the most important aspects CAT tests and freedom of navigation is an important constituent in time management.
Computer Based testing enables the scores to be calculated within seconds after the test gets over but as the test is distributed over a few days, the actual percentile can be available only after all the test takers are done with the test. So if the IIMs want they can give the scores of the test takers soon after the test but not their percentiles. Percentiles and shortlists will have to wait, may for a week.
Your approach for preparation need not change because you are going to click the radio buttons instead of shading the bubbles. The funda remains the same, be prepared with the topics and you will be able to clear any test. Only section which will have some change will be DI; you won’t have the liberty to do your calculations on the tables and diagrams in question. So I have a feeling that this year, IIMs may reduce the number of caselets in DI which will have a lot of data presented in the form of tables and chart. They may decide to stick with a lot of puzzles and data sufficiency instead.

Kitten to CAT

I took CAT for the 1st time in 2005. At that time, the director of the institute where I was doing my coaching started the class by saying that CAT is all about speed and typically you need to be a JOAMON (Jack of All Master of None) to crack it. You can’t say that this was an entirely wrong statement because till 2003, CAT had 150 questions and one needed to be really fast to maximize his score. But what he missed out was the metamorphosis of CAT. CAT underwent massive changes in the next 5 years – the number of questions changed with every paper – from 150 to 123 to 90 to 75 and finally to 90. IIMs introduced the concept of questions with different markings in 2004 and scrapped it after 2 years. They started making English sections more and more abstruse to an extent that in 2006, only philosophers could answer the questions. In year 2006, the answers to the English section were an unsolved mystery – the big 3 in CAT coaching came out with totally different solutions to the same CAT paper. The funny thing was that the IIMs came out with a solution which differed a lot from all 3 big CAT masters. 
Anyways the CAT has grown, it is no longer a kitten and it is no longer a test where JOAMONs can do well. When I met the same director after CAT 2006, he told me that a year back; he thought the CAT is no longer a test for JOAMONs but a test for JOAMOO (Jack Of All and Master Of One) i.e people who can do ok in 2 sections and who are really good at 1 of the 3 sections, but after 2006 which had only 75 questions; he thinks that CAT is for MOA (Master of All) sections.
With changes in the difficulty levels and question pattern, IIMs have tried to keep CAT elusive. There is even a saying which a top CAT coaching institute imparts to its students as gospel – “The only thing predictable about CAT is its unpredictability”. To an extent it is true, but not entirely. The sections of quant and DI and certain part of verbal are predictable hence one can effectively prepare for them. What is unpredictable then? The number of questions, the marks distribution, the nature of questions in 1 or 2 sub-sections of verbal and toughness of the reading comprehensions. If you are well prepared with the syllabi, these are non-entities and will in no way effect your percentile. Just think about this, your school never used to tell you the number of questions, the mark distribution etc in your school exam papers, still you used to do well in them if you were prepared with the portions. So CAT preparations is not about speculating the various combinations of time distributions for each available question, instead it is about learning the portions and getting some practice which will get you ready for the deed day and this is exactly what we will help you achieve at Noesis.
Given below are charts which give the distribution of marks for Quant and verbal sections in CAT for last 8 years. I didn’t make it myself but copied from a website which has been advertising our techniques and questions as their own; just a tit for a tat.  This will give you an idea of the portions you need to concentrate while preparing.



Ignore the percentages and focus on the trend of questions. You can see that topics such as Algebra and Number are gaining more and more importance and topics like Commercial Maths are receding into background. A similar trend is seen in verbal with topics such as Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary gaining importance. Another point you should note is that the break-up done here categorizes the topics into a headings based on the direct questions from that topic but our pedagogy is totally out of the box and we specialize in solving the questions in easiest possible way, this may be by converting them into a totally different topic. (You may even see questions in geometry solved with number patterns).

How to get into a ‘good’ B-school?

Due to the huge media attention they have been enjoying, the B-school admissions have become the hotspot of competition. The limited number of seats and ever increasing number of students taking the exams makes it really tough for a student to get into a prestigious B-school. The number of people taking CAT have clocked up by 25000 every year reaching 2.25 lakhs in 2008.
The admission process generally has 3 stages –
Written competitive exams with 3 sections on basic maths, data analysis and English. Certain exams have an additional section on current affairs.
Group Discussion
Personal Interview

The most popular competitive exams for B-school admissions in India are:-
1. CAT - Entrance test for admission into 7 IIMs. Accepted by over 100 management schools
2. XAT - The entrance test for XLRI and more than 50 management schools
3. JMET - The entrance test for the Schools of Management at the IITs and IISc
4. SNAP - The entrance test for SIBM, SCMHRD and other Symbiosis group institutes
5. MAT - Accepted by more than 100 management schools
6. ATMA - Accepted by more than 100 management schools

As I suggested earlier, the only way to crack these exams is to get trained on the aspects which they quiz you which is nothing but math, English and communication.

Best B-schools in India

Nowadays school ranking is something every other magazine and media house do. Most of these rankings are flawed and are nothing but an advertising platform for the B-schools. Certain B-schools have even gone ahead and commissioned their rankings (in a surreptitious manner) in which of course they top (You know which school I am talking about). There is only 1 aspect that is common with every one of these rankings – IIMA, IIMB and IIMC occupying the first 3 places. There is nothing surprising about this; the trio imparts a sense of credibility to the rankings.
I am listing down a few B-schools in India which imparts the kind of education which I have been talking about in earlier paragraphs. Bracket gives the specializations in which they are the best:
1. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
2. Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata
3. Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
4. Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow
5. Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
6. Indian Institute of Management, Indore
7. Indian Institute of Management, Shillong
8. Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
9. FMS, Delhi
10. S P Jain, Mumbai
11. XLRI, Jamshedpur
12. MDI, Gurgaon
13. Jamnalal Bajaj, Mumbai
14. IIFT, Delhi (International Business)
15. IRMA, Anand (Rural Management)
16. NITIE, Mumbai (Industrial Management)
17. TISS, Mumbai (Social Sciences)
18. MICA, Ahmedabad (Communication/Arts)

What does business schools teach?

Business education is an American innovation. Americans felt that they needed people who understand business well to run large corporations which took birth after Second World War. The trend was and to a large extent still is (in US and Europe) to work for a couple of years after your graduation and then go to B-school when you reach a managerial level.
MBA in real terms stands more much more than a degree in business. It is a supposedly a course designed to prepare professionals to deal with all the aspects of the modern day complex and competitive world. MBA is a generic course unlike any other masters and thus violates the basic definition of mastering a particular subject. It is so because the professionals who come out with a MBA degree should be able to adapt to and perform in any industry. The core topics covered in a MBA degree are:-
• Finance
• Marketing
• Operations
• Human Resource
• Strategy
• Law
• Economics
• Accounting
• Company Structure and Organizational Management
• Information Management and Technology
• Ethics
Most MBA courses are structured in such a way that the students will have to take core topics in the first year and electives on particular specialization in the second year. As a part of the electives, the students are offered a wide range of courses in the second year spanning various specializations and he/she is supposed to choose a specified number of electives focusing on a particular subject. IIMA is a exception to such a system; the curriculum at IIMA doesn’t constraint the students to focus on electives belonging to a certain subject and allows them to take electives from all subjects. In past few years, finance has been the hot favorite of students due to the mammoth pay packets offered for trading jobs by Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the late Lehman Brothers.

Why MBA?

This is the question which plagues majority of students who are getting ready for a B-school interview. The gist of the problem is very simple, most of us decide to go for MBA due to a single reason – the fat pay package. There is no other degree in this world which will help an unskilled 24 year old earn more lakhs per year than his age. But of course, you can’t say that in an interview. So you need to build up a story, a story good enough to elude the smart professors who will be interviewing you. So start thinking about it now itself.

Let us now see who the people who really need an MBA are. Basically an MBA is required for a manager or a business leader who manages a group of individuals. The idea of the course is to inculcate some leadership qualities into a person to effectively manage his team. But the million dollar question is that if management education or any other education in this world can impart leadership qualities to a person in mere 2 years. It is possible if the person possesses some level of these qualities already. The idea of selection processes is to identify such people - who are good at analyzing a problem from various angles; who are good at effectively communicating the same to their peers and who are good at leading a group in the right direction. Thanks to the modern day competitive exams, such inherent talents are no longer a pre-requisite.

Presently the people who make to management institutes are people who are good at number crunching, well versed in reading comprehension and well trained (by their coaching institutes) in group discussion and interviews. The whole process has become conventional and predictable. CAT is the closest aberration to this theory – it is still able to keep its unpredictability under wraps, but only just. A validation to this theory is the fact that IIMs have 90% of engineers. This is not only because engineers are closer to mathematics; it is only because of the fact that these engineers are people who have been always good at their studies. Because they were good at competitive exams, they got into good T-schools and subsequently into great B-schools. Prominently there are 2 reasons why an engineer decides to go for an MBA – Either he finds out later in his life (could be in engineering college or his work place) that he is not good at engineering or he finds out he cannot make enough money as an engineer. Anyway the B-schools don’t care and select them if they feel that he/she can “contribute to the B-school batch”.

Business is very different from other occupations because you don’t need a certificate to practice business unlike a doctor or a lawyer. Why does one need a BBA/MBA to practice business? Simple, it is no longer a simple world; you can’t expect yourself to be a successful businessman without the knowledge of the world. It is this knowledge or exposure that a good business school imparts to its students. They take examples from past to teach you business. In most renowned colleges, the tool used to teach businesses are case studies. Case studies can be considered as short stories which talks about how a company achieved a particular target. For eg., the turn-around of Indian railways is a case study. The best part of the case study is the analysis which follows that, the students are supposed to make groups and analyze the case study from all angles. Most of the business concepts get clarified through this story and post-analysis. For eg., let us say that the case study is about the Satyam scam. While doing an analysis of the same, the students are supposed to go and study the company laws which were violated by Ramalinga Raju as without that knowledge their analysis won’t be complete. This methodology of analysis has students as a vital component. The better brains you discuss the problem with, the better understanding you gain about the problem. Or let me re-phrase it, the more diversity you have, the more angles you cover. This is one of the reasons why, B-schools are constantly in a look out for people from diverse backgrounds.

The stone corriders of power

The day began badly with the news that CH has contracted Chicken pox and will not be attending the IIMB interviews. I felt bad and decided to do my best to present his case in front of the IIMB people. So I decided to scrap my original plan of an A/C volvo and instead took an auto to IIMB. I reached there by 8:20 and found a friend from TIME GD/PI batch all tucked up in her business suit. "This is the first one of the innumerable suit clad aspirants I am going to see today" I thought. Of course I expected this when I dressed up myself in a simple formal wear(no tie, no suit). She helped me find our interview room and I found that CH and I am were in the same panel, now that makes it easier. I met the person in charge and told him the situation. Next I went on to meet my panel and found that 3 of the 4 guys in the panel were Arjuns. That was surprising, I always thought my name was not that common. :( Anyways it was a nice group and in a few minutes, we were all engrossed in chit-chat.

Precisely at 9, we were called in for the GD and given a case to read. The case was about how English is getting more priority when it comes to primary education and how vernacular languages are losing out. The various issues leading to the problem etc etc.

I think the GD went pretty well. I started the GD and gave it a direction with some historical examples. ;) Can't help it, somehow or the other history finds me everywhere. We discussed how and why English is more popular and important in the present globalized world. Then we discussed about how this is becoming an economic problem as government is not realizing this and is still going by its dilapidated policies. How it is tough to learn 2 languages if the script and grammar are completely different and how tough it is for people with vernacular language background to cope up with an English language syllabus once they go for professional education. We discussed on and on for full 20 minutes and I found it really tough to summarize the GD. (I hope the faculty were able to decode my summary) :(

Next came the long wait for my interview turn. Actually it was not that long a wait because I was continuously chatting with the people waiting around. Finally my turn came at 11:30 am. I went in and greeted the 2 professors - a lady prof.(P1) and a man(P2) who looked as if he is in his early 40s.

P2: What do you think makes you unique, Arjun?
me: Sir, I have a dream. Told about my dream to set up a loom based industry in Kannur and told him how you won't find a lot of people like me who will be willing to sacrifice a successful career and take such a chance esp. with the notorious name enjoyed by Kannur due to trade union activities. Added that how the dream is not only money oriented but due to the emotional attachment I have with my hometown.

This was a lucky strike because I wanted them to ask me more about these things. So the interview was moving in the direction I wanted.

P2: Define entrepreneurship
me: Initially screwed it up. But patched up some how by saying that starting something new, a new business with the intention to make some money out of it.

P1: Money out of it? Then what is social entrepreneurship
me: I really screwed up the definition here. Came back by bringing in the point of helping people and adding that it is not always money oriented

P1: Ok, then tell me social entrepreneur who made money
me: Mohammed Younus and gave a small description of the concept of Micro finance and how he helped the people in Bangladesh with his Gramin bank. Added that he also made money out of this business

P1 looked convinced

P2: So Arjun, you are an electronics engineer. Why MBA now?
me: Told him CAT 2008 was my 4th attempt elucidating how MBA was always my plan. Again told about my dream company and how I need excellent managerial abilities to make inroads into the matured industy of loom.

P2: Why Rambus and Noesis then (companies I had worked)? How had they helped you? There seems to be a disconnect.
me: Explained how the basic ideas of business never changes. How the B2B marketing will be typically the same in both the industries.

P2: Now that is too much of generalisation. I can related anything to anything in that case.
me: Explained a little about the textile buyers and told him how it is also typically B2B marketing. Explained how at Rambus the business was similar. Talked a bit about what I did at Noesis, explained how it gave me opportunities to innovate and keep an eye for new opportunities.

P2 looked convinced, asked for the certificates

P1: What do you think changed in you after 4 years at NITC?
me: Told how NITC changed me. How it created a completely new person.

P1: What do you think will change in you after 2 years at IIMB?
me: Told her that I am a highly receptive person and I am sure that being with a highly intellectual peer group and faculty will help me figure out the deficiencies in me and will help in correcting them. Added that if you ask me specifically which all new values will be added, I don't know.

P2: Have you thought about your electives.
me: No sir, I tried going through the institute website but found that I will need a good knowledge of almost all the subjects be it Quantitative methods or fin. account to do well as an entrepreneur. So I am keeping my options open until I get a clear idea of these subjects. I am sure that when I learn them in deep, I will understand that which one will be more useful for me.

P2: You want to go into textile industry. But you don't have any experience in the same. How will you contribute to the batch and IIMB?
me: Although I don't have any experience in the industry, I have been seeing the industry from outside and I accept that my knowledge in the same is perfunctionary. Added that I know that IIMB encourages live projects in various industries. Told him how I plan to do my 1st live project on this industry and because I have genuine interset I will gain knowledge fast and hence start contributing to the batch. Also told that I can contribute with my knowledge of semiconductor and education industries where I have experience.

P2: Ok Arjun, any questions for us
me: I was going through your website and an idea hit me. Can I share it with you?

P1 & P2: Sure
me: ok, so IIMB is an institute which gives a lot of emphasis on congenial management and tries to prevent Ivory Tower management. If that is the case, why don't you try to give a course for the top managers of our government. For instance, RAW has been having this problem since decades. And I think you should not even stop with these bureaucrats, you should go and train even the young generation of our politicians like Rahul Gandhi and Yeshodhavaran Schindia

P2: We are already doing it. We have a public policy managment and as part of it, IAS officers and other government managers visit us and undergo trainings. But yes, we have not got an opportunity to interact with Rahul Gandhi or others. What can we do if Rahul Gandhi don't want to interact with us

me: Oh I didn't know that. Sorry for the question then. Why I took the name of Rahul Gandhi was because he, Omar Abdullah and someother politicians attended a Zen teacher's session in parliament. If he is willing to learn from a foreign Zen master, I don't understand why can't he learn from this temple of managment.

P2: yes. I think that is a direction which we should explore.

me: Thank you sir. Thank you madam. It was a great talking to you

And I left. Took an auto and came to office.
Keeping my fingers crossed now for the results.

Where is my money?

This is a story I wrote long time ago. Never got a chance to complete this :)

Once upon a time, in a sleepy village, there lived 2 boys - Mangu and Tingu. They were inseparable friends, the bollywood kind. This was inspite that they were from disparate backgrounds - Mangu was the son of a farmer and Tingu's father literally owned the village. He ran a string of businesses ranging from farming to banking in that village. Mangu was good at studies while Tingu obviously was a 5 point someone(why obviously, come on his father is an ATM, he must be pampered). So far so good, doesn't it sound like a typical bollywood yarana.

Two friends lived happily in their worlds and got through their metriculation exams. The village schools like most other Indian village schools only had classes till 10th and so the buddies were in a dilemma what to do next. Luckily for our pair, this village like any other bollywood village had a learnt masterji who knew virtually "everything" about higher education. So our masterji (clad in his impeccable khadi) advised "Mangu and Tingu, go to the city and continue your education. Mangu, you learn Science and Maths because you got 90 % in metriculation and Tingu, you better learn Commerce as you got only a 50 % and your dad won't mind even if you won't get a job after your studies". Now the masterji told this because he was a southern masterji, there are masterjis in other parts of India who would have given an antonymous advice. Anyway kids loved the advice and so did their parents, but a slight problem - Mangu's father doesn't have money to finance him. Oh my, an emotional point - perfect setting for a song, sorry guys we don't have time for a song. So Tingu jumped in and proclaimed "Mangu will study with me and my dad will finance his education". As Mangu's dad was out of the camera focus, we couldn't catch his facial emotion. Anyway Tingu's dad agreed to finance both their education and on June 1st 1996, the boys embarked on their eventful journey to the city.

1996- Mangu loved Calculus especially the derivatives. Even sleep couldn't separate him from his limits, differentials and integrals, he dreamt from all night. Tingu loved the babes in his class and ofcourse dreamt them whenever he got an opportunity to sleep (which was scanty as he spent his time "productively" with them). So 2 years passed, Mangu passed out as the school topper and Tingu managed to barely pass - finally they both were ready for their college. As is the case with all the school toppers, Mangu opted for engineering and went to IIT Chennai to learn the intricacies of softwares and computers(I know you guys would be wondering about how he managed his finances - he got a scholarship :)). Tingu became a CA aspirant and started working as intern for a multinational auditing firm called PWC.

1998- Mangu loved everything about the computer engineering course. He meticulously learnt the erudite algorithms and computer theories and became the class topper. Tingu hated the books but he liked the MNC environment of PWC, so he loittered around. It was in his third year that Mangu heard about CAT and the mythical IIMs. One of his class mates told him "IIMs are for the best engineering graduates, only a guy really good at maths can crack CAT." (What a misleading statement :( )The omniscient friend continued "It is the rigour and competition, one is subjected to while taking CAT which gets rewarded with wonderful placements by the end of your MBA" (I have to agree to this, IIMs have the cream of the population - this is a big reason why companies offer such lucrative packages to its graduates). Anyway 2 aspects of this remark interest our Mangu - one was the idea that IIMs are for the best people (he thought he was the best) and second the prospect of a huge package when he pass out. So Mangu left his beloved algorithms and plunged into CAT preparations. He burnt the mid night oil cramming the Barrons and Wren and Martin.

2002 - Mangu was going to start his classes at IIMA and was happy that he proved once again that he is among the best. Tingu has finally decided that CA is not his cup of tea and returned back to his village. There he took over his father's business and suprisingly enjoyed it. It might have been in his genes because he started growing his father's unorganised businesses into a fantastically organised conglomerate. Mangu and Tingu constantly kept in touch, thanks to the communication revolution, through mail and chat and Mangu literally became a consultant for Tingu. The alliance worked wonders and Tingu was thinking of listing his company through an IPO. He planned to offer the CEO post to Mangu and be the chairman himself. But Mangu had different plans. He has hit gold at the placement season and has received an offer from the top investment banker Lehmann brothers. His posting was in New York and he was raring to go.

2006 - Tingu spearheaded a business empire. He never went for an IPO, he found an investor from Singapore who pumped in millions of dollars into his unlisted firm and helped him with expansion. His communication with Mangu has dried up after Mangu migrated to U.S. Although Tingu missed his friend, he has found a dozen of MBAs form IIMs to help him in his business and one night Tingu and Mangu found them online at the same time.

Mangu : Buddy how r u? long time ha!
Tingu : hey, true. really long time. Where are you? I tried reaching you a million times.
Mangu : Sorry yaar. I was so busy here. Anyways I am still with LB in New York and it is rocking here. I am one of their hot-shot money manager
Tingu : And when did banking get so interesting. What do you do there?

Intended to be continued but not really going to continue :)

Passion and Devotion

I have been hearing about Byju and his unique CAT coaching for an year now. Although I heard raving reviews about his captivating techniques from his students who were my buddies, I had never considered giving it a shot until I attended his intro-workshop. It all started with an ordinary but honest looking ad in hindu urging CAT aspirants to try out this "new kid in the block" and because it was free I decided to try it out.

Next day after I registered, I received a call from a guy who introduced himself as Byju himself. Now that was unique, we had a small chat and he told me that he is also from Kannur( I knew he was from Kannur the minute he started talking in malayalam :) ).

The Jyothy Nivas college auditorium of capacity 1000 people was half full on that sunday morning. Byju introduced himself quite confidently and told us all that he was a 100 percentiler in multiple CATs. I have always thought myself to be a supremely confident person, but the astounding confidence with which Byju went on introducing himself and his venture made me reconsider my guaging metric. Although I was impressed with his confidence alone, that was nothing compared to the high octane Quant class which was going to follow it. Byju flitted from numbers to Permutations & Combinations to Geometry to Speed, Distance and Time with unwavering ease. Each and every word in that session was a value add to a serious CAT aspirant. When it finally drew to close at 12, I suddenly realised that I have lost track of time and this session was unlike any gruelling Quant session I have ever attended and this teacher is someone with a real passion for math. In the end, Byju announced that he will start a CAT batch next week and interested people can lock their seats with a token advance. I really didn't do that, I coughed out the entire amount for I was convinced that this was the teacher I was looking for, if any one could help me get through CAT, it is this man - Byju Raveendran.

Epilogue:

CAT 2008 was my fourth attempt at CAT and I have tried TIME classroom classes in 2005 and 2007. In 2006, I tried IMS Simcats. None of them really helped me in CAT. Ofcourse the Mockcats were a good practice. So as I have already mentioned, I tried Noesis Education a.k.a Byju's CAT classes in 2008 and got calls from IIMB and IIMS. I needn't tell you what was different this year. Byju and Santhosh(VA teacher at Noesis) gave me knowledge, taught me tricks and gave me supreme confidence which culminated in a good performance at CAT.

Shalimar the clown

Shalimar had just an ambition in his life, to be the best, conquer the heights and be called a magnate. He focussed and concentrated on his aim mono maniacally and came out with flying colors from every adversity posted before him.But it all changed when he met her, Shalimar saw the world in different shades through her eyes - a pink shade, everything looked so beautiful to him.

The day they first met, not knowing each other, not wanting to know, not even a smile. Then they started with a blank smile. Then came "Hey, excuse me', then 'hi, hello' and all. They shared their days, hours and seconds. They made castles with their thoughts, moved mountains with their dreams.

Shalimar dreamed of a new life, new ambitions mushroomed out of his barren life. He enjoyed her company immensely and she was delighted by his anecdotes. They talked for hours daily, in fact communicated for hours through all mediums possible. He loved the feeling that a girl found him amusing, even interesting and she charmed him with her mellifluous giggles all the way through their chats.

Come Valentine's day and the cherub's arrows have long pierced Shalimar; he was all set to propose her. He was suddenly conscious of his filthy dress, his addled hair and his really dirty shoes. He bought a huge bunch of red roses for her, he revised and re-revised the plethora of romantic dialogues he snipped out of Mills and Moons. Finally Shalimar was ready for her.

He was an epitome of confidence when he marched into the cafe where they were going to meet. He must have waited for 10 minutes when he saw those luscious eyes looking for him. One look of her and Shalimar forgot all that he had mugged, lost all his confidence and settled down meekly before her, lost somewhere in her profound smile. They talked for sometime and he watched her heartily smile at all the cliche jokes he made. Finally with all the courage he could gain, he made his charge. He fell on his knees, offered her his bouquet to her and screamed with all his might "Marry me". The crowd around although disturbed by the obstreperousness, was unmindful as such jokers are common nowadays. She smiled at him, giggled, collected the bouquet from his outstretched hands and jokingly hit him on his head with it. Then she laughed at him and said "You are such a mandu". They settled down again and Shalimar with a pounding heart asked her "Can I take it as a yes". She stared at him for long time, her eyes dancing with wonder and finally asked "You mean you were serious" and she continued "You are crazy".

Shalimar rushed home after his "date" and opened his books. "This is where I belong" he thought and suddenly he felt very sad in his heart.

The city of dreams

"This is why I love to fly Indigo" I wanted to tell RGC when our flight took off in time from Bangalore airport. But RGC was busy checking his girl friend's message on his Motorola, so I kept my joy to myself. Contradictory to the Indian low cost airline industry traditions, we took off on time, but we never reached Mumbai on time and had to hover 1 full hour waiting to get a spot to land on the Chartrapathy Shivaji Airport. Anyways the time was a not a total waste, there were 2 good air-hostesses who provided us enough motivation. :) Finally our flight landed and I got the first glimpse of the "City of dreams" (Not first really, I have being to Mumbai airport and Kalyan railway station earlier during various journeys).

It may be because the landing was well ahead of my daily bed time (1:30 am in the morning) that I felt like those millions who comes to this commercial capital to realize their dreams. The city has something magnetic within it which tells you "Live your dream, I will help you realize your goals". Even at 2 am in the morning, the city was bustling with activity; Dev had no problems in finding us a restaurant to eat and a auto to take us to powai, his home. 3 friends meeting after 2 years, that night we never planned to sleep; we literally re-lived our hostel days; hours of chatter which ended at 7.

After our really late brunch(we woke up at 2pm), we started our expedition of Mumbai- the 1st thing I wanted to see was the Mumbai local trains - the lifeline of Mumbai, the fast and efficient transportation of Mumbaikkar. The station was an experience in itself, the place didn't look overcrowded the way I expected; but 2 minutes before the train came there was an avalanche of people which virtually annexed the platform. The train came right on time and I didn't have to do much, the crowd took me to the nearest car and within no time, my friends and I were standing inside the coach. The best part I liked about the system was the sense of lawfulness that existed within that system. There seemed to be an unwritten law which guided the system inside the car, like for eg. the rule which said that the nearest man was entitled to to sit when a fellow passenger got up. If you violate it, be ready to be subjected to the rage of your fellow passengers.

The train took us to South Mumbai and I saw 2 historic architectural splendors - The Gateway of India and The Taj - pristine as ever, little did I then know that the superb structure is going to subjected to some fanatics ire soon. We took a battered boat from the dock near the gateway and was on our way to the Elephanta caves - an ancient group of temples build by the Silhara and Rashtrakuta kings. I was overwhelmed by the extent of effort and perfection put into these statues; it is said that it took 400 years to build the full temple which has been build by caving the granite of the terrain. It is said that the generations of sculptures were born and dead here; monomaniacaly engaged in building these artifacts for their whole life.

The next day, we decided to explore the new Mumbai different from the ancient ones the previous day. We started with the malls of Andheri and after roaming around for hours exploring the cosmetics and baubles of consumerism, found ourselves in front of a theater which promised a 4 D show. I couldn't stop wondering how did this theater guy find a way to invent a projector which will project the images in Minkowski space instead or Cartesian coordinates. So out of our amusement, we decided to try it out and believe me it is worth the money you pay for it. The 4th dimension turned out to be the feeling sense as the logistics in the theater will create around you the same ambiance which existed within the screen. A rainy weather was mimicked with a few sprinkles of water and an underwater expedition with bubbles all around the theater.

The 3rd day was insipid as Dev had to fly to Ranchi for some work and I had the S.P.Jain interview to attend. Finally it was time to get back to the Garden city and we chose to fly Jet this time which reached Bangalore 2 hours late. But I really didn't care, I was not really keen about attending office after such a journey. I would have loved to spend my time reflecting it on my bed.

10 : 10 cricket

After the 20-20 euphoria, the Australian apocalypse, looks like Indian cricket team can do well only in shorter versions of the game. But empirically, India had only being good at any game until the opposition learns the new game(Remember hockey, we were the stalwarts until people around learned it). So our honeymoon in 20-20 is bound to last only till Aussies, Proteas and Paks gets accustomed with the game. Ergo, I believe we should start thinking about a newer version of cricket which will keep them boggled for a few more months, so that we can keep up the euphoria. It is when I thought in this direction that the idea of 10-10 cricket came knocking to me. 10-10 will abide with the following protocol:

1. Each team of 11 players will get 10 overs each.

2. Out of the 11 players only 6 of them can bat and have only 5 wickets in hand. The remaining 5 players who have not batted can bowl along with the player who remains not out during the innings. If a team bowls first and uses 6 bowlers, then one of the bowlers should remain not out by the end of the match, failing which 20 runs will be deduced from the total score of the team. Maximum number of overs any bowler can bowl is 2.

3. All the usual ways of getting out are also applicable in 10-10.

4. A batsman will be given only 1.5 minutes to reach the crease. Failing which he will be given time-out.

5. I think the 10-10 model will be blitz with the batsmen going for big hits in every possible opportunity. So to reduce the plight of the bowlers, a new way of getting out have been added which is called strike rate out. A batsman can stay in crease only if he has a strike rate of 150 after the 30th ball he has faced. If the strike rate is lesser than 150, the umpire will adjudge him strike rate out.

6.The wicket keeper is allowed to bowl under the condition that nobody else should guard the stumps when he is bowling.

7. To win a match the chasing team has to score runs decided by the following equation:

R1 = (Score of the 1st batting team) + (Net run-rate of the 1st batting team)*(Difference in number of wickets lost between chasing team and 1st batting team)

Similarly to win a match the 1st batting team has to get the chasing team restricted to a score less than:

R2 = (Score of the 1st batting team) - (Net run-rate of the 1st batting team)*(Difference in number of wickets lost between chasing team and 1st batting team)

If the chasing team ends the match with a score between R1 and R2, the match goes into bowl-out.

8. During bowl out, each team will be given 3 opportunity to castle the stumps similar to the stump out in 20-20. But it is not the bowler who is supposed to castle the stumps in 10-10. Instead the captains has to choose 3 fielders who will have to castle the stumps from pre-designated points on the field. If a result does not come from bowl out, the game goes into sudden death where each team is given 1 opportunity each to hit the stumps alternatively till the result is out.

This is 10-10 rules for you guys. I want you all to read through this and give me the flaws in this protocol so that we can have a fool-proof stuff. Addition into the rule book is also welcome.