Quarter 3 - Week 3

We had classes on Christmas.

I mean, seriously! We're taking this 'passion, drive and motivation' a little too far! While all your friends, Christian or not, get to party the night away and drink to glory, we sit hunched under a lamp trying to prepare for a test on Saturday and a "possible surprise test" on Saturday! Wont all my team members be happy to see me now, gleefully tittering at my predicament while they gallivant somewhere. Should give them more work.

We didnt have Law this week since the prof's out till Jan 19th. A part of me thinks he's tripping on all the wining and dining somewhere in Goa arguing relentlessly about where the justice is in today's service oriented corporate structure and plans to do so till New Year and beyond, the saner part of me thinks he's got some urgent lawyering/judging to do.

Marketing was just about ok on day 1. We were discussing what Infosys was trying to do around 2004 with a Blue Sky team (?) to figure out how they can be more a part of the software pie offering. "Making their pie and eating it too" types. Everyone had made presentations and when the prof calls for volunteers to present their case, after quite a bit of fidgeting and studious concentration on an empty whiteboard by most of the class, one brave lady volunteered and dragged her team with her. They confidently gave their view on what Infy should have done and why. Not too exciting. The second session was awesome! We had Prof. Harish Bijoor (look him up), who gave us the deal on Rural India. Ex-HLL senior product manager, VP of Tata Coffee, and now has his own consulting firm. While I wouldnt say that he shone some brilliant gyaan on us, he definitely shattered some myths about the rural aadmi, and made us look at him with new found respect. 75% of India's population lives and breathes in rural India. That's a lot of people. So many little tidbits which we devoured hungrily, all put to us in a funny manner but with a great deal of serious information in it. Did you know that while 22% of urban women use lipstick (yes, only that much), 11% of rural women use it too. 11% less than 22%, so rural juntas suck? try seeing it this way, 11% of 75% of india's women is more than 22% of the rest. Especially when they use more lipstick than that 22% sophistikat. He came up with so much fundas JUST ON LIPSTICK. It was so cool! So you'd think the most popular brand is Lakme? Hell no, it's Raja lipstick! How rural women apply lipstick is apparently quite different from how urban women apply it... all this and much more, on the day after Christmas. A good gift, and a fitting way to end 2009! :)

Quant Meth 2 - Yes, its Operations Research but I seem to think QuantMeth is a nice think to call it now. Quite heady, u see a lot of stars, and when it's over you wake up with a splitting headache. Naah, its not so bad, our prof's trying to make sure we get the fundas right. So we continue to study Duality and then move into Integer Programming from Linear Programming.

And then we have Saturday's test.

Man, what's with us and not understanding that these profs arent teaching us nursery rhymes. All he gave us was simple funda-applicable problems requiring us to draw on common sense, and all we do is draw on our paper. We'll find out which of our folks were whining even after having done well, many of us anxiously await our marks to find the posers who think they're cool by acting like they've done bad like the majority. Wait for it, ur time will come!!

Managerial Accounting - Blearrggh! I dont like this subject. It's ok. We were learning how to decide costs of our offerings, what is a cost driver, job order costing, normal costing, actual costing.. blah blah blah. I'm sorry, but if you want to know more about this, get this book we're using "Managerial Accounting" by Hilton, Ramesh and Jayadev - TMH publication. The prof's trying hard to make sure we understand the goodness in the subject, but it's being so much of a pain in the bag, and seems to have an acquired test. Like beer. Yuck.

Still, Marketing saved the day with the cool insights into the rural market. A good way to end 2009. Ready to walk bleary-eyed into 2010!

Quarter 3 - Week 2

Aah, the anticipation of being "impressed" by newly acquainted professors mixes with the stench of dread from the promised pressure in this quarter, to provide a very heady mixture that helps you daydream in class about what you would do if you were fighting a case where due to a marketing research goof up based on some operations research data it was claimed that managerial accounting had completely disfigured the revenues reported and hence disrupted the forecast.

The far fetched thoughts always ended up with me, being the judge, being given a bonus and thrown in jail. Before I could retrospect, I would be back in the classroom in a jolt because the prof would have noticed me dreaming and walk towards me. I might be being paranoid, but feeling guilty does that to you.

In Law, (yes, I dont remember the name of the course anymore, and I'm too lazy to find out. Read my previous post.) we began to study the concepts of Civil Law and Criminal Law. Apparently in the former, once you draw up a complaint, you could withdraw it if you want, but if it is a case of the latter type, once you open a case, there's NO way you can close it! This is because in a civil case, the court's objective is to clear the matter quickly as it's not really worth too much time, and they'll more often than not try to move in for compensation as a trophy of well-deserved justice, rather than go the length to fix the problem. A case in example - you buy a plot of size 30*40, and when you go there to build you see the neighbour has encroached by 10 feet. Enraged as you are, you demand justice and cry belligerently at the doors of the court, which lazily opens an eye and prefers to get you the compensation from the other guy, instead of asking him to break down HIS building and give you back your ten feet. In a criminal scenario however, once you complain, that same sleepy peace-loving behemoth charges into action (or it atleast tries to in the Indian scenario). You dont even have to pay lawyer fees, apparently the government takes up the "victim"'s case on its own head, and does what is required to get the truth out and prove the accused as guilty. That's where things have changed, see, now that the government has taken up your case, you've just been pushed out of the action to sit back and ride. That obviously means you're no longer in control, ergo when you say "Stop!" the case does not stop. It's simple physics really.

In Marketing, we learnt quite a few more fundas about how to arrive at a delicate balance of performance, process and people. We got to know how it's important that you believe in your idea with a passion that doesnt crumble, and if it does, it only does so due to hard facts and evidence. If you have a real good idea, instead of doing armchair research (you, your mind and your chair. No one else.) you should get your lazy butt out on the field to really see whether your hunch and observations about what the market really wants still stands. Then you get your people to believe in that vision, because only then will they really work as effectively as ever. And then he proceeded to give us a surprise test which as usual I wasnt prepared for. Next time, sigh.

The second class we had a guest lecture by Prof. Shombit Sengupta. And he gave us some insight into how you bring a brand into a person's mindset.... was good stuff. Our prof tried to request him to share some details on his current works, some of which was not confidential and which was insightful he shared... but for most of the part, he politely declined only giving us vague hints about what we might expect. Nice chap, one thing I really liked was how he keeps his mind occupied with various activities like painting, playing the piano, EVEN ARCHITECTING HIS OWN HOUSE! Apparently, that's how you keep your mind fresh and full of creative thought. Hmm..

QM2 - OR was a little slower than last week. Either our prof thinks we're really dumb or he thinks that these fundas are so important as a basis that it deserves the detailed focus and concentration he's giving towards it. I'm hoping it came across like that because I'm too smart for this stuff. It's not often I get to feel that, so when I'm learning what A,B,C is, I enjoy it even though this is nothing. The second class was excruciatingly slow. At this point I began to get scared that there was something REALLY important about this section, even though we appeared to be doing the same thing that we'd done in the first 15 minutes. Good thing I paid attention. I now know A, B, C. Thank God he realized we're going too slow, he says he'll buck up the pace next time. We've heard some horror stories about him from the last batch, that he's way too fast at teaching and thinks way too fast... but he's making a real good effort to get through to us, so I trust him. A little green around the edges, but a sincere effort is worthy enough to command the student's attention I think.

Managerial Accounting - Ahaah! I wasn't sleeping. Ergo, it's not the subject that's boring!! We spoke about what comes under a period cost, and a [some other] cost. We even looked at some of Infy's digits (publicly declared, mind it!) and took up "the challenge" of understanding three lines out of it. There were quite a few questions on what comes under what, how do you decide whether an expense should come under product cost, or general & administration costs or selling & distribution costs. What is direct material, labour, manufacturing overheads... yea, not too inspiring to talk about. A whole bunch of overheads actually. Saw so many OHs on the board, it kept making me think that there was a song in the back of my mind which had that in it. Anyway, classes over, weekend shuru!

P.S. Somebody said something about a surprise test next week, so we're back into that mood again! :)

Quarter 3 - Week 1

OMG! Vacation's already up? That last weekend just went by so fast, I cant believe I've already jumped into the next quarter. It almost seems like it only lasted two days... sigh...

Warning: This post is long, I'll keep it short next time. But it really tells you about our profs. Read it.

This week we had an introduction to the four (yes four! not three!) subjects we're studying this quarter:

Law: Indian and International Systems - The prof is young, I'd put him around 35? He's studied Law at NLSIU here in Bangalore. Went on to a Judges college (?). I didnt really get that, but at the end of it, let's just say he's now equipped to make decisions if there's a dispute and give his opinion on it, wanted or otherwise? The difference between him and us... is that he's got a degree to prove that his rants are grounded, while we dont!

A very grounded prof, he had the class in splits with his deadpan expressions and timely wisecrack delivery. Confident, authoritative and yet we catch a glimpse of the lighter side of him every ten minutes or so. So he began with a very simple and yet vexing case of a mother approaching the court for abortion in her 21st week (look it up, you cant abort after 20 weeks), and how this dragged on for long, and what would we have decided - abort or not. Looks like a simple "problem statement", had us discussing the merits and demerits for over an hour and a half! His point being that it's not easy out there to decide stuff, so watch out for the rest of the course.

Principles of Marketing - Woah! so you'd think that "marketing" is it! The M in the MBA..! Well, seeing how we did Strategic Management(WOAAHH!) in quarter 1, these high profile topics do give you a rush when you say it out loud... and this one had the same effect. You'd also think that the prof of this is someone young.. fresh in the field. Imagine our surprise when this old man walks in, bald shiny head and all... and the whole class hushes up while we wait for him to sit down, or cough or murmur(I dont want to say "croak", touch wood). You almost feel like you're in front of ur grandpa, and that you should touch his feet or something.

And then he spoke.

That first class of his, pin drop silence. You know when you hear confidence in a voice, you know when you hear experience in a voice, you know when you hear raw power in a voice. A voice filled with "I've seen it all." without the ego, the calmness of a powerful beast as it's ready to pounce. It was just... awesome. To say it was impressive... doesnt do justice to that class. The way he calls on the students with a "You Suhhh!" (slightly faarin accent, but adds class bigtime.), the way he shakes with mirth at a couple of his funny real life anecdotes with one finger on his lips and a wide contained smile at some joke which only he truly understands. Make no mistake, those funny lines arent duh! or something. It's like as if there's some comedy or irony in some event, and only he has heard it in all its form and understood the underlying basic funda. The voice of a man who's still seeing it all, and walks the hallowed corridors that are shrouded with secrecy, amongst the marketing giants of today.

He started off with Steve Jobs' Commencement Address to Stanford (2005) . Read it. Full of fundas, but sometimes that's the only way these giants can share their experience with you. He told us to expect a surprise quiz anytime, to read up Kotler even though it's a dictionary, and to come to class with a six-slide presentation before cases. For the second day itself. He's serious, and in a way that you DO want to come prepared. The next day we studied about Tata Steel, and how it turned itself post liberalization, and how 2001 was a key point in that turnaround.

Management Accounting - This professor was quite good too. She started off with trying to tell us what keeps Management Accounting different from Financial Accounting (we did this in Q1). Her's was the last session of the week. I cant really give you a proper introduction to her, since I was so tired by now, that I was sleeping. Last night none of us got a good night's sleep after the marketing prof's announcement of preparing for today. And that man didnt even give us that promised surprise test! (I am thankful for that though!!) Three hours is all I got. So I just kept slipping in and out of reality through her class. But she tried valiantly to keep us active. Maybe next week I'll give you a better insight into this teacher.

Quantitative Methods 2 - This prof is young too! Probably around 34? Honestly, he does look like the pundits out of our 11th-12th grade classes.. the one who mugs bigtime. There's a rumour in class that he's an All India Rank of 3 in IITJEE! He talks with confidence about the subject, but he's also trying his hardest to make it appealing to us. So there's a couple of jokes he cracks to get us laughing... but sometimes these are some real PJs. Got to give him one thing though, he's sincerely trying to get through to us. And that gets our attention. Put all that funny fluff away, and see the man trying to make us see what he can see... and you know why such a young man commands the attention of 80 odd people year after year, to explain to them the science and math of Operations Research.

Apparently after the feedback of the last year's batch, he is trying a newer technique... of giving an example first and then teaching the underlying theory. He seems the kind of prof who's really willing to take in your feedback, all so that he can get through to us better. So we studied some part of Linear Programming, and he's going quite slow for us... but maybe the raftaar will increase after all.

Say anything you want, but this is why we understand at times the real value of the Indian Institutes of Management. These teachers arent run-of-the-mill people who've failed to get a career in the world of practice, they've CONSCIOUSLY chosen to share their knowledge even when they're amongst the brightest and can make a helluva lot more money out there in the corporate world. They shine in their classrooms so we can shine outside. They sacrifice their exposure to the corporate world, so that hundreds more can make their mark. And yet, from within the halls of IIMB, their brilliance shines through for all of the corporates to see.

That's also probably why they get paid big fat bucks to come out and give talks to global corporations every once in a while. They are in control of their life, unlike many others out there! ;)