Quarter 3 - Week 8

It's already week 8, time does fly by. Who'd think that just seven months ago, we walked the hallowed halls of IIMB for the first time, hoping to outdo all the people who have walked these halls before. The solemn promises of coming out on top, knocking the socks off all the other students and teachers, the hopes of mixing with the brightest in our fields, the ones who made it through all those filtering. It's been a blur... from the energy-filled days of Quarter 1, to the bleary-eyed days of Quarter 2, to the... well, more on this later.

Law - We studied more of Company Law, Competition Law and the second session involved discussions on IPRs. Not much to really talk about, there are no particularly interesting anecdotes from this.

Marketing - This week we studied the ITC eChoupal initiative. We had a guest lecture by ITC - he spoke to us about the initiative, how it began, and how it changed one aspect of the farmer's hard life and made him a little more comfortable. I've never felt as proud of being an aspiring manager, especially from India, after I heard this person speak. Finally, you felt there was a point to being a manager, maybe they can do some good after all, techies aren't the only golden saplings of the future. To summarize things, let's just say that farmers initially had to endure what seems like a very unfair ordeal at the hands of the middlemen, and there was no way they could learn from current technologies. In fact, they were so scared and uninspired to try out anything new that they erred on the side of caution. They would rather apply age-old methods of agriculture, than try out the new, more efficient methods. There was no one to guide them, they were islands in a sea of crops, dirt and wild plants surrounded only by like-minded helpless farmers like themselves and loyal, dumb animals that helped them till their lands. Completely at the mercy of nature, they crave and struggle for the barest of necessities, and yet hold their head up high by very nature of their culture.

The case very neutrally mentions that ITC kickstarted this initiative after they realized that they were not being very profitable here, so one mark less for being money-minded. But the good that they did for the entire community of farmers appears to far outweigh their reason for doing this. They brought computers to the community, empowered the farmers by making one of their own a point of contact between the farmers and ITC. Self help is the best help and all that. Finally some good inspiring story of how technology has uplifted and made life all the more better for some of the people who struggle everyday and sometimes skip food even, just so the world can eat with content.

The next day, we studied about how retail channels go about their business, and how power is moving from the producer to the retailer due to technology. Now retailers have systems which tell them which goods are moving fast, and THEY hold power over the heads of the producers telling them what goods they want to stock, and what not. An example could be how Big Bazaar has stopped holding P&G's Kelloggs, and are now instead placing their own brand of corn flakes on their shelves.

ManAcc - More study of the ABCs in ManAcc. No, these aren't the basics, we're talking about Activity Based Costing. Apparently, people have long been putting together the costs of indirect material, indirect labour, and other small/universal factory expenses, and distributing this equally amongst all product costs as "factory overhead". Somebody woke up one day, and says, "Wait, that seems wrong... I am making simple pens for really cheap, which dont use much of the machinery around me, and some sooper-awesome-pens-that-write-in-anti-gravity that use almost all this machinery and even stuff from outside the factory. How is it that my records show that the awesome-pens are making more profit for me than the regular pens?" So then he sat down, and went through the ordeal of actually checking how much of the indirect effort REALLY went into each product. Imagine his "surprise" when he finds out that the awesome-pens are loss-making, while the normal pens are most profitable. Perfect fairytale! Anyway, the whole origin of Activity Based Costing comes from the fact that factories that previously used to manufacture only one item, have started to "differentiate" their offerings. And this has caused diversity in effort, and therefore people wanted to check how much each offering really costs.

It's good to know that I now know SOMETHING in ManAcc, that probably causes me to rant the below. It makes me cringe when I realize what I used to behave like before the test. Today, I happened to see our class in a new light. Since now I am interested and trying to pay attention in class, it really hurts when you see some people in class joking around and not even trying to pay attention, distracting other people, and acting like they are the only ones in class. I mean, I get the fact that the person doesnt follow what's happening in class, but there's some decorum expected here. I mean, come on, you're not in nursery here. You're studying in a premier institute for a post-graduation course. There's some class expected from you. If you cant follow what's going on, atleast shut up, sit still or even sleep for God's sakes. Just don't distract those around you.

Be responsible. For you and those around you. That's the basic thing we're all trying to learn here. Do it justice.