Quarter 6 - Week 6

A couple of weeks back, our ENVC prof was flailing his hands that "you students didn't prepare as much as I did for the case, I should probably give myself all the marks and make you redo this subject!". Well, not really, but he did give us a piece of his mind. We had the B2B quiz, so we just wring our hands helplessly, as we claim that work and study takes away all our time, leaving nothing for case analysis. This time the B2B prof got it. He got bitten by the ENVC midterm! It's a different matter that nobody had the courage to tell him that "We didnt prepare for the very important case, because of our very important score that was riding on your quiz AND the other midterm". Anyway, we heard one more of the "You guys missed out on a very important case, now hang onto the coat tails, and try to atleast catch the gist of what I'm discussing with your more diligent friends here", while he was adoringly looking at those one/two people who had feebly raised their hands when he asked who had read the case. Must have been their most difficult class, considering the learning of 75 people and their future depended on the questions and points these two raised. The sheer heaviness of the responsibility is overwhelming! Or must have been for them.

Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation

First session of the week was about how a couple of guys who were in HBS, wanted to start an enterprise in the dry-cleaning sector, and as to how they were exploring their options. These two smart guys went about doing the relevant analysis, and even took up jobs in dry cleaning establishments to gain some experience. These guys didn't mention that they were Harvard grads on their resumes, this shows the extent of resume checks that the US drycleaning companies do. Anyway, at the end of it, they were trying to figure out which of two drycleaning stores to purchase. Now, our job was to find out what they should do. Here's where our experience kicks in. Apparently, all the analysing teams said that dry cleaning was not a viable business to get into, and a couple of them reluctantly still chose one of the stores to buy. It seems, our batch (the PGSEM) were the only ones who really thought about the viability of the business. The other batches the prof handles didnt question this at all, and just went after the choice. So, all the PGSEM students, irrespective of whether they did the case or not, patted themselves on the back for the one feather they seemed to have in their caps, called experience. Turns out that the industry is a place where the labour was a huge chunk, taking up to 30-35% of the revenue, and the profits were only 10%. Immigrants therefore get into this, because not only do they make the 10% profit, they also are the labour! So they walk away with 40-45% profit, which is a fairly decent means of livelihood. Of course, there was a lot more takeaway on why the two should not have done the entire Mahabharat of exploration when easier methods of learning about the industry were available, but you cant help admiring the fact that these two chose to try such different stuff, when the rest of their class was probably getting into more profitable lines of business.

The next session was our midterm, and it was a case based exam. We were supposed to analyse the actions of a particular team and suggest alternative approaches. A lot of soaking in the day before, and then spot analysis the day after. Irrespective of the kind of marks you get, you just feel so cool and proud that you've made some decisions for somebody who is somewhere else. Consultants must be feeling good all the time, I think.

Social Entrepreneurship

We're still on reforms here, and the advantage of having the Right To Information. The first session was about how one of the persons known to the professor, once came across some information in the newspaper about how the Delhi Jal Board in association with the World Bank was trying to reform the water supply in the city. This person using the rights accorded to citizens, went to get more details on this. What he found pretty much got him all wired and upset. Turns out that the World Bank was trying to help us get more efficient water supply, and that we were capable of it, but didnt have suitable infrastructure. So they were outsourcing it to contractors, and the method of selection was apparently dubious. So this person goes up in arms, and gets a lot of people's support to avoid unnecessary expenditure. Their main argument was that the government spends much more on the water supply each year, and it would be unnecessary to take a loan from the World Bank for the purpose and give away the contract to an international firm, however experienced they may be. Additionally, the results in the other countries where this was done have not been good, and it would be careless to just go ahead and repeat this mistake. And so, a query was started, and relevant actions taken to find out what we could do on our own. And hence the story of one citizen's watch, on his government's action.

The second session was headed by a guest lecturer, who spoke to us about his experiences with tribal villages in Karnataka. We had been previously instructed to look him up on the internet, to see what he'd done, I should have understood why. He comes into class, and says he will have an interactive session, where we'd ask questions and then he'd give answers and take the class further along his experiences. Suffice to say that there were enough questions to keep him occupied, and for us to learn. But his experiences and outlook were quite different from the other lectures we've seen. You see, he was a lot more understanding of the government. His view was that, many times the government itself is not aware of many issues. They take an action without fully understanding the implications of it, and so one of our efforts should be towards educating the representatives of the constituencies about the problems faced. They have no way of knowing otherwise! They're sufficiently caught up with other things. He spoke about how he got started in the social field, and his experiences so far. What was most interesting was that he also spoke about how he worked with the traditions and beliefs of the tribals. Apparently, they would give some booze and food to their spirits and the spirits would tell them what to do. For e.g., one time they were about to start agriculture in the lands allotted. Just as he was about to start, the tribals told him that we should first take the opinion of the spirits. A lot of song and dance later, they told him that the spirits forbade them from planting seeds saying that it would only rain for three days, and after that nothing for the rest of the season. So dont waste money.

This man got quite pissed. Here he's fighting for the people, against the government, for the lands and then some spirit tells them not to plant. Still he went along with what they said, and it turns out that it did rain for three days, and they didnt plant while all other regions and farmers planted, and then there was no more rain! So now he doesn't know what to say. These are his experiences! Yet, they do follow a Value Belief Study, where they try to understand the roots of the traditions. Maybe there was some inherent value to it, which was being blindly copied over the years. Doing it this way, they are able to find out which are the good traditions that yield positive results for the people, and the bad ones. They then focus on stopping the bad ones, and encourage the good traditions. It's a very interesting take on how to bring about change in tribal culture by keeping the good, and moving with the times. Apparently, they also now school all the children there and they have a 100% pass record. These children are also instrumental with challenging the beliefs. It was more a matter of "Why are we doing it?" rather than "We should not do this!". The basic outlook and attitude is very instrumental in bringing about change.

B2B Market Management

The two cases for this week had a lot to do with customer satisfaction, and knowing what to do further. The first case was about how Infy and one of their customers were preparing for Infy to move up the value chain. So we focussed on the kind of changes that were required for this to happen. While we mainly focussed on cross-cultural issues, there was also some discussion on how this also affects the work culture and environment in the host company. There's a steadily growing insecurity about the work security there, if all the work comes down to India! Hence, we looked into how this could be addressed, by also focussing on local hiring within the host country, and discussing how to make the sale of why Infy should be given the contract as against the other competitors. The main takeaway from this seemed to be that India is now looking for greater value delivery, and it is no longer the best thing to compete on the cost arbitrage ("Our company in India, cheap resource!") because it will remind the hosts about the possible loss of jobs at their end. Instead, we must focus on how moving this work to India actually reduces the Total Cost of Ownership, and hence it increases revenues for the company and benefits it more, thereby providing more benefit to both Infy and the host. Hence, it is a win-win, and not a win-lose situation. Yet, there is still a lot of worry on how things might turn out in future.

The second session, I wish I could tell you what I learnt. But I hadn't read the case, and neither had the remaining 95% of the class. So while the remaining 5% paid attention, the rest of us tried to keep up valiantly (or slept), trying to focus on what was happening. It's not difficult to sleep when someone's discussing something you dont understand, I can tell you that much. And therefore, I implore you, when you do a case study discussion, you better be prepared with the case, or you are going to waste a LOT of time. And you wont get the ever-so-important "Ahaah!" feeling when enlightenment is supposed to dawn at the end. You have been warned.

International Business Negotiation Skills

I like this prof, but this week was really dull. It started off well, as he gave us some pointers based on our performance in the negotiations. I dont think I've mentioned this, but we had recorded a negotiation exercise for each team, and the professor was going to analyse it. We were also supposed to get some hands-on out of it. It was quite interesting to see, and his points were well taken, but this part only lasted for about a half hour. It was all downhill from there. Of course, a few nuggets here and there, but for the most part, it felt unnecessary. After we had seen clips of everyone's videos (which frankly can get very boring after you see the first two/three), there was a video on body language, but it was not as good and effective as it could have been.

The second half, we had a guest speaker who spoke to us about how Yoga can help us with emotional control. The prof had told him that we were trying to understand it from the perspective of Negotiation Skills, but I dont think this guy really got what the prof meant. So we sat through 1.5 hours of a yoga educational speech. It was new to some of us, no doubt, but I dont know... I'd rather have gotten some info on Negotiations here. If I wanted a yoga speech, I'd attend some other time, some other place which was meant purely for that. Still, not too many complaints, I did understand how it's very important for your body and mind to be in sync, so that you're always at the peak of your energy and you're in charge of your energy. Fascinating topic, guess I just expected different.

The next week has the usual spate of assignments. We also have a take-home midterm (a first for me! It's like a license to copy, just that it's a dare from the prof about let's see what I can copy). The paper is based on our observations in class, and our understanding of the study material. So it's going to be an interesting experience. Also, we're planning to make a trip to watch a social enterprise in action, this is relevant for our project, so I'm really looking forward to this. Sometimes I cant help wonder, if I put a quarter of this energy in my engineering studies, maybe I'd be far more capable. There's something very different and compulsive about the teaching and environment at the IIMB, the pressure's a lot, but you look forward to class every day.