Quarter 6 - Week 8

When I first selected the courses, and when they were finally allotted to me, I was quite thrilled to see that I was going to be graded on the project work, and that there wasn't any end terms for most of this quarter's electives. If only I knew that every submission that I'd ever have to make in every class, would be due this week... I think I may have chosen at least one course differently.

Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation

We had a guest lecture on the first session by a VC who's travelled quite extensively. Having worked for a couple of big-name companies, he decided to go his own way and start a venture fund. Debunking a few myths about Venture Capital, he went on to tell us what we need to look for, what we need to bring to the table and more importantly, when NOT to approach a VC. He specially brought an interesting perspective when he said that you don't NEED venture capital to start a business, you only need it if capital is a major requirement in scaling the business up. When you look at the whole set of people who're running around for VC funding, you automatically get sucked into the theory that you need VC funding to start off. What he suggested was start off with bootstrapping, and only when you realize the need of funds for scaling up, should you approach a VC. You'll atleast be in a more stable position then.

The next session was about a case study on FabIndia. In a nutshell, the problem was that the company has been around for quite long, and it gets a new CEO/caretaker, and how he planned to take it to newer heights. So this session mainly dealt with the fact that taking an organization from its early stages to its more progressive stages takes on different attributes, and the way the organization makes the transitions is crucial to its future.

Social Entrepreneurship

The first session this week was based on a phenomenally huge reading, a note on a particular government-led initiative in Andhra Pradesh. It was a classic case, no one I knew was able to get across the first two pages, and yet they apparently knew exactly what it was all about. Turns out, the crux of it was that the government tried to help set up mechanisms for financial elevation of the poor, through more than just the disbursement of loans by trying to setup the entire CBO approach. We almost immediately landed into the debate of whether it might have just been easier to dish out loans and leave it at that. It's interesting to note that the prof's style of teaching has eased off a little bit. He actually ASKED us, what did you think of the happenings. Of course, half the students immediately presented a view of the case, and then the prof said that the article must have been quite biased, because we were all agreeing with what happened in the case. Everyone waited with bated breath, as they expected him to realize they hadn't read the write-up, and must have therefore not realized what he wrote... imagine our stroke of luck, when he actually said that he too in a way agreed with the way things had been run, but that there were a lot of things that needed change. Phew! Close call!

The next session was on a touchy subject, and the prof actually approached it quite gingerly. It was about people's movements. In essence, he stayed off any rallying calls, but talked about the kind of environments that can lead to these type of movements. It's actually pleasantly suprising to see the subtle change in his mode of teaching, as he is now soliciting what our thoughts are on the matter. There was a potential match that almost happened between a student and him, and he did take the student head-on, but the typical forcefulness had now been replaced more with a sharp questioning attitude. It's almost like the prof is now analysing if the students have gotten a feel of what he's talking about, and he's trying to see how we think. Even if he's not really doing it, I can't help but marvel at how different this mode of teaching is, compared to what most of us went through in engineering.

B2B Market Management

Both sessions were on Tata Steel and it's transformation and re-invigoration post 1992. As a summary, Tata Steel was more of a bureaucratic organization that had to make a transition into an low-cost efficient org, just because the market in India had opened to big,bad, global players who were extremely efficient. The readings mainly focused on the various steps undertaken during this period, even almost till a couple of years ago. The prof in fact isn't just a case-evangelist here... he actually spent a lot of time writing about this experience and almost had a ring-side view of what was happening in the halls of Tata Steel. The whole story of how Customer Value Management, and Retail Value Management came about was reconstructed and we understood why the decisions were taken in their form. A whole bunch of B2B jargon, but it's all stuff that we understood... it's pretty cool when you understand what someone means by integrative marketing, or consultative pricing, or multiple 2*2 matrices. Yes, we know big words.

International Business Negotiation Skills

While I was expecting that most people would have something to say about the recently concluded Carrera Task Force negotiation exercise, our prof deftly avoided it and got us to make our presentations for the day. Most of the students have already had their personal interactions with him, a half-hour session which we are to be apparently grateful for. It turns out that his time is extremely valuable to come by, and a pure half-hour to be spent in a 1:1 session where he literally picks apart your life to pore into your character attributes sounds like a very interesting experience. I can't wait to see if this man with his solid years of experience and insight might pull some magic out of my head that I didn't know. I'm half expecting "You are such an engineer. Why are you here?"

Anyway, dumbness and midnight madness aside, all the groups made their respective presentations on what are the do's and dont's about negotiations with different cultures around the world. Throughout everyone's presentations, the prof. would add in his own insights on those particular cultures to help add to our learning. Shortly after we all presented, we had a guest lecture from one of the heads of a manufacturing JV setup that was based out of Bangalore. Since one of the two partners firms in this JV was Japanese, the head of this org was quite well-versed in the nuances of negotiation with the Japs. It's too bad he spent more time telling us about the intricate details of his company, rather than his insights into negotiations with the Japanese. Finally, when only 25% of the time was left, he reached where we should have actually been at the very beginning of the session, and we atleast got a few key points about how things happen practically in negotiations.

Not too much hullabaloo this week, but I'm looking forward to the following holiday week... Thanks to Diwali, I get to have less explosions happening within my head, and hear more outside. Now to somehow convince my project teams why we should postpone working on our projects till next week, and enjoy these holidays as they are...