Quarter 8 - Week 6

Have I mentioned our new automated attendance system? It's very annoying! Here we are, loyal Bangalore citizens, trying to adhere to Indian Standard Time and come exactly 10 minutes late to class, and here's something that's not allowing me to swipe in after 8:05 AM. And so every weekend morning, scores of people drive at breakneck speeds across Bangalore streets, to reach the college within the specified time. And if that's not bad enough, the clocks are 5 minutes fast! That means, if we want attendance, we gotta be there by 8 AM! Sheesh! We might as well come on time! What kind of role model are we trying to portray to our coming generations and teams?

Having said that, there's no better feeling than rushing into class and swiping, just to find that you made it at 8:04:57 AM (which in reality is 7:59:57 AM). You'll have a silly grin for the remainder of the class. Stick it to the man!

Ethics and Business Management

The two cases this week were pertaining to the role of directors on a board, and the whole issue of corporate governance. The funda's pretty simple. You own a private company, your problem, your liabilities. You own a public company, it's the public's problem, public's liability. So you hire a board, who represent the millions of shareholders who are waiting each year for income. Now this board is meant to have some sort of motivation to think and choose a direction effectively, so you're probably compensating them for their time, and giving them a few stocks at it. In turn, these guys will provide a direction to the managers in accordance with what's best for the public shareholders, and the managers (Starting at the CEO) manage the company.

Interestingly, all the cases discussed - WorldCom and Satyam were examples where some gapla has happened at the senior management level. Maybe the CEO has been hiding important information, maybe the finance team is showing elements that portray that the company's doing well, when in fact it's sinking, and maybe the auditing firm is doing less auditing, and collecting more revenues under their proverbial mahogany desks. Which is what happened here in these two cases. First, the board appeared to go along with crucial decisions depending on whatever the CEO said, then there was some dubious entries in the books of the org which were certified as "smells fresh" by auditors. And then we wonder why's our money going down, when the market WAS going up, as was the praises for the company we invested in. And so, the sessions revolved around what boards can do, what kind of active role are they expected to play, and finally the framework for ethics comes through on what are the ethical actions the companies in these situations should pursue.

Managing Off-shored Software and IT Services

First off, we had an article that described what are the spiralling effects of outsourcing, and how the form of contracts in place can affect the working relationship. So we look at how negotiable the contract is, how clear it is, and how easy it is to interpret it. Based on these, we were able to identify where to use strict contracts, and where to allow for lenient contracts depending on the work involved.

The next two sessions were case driven, though I must say they had more to do with strategy rather than outsourcing. One was on Lenovo's global beginning, and the other was on Infosys' plans forward and how it needs to move up the value chain. Honestly, I've had better case discussions before. These cases were a lot more... freeflowing. Don't get me wrong, while the class was in progress, everyone's involved in the conversation and talking from their experience. But at the end of it, you wonder, "what just happened? What did we learn?" Reminder to self: Ask the question to the prof in class next time.

Overall, it was a chilled out week. Even though we had classes on Sunday as well. The project's going at it's own pace, so no complaints there. Let's see how things turn out. It's another three weeks to the end of Q8!