Quarter 9 - Week 7

By this time of the quarter, everyone's done with their midterms and they're scrambling to prepare their projects and presentations. The profs have by now made it clear that their time to drive the classes is almost done, and they're about to hand the steering wheels over to us. Looking back now, it doesn't seem as hectic a quarter as we've made it seem.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we had three other groups do their ApExs... the topics, having been already chosen by our prof at the start of the quarter, were meant as examples for illustrating our learnings from the topic. The teams compared products from different FMCG categories, and looked into why or what prompted certain responses from the market, and what the orgs were doing to better their standing.

The second session was a case on Ethnic Consumer Consulting, and it spoke of what drove people to try different skin care and hair oil products. So these guys go out to do a survey, and get a feel of what women are looking for. Based on this data, our guys try and draw parallels to the theoretical principles from our textbook, and explain where the different brands are placed on a graph that they make up. The prof seems happy, so everyone's happy. Look at us budding managers, with original thought. Sometimes, I wonder...

Strategic Leadership

The midterm last week seems to have struck some fire in the students, or put something out in the prof. The first session was spent on Cognizant's growth and strategy. Honestly, while their approach was interesting, the lesson was the same ol' 'this fits into that as a system of gears', and 'that system of gears fits into this system of gears', and 'this geared-supersystem fits with this geared-supersystem'. The standard thingy of you do a lot of things right, not just one 'competence'. Don't get me wrong, quite a few interesting tidbits, but as an awe-inducing principle, I think we've run out of cases.

The second session was devoted to Hindustan Lever Limited, and its connections with Unilever. I must confess, I thought I did a more involved case preparation by looking at the issues they were facing, and omg, were they facing issues! Being the top-dog in an FMCG industry is not easy. You don't know where your attackers are going to come from. Once in a while, your favourite nemesis attacks you, cuts price, at another time, a complete newbie comes in and attacks you. Now you have a large portion of the market, sometimes 3x-4x that of the closest competitor. So do the simple math... what happens when a new player enters the field, and attracts a set of first-tryouts... where would the biggest proportion of these trial-ers come from? And so these guys battle it, day in and day out... reducing prices here, consolidating brands there, reviving brands that they laid to rest, and laying to rest brands they thought were great. It's not easy. And I go in, thinking I know what the problem is. What does the prof do? He brings in a whole different perspective. He asks: Where in the entire picture do you see Unilever, the parent? To what level is a subsidiary allowed to question the parent's strategy. If the parent does well in one category globally, and you do well in an entirely different category... which one do you focus on? Who drives that focus? Then we see that the ex-top-dog at HLL had been promoted to Unilever's top kennel. And we are asked to think, who's line is he going to walk... Unilever's or HLL's?

For a moment, I'm thinking 'traitor'. Putting yourself ahead of the company (the subsidiary, that is). And then flash forward to today, the new top-dog at HLL (from the case), is ALSO now in the Unilever top-kennel. What does this mean? Can one of these actually become the CEO of the one of the biggest global FMCG companies? An Indian? So then again, we ask... who's line was the first top-dog following... The prof ends with a simple sentence, as you grow, your decisions are not going to be only based on hard fact... it's also going to cover all these hazy areas where you don't have openly-available data. That doesn't mean you don't do your best analysis, but the point is you will still not have all the info. Those instances, when you make your decisions, when you navigate those potholes, is what defines you as a leader.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week continues off on self-belief and confidence, by looking at being optimistic, creating rapport, persuading people, and the power of the self-conscious. There are enough people out there who are too busy being practical, and realistic, that the idealists are treated as dreamers. And rightfully so... who'd follow a dreamer into the hazy future? But then again, which practical/realistic/sane person would WALK into the hazy future... he'd be pushed into it, or the haze would come over.

The article was not so much about being the starry-eyed dreamer, it was about looking at the positive side of things as well, instead of just focussing on what could go wrong. You get the drift, I'm sure. The other articles were to do with how you could strike rapport with a person, and how you could persuade people. Reading those headings, I thought for sure this involved some sneaky convincing and deliberate half-lies. But as it turns out, it mainly involves showing integrity, and having your thoughts and voice aligned, before you find a goal that is mutually satisfying to the two parties involved. It's not 'Fix my problem!', it's 'What are our problems, and how do we go about fixing it?'.

A normal week thus far, and the only thing that's worthy of eagerness, is the upcoming Eximius fest at IIMB. Should be interesting to see ideas bandied around, on what needs to be done, and how they plan to get it done.

Quarter 9 - Week 6

About now the assignments start piling up. There are presentations, case deadlines, midterms and you're thinking 'Why God Why Did We Take This Up??". It's always fun listening in class, but when your pedal's to the metal, or in this case your head's nowhere near your bed, then you get to know your true self.

Consumer Behaviour

So we had our application exercise this week. That's another confusing word for a project. But unlike other professors, our prof decides that a few groups get to go through the grind early on. So we start chakki-peesing a couple of weeks back. Luckily for us, he didn't give us too much of a hard time then, gave us the freedom to decide what would be good to study, and then from our final set of options he selected a few questions that he thought would be interesting to focus on in class.

As it turns out, we didn't sleep for three nights in a row (Actually we slept at 1 AM, instead of the regular 12 AM.. but where's an MBA without the self-inflicted pain and misery. And complaining when in fact you get enough sleep.) And then the day before the assignment, a couple of our guys take a leave to solidify our discussions into a document for submission the next day. Till 3 AM, we're churning and reviewing the presentation as we can barely decide what should go in and what shouldn't. Leave us a chance, and we'll cram in 100 pages and turn in the report so that the prof goes through pain. But in our case, the prof has set a limit. 17 pages max! 3 for this, 3 for that, 1 for this, 2 for that... etc. So we had a hell of a time just deciding what should go in.

Finally the presentation happens, and yes, he likes it... but. Apparently we ought to go become strategy consultants for the company, since we did a great job on it... but then he reminds us, this was a consumer behaviour class.. and he would have loved to hear more about the focussed chapter. Personally I thought we used enough jargon from the chapter, but he seemed to be missing those few nuggets which would have been the crowning glory. Yes, the papers and issues we selected were top notch, but. Still, battle-scarred veterans that we are, two years later, we know how to not back down. So, the next assignment is going to be our last stand. Either we present to victory, or to get victimized, but kick some CB ass, we shall!

(Warning: Delirium due to lack of sleep. Just nod and move on.)

While the first session was three apexes by different groups, the second session was a guest lecture by a field veteran who's worked with Cleartrip.com. She helps us understand how decisions were made keeping the consumer in mind, and what kind of market they're dealing with. It was an interesting session, with a lot of questions from the attentive folks!

Strategic Leadership

In lieu of the midterm on Sunday (WHO THE HELL PUTS AN EXAM ON A SUNDAY??), no classes were held. Since no classes were held so that we could study, most of the students did their due by loafing around during that time. Some traitors were preparing for the midterm.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The readings were supposed to get easy, he said, it's an introspector's life he said. Any more reflections and journeys into the past, and I'm going to turn into a friggin' mess! Diggin' through all those old memories leaves a scar, we've got too many sharp stories in the dark memory box.

But it's useful, we're dealing with somethings that we shut out a long time ago, atleast I am. And the sentiments in the class seem to align with this too. This week we were dealing with how we look at ourselves, the happenings to us and how we respond or react to that. Do we play the victim (OMG! How could this happen to me??) Or taking some responsibility.. (Shit happened. What now?) There was another set of articles introduced as part of readings this time, from the concept of NLP. NLP basically talks about how people can overcome their fears and issues not by focussing on removing a root cause, but by modifying our reactions at the front end. So, in a nutshell, if we had a bad memory, then through some suggested exercises we replace the painful thoughts associated with it with some pleasurable thoughts. We'll soon find that we don't feel that pained anymore!

Seems too good to be true? Well, it partially worked on us, and we've only done something in two days. Imagine sitting through NLP for a long quality duration! They could potentially be made to think they're awesome and can change the world, and for all you know, they'll do it! It's a powerful tool, but in the wrong hands, it can be quite deadly.

Pretty rewarding week in all, and now I gotta go back and prepare for my SL midterm tomorrow. Sunday! Sheesh!

Quarter 9 - Week 5

Half the quarter's over, the pace is getting quicker, and the subject matter deeper. Typically, if you haven't caught up with the class by now, you're too late. Unless you're a senior in the 2nd year like me, of course. Because you then no longer have to worry about the rat race. Even if you did extremely well, your grade isn't affected much. If you do poorly, ditto! You've already got your eye on the finish line, and you're just going towards it.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we discussed Diffusion of Innovation (essentially, new products). Now our prof doesn't give much of a damn to the 'Crossing the Chasm' funda. He's more interested in why the consumer would pick such a product. So we study about the types of innovation, and the amount of change required and seen from the user's point of view. The basic funda is that the product is not new or innovative unless the USER thinks it is. You might be doing a whole new cool technological advancement, but if the end user doesn't perceive a difference in the way the product is used... then you're not really selling a new consumer product. Maybe some behind-the-scenes chaps (the earlier product developers) might be interested in your advancement.

The second session allowed a couple of teams the chance to study this concept of 'diffusion of innovation' in TiVo. So while the guys come out and mention that this is what we found, and that is what we think it must do, and these are the underlying concepts that we noticed... it slowly became apparent that the problem with TiVo wasn't the coolness, newness or technology of it. It was to do more with the fact that the target segment hadn't been properly identified, and neither had the positioning. People weren't very clear about WHAT the product is. When people try and judge a new product, they need a frame of reference. If the frame of reference is vague, then people can't really benchmark a product to mention if they indeed think this is cooler than before. So, when you think the TiVo is a super-VCR, or that it is a Season-Pass based system, they're two different views (like the blind men and the elephant). When these two thoughts are described to end users at different points of time, they'll confuse the user. THAT's the problem, and that's one of the main reasons the diffusion didn't happen.

Strategic Leadership

This week, in our first session we studied about the emergence of iFlex. The history of it is pretty cool. As it turns out, it was initially CITIL, a part of Citibank handling their BFSI services. They had one product, which was a little old for its time, but yet they run around trying to sell it. Over time, they realize that a common financial product would be a hell of a lot more beneficial to the banking industry instead of the typical services being doled out. Add to that the fact that one of the driving forces realized that the services they had rendered for a customer ages ago for a pittance, was being sold for more than a hundred million dollars now! So, then the framework gets formed (in the mind of the professor).

If I haven't told you yet, the framework involves a triple-axes format with Ambition, Resources and Opportunities on the axes. These guys had heavy ambition, and they recruited people who thought the same way. And, obviously, while Ambition is not enough, they slowly went about scrounging through the resources and opps to keep at their main vision. They also made the hard choice of keeping the guys separate in Product and Services (well, they were not going to stop doing the second! It was getting the moolah!). So, now how do they position themselves? Product or Services? As it turns out, they call themselves domain experts. So irrespective of what the customer comes looking for, as long as it's related to banking, these guys are here. There's a lot more interesting information about how they went about getting the reputation and knowledge base that they did, but the critical part remained as to how they envisioned something that no one else was thinking of at that moment, and how that vision helped them with building the best financial product as of the time. And all this from India.

The second session was a guest lecture by the CEO/Co-founder at Tejas Networks. The interesting part is he speaks in the same language as us (Inflection point and all that...), probably because our professor's on his board! But his story again was very inspiring. He went on to detail how the market for telecom networks was in the 2000s, and how the Chinese players were investing heavily when the others weren't. Seeing an opportunity, these guys decided to get in as well... so when the whole world's cutting back on investments, these guys are going full-steam ahead, at 1/4 the cost. So he discusses the choices they made, and what they chose not to do, in order to become one of the biggest suppliers in the industry out here. As of now, they're in the top 10 set worldwide, which is a tremendous claim to fame for a company from India. Our class seems to have picked on the lessons within the framework, because they badger him with all sorts of questions related to how 'this aspect' or 'that aspect' must have been an issue, and how he faced it. He must have attended a similar private course by the prof, as he generously and amicably doled out all the info about how they faced problems of leadership, and definite strategy. It's always very inspiring and cool to hear these sort of talks, they tell you what you can definitely achieve!

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week's readings were from 'Feel the fear and do it anyway', and another few about meditation. The 'Feel the fear...' readings talk about how people have different fears, from small to big, ranging from 'I am afraid of swimming' to 'I am afraid of public speaking' to 'I am afraid of death' etc. What the article tries to say is that in order to get over your fears, it's important to understand one thing - that you have the capability to control the outcomes. As long as you understand that YOU can handle it, things will be all right. The moment you resign yourself to fate, because you probably have given up the sense of control, that's when things really get undone. So our class begins to discuss, from their experience, about how they've had certain issues with dealing with fear, and what they did to support themselves through it. While the discussions tend to go here and there, many of the thoughts had the same underlying worry - if I decide to just follow my heart, and do what I want, how do I support those who depend on me. It's always difficult to really answer that question, and I hope by the end of this quarter, we figure out how to make the decision.

The second set of readings had to do with meditation and happiness. The meditation articles were straightforward. They talk of how and what to do while meditating. The happiness article was a different take on how to achieve happiness. The author tries to say that happiness is a state of mind, and we've conditioned ourselves into thinking that happiness comes by fulfilling goals or meeting a certain objective. The author says that in order to gain happiness, we create some discomfort by setting such goals... and when we fulfill them, we feel at peace. It's like pinching yourself hard for a while, and then letting go. And then he sets a wonderful analogy -People are changing the way they view life, such that when they go fishing... they forget that it's not the fish they're after.

That's just powerful. It makes you look at things from a very different angle. So, if there's anything I'd like to leave with you for this week, it's that.... Why are you fishing?

Quarter 9 - Week 4

Nothing very special from the classes this week, a couple of guest lecturers and a few cases. The highlight was the Pehel fest, thrown by the first year students. It's the first fest of the year, held in the first quarter, by the first years - therefore, the original name - Pehel. The amount of time invested in this was very visible, looking at the number of events organized and the intricate logos and t-shirts designed. A few confusions on stage, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary, and definitely a brilliant means of learning for the incoming batch about the rigour of managing the show despite the heavy workload. It was a good way to end the weekend at college! :)

Consumer Behaviour

This week, the prof decides to take a break and make the students do the presentations. So we had a couple of cases, one around the rollout of a shampoo for the rural masses of India, and the other about Canada Dry. The prof seems to focus primarily on the process of how we analyse the case, rather than the actual results itself. And yes, the typical dindora-peeting of the 'Use the data! Use the data!'. Apparently, we're not using it enough, and this is after two years in college. I don't get it! We spend a full 25 minutes on analysing the data, what does he want? 8 hours?? In any case, our case comes up in another 4 weeks, so we can just chill...

(P.S. For those of you who don't know, you ARE supposed to spend 8 hours atleast on case analysis alone. Reading time before that is a given.)

Strategic Leadership

The two cases for this week were FabIndia and Bajaj Auto Limited. Interesting cases, but they're now slowly lacking the punch that I've seen in the first three weeks. Maybe we're getting a hang of how this chap goes around the cases... but more importantly, he still sticks to the new fundas that these chaps have brought out. FabIndia seemed to be about how the basic industry was transformed, into something profitable and meaningful for the actual producers. More importantly it goes into how something that used to be almost equivalent to daily labour was transformed into something that enabled wealth creation (that's a cool phrase beyond your basic daily income. Essentially about 'munafa' over and above 'income'. Still don't get it, ultimate profit sharing.)

Bajaj Auto Limited was a case that essentially talked of the difference in opinion between two generations. The basic thought processes that define where the company is, what is should concentrate on, can be thrown into a tizzy - and the only way around this, is if one of the two sides win. So the case talks about how they went about the transformation from becoming an almost-monopolistic-incumbent in scooter production to the second-highest-player in motorcycle production. For those of you who think 'Two-wheelers right? What's the diff?', it's a big diff my friend... big diff. Come on over, and we'll spend an hour-and-a-half pakaoing you about it.

Personal Inter-personal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we're talking about how and why we react the way we do. Apparently, there's this major connection to the way we've been brought up, and we typically revert to the type of reactions we show as children to our parents or authority figures, when we get stresses. So for e.g., if your boss yells at you for not getting things delivered on time, your typical reaction is the way you might react to your dad when he yelled at you for not getting good marks in school. If you were berated enough to be scared, you're likely to get into that same feeling when your boss is yelling. If you yelled back at your dad, you're likely to yell back here. Of course, there are certain constraints - you will look at the surrounding environment, the person to whom you're talking, the relationship you both share... but in terms of deep stress, irrespective of who, where, when, you'll get back to your basic instinct. We also spoke of how giving strokes to people (when I say stroke, I mean 'feedback' in the simplest sense of the word) is important, and how people crave for strokes. As it turns out, negative strokes is better than no strokes at all... which was pretty surprising, but makes sense in the end. You'd rather have SOME feedback than none at all.

The second half of the session was about yoga, mainly breathing actually. The guest lecturer was explaining the merits of breathing, and how it impacts us. So we speak about different modes of breathing, and he also goes in depth about what are the changes that happen in your body, and how does it help you avoid getting stressed. Pretty interesting, and it looked like my classmates concurred! :)

Quarter 9 - Week 3

The assignments begin to pile up. You can see the difference between quarters when you have just two courses, and when you have three. We have had three quizzes already till date, and midterms are due in a couple of weeks. It's a fast quarter!

Consumer Behaviour

This week was with related to consumer perceptions and attitudes. We looked into what makes people think of products in particular lights, and what are the reasons for it. It can vary... there's stuff like classical conditioning, where you associate the product with some known experiences and hence keep buying it. There are different types of positioning, where you can either be informative, or base it on affective needs. Emotions are a huge driver, and we see how our good friends Maslow and Freud have unearthed elements that can be used in less-than-noble ways. For e.g. fear is a major motivator. So if you wanted to sell some sort of hair cream, or face cream... some brands try and position it on what happens if you DONT use it. Hence the 'avoid hair loss', or the 'anti-aging creams'. In order to avoid what might be inevitable, or essentially undesirable, you end up buying such products to be a little happier for a while longer.

And hence we got into the topic of motivation. To be motivated, is essentially to remove that which is causing some sort of a botheration for you, and once removed you go to your normal state. Like you, I initially thought.. that can't be it.. it's driving you to achieve results, that's what motivation is. But let's see it carefully. When you motivate your team to perform faster/better, you're essentially trying to tell them that meeting that deadline/achieving those results is good for the person, probably because they won't get punished if they DO meet it, or even more subtly, they will lose the reward if they dont meet it. Hence, there's an inner discomfort, to do something. And therefore the team does what is required, blinded in the notion that they're doing it on their own. That's just downright dangerous, but effective.

Strategic Leadership

Two cases this week, the first was that of Ranbaxy, and how they moved from being a domestic pharmaceutics distributor, to a global pharma corporation. The prof started the class with the answer to the question that was apparently posed to him by a few of our classmates... what is the takeaway that we're looking for out of this course? And so, he shows us the difference between what we learnt back in Q1, and what we're learning now. The funda, he says, is not to accept the frameworks that you studied way back in a blind fashion, but to go to the depths of it to understand why it works, and what are the boundary conditions. All the cases we've done so far have stuck their thumbs up to Porter and his five forces, not to mention the Resource Based View model. So he's trying to help us ask 'Why?'. What's the reason certain models fail, and when is that. What are the new upcoming frameworks that we should toss around at the back of our minds, mindful of the fact that the model could be a generic thing around which we could find loopholes.

This course is all about helping us ask the right questions, not finding the right answers (Fundoo global gyaan, but it can be inspiring when you're in a class). And so he takes us through the aspects of why and how Ranbaxy became the powerhouse it did... simply because the new blood that came in took it out of a slowing progress curve onto a much larger one.

The next session was about the Indian Software Industry - why is it the way it is? I can tell you, from the readings for the day, it looked so much like we should have actually failed. The sentiments in the class were approximately the same. When the prof showed us the NASSCOM vision that we'd be 225 billion in 2022, everyone looks skeptical. Prof. asks why, and we say, our cost arbitrage wont work anymore, not enough intellectual workforce, reactive organizations and most importantly, no local demand. After hearing all this, the prof keeps quiet, staring at the class.... for all of 5 seconds. In the remaining one hour of the session, he took us on a whirlwind tour of what we've accomplished as Indians, and shoved our noses into what we had achieved and mentioned 'You've done all of this, but when someone asks you if you can do better, how the hell can you say that we weren't capable in the first place! What you guys told me, any layman on the street can tell me, but what did you see about what actually happened?'. A major motivator session if you ask me... all of a sudden I feel proud to be in the Indian Software Industry. In case if you're curious, the reasons were mainly the fact that we adopted processes that helped convert software delivery from a chaotic, creative craft to a controlled science. We went together to sell our offerings, as NASSCOM, to those in need of it. We took advantage of the greatest catalytic element at the time, the Y2K bug, and once it was over in 2000, we continued to build on top of it, knowing that the catalytic moment that came for us can not be had by any other nation, the opportunity was already gone!

He then went on to show us what types of software industries have continued their growth, how many of them are plateauing out... and at the end of the session, he closes with the simple statement, 'What got us here, won't get us there. I'm looking at those potential people who can take us there, the question is if you're brave enough to take this challenge on'.

That's just awesome.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

There were waaayyyy too many readings this week. And more importantly, way too many assignments from them. Things that we really had to think about, and think hard. Introspection isn't very easy, when you have to really confront yourself with the questions of why we're doing what we're doing, and what is it that we want to do from hereon. There were a lot deeper ones related to how do you perceive yourself and how do others perceive you. Are you ok with that interpretation, if not, why aren't you ok with it? What would you like to do to change. Phew! H.E.A.V.Y.!

This week's session was meant to make us relook at what makes us and our interactions what they are. There was also this bit about meditation, which I'm yet to complete. But I think it's got something that might be of help. At the end of the day, I won't be able to make decisions to the best of my ability if my thoughts aren't clear. Hopefully meditation is one way of doing so. We also continued to talk about what goes into a person's vision, and how does he want to approach it, what are the fears we would face etc. There's not much to be specific about, all the discussions kept meandering around this... so that's the takeaway.

The readings and exercises for next week are a lot tougher. We have two cases in SL, one presentation in CB, some intensive daily exercises in PIEW and an application problem in CB as well. Sundays are no longer fitted in my calendar.