Quarter 9 - Week of Exams

The halls seem a lot quieter, and you wonder if it's because we are going to have fewer people in our classes now that a few of our classmates are done. And then you realize it's because you are one of the few miserable students who's exams are starting at 8 when everyone else gets to start at 11 AM!

The mood had its mix, the outgoing students had their share of nostalgia and relief, more of the latter. They couldn't wait to snatch their weekends back... and their gleeful statements makes everyone else switch from a state of wistfulness of losing time with fellow comrades, to a state of vengeful fury. But that still didn't stand in the way of a horde of our batch waiting till the end of Friday so that we could snap some pics with the first set of pass-outs! :)

Consumer Behaviour

Knowing our prof, it wasn't surprising that we spent 10 minutes gazing at the paper going 'What the %#$%#', following it with thumbing (or rather frantically rustling) through the pages going 'Where the ^%$^$', with an 'I'm ^#$%@&-ed' with half an hour to spare for the end of the exam. Apparently, it wasn't that bad for everyone, a few of the students actually knew what the paper was about, so they went ahead and analysed it this way and that. I'm just glad that the exam's all done.

I didn't have any other exams this week, so all that's left is an assignment that needs to be submitted by Saturday. Once that's done, Q10 is just a week away.

Quarter 9 - Week 10

The final week of classes... it's a relief! The last week has all the presentations and the cases being submitted, and you finally wash your hands off all of that. Nice blank feeling, you never get tired of it, even after eight quarters. All this despite the fact that there are going to be exams the week later. Looks like projects worry us more than the end-terms!

Consumer Behaviour

One final case which no one was asked to present, but prepare for in any case. Interestingly the case was very real-life-problem-ish, since it was about understanding the steps that a local kirana store (kaaka-angadi) should take to combat the swanky new hypermarkets. Never mind that our recommendations were poles apart from the professor's... in fact, if there were two planets, we were on the opposite poles ACROSS the two planets. Get it..? No...? Sigh, it was REALLY different, all right?

The second session was on compulsive purchases and a couple of other simple concepts. Call it the end-of-quarter euphoria, but the number of questions that we peppered the prof with on the last day was phenomenal. The prof was surprised, since he expected a quiet fagged-out class on the last day, it's good to see the confused happy look on a prof's face... it's not often we get to shock profs at the IIMB.

Strategic Leadership

6 hours of presentations, all 6 ending with some great feedback from the prof. Mark my words, when I say great feedback, I don't mean praise. I mean very different thought processes. If you never get into consulting, just hope that you have profs like this one to judge your presentations. Considering the multiple topics you take up, you'll know enough about a lot of other industries by the end of it.

The basic statement the prof kept making -> where's the insight? You guys have so much information, that anyone can get by Googling... where have you applied your learnings from this course? Go deep into the problem. Ask why... ask how... get to the point where you realize why some company managed to buck the industry trend. If anything, that's the last and most important question I learnt from Strategic Leadership - Question EVERYTHING.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The set of articles for this week build on a very interesting idea - spirit. Do you have it in you, to give without asking.. time, love, money, thanks... do you have it in you, to rely on your inner goodness... to lead you towards the right decisions than be frightened into the wrong ones? More importantly, do you have it in you to stick by your passion, instead of giving in to 'work'? And how long can you keep at it? The entire point being, you get stronger, by making your spirit stronger.

We went through the commencement speeches by Steve Jobs, the well-known Apple-honcho, and Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes fame. It's really disconcerting to see that most of these top-types, have been through hell and back. And they returned with a smile. In almost all their cases, they had to see complete failure, before realizing how they could not fail worse... and hence the only way let was forward... to succeed.

Our class shared a lot more than we typically did, I still solely attribute it to the last-day-of-classes phenomenon... but hey, who really cares huh? We know each other a lot better now, we've learnt from one another, we've shared with one another. We've even philosophized and giving holier-than-thou advice to one another. What more could you do to bring a class together?

The final project in strategic leadership and a research concept submission stand in the way of us and a blanker mind. And so I go back and join my team, in collecting the elusive pockets of data...

Quarter 9 - Week 9

What happens when you combine a long weekend, a fest focussed on entrepreneurship, and a couple of heavy assignments? Confusion! You get a bunch of holidays but you don't get enough sleep, you bunk some classes and attend some events, you crunch all the numbers and the speakers tell you that you need to focus on the heart... you get the point. It was a great time to be at IIMB, a time when people disagree with each other, and they are respectful of the fact. Oh, and yes, we did have some classes running at the same time.

Consumer Behaviour

This week like the last few have been Application Exercises and case studies, not much to say, just a lot of concept-applying in order to understand what's happening out there on the field. The case study this week was on Xylys by Titan, and to understand what went on in the consumer's mind when he was trying to select it. Also, since it was the last case, there were teams that did some proactive work in order to score a little. Since there was no particular chapter in focus here, we saw a lot of application of myriad concepts from across the book... one thing's for sure, it was suitable preparation for the upcoming exam,

Strategic Leadership

No classes this week since the presentations are set for the next. So some groups are busy hunkering down and writing something, some others (like ours) are still going through the material.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we were to read a book called Siddhartha(Herman Hess), a book that looks at one man's search for what's out there... and what's the ultimate piece of knowledge. There was also a couple of readings, related to accepting what the world has to offer, right out of the book 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' and an article regarding Yoga Nidra. A little more into the practice of self-confidence and building inner strength, these two articles shed some light on activities that we can do... to be.... better. It's heavy stuff, so I'll just leave a suggestion that the book be read. If anything, I no longer have a contempt for self-help books.

The penultimate week of classes, and it's been very fruitful. It's time to deliver the coup-de-grace.

Quarter 9 - Week 8

Not much happening this week. Some interesting cases, but nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to college life. Ooh, can't wait for Eximius the next week though!

Consumer Behaviour

The prof was a little down on his regular energy in class. We were studying the reactions people have post-purchase, and essentially about the cognitive dissonance that consumers sometimes face when they find that the product doesn't fulfill what they thought it would. So we look at the different aspects of purchase, and what prompts people towards repeat purchase, or not purchasing it ever again. The whole funda lies on the premise that if the difference between consumer perception and satisfaction breaches a limit, then that's the time that cognitive dissonance takes place.

The second session was meant for a case discussion, one that's based on a venture of one of our seniors. It was quite interesting to read what happened at the venture, and a lot more interesting to hear people's interpretation of it. I totally thought that one of the teams had it bang on, when they compared the venture to other successful ventures, and tried to demarcate the roles of informational sites vs. commerce sites. Very interesting take, and one that I found to be quite apt. One of the few student presentations in class where I had some takeaway.

Strategic Leadership

Iconic. That's the one word I would use to describe the cases this week. We studied two behemoths in India - ITC and Tata. The first session, on ITC, was quite different when compared to what we had studied last week about Unilever. In the latter, we studied how the parent company and the subsidiary work together towards achieving relevant goals. In ITC however, we looked at how the Indian holding stands up for its Indian-ness, and how it asserts its goals irrespective of what the senior says. I found some brilliant takeaway in terms of challenging accepted norms, and challenging myself on some thoughts. A week ago, if you asked me, I would have said that ITC is only making its money on cigarettes, it's an unethical company... and this week, when the prof. gives us an option to sell the cigarettes division, no one wants to do so. It's a cash cow, we say... it funds all the other operations. What happened to all our ethics?? A very enlightening case, with a lot of different small pieces of learning, all of which require deep reflection.

The second session was on Tata, and how it grew from an Indian company to a multinational corporation. More importantly, how the dream of JRD Tata, was taken forward by Ratan Tata, but along a different course altogether. JRD was the tech guy, providing creative freedom to the different companies. Ratan appears to be the consolidator, trying to bring together the different companies under the Tata umbrella, and protecting the brand equity of the Tata name, besides enabling the acquisitions of international behemoths by smaller Tata companies, all because of the promise that the Tata Group can handle such an acquisition. Most importantly, we partly understood why promoter-led group holdings are more popular, accepted, and succesful here in India when compared to the rest of the world, that would rather prefer diversification of portfolios within a certain company.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

Today's readings had a lot to do with the roles of others in your life, and raising your own self-esteem. The first reading takes off on the Polyanna story, about how being optimistic and trying to change your life might make life a little hard for your loved ones. The premise goes - the change that you bring to yourself might be acceptable to you, but how does it affect those around you. Were they aware that such a change was coming, would they be able to adapt to being a different person around you? The article basically suggests what we can do to make things easier for the other person, and how we need to stop being selfish and consider tying our goals with goals of those around us.

The second article, about self-appreciation and self-esteem, was all right. Not much to really speak about, I'm just getting tired of applying so many exercises to the same one/two instances that I find may be bothering me. There was also a story about hope, that prompted a lot of people to share their own stories with the group. It was an interesting session where we saw more of what our classmates went through, in terms of career progression and how they identified with certain characters in the reading. We ended with meditation, with an additional 'vipassana'-based step.

All my projects are expected next week, it's interesting how the universe (or IIMB profs in this case) conspires to put you through a living hell.