Quarter 8 - Week 3

It has been an eventful week, the more prominent ones were unfortunately not the best we've had so far. A very well-liked professor passed away this week... one who has earned the deep respect that most of the students accorded to him. Personally, I've found him to be the most philosophical and abstract professor I've seen thus far. He was primarily attached to the Marketing discipline, but he seemed to have a special corner for Organizational Behaviour. He taught us Principle of Marketing in Quarter 3, and International Business Negotiation Skills in Quarter 6. A fine professor, whose voice emanated from his soul and touched ours as well.

The second event was the final event put forward by our seniors, who've made their peace with one another, and the college. Actually, I could live with this one... it's not so bad. They were taking up our seats in all the courses anyway. But they were pretty kind-hearted, they didn't want to bother any of us juniors, so they went ahead and put forward a send-off party for themselves, with events conducted by them for their families and professors. An interesting way to say bye to the college. Their presence, though abhorred, will be missed.

Ethics in Business Management

A problem with a course like EBM, is that it is really hard, I mean REALLY hard to agree on whether the judgement on a case was right or not. You see, on the one side it looks like the organization had the best intentions at heart, on the other it looks like they didn't do enough good of what they could do. So you actually have two camps in class, fighting each other on the fact that the accused was right/wrong on what they did. The case was that on Unocal and their decision to continue to pull oil from off of Burma's coast, and who had conveniently turned a blind eye when Burma's army was clearing away land from rebels when the pipeline had to go through that. The confusion was on whether Unocal was justified in claiming that they were ethical in their dealings, and were not involved when their partner, the Burmese government/army was doing this. In fact, they justified their presence by saying that they were providing health and education support in the region that was close to the pipeline, so they were actually doing a lot of good.

The prof must be finding it really hard as well. The guy is so sure, that "this party" did something wrong, or "that party" should be held responsible, and when he tries to explain his reasons to us, there is always atleast one bunch in the class that's disagreeing with him. And they proceed to explain why. The crescendo was reached when the prof was putting various tabulations on the board on who did what correctly/incorrectly, and you could see that he wanted to put four ticks in one box, but when he asked the class where to put it, the majority was on the other. You could see him struggling within his mind whether to correct the class again or not, but then he just sighed and put the four ticks on the other box, and three ticks in his. That was actually pretty sweet. Profs don't usually bend to the will of the class, but such is the nature of this subject.

The next day, he was better prepared. Didn't do as badly as the first session. Right at the start, he mentions that 'guys, we need to look at this objectively, keep your personal thoughts on the case aside, and ONLY look at it from the framework. You will have enough time to debate such topics long after. As you saw yesterday, even after twenty minutes of discussing this case, it is still just as, if not more gray than it was before we started. So stick to the framework.' Looks like the class got the message, because a few times when there was strong potential for disagreement, the class just kept quiet, as the framework made it clear as to where the balance tipped. The prof seemed to go home a happier man that day.

Happiness aside, the framework learnt this week was with regard to property rights. Apparently a bunch of our oldest philosophers had very different views on what constitutes right to property, ranging from John Locke to Karl Marx. And the case we discussed was that of the provision of treatment for AIDS in Africa. Funny case that... a few American companies came up with the cure but it was so friggin' costly for use in Africa and they weren't willing to subsidize it. Thanks to a loophole in Indian law, a few Robinhood pharma companies here went ahead and, ahem, built a cheap version of the drug and began distribution in association with Doctors across Borders. American companies yell "friggin' piracy", while Indian companies say "Cross-border disasters!". Being an Indian, I don't know, I couldn't help feeling proud of what these guys did! Was it wrong, well, I don't think so! Luckily, the framework kinda agrees!

Managing Off-shored Software and IT Services

Profs tend to be pretty good at predicting what the class is capable of. Last week, when this one asked how many of us read the case, only two hands went up. So he thought, ok, these guys are not going to read what I give them, so let me just give them a micro-case this week. So when he comes to class, fully prepared to see the same two hands when he asks "who read the case?" imagine his amazement when all the hands go up. I swear, he was so happy! If only there were tears of joy, but alas, there weren't. Totally would have made for a good Bollywood movie. It isn't lost on me that the students actually should be insulted that the prof thinks we don't read cases, but hell, it was such a happy moment.

The class dealt with the different phases of outsourcing, and how the balance of power tends to shift along the duration of the partnership, and the micro case given dealt with something similar. The second session was more to do with how you should control intellectual activity like software development, against how you would control manual activity like factory production. The various types of control systems were being discussed and the typical pros/cons of the same. The class came about lively here, as they were talking of the different ways that their company uses to handle such situations, especially when the customer wants to manage the resources directly, but their company resents external control of their own resources. Kind of portrays to anyone outside that the company is incapable of managing its resources effectively. Doesn't go down well with Indians now, does it?

A very interesting week with a lot of ground covered. I'm already beginning to enjoy this quarter.

Quarter 8 - Week 2

The corridors are a little quieter, they're a little more spacious. With a couple of the batches graduating and far fewer of the 2008 batch amongst us, there's almost a little dulling of the energy around us. Oh well, lesser hustle and bustle at the tea shop and lunch counter for us. Every cloud, silver lining, therefore profit etc... blah, blah.

Ethics in Business Management

The first session was a continuation from the last one, on the basics of ethics and a simple framework. We were trying our hands out on a case, that of Enron, to figure out if what happened was ethical or not, and who was to blame. After pulling it a bit here and there, the class almost came to a consensus that the founder was the person who was most to blame (no surprise there, but hey, we applied a framework... what did you apply? Common sense, sheesh, mere mortal!)

The second session brought back some reality to the class room. The prof asks "How many people go through the readings?", and a few hands slowly climb up in the air. The vast majority on the other hand is studiously examining their notes, or name badges, as going through that will undoubtedly bring us the knowledge from the readings. The prof is obviously less than amused, and in a good-humored manner makes us all stand up... hold our right hands in the air... and solemnly take a vow to read all cases in this course henceforth. I don't know about the others, but I'm now actually motivated to read the case! Now to see what comes first, integrity or sloth! Coming away from all such things, the learnings from the day involved understanding the different views of ethics, and how they've evolved. How it's possible to look at a particular scenario from multiple views, and then come to a more informed conclusion on whether or not the route taken to the decision was fair, and just.

Managing Off-shored Software and IT Services

For the first session, we had two REALLY big cases to go through. And I can understand why, they're apparently Mega-Contracts. It was very interesting to see the nuances that people go through when they're trying to form a long term partnership or contractual agreement. The levels of bargaining, the bi-yearly refinements to the contract, the advantages and disadvantages of off-shoring tasks, and how to choose when to offshore them. All of these make for very interesting readings.

The second session was more to do with understanding contracts and services from a financial angle. For e.g. what are the possible long term effects from doing off-shoring, like is it possible that the other party might be in a far stronger position than you're in right now, to almost take advantage of you... or if this is a service that you require frequently, in which case you MAY be better off in acquiring the company itself. A lot of interesting nuances, and views on these, based on which yet another framework determined what we should look at when we try to off-shore or acquire a company.

The week belonged to frameworks, showing us how to use particular frameworks. I just worry that we might take these frameworks too seriously, too seriously and miss the evolving market out there. At least it's encouraging to know that we don't accept such frameworks easily. If there's one thing that we've learnt at the IIMB, it is to question. Question carefully, and choose the right question. For that will bring you the answer. And so endeth the drowsy midnight lesson.

Quarter 8 - Week 1

The last quarter for the year, and it feels like I'm on the cusp of something huge. I would have completed two years by May this year. That's.... some... accomplishment! I've taken a lighter load this quarter, two subjects and one project. So it feels a lot more aaraam-se compared to the other quarters. Traditionally, Q4 has always been the "soft quarter", the courses are more the pondering-types rather than the hard-theoritical types. My choices reflect the type of courses offered this time around...

Ethics in Business Management

I've always been told that Ethics can't be taught, it is imbibed, mostly in your formative years. I look at it a little differently. A person would take a course on ethics under two circumstances. 1. He wants to understand ethics more deeply, so he can be a better person morally. 2. He wants to break the rules, and is looking for practical loopholes. I like to think that I fall under the former category! :D

We've already done one case study on Ethics, it was based on slavery in the Chocolate industry. Apparently, 50% of the world's production of cocoa beans happen in Ghana and on the Ivory Coast. And the labour is mostly children, who have been enslaved after being kidnapped at a young age. Their living conditions are atrocious, and their plights miserable. So, after a lot of hullabaloo, people covered the event in major newspapers and television broadcast, and the case ends with a statement of the current status. Apparently people still buy chocolate.

We followed it up with an analysis using a framework that was taught. And we found, that except for the poor kids who were enslaved, everyone else, including the chocolate farmers, traders, bigtime US chocolate manufacturers, retail and distribution and the regular global consumer were ALL morally responsible for the unfortunate events. So the prof concludes saying that everyone has a choice to buy stuff, and you could choose not to buy, but even then many times, people continue to buy shirking off their moral responsibility. Additionally, what seems unethical to us, might seem all right to people in that condition. So it's not fair to look at ethics through a single lens, you need to apply it to the region and its customs, and then decide what actions should be taken.

Managing Off-Shored Software and IT services

A slightly more soporific course that seems to cover how we're doing currently in the off-shored space and what we can do to better manage it. We started with a simple understanding of which countries are known better for what type of outsourced/offshored activity. Our second session while focussing around this topic, ended with an understanding of India's competitive advantage, and if it is possible for us to sustain it. You'd be surprised at the result we arrived at! ;)

Here's to looking forward to a chilled-out quarter, with chilled-out activity. All assignments are individual, for the first time ever! Looks like this can be a nice fun quarter after all! Who says you can't relax at the IIMB?

Quarter 7 - Week of Exams

It's been six months since I wrote a final exam. I am delighted to note that I could still be frazzled as ever. Nothing really changed, I still stayed up till 11 PM, "thought" I was up till 2 AM when in fact I had slept right over my book, woke up at 5 AM and suddenly realized that I was nowhere near prepared for the exam, and rushed to the hall 5 minutes before it was about to start.

And to think I missed my days in engineering... how naive can I get!

All things said and done, Research for Marketing Decisions, my one and only exam this quarter completed at 2 PM. I've been on cloud nine ever since.

My plan for the next two weeks is simple. Work like a normal human being, and sleep like one.

Until next time...

Quarter 7 - Week 10

Irrespective of the two-week-earlier deadline, it looks like we've managed to wrangle all submissions till this week. The same old bleary-eyed student swearing at the professor, his team mates, his colleagues, his life made an appearance today, and with everyone giving each other the same look, it was a we're-in-this-together atmosphere all around.

All that was fine on the first day, but on the second there was a great upbeat feeling going around. While it was partially due to the fact that projects were being submitted, and load lightened, and partially due to the fact that the quarter was getting over, the overwhelming reason was that half of the students were leaving college, and attending their final class on Saturday. The seniors all had their awesome teeny-weeny Cybershots out and were clicking away to glory, lest they forget the miseries they've been through together. And yes, they were all very nostalgic when they thought of their time here together.

The juniors were happy that we finally get to pick whatever courses we want without having to jostle with the seniors, but very few of us missed the opportunity to tell the nostalgic seniors that we could exchange places. The fact that misty-eyes immediately gave way to frightened eyes, and hence brought seniors back to reality is a different matter altogether. All jokes apart, our batch wishes them the best-est in their future, and hope that they further the cause of the PGSEM programme, and give us all reason to hold our heads high.

E-Business Models and Strategies

The final week continued with presentations of our cool new e-businesses that we were claiming to start. It finally dawned on me that we were all primarily just starting new businesses, and were less worried of whether we'd handled the taught frameworks correctly. But then again, I'm sure we got it fairly well, the prof and the guest lecturers taught from their experience. It's difficult to miss out when someone talks about hard learned lessons. I, for one, am definitely not going to forget the fact that entrepreneurs and bigshots are normal people, just like us. To their credit, most of them didn't need to do an MBA to start a business and make it successful.

Research for Marketing Decisions

Similar situation out here like in EBMS. Project presentations and a bunch of gleeful seniors twiddling their thumbs and thinking of how they'd still be twiddling their thumbs next weekend without worrying about god-forsaken assignments and team mates.

I don't know where our profs get their patience from. They must have expected serious, nose-up-in-the-air sophisticated IT folk in this course, and they find this jabbering bunch of gleeful kids who're trying their level best to skip assignments and projects. Their claim to fame over the general full-time students? They have more work experience and jabber a little less.

I think our profs deserve the gold medals that are being dished out to that student of the year.

Marketing Communications

I really liked the first session on Viral Marketing and Word-of-mouth marketing. The case was one of Hasbro games, who were launching their game called POX. It was really interesting to know how they identified alpha-pups (what a cute name! Alpha-pups! for lead generating kids!) from various schools in the Chicago region and let them loose with their gadgets. Interestingly, these kids were key influencers in their social circle, and they would pass the toys around to their close-knit group, who'd then influence other kids to buy the toy. Worked like a charm! However, it didn't make sense to run their intense operation on a country-wide campaign as it might have bankrupted the company. Still, it was pretty cool to see that these guys tried out some cool new ways of marketing their products and driving diffusion of the game.

Another way to look at it is the very way of doing it. They actually misused kids into selling their games! It's evil when you really think about it! To drive your sales, you mislead some kids into thinking they're very cool and give them the power to flaunt their awesomeness. And then, you capitalize on the wave of demand that you just created amongst other kids! Brilliant, but evil. Where's the line to be drawn? It's so difficult to choose whether to admire the concept, or be repulsed by it.

The second session had a final case on an Indian Ad agency called Rudhra. Interesting one no doubt, it talked of how the company chooses to keep its segments clearly defined and hire specialists for each of these. A good peek into the life of an advertising agency. Unfortunately, there was a major rush towards the end of the class since we were running out of time, and I'm sure I missed a couple of important lessons from the case, but it was a good end to the course. A reality check on how ad agencies run, and what we might be faced with.

And now to study for the final exam, which will hopefully be chilled out. Unless the prof suddenly turns around, shows us his true colors and gives us the one reason why he shouldn't be given a gold medal.

Quarter 7 - Week 9

There must have been some sort of internal memo that went flying around in IIMB, something that said "All projects should be submitted a couple of weeks in advance of the end of the quarter". Whatever it was, almost every one of the courses have asked for the presentations and the reports by this week. A bunch of panicky Skype calls and Google Doc sessions later, and we have a submission that is likely to make it through the door. Of course, a little needling-and-wheedling got us an extra week for one of the subjects, but hey, no more panicking at the absolute end of the course anymore! Now we can panic earlier! Yay!

E-Business Models and Strategies

Our prof has gone out and told a couple of VCs that we've got some fairly awesome biz plans and so they should come and rip us to shreds. Nicely and neatly. And so the VCs came, and shred they did. Nicely and neatly, just like they were asked to. But maybe it came across that way because most of the ideas were actually pretty nice. And it was amazing and inspiring to see that a few of these were really under progress! A few of our seniors have already quit their jobs, and they're doing something they want to do! I've got a hunch, which I might need to check up on, that amongst all the colleges and courses, the PGSEM definitely has a greater percentage of people who churn out startups! Let me back that - in some other post.

I'd have loved to tell you guys what sort of stuff these guys dreamed up, but hey, early venture and hush-hush and all that. Maybe in a year or two, you'll hear of them anyway!

Research for Marketing Decisions

A similar couple of sessions which had us listening to presentations by teams, instead of the prof. The prof would ask some clarifying questions for the benefit of the class, so that some theoretical points came through for us. But more than anything else, people were a lot more chilled out than usual. The second session had a few teams present their marketing projects, and since some of them have actually gone out and done ACTUAL market research, instead of the watered-down versions we see for other projects, it was fun to see the results!

Marketing Communications

Same-to-same. First session was a bunch of study presentations made by different groups. The obvious favourites was the online social-networking based ad presentation. It's almost like they had an unfair advantage. They had members in the team who're in the social media space, who're in the advertising line, and so it's very easy to say that they had things handed to them on a digital platter. I keep telling myself that's the reason they trumped the others. Someday I'll believe it.

The second session was on Mobile Advertising. We had a guest lecture from someone who has started a venture in this space, and they're actually doing quite well! So he goes all the way from how many mobile subscriptions are in India, to how ads can be personalized, and finally to how specific trends like the usage of augmented reality are actually putting a whole new cool spin on the Mobile Advertising arena. Good fun!

And so, we wait for the last week of the quarter. A couple of presentations left, but I think we'll live. Like I've been saying through the whole of this quarter, the funda to chill has been figured out.

Quarter 7 - Week 8

For once, I was actually looking forward to going to work on Friday after class. I'm damn sure that work hasn't really gotten better. So that means....

E-Business Models and Strategies

The first session was hosted by this really inspiring entrepreneur-graduated-to-VC guy. I call him inspiring because of the way he communicates with us. He spoke to us in a simple manner during our orientation to PGSEM way back in May 2009, and he did the same even now, the only difference being some added management-y jargon. He went on to give a very realistic portrayal of why VCs behave the way they do. They apparently put some fire under our backsides, mainly because of the fire under theirs. Quite interesting to understand the different aspects of getting funding from these guys.

The second session was about this joint creation of Pandesic by SAP and Intel. You'd never have thought that a company created by two amazing giants could have such problems. But then again, you wonder if the baby of two highly intelligent people is intelligent. Nature and the corporate life have a strange sense of humour. Anyway, learnings from the case were that when you try doing something new, try and keep some checks and balances in place that will ALWAYS challenge your assumptions. When you have a very good inflow of resources, it becomes really easy to waste them. It's entirely upto us to figure out what we can do to keep wastage to a minimum. Or pull the plug if its futile.

Research for Marketing Decisions

True to our expected attitude, we forgot there was a study presentation till the day before it. If anything, I now totally believe in the statement - Past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour. (I only talk for my team here, the other teams appeared very well prepared *cough*).

Imagine how thrilled we were when the prof took longer than expected to teach us something through which we slept, only to find out the presentations had been postponed to the next day! That's all we needed, more time! Too bad we just used the same ppt anyway. Should do MUCHO better.... next time.

The second session had quite a few presentations that had us looking through various aspects like New Product Development, Pricing Research, Customer Relationship Management etc.

Marketing Communications

This media agency comes along and gives us a guest lecture for the first session. Now our guys were really looking forward to guest lecturers, especially after the last one we'd had for MC. I was totally expecting some set of hotshots who'd come by and give us some decent gyaan. Unfortunately, for me, less than half the way in the talk, I fall asleep. I've NEVER fallen asleep in a guest lecture. I mean, who falls asleep in a guest lecture?? But hey, things were the way they were. And THAT's why I was looking forward to work, these guys zapped the hell out of me.

The second session was supposed to be on Digital Marketing. While it was all right, I was looking forward to hearing the guy from the advertising agency. Too bad he couldn't make it due to some urgent issues. In any case, it was fun. Nothing too new or old that we didn't already know.

Peaceful week. Only two more weeks to go. I need to submit all assignments and projects by end of next week. That gives us enough time to chill out before the formidable Q4 begins.