Quarter 10 - Week 2

The weather's been surprisingly accommodating thus far, rains when we're in class, stops when we're out of class. My fellow students seem reasonably chirpy too... you'd think that after nine quarters they'd know these are short-lived moments of joy, but they seem to like living life in the moment. I'm a lot more chilled out so far, you wouldn't believe how relaxing it is to take just two subjects instead of the standard three... phew!

Business Data Mining & Decision Models

Ok, so I might be a little TOO relaxed. I fell asleep in the first session... I dont even know why! I'm getting enough sleep nowadays, for God's sakes! I remember some fundas about how you shouldn't overcook your analysis. Apparently, when you have your data set, you randomly select 70% of the values and run your magic on it. Fry, Flip and once your gyaan is condensed, you apply your analysis on a randomly selected 30% data from your set. If the values are very close and matching, then you know its not overcooked. He obviously said a lot more, but hey... if you don't fall asleep in a class, you don' give a chance for subliminal learning (You know, let your subconscious do some work), and therefore you're not really learning anything...

The second session was a lot of practical examples that made use of the learning from the first class. The prof takes an example of how they studied sericulture (silkworms stuff) and how they helped add some method-of-madness to the quality grading procedure. Apparently they ran some tests on a sample of 100 silkworm cocoons on various parameters of quality, and where able to find a condensed and quick mean for farmers to get their produced judged and paid for. I'm reasonably sure that I've learnt everything I missed on the previous session, this can be confirmed only during our midterm in a few weeks.

Strategic Thinking and Decision Making

Today's class easily makes it into my top-5 list of most active sessions. The criteria for judging is simple. The number of open eyes and fishmarket noise when the teacher is present, but where everything is directed at one destination(the prof) and everyone's vehemently arguing about points that they think is right. The prof knows how to make his examples - he actually 'localized' the examples from the textbook and added a few more examples of his own. Kept the class active for most of the two sessions (except for the last half hour in the second session, where he left us looking at twirling stars).

During the course of the classes, he managed to convince me that icecreams are a very diabolical device meant to force strategic thinking in innocent young minds - especially siblings. Most parents have a very simple formula for icecream sharing - Get one to cut, and the other to choose his half. This prof applies strategy. And because he knows it will be too easy, he forces us to consider that the icecream can melt. Therefore, there's a money value of time (Ahaah! No you finance chaps, I'm NOT talking time value of money, I really AM talking money value of time!). Did you know that if the icecream melts with an even number of negotiation rounds, people share 50:50, but if it melts with an odd number, people take an advantage of n/(2n+1):n+1/(2n+1). Get in touch with me, I'll explain why! Oh, charges of Rs. 3000 apply.

If that wasn't enough, he gives examples of husbands and wives who want to spend time together, but one likes sports and the other likes movies. So who wins? Again, ask any normal person, and he'll say 'Listen to the wife. Long-term happiness over short-term gain'. But the prof made a 2 by 2! And via this he actually explained a Nash equilibrium, a dominated and a dominant strategy! Therefore, if you've been wondering how your parent/spouse is constantly getting the better of you, and if they have an MBA, you should know... it's not their fault. There's an even bigger sinister plot running in front of you!

While the class was definitely a lot of fun, and informative... the principles of game theory acknowledge one major shortcoming, the choices made are completely rational and thought of as the gains to the individual not as gains or harms to the opponent. It will be a while before we attempt to solve what happens if the opponent is in real life (thereby allowing emotional variables) or if the opponent is just plain dumb (Good luck trying to play the Nash game with a real dumass partner). The quiz for this is dawning up quite fast, so we've got some heavy reading to do... and a game to be ready for next week. Quite entertaining, thus far!

In the meantime, there's a ton of activity around the upcoming Vista fest at IIMB. We have a few corporate events too, hence external invitation is really welcomed! If you're interested, check out the site: http://www.iimb-vista.com and register for it! As a corp junkie, here's your chance to experience college life again! :)

Quarter 10 - Week 1

Snifffffff..... do you smell that? Of course you don't, unless you're from my batch! It's the smell of vacant weekends and jobless evenings in the near future. Many of our classmates have taken on a radiant glow, and I'm guessing it has nothing to do with better face wash products.

Just because I am going to be here till next quarter because there's a couple of awesome subjects I want to take, I've taken the phenomenal decision of doing only two courses this quarter! Yes, two! I'm expecting that it will result in increased concentration in these subjects, to an extent of an extra 50%! I have not factored in the 'Going-to-leave-shortly' aspect, but the dampening factor of the same can be calculated at the end of the quarter based on the deviation from the mean... BUTTT I DIGRESS!

Business Data Mining & Decision Models (BDMDM)

I took the course just because it has such a big name, and the abbreviation sounds like thunder. Actually no, but I wouldn't put it beyond me. The name is so obviously suggesting the amount of trouble it can cause, it would be a crime not to undergo the pain of it! We don't really come to study to have a fun life now, do we...

The first week was reasonably intriguing. The prof knows his stuff, and has a way of describing the problems in a imaginative manner. If he fails to help you picturize the complexity in your head, he'll have it drawn up on the presentation so you have no doubt about the fact that you're confused. He also spoke about how business data mining has evolved, from just simple metrics collection to metrics analysis. While making it absolutely clear that we are going to suffer under the load of the project, he has also managed to convince me on the value of doing this course. This week, we looked at cluster analysis and how this differs from cluster sampling (diametrically opposite in fact! These mathematicians have no sense on how to name things, thats for sure!) and we then went on to discuss how clustering can be done from the many different angles. Looks set to be an interesting course, especially since there's only one textbook which, in all probability, we wont read, and sets of slides that will be shared!

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making (STDM)

Fortunately not as dangerous sounding, this course attempts to explain the thought process behind decision making by people. I'd have put this down as an OB course, given the chance. This prof is very engaging, but the catch is that you need to get on his boat right at the start! If you happen to disengage in the middle of class over a game of Angry Birds, and then suddenly pay attention... you get completely flustered at the jargon being thrown your way! Therefore, the important lesson would be to avoid the Angry Bird. Or don't play the game.

For the first week, after the standard 'study-your-ass-out-or-else' sermon to a set of bored-looking 'Been there, heard that' students... the prof gets down to some practical examples. Takes up a mini case and asks us our thoughts on whether the decision taken was right or not. After a bunch of suggestions from the class, he breaks down what seems like a 'poor-chap' case into a set of discrete 'if-then' and 'cause-effect' scenarios. Talks of what would happen if you do this, or do that... about what the other person has in his mind, and why he should cede to your point-of-view. That seemed enough to get the class hooked, as he went on to explain in light sciency terms about why people make the decisions they do, and how it turns out. Something tells me that some of the students didn't realize what the course entailed, as after the break there was approximate 3/4 of the class around. The rest, having realized this has more to do with the fundas behind decision-making and not with actual strategic frameworks, had strategically decided to bolt out the door!

We then also spent some time discussing Game Theory, and it pretty shortly came about that the underlying principle is that every man's for himself. This intensely individualistic appeal also came about to explain how people look at the immediate short term, under the rules of Game Theory, than the collective long term perspective. Therefore, my takeaway was that Game Theory needs an infusion of collective thinking if it should take into account long-term prospects. Having said that, it's not the Game Theory itself that needs fixing... it's the inherent programming of the individual, who's being told to look out only for himself. A tall prospect, which probably explains why not much has happened to influence this theory in quite a while.

All in all, it sounds like it will be a fun quarter... I haven't done many quant subjects since my first year, and BDMDM seems to pose a good enough challenge. Similarly, strategy not being my weapon of choice, gets SOME makeover with STDM. Hopefully, I'll learn more consumer behaviour from this, and 'enhance' my Marketing knowhow!

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.

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.