Quarter 4 - Week 7

This week was by far the most hectic week we've faced. Or so I felt. I think my last blog entry is an indication of that. I seem to have written something about a website(?) and I was talking about the chapter or book I guess. Anyway, I was pretty thrilled (very wierd actually) to have made a slumber mistake, that's when you're hammering away at the keyboard but you are actually sleeping, that I didnt bother to correct it. Dont try this at home, or in your car. Bad consequences!

So why was this week so bad? Because we've just finished two exams and left college at 7:00! As if it wasn't enough that we were scribbling whatever little we knew from 2:30 all the way till 6:30, it began to pour cats and dogs and we couldn't even go home! And some of the more enthu mugpots amongst us were discussing solutions despite our dirty stares. The fact that I was paying keen attention through one ear to the solutions and listening to a project team mate discuss our next week woes through the other, AND that none of my answers matched the said solutions was pretty much winding me up. And the blasted rain..!

But enough about me and my general woes, close to one year into the course I should probably learn to suck it in and move along. You dont get an IIMB backing if you're solving exams with a smile now, do you? And so, on to this week's bhaashan..

OperMan - This week we played a game, not as fun sounding as the last Beer Game, but good fun nonetheless.... we had a case were we had to forecast the demand in the coming weeks and place orders accordingly so that our net inventory was as close to the minimum as possible. First some gambling when we were just trying to fool around, then some wisdom dawned when we kept getting screwed in our numbers and so we made a master plan.... which was supposed to work. I am still not sure how we arrived at it, just that it made a lot of sense at the time. The word 'delirium' keeps popping up in my mind.

The next day we discussed how we could have gone about the actual task and what patterns we were to look for. The prof mentioned that while it's good to forecast demand, you should also try to keep it somewhat stable.Why...? Because we have PEOPLE doing the actual manufacturing! Now what kind of a good manager would you be if you let your employees chill off one day, and slog like their life depended on it the next day! So, inventory optimization be damned, be a nice guy. Keep it to a minimum, but you dont have to be oh-so-efficient. Fancy my Operations Management professor telling me that!

CorpFin - Miller and Modigliani seemed to have a lot of time on their hands, they kept coming up with new nuances for their theorems. Maybe they weren't doing the PGSEM. Or maybe they just knew that they ought to come up with some cool theorems with the unterior motive that people all around the globe would be burning the midnight oil just to understand what these guys were trying to prove.

I'm just cranky from the exams I guess, it wasn't really all that bad. The prof really knows how to make it all sound like fun. From what I remember, we were essentially talking about how taking too much debt can be bad for the company. The whole principle goes as follows, you can take up two times the equity(or share value) as debt. Yes, you're allowed to take loans... no, it's not a bad sign. No, your Indian uncle and aunty won't look at you with pity... Yes, you can marry your neighbour's daughter, this is not a financial problem. But. If you cross it like 4 or 5 times, then the equity shareholders start beginning to think, and they think really hard because they've seen this happen before, and they all hightail it for the exit! So, be responsible and dont hide the bad news was what was coming across.

The next session seemed to roam a little bit around the point, we even had a nice looking graph that told us at what time we should stop pushing for debt, or even if we were, try and buy some companies who were profitable so that your equity value goes up... SO you can take more debt! It keeps coming down to one fact. If your company goes bankrupt, your equity shareholders are able to limit their losses to their investments, but the debt guys, sure they get all the assets repossessed.. but they'll never be able to get their true value.

MPPO - I am getting a little more bored than usual now. The topics were all good, Performance Appraisal and all that... how to appraise, what kind of interaction to have etc. etc. etc., but I just kept getting distracted... maybe because of the exams. But even the cases seem to be so obvious, I am not sure how much new stuff I learnt this week. We saw a video in the second session, it was all about how you conduct an appraisal and what can go wrong... there were a couple of interesting points in it, but I dont know, it all seemed so.... general! This was supposed to be common sense, how could we miss this? And sure, it was nice to know that everyone seems to hate appraisals... the fact that I'm being given a letter grade and in a way rebuked like a child, is not something that everyone felt pleasant about. And here we are getting As, Bs and Cs...

All in all, a tiresome week. I'm just glad we're done with the exams.

I really am.

Quarter 4 - Week 6

C.K. Prahlad passed away this weekend. The person who brought our attention to the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, and who campaigned and spoke eloquently on the topic tirelessly left our world at the age of 68. On Sunday morning, our prof spoke to us about this, and for two minutes our class stood in silence, in respect for the man who drew the world's attention to the strength of the poverty stricken masses. I am sure that students in management institutes worldwide gave him the same mark of respect, and personally I can't help but be awestruck at the respect he commanded.

In comparitively lesser news, we had our second and last three-day session for this quarter, yes, that's right Fri, Sat and Sun. So essentially, we've completed seven quarters. This week saw a change in profs for the CorpFin subject, more on that later.

OperMan - Well, nothing really stood out. This was more about inventory management and how and when to keep safe stock, or in regular parlance, buffer stock at optimum levels to ensure lowest possible costs. Really, nothing so important in my opinion.

CorpFin - Our prof just shifted since we've embarked on Act II of our elective. This prof seems very different from our first prof. He somehow managed to bring some liveliness to one of the most boring subjects I've ever studied. We recapped a bit into the first quarter to discuss balance sheets and P&L statements. We then went on to discuss the Miller-Modigliani principle. And the rest I have to read. However, I know most of what we skipped in the Website,so I think I could explain that.

A firm's beta, is the risk premium of the individual stock, above the safe Treasury bills/G-secs. Meaning, if u were to take the stock in the firm, it has a risk/cosy of capital associated with the general tendency of the market as a whole, and another part that is associated with the unique risk of that stock. So this way, we can calculate betas of a bunch of stocks in a portfolio. It was interesting to see the connections between betas.

MPPO - Performance management and appraisal. A lot of people felt that the current system seemed inherently flawed. A lot of discussion of what happens in our companies, and the advice also seemed similar. Too much theory, wish there was similar takeaway.

An abrupt post, but when you have a lot to study, efficiently prioritizing everything, well there's so much to do. The actual jumps now will begin this week. Time for me to and prepare for the quisses. Until next week....

Quarter 4 - Week 5

This week we had an interesting session by Professor Suryanarayana A of the NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. He spoke to us about what makes an entrepreneur tick and about the incubation systems they have in place for the budding entrepreneurs amongst us. A little interesting tidbit - Contrary to popular expectation, entrepreneurs are amongst the most risk averse of people out there. It's just that they've managed to take care of their most important fear - that of failure, and the rest is history... or future, as we see it.

I think I have entrepreneurial qualities that way... I have no fear of failing my exams. But then again, do my personal idiosyncrasies really matter when you're here to know about this week's sessions? And so, here we go.

OperMan - We had a different professor filling in for our regular prof(whatever happened to letting the class free for once?!), and he took us on a trip through Toyota's processes for the manufacturing of cars. Together, we questioned if there might be some connection between the case we studied, and the recent news in which Toyota's name has come up and none too favorably at that. It was a nice long walk through the Just In Time process where we studied how it works, and in a way related it to the culture of the workers in Toyota. The next session we had our mid term examination, and hence there was more of attempting to write what we understand of OM and hope that our bottlenecks dont stop our flow. Or whatever, I didnt get enough sleep anyway.

CorpFin - I know there was a lot of talk of Risk and all that, I remember the Beta word being thrown around a lot, but I draw a blank after that. Considering how we have a midterm next week, I'll be well placed to explain what I learned (or the prof was attempting to teach me) once I brush through those chapters again. However, I did get to look through what I studied last week due to our well timed exam this week, and hence I can explain the fundas of Investment and even the complications that taxation brings, to a somewhat lucid extent. It basically goes like this. I think I explained Present Value last week. So if you subtract the cost you paid initially from this PV, you get the Net Present Value or NPV ( a cool short form). Which should be positive or else you're making a mistake in investing in it. So that's one way of doing it. What we learnt newly is, for some god forsaken reason, some people felt that NPV isnt necessarily the only way of determining the profitability of investments, and hence they came up with three or four more methods based on how lazy they were (atleast from what I read, some of these have been downright described as simplistic and lazy solutions by the author), except for one - the IRR. This essentially tries to calculate what is the expected rate of interest at which the original funds are expected to grow, to get an NPV of zero - or to ensure there is no loss. Hence, you can compare different investment options based on their respective IRRs.

Dont understand? Join PGSEM. Then we all wont understand. Just kidding, it makes sense, we just need a lot of time and attention and patience to really understand. Apparently, PGSEM students have this in plenty. So join us to develop these senses. If nothing else, your significant other might begin to think that you pay more attention once you finish the PGSEM. Scout's honour! Our alumni attest to this!!

MPPO - This week we discussed how the theories of motivation that we learnt last week can be applied in the real world. We also went through what happened in organizations that grow rapidly, and the unexpected/unintended consequences of this for the employees. We had a couple of cases where we saw how people began to feel better at their work when provided with some forms of job enrichment. This seems to point towards the fact that people, when given a sense of entirety regarding their roles, seem to find their jobs more fulfilling and hence are intrinsically motivated. While both caselets seemed to paint a rosy picture, I wish I had a glimpse into atleast a single case where such a solution did not work, so we could analyse what went wrong. For the rapid organization growth session, the role of the HR team was highlighted and the role that they play seems to have been given the lime light. This is more than I can say is given to the HR in our organization, or probably any other that I know of, atleast today. I do agree with the prof when he says that whatever the HR does seems to be hidden, and that probably somewhere the HR head is discussing with the country heads to identify areas of improvement, but maybe it's just me, but as long as I feel that someone is observing and studying me and not interested in directly communicating with me for whatever valid reasons that they have, I find it hard to trust and really open up regarding the problems that we face. For I dont believe they'll truly understand. They are incapacitated by their distance from us, and their analysis of us from a remote spreadsheet. It's like looking through the bars of a zoo cage to determine what makes the tiger walk up and down the edges and not sit still during the day. Maybe their consensus might be right, but would the tiger really feel that the ones that stare at it all day are helpful and not threatening, or would they stay defensive and never open up.

But then again, I dont have a solution on how a minute percentage of the firm that claims itself to be an HR team can "sync" with the thoughts of the greater majority of today's equivalent of blue collared workers. Maybe they have a solution. From that distance. Who knows?

Quarter 4 - Week 4

As was expected, a few of my friends made a plan to go for a trip out of town since it was an extended weekend. As was expected, they've stopped asking me. I wish they had asked. I would have said no, but still. Even it was on Sunday, I'd have said no. Why's that? Because when every other person in town was either goofing off, or going to church at odd hours over the weekend, my entire class was sitting from 8 AM to 2 PM on all three days in the cosy comforts of IIMB, paying attention to teachers who were explaining stuff that BETTER BE USEFUL TO ME somewhere down the line, or it was yet another opportunity cost of an unforgettable trip getting the better of me!

Classes on a Sunday. Yeesh. But all for the future good I always say, or rather I say after CorpFin class. More on this later.

OperMan - This week we had a case discussion about a company that was in the manufacturing line. Now most of the funda of determining a process comes from trying to optimize some steps to ensure that a bottleneck doesnt take up too much time in the system. Essentially, if one operation in a series is a bottleneck, this means that whatever comes after it gets a little free time while this operation churns out its output at a slooow pace. This means more coffee time and mingling time for the guys after this step, while the guys before this step will continue to slog. Kinda like my manager sitting after I do my work, just so he can take two minutes to send a congratulatory mail every now and then for work that took me six months. Aah, I'm kidding. My manager's awesome. Anyway, the next two days we were going to understand the fundas of Supply Chain Management (Ooooh ! Yes, I know.)

We played a beer game (Yea! in IIMB! Whoever said that Indian education is conservative?) where we were fortunately/unfortunately not given real beer bottles, but using some tokens we simulated what happens when an order is placed by the customer, and if I'm the retailer, then my supplier, and HIS supplier, and the supplier's supplier's supplier are involved in a serial chain, then it starts predictable at my end, but at the final point the demand is erratic. You need to go through it to really get it. Or use wiki/google. Your choice. Fun game, and the analysis of it was done on the second day. Interesting learnings. Join IIMB to learn it. I didnt sit through 1.5 hours of class on a Sunday instead of going to a cool place, just so I can share my learnings here. (Sorry, I seem a little upset).

CorpFin - OMG! I ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND what happens in this class now. I dont know if I mentioned it before, but since we had a test this Saturday, I tried (read 'was compelled/forced') to go through the first three or four chapters in this book. It's in a way like the ManAcc classes from last quarter, boring classes, simple fundas. All you need to do is pay attention, and read before class. Any way, the whole funda goes like this: When you buy something, then you need to make sure that this thing is profitable, not just immediately but over the long run. So how do you know if it is? Simple, you understand Compound Interest right? Great... so what happens is you do this backwards, but the value of the 'rate of interest' you use is not what the SBI gives you (those cheap, mean misers!) but what an object of equivalent risk gives you. For e.g. if I was to buy some shares, I could have instead put that money into something else that was comparable in terms of return. So I will try to figure out using 'backwards Compound Interest' (for lack of a better term) to find out if the 100 Rs. I spend today will be worth more or less in the case of the investment that I'm going to make, when compared to the other benchmark investment I was going to make. You basically have two rates to compare now right? So use that to find out the 'Present Value' of investments. You'd be surprised that this can be even applied to stocks and bonds and the dividends that come out of it, it's growth opportunities etc. Yes, it's a way for you to realize if your fund manager is making a fool of you! Assuming you've attended a CorpFin class.

Of course the prof taught something much more this week, but I can only explain that to you next week since we have a test on it this week. Yes, another test, I seem so blessed.

MPPO - This week was more about interaction, communication between people and what the possible barriers could be, and how we can empathize and listen, I mean really listen to people, and finally the different theories of motivation. Pretty insightful weekend, with the class sharing a lot. I think the surprise test that was there this week shook people up, so more of them were reading the articles before coming to class. I even saw a few people READ the material in the class just before the MPPO class! Fine way to spend Rs. 1250 (Yes, that's the price per individual class session, according to my poor calculations!). In fact, I guess one of these people had suddenly woken up in MPPO class, that he sent a mail to the prof that we can be a little more effective in class, that the training was getting diluted by people's talk and discussion than the topic on hand. I think OperMan got the best of him, but all of us did agree with him on some level. Less complaining about our work, more connecting to the day's topic! So the last session, we did just that... and I frankly liked this class better. There was more discussion regarding THE topic, and we kept referring to the case. Was good. I liked.

Anyway, on to prepare for the next week's test. And OperMan midterm. I love my life.

Quarter 4 - Week 3

Now that we have completed three quarters, and three weeks.... we've basically done 3.3 / 10 quarters. THAT means, we only have two-thirds left to go! Now all we need to do, is figure out what we did in the past, and repeat it twice more. That looks like it'll work. I think.

Nothing special happened this week, except for the quizzes (about time they started too, I was beginning to think I was important, this brought me back down to earth). One quiz in OperMan, and another in CorpFin. On the same day. Yes, our professors have synchronized internal clocks.

OperMan - This week was all about Queues and how to setup operations in consideration to this and the service industry. By and large, this was a case-study centred week, both days had us discussing a couple of cases. I hadn't prepared properly, so it came as an utter shock to me when everyone else was rattling numbers and throwing jargon, while I was sitting and hunting for the numbers here and there. (Study, study, study!). The test came and went, and took any semblance of dignity I had. But, never fear, next week's coming near, I'll have some dignity and hold onto it for dear. (Hey, I'm a poet).

CorpFin - More discussion on bonds and their valuation. I think we progressed a little beyond that, I only remember this since it was part of the test. I draw a blank after that. Will update next week, after I study.

MPPO - All the touchy-feely parts of management come together in one orchestra called MPPO. Quite a few of our classmates get easily bored in this class. The prof actually said something like "the young ones don't fully understand what goes on in an organization and the human aspect to it, whereas you experienced ones (he meant old. us old ones, really?) are a little more mellow. You know what the pulse of the organization is, so you are able to absorb the teachings from this course better". A couple of my neighbours were doodling on a pad, so I'm guessing they were thoughtfully considering what he said. Anyway, this week we were discussing ego states (Parent, Adult and Child) and inter-personal strokes and judgements. Essentially about how the way we communicate to people should match how they're perceiving it. If there's a disconnect, communication tends to give way to the friction, and pretty much stops. Strokes was all about how people are thirsting for feedback, and will go for any kind of stroke (positive or negative i.e. compliment or otherwise, in comparison to no feedback at all). The course is definitely something to ponder over, when we consider that most of us are only concentrating on results and data, when "people" by themselves are such a vast, unknown subject by themselves. Hmm.

But whatever said, 1/3 is done. It's a big step for us guys, I'm sure we can make two more! Cheers to us.

Quarter 4 - Week 2

Did I happen to mention that our class room is now changed? I like this one better since the class now gently curves around like an arc with the centre being the dias where the prof lectures from. The previous classroom was more "angular" so to say with the guys at the corners looking at the board from literally 150 degrees to the normal. Of the board. Of course, this classroom has it's problems too... we dont have enough seats for all of us, so i think three or four guys actually sit in the back on separate chairs with those "swivelable" writing desks.

OperMan - More talk about process, and we even delved a little into the more "holistic" picture where we discussed how different aspects of an organization constitute its success. Things like machinery, resource augmentation and processes can be duplicated easily, with the latter being a little more complicated. Therefore, if we're trying to differentiate against our competitors, these points aren't really as important as the organization culture, which is far harder to duplicate. We've been discussing a couple of cases, Kristen's Cookie Company and the Shouldice Hospital. So we're finding how all the different aspects work together and help us get more efficient. We're even questioning as to whether the companies are following the best strategy as of now, so it's all good..

CorpFin - A sense of dread quickly takes over, as I realize that this isn't one of those math subjects which you can just pick up in an hour. It's a big thing, Corporate Finance doesn't sound like a joke. I've been complaining about this aspect all along, if I dont read up before the class, I'm going to get screwed! If most of us in our class are doing the same thing, we're all going to get screwed! It's not good!! Why am I using so many exclamation marks??!!!! Seriously. The prof happened to ask today, "Why the silence? Do you agree, dont you... say something. Do I assume you're understanding what I'm saying?". I cant even look the guy in the eye, I've really got to buck up here! In terms of syllabus, we've completed cash flows (I think), and apparently in the second session today we did Valuation of Bonds. This basically entailed a decent description of what bonds are, what's their maturity etc. To my consternation, when I was copying the notes from the board (as were most of us), the prof casually remarked "Why are you copying all this? It's right in the textbook! I wouldnt be doing it if it werent in it!". Yes, I'd agree this is a bright red warning light. To him and us.

MPPO - This class is so much more like a novel. Full fundas, less science. Actually, more observational science than anything else, I'd presume. This is our first OB (Organizational Behaviour) course. I must say it's a little challenging (though very easy going on the inside) to try and apply this on the outside. We're talking mindsets of other people, not just ours. People aren't really under your control, what's the point of them having brains or an opinion for that matter. So even if I found that "This-and-this is what characterizes me", and that "This is what I can change in myself", getting other people to go through the same thing (especially my team) seems to be an entirely different matter. Sure, we have our problems now, but the lizard-brain in me thinks "What if this opens up a whole new set of problems, that we're not equipped to deal with?". When we deal with matters of emotion, we need to be more careful with it, since we're playing within a field who's limits we don't truly understand yet, and which is actually a very vulnerable and personal point for people in the team.

Having said that, the class is insightful at the least, and it's definitely a lot more relaxing after a hectic class of CorpFin. This week we studied the important of "Perception" and the "Jo-Hari window". Perception dealt with the aspect that people tend to project their umderstanding and experiences onto other people based on the life and behaviour that they have seen. They actually tend to associate a person with certain attributes (Openness, Social, Beauty, Leadership, Results, Optimism etc.) since the mind finds it easier to filter and optimally search through for a basic understanding of a person. As time passes, and we gain more knowledge, this level of perception might and probably should change to get a more accurate view. But it depends on how flexible the person is to change his/her perception. The second part "Jo-Hari window" is all about how giving and receiving feedback determines the kind of person we are. It is possible that in this kind of 2-vs-2 window, all four varieties seem to have their needs at certain times, but I felt that the expectation was to typically tilt more towards having a balanced form of "give" and "take" feedback. One tends to question if sometimes staying at the centre between two points is really the most effective, or if it is necessary to tilt towards either side depending on the circumstance.

I guess at the end of the day, it's knowing how to stay at the centre, when to move to the extremes and how to ensure you can always move between the extremes and the centre that's most important. Flexibility is gaining ground in today's world, and it seems obvious that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to all problems. Yes, I'll take my standing ovation now, thank you. :)

Quarter 4 - Week 1

Yes! Only three subjects this time!! Makes it seem like this quarter will be a breeze, or so we keep on wishing! While all this time, we've been studying basic stuff, this quarter meets us head-on! We have Corporate Finance (WOAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!), Operations Management (WOAAAAHHHHHH!!!!) and Managing People and Performance in Organizations (WOAAAHHHH!!!!). Three subject names that we take with awe! If someone asks me what I'm studying this quarter, I'm going to cock my head to a side and say "Oh, we're doing Corporate Fin.. (blah blah) ..nce in Organizations." and egoistically look at the other person's eyes open wide. Someone's getting cocky methinks..!

But you dont want to know how much of an ass I'm going to become, and you dont want me to waste a single line, leave alone a whole paragraph on it. So, why dont I just save my breath/keypresses and introduce you to the topics.

OperMan - Yes, I'm calling it OperMan even though the Operations prof asked us to say "OM". We had met this prof before, so we were quite comfortable around him. He brought in a balance of humour, discipline and candor. He started the first day saying we should read the required articles of the day, prepare a presentation and specifically mentioned that he didnt want a summary of the case in it, he wanted our insight. You'd think it was obvious, but considering how we'd like to think that "If you didnt say it, we ain't doing it", this put the writing in stone. He is also the first prof to bring in debate in our class. If someone makes a point, and someone else has a conflicting view, he gets them to talk to each other... right in class. Definitely interesting. The second session, we studied about processes and how we put them in place, what's the point of one etc. I'm not too big a fan of processes, let's see if he can convert my view like some of the other profs we've seen.

CorpFin - It's not my fault that this *somewhat* sounds like "coffin". This prof is a no-nonsense guy. Comes with simple black-and-white bulleted slides, says he isnt going to do a funny class since his sense of humour is almost dead, and says working too much with money can do that to you. Pretty much tells us that we better pay attention, this class needs a good amount of preparation and then with a deadpan expression, says something that was actually pretty darn funny. Reminds me of our Law prof. This prof talks a lot. In jargon. This was the first time I really understood where all these MBAs learn to talk in "keywords". (cool jargon) here, (cool jargon) there... if you lost track of what he was saying, you might as well give up and learn a foreign language. So everyone had their eyes on this guy (atleast the ones who werent sleeping) as he spoke to us about the role of a Financial Manager, what is the work involved, and then went on to something related to Net Present Values and Discounted Cash Flows. Yes, I know. My brain felt empty too.

MPPO - Not a very pretty name. But a pretty subject. Seemed to deal a lot more with "feelings" unlike the other subjects we've studied so far. The first session was an introduction to the subject, and some discussion on how people find it hard to make the turns from being an individual contributer to a manager, to a manager of managers etc. till an enterprise leader. Interesting sessions, with a few interesting stories. It seems that people actually find it hard to change from being an IC to a manager, purely because they dont understand that their job is not to DO, but to ENABLE. Takes time. The next day we discussed how people's personalities are shaped, and questions were raised (due to the topic of course) about why evidence points to the fact that people's personality traits seem inborn. The reading was about how twins raised apart, in very different environments, still exhibit similar likes and dislikes. The prof agreed that people CAN change, but that it requires a great deal of effort. We've even filled out some questionnaires that tell us what kind of people we are, and so on, so forth. Looks like it will be a discussion-oriented and practical-approach-based class.

All these subjects together have more books than any of the last quarters. Let's hope we're able to read everything up. In time. I, in any case,look forward to exploring another part of this "holistic" jungle. :)