It is official…I have moved.

Visit me at http://www.way2top.org or http://way2top.org.

This blog will remain as an archive, as a memory…and I will try to update this blog with ISB related news…

Please update your blogrolls with the new URL. I will do the same…Thanks for your continued support and I need them aplenty….

It’s painful and highly discomforting…Realization strikes only when things happen to self…Chikungunya is troubling me high time since Monday…Hoping to recover before Sunday…lots of work waiting me at work…

I have been pondering over this question for a while…”I am living in a rented house. When will I own a land, own a house?”

If you are thinking that I am referring the real estate in the real world, then you are wrong! I am referring to the real estate in the virtual world….

Researched quite a few Domain and hosting providers. Am fixated on one particular offering. It’s going to cost me quite some bucks…But I have made up my mind to purchase. Now, I am waiting for the right occasion and an opportune time..!

Though I was busy with work for last one week, I actually had some time to blog. But decided not to…Am kind of giving a break…

Lemme get my own real estate first…

PS: Ofcourse “A steel tear” is an anagram of “Real Estate”

My dear blog,

The decreased frequency and lack of focus/theme should be fairly concerning to you by now…! Sorry, I am not able to give enough attention to you…

1. Something more important is keeping me busy now-a-days…sucking up the energy and leaving me half-dead by the time I come back home. Work of course!

2. Incidentally, I have also acquired interest in ‘reading’ more and more blogs that are landing up in blogosphere. So decided to give some time to enjoy reading other blogs with the free time I have than writing stuff on my own. I will gather more ideas and make you strong soon…

3. The very thoughts of ‘not-making-posts’, ‘oh-no-the-traffic-is-dying’ and the associated guilt and pressure are least wanted by me for the next few weeks…

So, I just wanted to say that “I will be around, but cannot give attention to you as I did before…”

As is the nature of life, I will get free time soon and then I will completely revamp you, decorate you with stunning page designs, make you sparkle with insights, connect you with influential-interesting-insightful blogs and ofcourse will devote you my attention…aplenty..!

And yeah, you are nearing your 100,000th Visitor count…So just hang in there…I will treat you..!

Bear with your undisciplined friend for some time…but, I will give surprise visits to you sporadically…

Your’s truly,
Truly yours.

PS: I have tagged you correctly atlast, under ‘Diary’!

Business Summaries, Compressed Knowledge, Book Abstracts, Executive Book summaries…These are all names given to the ‘concept’ of providing a brief summary of the book. This business mainly preys on the need to “Save time yet manage to get the fundamentals behind the book”. There are two ways in which these summaries can be useful. First, you can read through the concepts and if you are only really interested you can buy the book to read in detail. Second, you can use the summaries as a form of ‘key notes from the book’ to revise the concepts of the book. Either way you save time. If the summary does not excite you, you don’t have to buy the book. Well, there are prefaces/book reviews/excerpts available in the market. But they are either ‘opinions of others’ or simply ‘a slice of the book’. The Business summary on the other hand is a condensed version of the book lacking the ‘judgement of the reviewers’ and ‘a peek into the best portion of the book’.

The market for Business summary is quite niche [Executives and Business people]. But it is slowly gathering popularity among student community too.

I perceive this Business summary as a way of uploading the knowledge of a “600 page book” into your brain by reading just 5-6 pages! Somewhat similar to how Neo learns to ride helicopters, fight jujitsu, kung-fu etc in the movie Matrix Just kidding.

Websites:
http://www.getabstract.com/ [Get Abstract]
http://www.bizsum.com/ [Business Summaries]
http://www.summary.com
http://www.elementk.com
http://www.execubooks.com

Get Abstract is offering Freakonomics here.

If you come across any more good Business summary websites or free downloads of Business summaries, please let me know.

Blogging has finally received the much needed attention in Television Media. Now more and more common people will be interested in knowing about blogs. The issue about blogs being blocked by ISPs will be resolved in days, weeks or at the most months time. But in the end, the real beneficiaries will be blogs and bloggers. Just imagine an entire 30 minutes being dedicated by a leading News channel to debate about this issue. All the time, some of the prominent blogs in India were constantly shown in the background. “India Uncut” being the prominent!

Since Blogsome was immune from these bans and blocks, I could not feel the discomfort faced by other fellow bloggers. But I could empathize their position. For me, blogging has become a part of my life. I cannot imagine life without it.

There are days during which I did not publish any post. But it can be attribued mainly to lack of ideas/content than to laziness. I think I have been a fairly regular blogger. In my opinion, consistent and frequently updated ‘web-logs’ are the result of ‘web-slog’ (Yet another new term and is an anagram by the way!)

During the Leadership Development program @ ISB, there was an exercise to deliver presentations about any topic. I chose the topic, “Blogging and ISB” when there were so many other topics to chose from. There was a blogging competition held by IIM Indore, where one needs to write about “Blogging and Viral marketing”. My article fetched first prize! Then, there was the “Torch-bearer award” which was given mainly for my blogging efforts than for other form of contributions. There were few more occasions when ‘blogging’ influenced my thought process. I started blogging as a hobby, then it became a habit, then it became an addiction…and I just hope it does not become an obsession.

Given this frame of mind, no wonder I was enraged about the blogs being blocked by ISPs. Thank god, my blog was not blocked. Otherwise, I think I would have participated even in the street-demonstrations…!

Today afternoon around 1 p.m., my superior approached me and asked, “Bharani, can you give a talk about our initiative to the India Leadership Team @ 4 p.m?”. I had to agree. I was excited about the fact of meeting 13 wise gentlemen who form the India Leadership Team (Managing Director and Directors of Business units, HR, admin etc.,) for the first time. I was also excited at the prospect of talking about the progress that we have made so far. It is an opportunity to gain visibility for my BU and self. I conjured up a PPT out of 4 different sources that existed at that point of time. I should call the final product a “Federated PPT” (new fancy term )

The big board room environment reminded me of the Apprentice Show! I did not know the names of some people in ILT. So I introduced myself and then asked each one of them to introduced themselves. I was expecting someone to introduce each person officially. But that did not happen. So took the initiative myself. (That was pretty bold when I reflect in the hindsight). I think the talk and the demo went on well. I made a note of few areas which needs cover up and few items which needs a touch of polish. The talk was more of a chance to get more buy-ins for the initiative. One thing is becoming more clear. That we have a very long way to go…

When there is an opportunity to enhance your visibility/position, give your best.

It was around 8:15 p.m. I don’t know what struck me, A bulb flashed in my right brain and I suddenly thought “Is there some smart soul who has already thought about a business of ‘Jargon Consulting’?..” You know, the business which will essentially create new jargons for these consultants (so that they can use them to impress their clients) or for analysts (who can use in their powerpoint presentations)…Never mind… So I open up the google search engine and carefully enter “Jargon consulting”. I click the first link that is displayed and an unpleasant looking page opens up with a topic “A tongue-in-cheek guide to business jargon and management buzzwords”. I shrinked my face initially. But, I totally enjoyed reading those descriptions for the next few minutes ..Awesome in my opinion

Totally tongue-in-cheek!

Watch out for the descriptions about buzzwords “High level”,”30,000 feet”, “wet-signature”, “wetware”…and the new catch word that I learnt was “re-purpose”!

On the lighter note, non-mba grads can actually try these jargons with their managers and see for themselves the weird reactions (Like “Oh man, I am buried…now there is no differentiation between us” )! Fun apart, this post is more of self-deprecating humour and I am in no way affecting the feelings of good and solid MBAs….So please hold your fingers back from typing counter-comments…and use that energy to play piano

The crux of this post is over. What follows is a post-script Stop reading at this point of time, if you have something important to accomplish…

It is infact true that I am also part of this ‘Jargon club’ and some of these jargons are coming naturally to me. I am sure it comes naturally for most management graduates. But some people overuse it and cross the boundary of acceptance thereby landing in the zone of annoyance. My quadie in ISB who was famous for jargons can share lot of gyaan on this

One of his creative phrases was “Unsustainable Uncompetitive disadvantage” [The opposite of Sustainable Competitive Advantage]. Try deciphering the meaning….”Jargon club” can actually be a nice-little enjoyable hobby…

1. Work-life balance.
2. Start up environment vs Corporate environment.

I want to maintain a work-life balance. This thought has become so ingrained in me that I am feeling a sense of guilt if I work hard (well, work long hours). I am busy and slowly extending my work hours without even realizing the passing of time. I am glad that way. But I am missing out on my hobbies and other activities. The books are slowly collecting dust. (As of now there is exactly 2.234 millimetres of dust…). I am not keen on watching movies on HBO/Star movies/laptop. Fitness centre has become a weekend affair. Room is not so clean anymore, as washing the clothes has become a weekend affair too. I am logging my daily activities to see where I can fit some activities/hobbies. As long as I have this sense of guilt, there is scope for work-life balance. The key for work-life balance is to maintain a high level of productivity during the 8 hours of work. Working towards that…

I was working in a start-up environment before ISB. There was very little bureaucracy. Things get done faster. But in Corporate environment, if you make a request, you have to expect that the other party will come back with a way to turn down the request. Then you have to employ your convincing skills to get past the first-level road-block. You can call yourself lucky if there are no further road-blocks. Things like getting PCs, purchasing softwares, hiring resources are also made inefficiently formal! For each decision you make, you need to pursuade so many other parties. Justify your actions. Sometimes, these things kill the initiatives. I am just adapting to the change. The problem is complicated because of the stagnation layer prevalent in big companies. The people in the stagnation layer might have been stars once, but they have stopped learning long back and are not stars anymore. They are getting paid for their past laurels, at the expense of new and raw workforce. Some of the organizational inefficienceis originates from the insecurity felt in this stagnation layer. When your team/BU is different from this ‘corporate’ environment, you have to face the threat of being labelled as “incompatible” or “rebels”. This threat is amplified when your “incompatible” approach looks promising to yield impressive results! Interesting…

I am also slowly building rapport. Investing time and energy on colleagues too.

The Business Unit is 40-50 strong. It is small compared to the size of other Business Units. The director of the group is pretty jovial, technically strong, broad-minded and informal. He has almost 20+ years of experience. I report directly to the director. The director reports to the Managing Director of the India centre. So,in a way I am only 2 levels from the top

I am given in-charge of an initiative. The initiative grew out of an organizational need. But gradually a vision to carve out a commercial product out of this initiative is emerging. Time will answer.

The initiative needs buy-in from higher levels. Fortunately, we do have buy-in at Vice-president level. That’s a big bonus for us. The initiative is not funded by the organization. So, the Business unit has to fund the initiative through its own budget. This currency constraint coupled with human-resource constraint is trying to drag the initiative down. So, we are undergoing the same emotions as entrepreneurs undergo while setting up a venture.

Activities performed by me: Research [Analysis of existing products in the market, Identifying the needs for the organization, Proposing the features to be implemented etc.,], Design and Architecture [Working with Technical leads to come up with Scalable, robust, component-oriented design], Requirements Analysis [Business Analysis for the first customer], Project management [Planning, Scheduling, allocation etc.,], Training and mentoring, Chairing tele-conferences to demo the product [High level people participate in the conference]…The Business Development part [Selling the concept to other business units/customers once the initiative takes shape] will come later, though it largely depends on the success of the initiative initially.

Though there are organizational red-tapes, I enjoy relatively more freedom and command [I am talking about the command of situation, resources I have, style I can follow etc.,] compared to many others in the organization. That part I am happy about.

I have joined at a level/grade which is normally given to people with 9-10 years of experience. That is a significant ladder-bypass for me.

Since I am working on the organizational initiative, I have some concerns in terms of not learning/mastering enough domain expertise relevant to my firm. I have made some plans to cover the weakness by utilizing the resources/facilities available within the organization. In few months time, things should take good shape.

One thing I would like to mention here is “Manage your expectations. Sometimes, what you expect might be vastly different from reality. Give some time before taking rash decisions. Patience is a virtue. If you leave the job, do so only after making sure that it is not for you.” Another point. “Just because your role is Strategy consultant/Business development, you are not necessarily insulated from project management or people management. The promised role will be given to you. But it will come as a part of package containing other mundane roles too.”

The problem about expectations can be published as a book in itself.

PS: A dialogue that I had about expectations some time ago…

Talk was about marriage…
Me: Dude, I don’t have high expectations.
Friend: So, why don’t you marry a girl from slum?
Me: I don’t have high expectations. But I do have expectations

Today early morning, around 3-4 a.m., there was an attempt of theft in the flat just opposite to where we live. Apparently, the house owner has gone to US for 3-4 months I guess. The thief has managed to break the big lock that was put up and even the main lock inbuilt in the door! We were actually awake till 2:30 in the morning. But we all were in to deep sleep by 2:45 a.m. Luckily, the flat owner who was living beneath us had heard some sound and went down and took Security person along to check out what’s happening. By the time they both reached the flat, the thief became alert and ran away. Now, none of us know what has been stolen…Now the people who live in the house have to spend the rest of their days in US with loads of tension…

Since hearing the news, I am disturbed a lot. I mean, what’s the point of all those ‘more security in apartments’ argument. Thiefs do notice the empty houses and attack it. Safety is in our hands…But, no matter how much external security we have, if our time is not good, we can become a victim.

I think we should seriously consider shifting the apartment. There were rumours that this particular locality is prone to thefts. Now, it is not rumours anymore. There should be peace of mind as far as safety is concerned. Once that is disturbed/threatened, then it is very difficult to convince myself from not shifting the house. And we have invested bit heavily..that gives us extra concern…! OK, we all are bachelors and are awake late in the night..but what if all 3 leave for the weekend…I think we should deploy traps like the kid in ‘Home alone’ does!!!

Safety…is a deception.

Cycling…

Whenever I go to fitness centre (I have visited fitness centre only 30-40 times totally in my life), my legs take me automatically to the cycling equipment. I just love pedalling…After seeing lance armstrong and the way he beautifully pedals in a rocking motion, I have developed a liking to cycling…rather pedalling…

I normally set a target. Say 10 kms. Every time, I will try to beat my previous performance. The latest is 10 kms in 17.3 minutes at difficulty level 4. It’s always easy to reach 2-3 kilometers. It is the middle portion which is tough to sustain. You will feel like giving up…That’s when, my prestige takes over…”What the F#@*, be a man…”!!! Then, I pedal…pedal…look sideways…look up…look at my own image in the mirror…murmur to myself..”I can..I can..” After some time, I will stablize..Then, legs will begin to hurt… feel a sense of bulging on thighs…on the calf muscles…sweat pouring like heavens from your head…Finally, when I reach the target, automatically the smile emerges on the face…the victorious smile…! A sense of achievement…:) For that short duration of time, I am Lance Armstrong…no one can take that perception away from me…!

Only when I plant my foot on the ground will I realize that taking even a single step is going to be a herculean task…Not ready to show the tiredness, I just stylishly lean on to the nearby support (wall, equipment or some god damn thing!) as if I am posing to a photographer……and wait until I sense that I can walk normally…man, I am weak yet I am strong…it’s all in the mind…

But there are all kinds of people who come to fitness centre…6 feet vertically or 5 feet horizontally or 7 feet circumferentially! People with huge biceps roughly the size of my thighs! (Well that’s an exaggeration..Let me correct it…actually the biceps are bigger than my thighs!) Fat-burners…muscle-builders…People who lift all the weights in one stretch and people who lift just the bar…diversity at its best…

I always use to wonder, everyone wants to spend calories when they come to gym…basically give away the excess calories..why not convert those calories to something useful…say electricity! Say, you pedal…so connect the wheel to a generator through a conveyor belt and efficiently convert the energy to electricity…the more electricity i generate, the more I feel like Shah-rukh-khan of Swadesh! Same applies to all the equipments…Anyone interested in a good business plan? please feel free to implement it..no royalties please

Man, I am so happy today…because after 15 months…I spent the complete 8 hours in work only for work!!! so, just letting my fingers type whatever it wants…

10:15 p.m. Not much traffic on the road. I was walking back to my room after purchasing some food stuff. An autorickshaw fled past me. I felt a sensation of something being sprayed on my body. Since it was dark, I could not realize what it was. When I closely observed, I saw dark droplets spread all over my right hand and pants. They were ink drops. I looked around and saw a plastic ink bottle lying on the ground, completely deformed in shape, literally road-rolled. Those ink drops are not something that goes away. The ink is meant for ballpoint pens. I was so enraged…that I shouted…”S..H…I..T..”! on the empty road and it echoed in the empty roads…By this time, the autorickshaw had already transformed into a mini-dot in the distant…

I was so pissed off by the thought that my pants have become useless…I blamed my friend for bringing me along with him to the shop inspite of my resistance…I blamed the autorickshaw for driving on the bottle…I blamed the person who threw the bottle on the road…I blamed the corporation worker for not doing the clean-up job properly…Blame, Blame, Blame was all I did…The more the parties I tried to blame, the more I was enraged…I was atleast lucky that I was wearing an old T-shirt…

Only when I came to my room did I realize that I did not kick the bottle away from the road..Now, I am responsible for someother good pant getting spoilt…and I will be part of somebody else’s blame…! Next time, I will try to maintain calm and see how I can control the damage…and when will all our citizens co-operate to maintain the cleanliness in public places is a question that needs to be answered…and thought upon…

PS: I bought the pants only 20 days ago…I tried to clean the pants..but to no avail.

1. Post my profile in TeluguMatrimony.com [With a very short-and-sweet description, no photos uploaded, no horoscopes uploaded]

2. Explain the Online matrimonial facility to my parents and the benefits associated with it. Impressed with such a facility available in net, they pursue me to add more details. I even ended up paying Rs.1750/= to acquire the paid-benefits of the matrimonial site [Like sending personalized message, password-protecting the photograph etc.,]. Can’t believe it!

3. Go through the profiles matching my preferences. The most important filtering being “Search profiles who has put up photographs”!! Later, I realized that most of the people who put up photographs have published a well-crafted, studio-quality photographs. The bright-white teeth, the angel-like glow behind the hair and extremely fair face (a closer analysis will reveal the huge contrast between the hand color and the face color!) makes you wonder “How come everyone is so beautiful”??

4. Wait for someone to contact me. You know, the typical Why-should-I-make-the-first-move thought. Fed up with the dismal response rate, I begin to analyze the reasons…

5. Decide to search for profiles without photographs. I learn to patiently read the description written by the parents/friends/siblings. It turns out that genuinely interested people do not publish the photographs (or atleast password-protect the photographs).

6. Decide to make the first move. Express the interest to the newly found profiles and wait for response.

7. Decide to publish my photograph and put up my salary figure. Within 24 hours, the response rate improves dramatically. Agency problems??

8. All the while, I forgot about the Horoscope compatibility. I cannot seek the service of a Purohit each time to match the horoscopes nor can I learn the astrology overnight. Think…Think…Finally, I find an online Horoscope matching service which does a good job of matching.

9. Match the horoscopes of profiles to decide whether to proceed further or not. The service gives a score on a 36 scale. Minimum of 18 points is needed for horoscope to be compatible. If the points is 30+, then the match is excellent! But the score is not just enough..There are more checks like Manglik dosha, Nadi dosha, Masala dosha, Paper dosha etc.,!!! If there is any one dosha, then even if you have a score of 36 out of 36, the horoscopes are certified as incompatible! [A small fact, 46%-53% of people in the world are Mangliks]. Manglik dosha is the result of Mars positioning himself/herself in some specific squares in horoscope. Now is this what is meant when someone say “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”…Juz Kidding

10. It turns out that 5 out of 8 profiles that were up for matching are incompatible.

11. I get more responses [both response to my responses and fresh proposals]. The horoscope funneling eliminates the responses!

12. A close friend suggests to remove the salary figure and put the photograph (password-protected). Also, a few modifications in the description. I follow the same.

13. Two prospects have been contacting me since then. Also, they received a score of 33 out of 36 in horoscope compatibility test! One prospect asked me to meet the brother of the girl in hyderabad! Scared by the thought of being interviewed mercilessly by a stranger and by the speed at which events were taking place, I decided not to respond. I will let my parents do the initial talking.

14. One profile caught my attention, but for one thing. The HEIGHT! She was 170 cms. I remember my height as 169 cms. I wanted to confirm my height badly…I even bugged my flat mates to help me in measuring my height!! At that moment, I was complaining to god for being vertically challenged Anyway, I don’t want to end up as the shorter one after the marriage! So, with heavy heart had to let go that profile…and updated my preferences to reflect the height…

15. After few cycles, the preferences have evolved and many confusions are cleared. I have even come up with a bank of questions to ask whenever I get a chance to meet a prospect! There is also a document of “things that I would like to do for my life-partner” so that I can impress her in the future…you see, the problem of seeing too many Tam/Hindi love movies

16. Now comes the anti-climax. It turns out that my preferences have narrowed my choices way too much. Caste, Place, Education, Career, Height, Looks…etc.,

17. Totally confused and frustrated by the futility of the online search with such a preference, I finally decide to not log into matrimony site anymore. Atleast not for the next 1 month. As I was not lucky enough to find a life-partner on my own so far, I will leave the job to my parents…provided my preferences are satisfied. It’s going to be a long-drawn process…that’s for sure and it better take time, as it is a question of life…!

Only take-away: I got to meet/interact with 2-3 new people. It was great to know about their interests and ambitions in life.

For a brief period, there was a great interest to get married and settle in life fast..Now, the interest has died down (is gradually dying down..)…With the excitement and fun away, it’s time to kick-some-mighty-a** in work The momentum is finally picking up at work front…

PS: There was a big dilemma whether to publish this or not…Question of excitement vs consequence…finally, excitement prevailed…hope I am not wrong….

I have a feeling that, for past few months, I am leading a very cushy cushy life, without facing any major struggles to fight with or any major obstacles to overcome. May be this is due to the positive attitude that is growing day-by-day or May be because life has been really been kind on me….

Deep down, I want to struggle…I want to face difficulties…In the past, when I faced difficulties and when I had major challenges to face with, and I overcame those, I felt COMPLETE. Each time I overcome the obstacles, I felt the growth within me…

I thought I got a small set of wings out…but not quite so…God, I want to struggle more….and get the wings out of my cocoon….and finally fly high…May be it’s time that I start working towards my long term goal…earlier than I planned to start…

My heartbeat…instead of “LUB DUB….LUB DUB” is “TAKE RISK… TAKE RISK”

Guest House: (May 8th)

3 Wipro guys in front of me..all freshers…introduce themselves to me…I introduce myself…and theres comes the word “ISB”…the looks on their faces change…a mark of respect emerges….from then on whatever I say, they listen with silence….with attention…They want to know more about ISB…a lot…they have already started GMAT Preparation…!!!

Guest House: (May 11th)

New set of people come to Guest house (Google guys). This time, I don’t do anything…The Wipro guys convey that I am from ISB…”He is from I..S..B..”!!

Convergys: (May 16th)

Some of my colleagues come to me (freshers)…talk with me…want to know more about ISB…”Bharani, We would like to sit with you and want to listen to your experiences about ISB someday..”. “How much score should I get in GMAT?”…and the list goes on..They see me with respect…talk to me with regard…I would definitely help them out in whatever way possible…of course nothing is official…

Convergys: (June 8th)

A new person joins our team. We kind of introduce ourselves. This time, I don’t say that I am from ISB…After quite some time, he comes to know that I am from ISB..”Oh…you are a product of ISB…? great!”. The look on his face changed to some kind of respect….

Convergys: (June 15th)

Induction program…I introduce myself…mention that I am from Indian School of Business….The looks on the faces of people changes….they pay more attention to what I say…I infered from couple of coffee chats with some of those people that they wanted to work with the team which has grads from ISB! Some people already are planning to prepare GMAT!! They say, “Who better than you to give gyaan about MBA courses…we would like to hear from you about that sometime..?”…

Man, this kind of respect triggers a kind of ‘nashaa’…It’s a good feeling..but should not fall for it…it is very tricky…the expectation on me is higher…They would like to see some magic from me…that kind of pressure is too much…I sometimes think, “Oh man, they think I am a superman…what if i screw up this?”…May be I am disillusioned…but there are more evidences to support that it is not disillusion, but a genuine expectation dilemma…

The last 2 years of impressive placement performance and the incredible media coverage executed by ISB this year has made sure that ISB is known as a big brand…reputed brand…ISB brand is growing…at a rapid pace…

Similar to “Burden of command”, this is called “Burden of ISB”!!! People judge the quality of ISB based on quality of you…if you are really good, then perception about ISB goes up…but if you are not that good, perception about ISB goes down…atleast among the people who observe you daily…

Now I know why some IIT guys and IIM guys move around with a shield around them….and don’t even talk to some people from tier 2 colleges…it’s because of this ‘Nashaa’…it’s because of this “Power of association with a great institution”….I am hoping that my humility will not let me down and help me to walk with a level-head. This ‘realization’ should keep me on my toes and help me to perform well…

It is hardly 45 days since I joined the firm and I am taking session in the induction program for freshers…Well, had to cover for a person who was supposed to take the session…

It’s very refreshing to see fresh graduates straight out of the college, with a great amount of enthusiasm and interest gleaming in their eyes. They don’t have any idea about how the organization works and how the teams function. But they want to do some geeky things. Develop great software. Make big bucks. Buy gadgets. Do lot of things….When they join the organization they are like babies. At this stage, their learning curve is very steep and they absorb concepts/ideas/techniques in large amounts. They are clean from organizational politics. I liked interacting with them…REFRESHING….

My colleague who accompanied me explained to the freshers about lot of fun things that happens in our BU. Overall, we projected our Business Unit as THE PLACE to work in the organization…That’s a big deal given the fact that we did not even had any PPT’s to present!

Another incentive for taking sessions for freshers is that you can check out some smart girls….and if you want, do a little bit of fun ragging as well (But we didn’t!). A funny incident. Since we were the 5th Business unit to present, we did not want the freshers to go through another round of boring introductions! But at the same time, the curious harmones in us wanted to know the name of some girls….So I began asking, “Is there a person in this room who knows every person by name?”. Not even a single hand raised! Luckily, a person from the last bench raised his hand. I said, “Give him a big hand, it’s a commendable thing.” After a brief applause and making sure that he felt happy about the achievement (no sarcasm here, it’s very tough to remember the names of many strangers at once), my colleague interrupted, “Wait, I don’t believe you..Tell me the name of the person here” (Pointing to the girl)!…The cycle continued until we knew what we wanted to know!

Fun apart, I proposed to my superior that myself and my two colleagues will be taking all the induction sessions in future (about our Business unit). With the rate of expansion that is happening, I guess there will be induction sessions every fortnight or even week! Nice exercise to spend the time….until we hit the 100% utilisation rate…

1. Reply to emails as soon as possible. I normally reply aptly for emails. But for past few months, I have acquired an “email fatigue”, so much that my responsiveness has come down significantly. For some mails I want to give a very thoughtful and honest reply, because of which I keep postponing them. Time to break this syndrome…Replies from me would be apt from now on…But I have to clear the backlog first.

2. The pressure to positively represent ISB in all my activities is creating undue pressure. Sometimes, this comes across as arrogance I believe…Just do what comes naturally to you, you will be fine. The paper certificates should not give you over-confidence. It should just give you absolute confidence. Watch it and adjust dude!

3. Participate in some Social initiative.

4. Watch the weight. I have hit 70 kgs mark. Need to stop further weight addition. Joining the fitness centre is good start but continuing it is the challenge…Discipline…Show some discipline…

5. Call some friend daily and talk. I just browse through the phone book and pick up a friend to call everyday. Maintain it….

Couple of websites I would like to talk about…

www.bharatbloodbank.org: A “Corporate social Responsibility” initiative by BharatMatrimony.com. Since one of my colleague’s father is undergoing open-heart surgery, she was seeking for blood donors. We received a suggestion from one of the employees to check out this website. I registered and found that significant number of people have registered as donors and there are donors from many parts of India. I am sure there are other websites available for blood donation, but I was impressed with the service.

www.dhamma.org: Vipassana Meditation website. Vipassana is one of India’s ancient mediation techniques. This organization is driven by Mr. S.N. Goenka. This organization runs 10-day courses throughout the year, during which the participants will learn the art of meditation and practice it rigorously. There are no charges for this course. Yes, it is absolutely FREE. They will provide you accommodation, food and will take care of your entire stay. But you have to follow the guidelines and timetable that is instituted. During the 10-days, you should not communicate with any other person in the course, not even communication through body language [Using mobile phone is out of question!]. See yourself the course schedule to understand the rigour of the course.

THE COURSE TIMETABLE
The following timetable for the course has been designed to maintain the continuity of practice. For best results students are advised to follow it as closely as possible.

4:00 a.m.———————Morning wake-up bell

4:30-6:30 a.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or your own room

6:30-8:00 a.m.—————-Breakfast break

8:00-9:00 a.m.—————-GROUP MEDITATION IN THE HALL

9:00-11:00 a.m.—————Meditate in the hall or your own room

11:00-12:00 noon————–Lunch break

12noon-1:00 p.m.————–Rest and interviews with the teacher

1:00-2:30 p.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or your own room

2:30-3:30 p.m.—————-GROUP MEDITATION IN THE HALL

3:30-5:00 p.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or your own room

5:00-6:00 p.m.—————-Tea break

6:00-7:00 p.m.—————-GROUP MEDITATION IN THE HALL

7:00-8:15 p.m.—————-Teacher’s Discourse in the hall

8:15-9:00 p.m.—————-GROUP MEDITATION IN THE HALL

9:00-9:30 p.m.—————-Question time in the hall

9:30 p.m.———————Retire to your own room–Lights out

Huh!

Some of my colleagues have/are going to this course. They have very good words to say about this course. They say “I am mentally clear….and have absolute peace of mind”. Why did I write about this course, because my superior believes that taking a 10-day break for this course brings lot of productivity gain to the individual..and he recommends everyone to go through this course…Well, after seeing the schedule, I cannot make up my mind as of now…but definitely will try it sometime..This course might be an answer for what some of you might be searching for…”Away from the outer world, deep into your own world”!

The following ad caught my attention today morning…Nah, not for the job opportunties , but for the brief description of roles…ads for MBA roles in IT are very rare…and this ad neatly summarized 5 different possibilities for MBA grads from leading institutes…So journalizing…

http://www.polaris.co.in/new/about_us/hr_ad.html

Business Analyst
Close coordination with customers and project teams to understand, analyse and translate customer requirements in BFSI domain; test and validate requirements; actively participate in pre-sales activities.

Program Management
Planning, monitoring and control of multiple projects; continuous mangament reporting on financials, resources and risk; proactive identification of issues timely escalation and tracking.

Solution Architect
Articulating, architecting, planning & developing technical specification for end-to-end content delivery strategies, helping define strategies, roadmaps & implementation plans.

Business Development/PreSales
Strategising and winning new engaments within high technology clients; pre-sales activity across opportunities from various geographies in BFSI domain; active interation with prospects, building proposals and presentations, participate in contract negotiations and finalisations.

Subject Matter Expert
Understand and acticulate business needs, translate business requirements to implementable solutions; build competencies in BFSI domain; analyse industry trends and identify suitable offerings; demonstrate domain compentencies in customer interactions.

In general, the boundaries are not clearly defined..One can see, a person performing tasks covered under more than one topic…

Took a day off on Friday and went home to Chennai.

Received a bonanza gift from my brother for my B-day. Most Expensive, greatest gift I have received so far! Nokia N-91…Wow!!! Still exploring the never-ending list of features….What a brother I have..:) On the other hand, with a heavy heart, I am relieving my Nokia 3310 from the service (served well for 4.5 years)!

It feels like only yesterday that I was dunked in ISB pool…but one year has gone very fast…

On the books front, completed reading “Maverick” and “Search”. Enjoyed reading both…”Maverick” was unconventional stuff..I admire the guy Ricardo Semler..”Search” gives lot of insights about Search Engines and talks in detail about Google’s success story…I have lined up few more books in my reading list…“Liar’s poker”, “Sea biscuit”, “The Argumentative Indian”. Convergys Library has procured some new books. Few of them look interesting…So, my eyes will be busy for next few weeks.

On the Movies front, Watched two 80’s movies. AlPacino’s “Dog Day Afternoon” and Michael Keaton’s “Gung Ho”. “Gung Ho” in particular should be featured in the management movie list (Am not sure if it is). Nice movie about Cross-cultural conflicts [American-Japanese]. Watching “The DaVinci Code” is going to be a dream for some more time…[Banned in Andhra and TamilNadu].

When I came back to hyderabad, I was taken back when I saw a brand new “ONIDA OXYGEN 29 TELEVISION” in my apartment in hyderabad. Three cheers to Vickie-the-clickie for purchasing it…Watching football on the 29 inch flat screen would be awesome! Wimbledon, Tour De France, India-West Indies cricket series are also lined up for the next 1-2 months…

PS: Will write about my role in Convergys in the next post…

Proud display of some of our efforts! More “nice-to-haves” to follow in the days to come…We have fallen in love with home that we are not feeling like going to office…!

A message from a very good friend that disturbed me a lot….I know this chap very well…Damn good guy…He recently took up a significant challenge….and is determined to achieve his ambition….his father’s ambition….and all of a sudden this incident….God tests good people a lot…

I badly want this guy to succeed in his mission…

Just see the foot message…tells a lot about his character…

“….My Father passed away on the 8th of this April because
of stomach cancer.Couldn’t inform at that time as I
was/am totally devastated.

PS: For those of you who stay away from parents & who
don’t visit their parents frequently,a complete health
checkup for them atleast once in 2/3 yrs would help
immensely….”

Giks and myself began the last weekend with a mission to set up the home. Over the next 40 hours, we completed many of the tasks in our TODO list. We explored quite a few places. By Sunday evening, the process of purchasing became mechanical. Find the shop which sells the item in need. Learn the price range. Know your BATNA (Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement). Explore few more shops. Negotiate with the BATNA in mind. Get a new BATNA. By 4th or 5th iteration, we would reach the optimal price level. Complete the deal. Give the address to the shop owner for transporting the item. Get on with the next item….

Seeing the brand new items and installation people walking in to our apartment every 1-2 hours, our neighbours should have been wondering a lot!

PS: I just tallied the accounts. Realized that I spent Rs.4500 for sleeping items alone! [Cot, Mattress, Pillows, Bedsheet, Pillow cover, Quilt]. Well, I now have a comfortable setup to sleep…I really fell asleep within moments…which is a bit unusual for a ‘thinking…thinking’ person like me!

Saw the movies “Pink Panther” and “Poseidon” in the last couple of weekends. Pink Panther was quality fun and Steve Martin has done a splendid job. Poseidon, well, should have been renamed as “Upside down”! The whole concept was mentally challenging. How will it be if the environment around you is vertically inverted? The movie was non-stop action. But beyond a certain point, I started losing interest. Didn’t impress me much.

I am racing against time to complete the book “The Da Vinci Code”, so that I can watch the movie with the novel in my mind. I missed out the experience of watching a movie after reading the novel/book with “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy. Anyway, I started reading the book on monday night and am half-way through. Man, I love the mystery presented and the way it unfolds. Add to the mystery some dark concepts, Controversial revelations and the elements of the genius Da Vinci, you have a perfect recipe for a great novel…

I want to watch the movie for the experience (Movie-after-novel), the beautiful actress Audrey Tautou and ofcourse the oscar-studded Tom Hanks. Of course, the movie will not have any suspense for me..but that’s fine.

Eagerly waiting for the weekend to arrive…

ps: btw, “THE CANDID VOICE” (the title of the post) is an anagram of “THE DA VINCI CODE”

Since my ‘luxury’ period in the guest house was over, I had to finally move to the apartment in Srinagar Colony. I shifted my things to the flat and headed to office. I purchased a set of bed, pillow and bedsheet the day before and kept in the apartment. When I came back in the night, it struck me that there is not even drinking water in home. All that was available were copious rooms, fans, tubelights and empty cup-boards! It was awkard to sleep in such an empty house! My flatmates would be joining me little later.

There are list of things to do over the next few days

- Get the house cleaned once more.
- Get the Cable connection.
- Install the television and DVD Player
- Get the Gas connection.
- Get the Broad band connection.
- Interview and finalize maid (!)
- Subscribe to newspaper
- Subscribe to milk.
- Subscribe to mineral water.
- Buy a study table and chair
- Buy fridge
- Buy washing machine (?)
- Buy iron
- Buy sofa sets and chairs
- Buy a good 2.1 speaker set.
- Buy cooking utensils, cooker etc.,
- Buy curtains.
- Buy some plants to grow indoor (!)
- Buy TV table.
- Buy a Cot (I prefer sleeping in the floor with the bed..so will take a call on this)
.
.
.

Huh, the list is not stopping…Of course, the common expenses will be shared. After 4 years of comfortable life-style, I simply cannot imagine living without the above basic facilities. Regarding the car/bike, will postpone the purchase until I get my driving licence and save some moolah!

I did not explore HITEC city when I was in ISB. All I had seen was the CYBER TOWERS, which does not reflect the magnitude of the HITEC city.

There are so many buildings in HITEC city. Some of them have beautiful contemporary designs. Lot of new buildings coming up…Latest addition would be from Dell.

As the guest house accommodates people from various organizations, I had opportunities to interact with them.

One of them was from Google. Google hyderabad is recruiting for its “Adwords” and “Adsense” program - for technical development and content monitoring. He said, the female-to-male ratio in Google is 80-20!! There are 600 employees in Google currently. Which means there are 480 girls! The men who join the company are keenly watched at and commented by the girls! High probability for Adam-teasing! Google is known for its culture. One among that is unlimited supply of food. Be it comprehensive buffet/snacks ranging from exotic cookies to indian samosas/wide variety of coffee and tea, Google is among the best when it comes to appetite . So naturally many of the Google employees are obese Convergys does a good job on that front too…Breakfast/lunch/supper/dinner are available everyday for a monthly fee of Rs.150/=. That’s not bad…If they provide a bed and shower, a person can stay here permanently

I met some guys from Wipro. I also met a person who has significant work experience. He has IIT-IIM combo as educational qualification. 8+ years of work experience. Working as Project manager. Couldn’t interact much with him…

I also interacted with a German. He joined me in the dining table. Only two of us were there. He was all cocky…to be honest. In spite of my best effort to grab his eye contact, he was looking everywhere except towards me. Finally he looked at me…and I smiled After exchanging few pleasantries, I began the conversation…”So, Germany is all set for hosting the world cup?”…That was enough to energize him…He was so proud to talk about Germany hosting the world cup…and then suddenly he took a jibe…”It’s a pity that India, with a billion plus population, does not even figure in the world cup football…”. “Forget about Football, not even in olympics…”. “Even in cricket they were 4th or 5th in rankings sometime back..”…He was going on and on….I gave my justifications…corruption, lack of transparency, red-tape, unfit politicians…everything…and how things are getting in right track…Well, Whatever he said was true…but I would not complain about the other person’s country when I meet someone for the first time…I could have countered, but he didn’t stop…”Indians also don’t have a good body frame. They don’t have broad shoulders. They are short. They don’t have balance between education and sports. blah..blah…”. All the while he was surveying my body frame and my shoulders His eyes sparkled. He was speaking as if he just came after obtaining Ph.D in India!! I mentioned about my visit to germany, munich, the beer hall, the black forest etc., all nice things…and I didn’t even mention about my visit to Concentration camp, as I thought the very word “Concentration camp” might upset him…I finally asked him one question..”So, What do you like in India and why have a captive centre in India?”. He was momentarily taken back….My eyes sparkled….While he was very generous in complaining…I could not find the same generosity in praising!!! Well…so much for trying to strike a conversation with him…Heard about the aggressive nature of germans….but witnessing for the first time Finally “Nice meeting you…I am leaving tonight”..I replied, “Nice meeting you too…have a pleasant journey back home…”

Recently, a phenonmenon swept over chennai and many parts of Tamil Nadu. The “Vazha meenu, vilanga meenu” phenomenon. The song, the picturization, the singer and the choreography took “Gaana Ulaganathan” to the cloud nine in a short span of time. He was iconized with a single song. Now, he has started endorsing products and services! He is endorsing for “BSNL - one India scheme”. He has modified the same song with which he became popular for this ad. The song goes like this…

“Sada phonukkum cell phonukkum oru rooba…
Kashmirukkum kanyakumarikkum oru rooba….
One India…One India…BSNL One India….”

With the look-alike of malavika shaking her hips and hands rhythmically in the background…Even “Thalaivar Thimingalam” is featured

BSNL seems to know the pulse of people.

PS: People who haven’t seen the song and the ad cannot appreciate this post…

Joined the Firm. Met with entire BU team. First impression is good. I don’t have anything to complain and I am happy about that. In fact, my immediate superior has built some hype about me I guess…I am just trying to ‘manage’ and bring down the expectations…”Hit” the ground running sounds good in paper. But in reality, it’s not that easy…There are simply so many things to know before I can be 100% productive…

It was tough to sit for 8 whole hours on day 1. It will be a while before I am comfortable with the ‘work’ mode. My work timings are 11 a.m to 8 p.m. The mornings will be more relaxed for me! The traffic will be less during the time I travel.

The guest house that I am staying in currently is very good. The room is VERY big. The breakfast, lunch, dinner everything comes to my room…

About the house hunt….After looking at some apartments, I have decided to settle in an apartment in Srinagar colony (The apartment is owned by my batchmate in ISB). The place will be convenient for travel (shuttle services provided by firm stops near the flat). There are quite a few restaurants, departmental stores, food world and hospitals surrounding the apartment. Ofcourse, the hyderabad central is just 2-3 km away. I am yet to find the fitness centre…Will find one. The best part is the rent. It’s a 3 bedroom flat and the rent is 40-50% lower than the nominal rates here. That’s because the flat belongs to our batchmate .

PS: I am planning to get an internet connection in home soon. I will try to blog more after that…Once the actual work starts, I think I will be able to blog only in the weekends.

Yesterday, I downloaded the video that my brother took on Camcorder during the graduation day. He patiently captured the entire procession starting from dean till the end (The procession from ISB building to the hangar). When I look at it now, it is a definite treasure. Thanks a ton bro

My town (Manali new town) is boycotting elections citing various reasons including non-distribution of land certificates and house certificates, lack of proper roads etc., The Association of the town has submitted their decision to the collector. So no election campaigns, no posters…no indications whatsoever that there is election around….!

The Chief Minister will be visiting a nearby town on April 27th. So the PWD is busy laying damn new roads all the way from thiruvottiyur through ennore to the place called Ponneri. You should look at the speed at which the work is progressing…It will put even the most productive country in the world to shame! Is this because the local MLA wants to pacify Chief minister or a need for conveninent travel for chief minister or form of election campaign? Anyway, people are just going to use the road without thanking anyone…Well, why should they? It’s the job of government….A layman’s comment was interesting…”Why is Amma (Chief minister is fondly called so) laying roads now? She is stupid…She shouldn’t be doing it now…”!

I have been reading books and solving sudoku. I have this habit of reading multiple books simultaneously. I have covered 70-90 pages on 4 books…This helps my big-picture thinking…managing with multiple topics…! When I take the same book again, I take time to summarize what I read so far…helps to crystallize the learnings…

Tipping point is definitely interesting…Worth reading once. As far as, Lance’s story, I knew it before, but his writing style is truly inspiring and gripping…World is Flat has been interesting so far…But having been bombarded with loads of MBA related articles, the book seems repetitive/redundant…nothing new. Art of innovation is interesting….

3 of the 4 books talk about word-of-mouth. I am writing about books in the blog. The books talk about blogs! It may be a coincidence but a striking one!

I have a request from readers. Would like to hear from the readers on how they choose which books to read (where they get recommendations from?), how they read the book? (Speed, style of reading, pattern of reading etc.,) how they jot down the learnings? etc., Will be interesting to see the thinking process behind…

Am off the place for the weekend. Will get back on monday….

Bought 4 books and borrowed three books from a friend.

Argumentative Indian
Lance Armstrong - It’s not about the bike
Alchemist
Seabiscuit
World is Flat
Tipping point
Art of Innovation

Journal for myself:
Applied - Fit Analysis in progress - But I speculate that the chances are bleak. Either way it’s ok for me. Am glad that things will remain the same no matter what the outcome is…And, the important part is that the load is off my heart and I can look further….

I have decided to blog about the following things:

My interests - This will change according to time [Blogs, Books, Fitness (I developed a brief love with this activity when I was in belgium, planning to continue), Inspirations from various sources (!), and whatever comes as I go]
My life [Interesting happenings in my life, my perspectives about different things, etc.,]
MBA & Information Technology [Not much information is available about opportunities available for MBAs in IT..I will try to explore the opportunities and present it…I am relying on the army of IT guys from my batch who are heading to various companies as a source of information]
ISB [My alma mater (for a week now!)…which I have strong affection for]

Quite a few of my dad’s friends and relatives have been asking my dad, “Is your son the one who received that 1.04 crore salary?” The cheap and best, mass-newspaper “Deccan chronicle” has done a good job in publicising about ISB in this part of the remote world…Even, the same people who were asking “Why are you paying 15 lakhs for ISB, while you can get MBA from IGNOU for Rs.12,000″ are finding rationale for my choice over ISB …People want to see only the fruits…not the labour that goes in growing the tree! Another comment…”If he is taking such a risk, then he would definitely know it’s worth it…I never doubted it” Interesting insights…oops…hind-sights!

Since the PC in my home was almost 6 years old and failing frequently…set-up a brand new assembled box. It’s fast! Should get the Broad-band soon before I leave for hyderabad. I have also started my hunt for good house (for purchase)…Am in the process of identifying my needs and associated parallel research…

I subscribed to the RSS feed of all known ISB-2007 blogs. Very interesting to read the posts…The current batch is more active than we were…Go on guys, ride on the momentum..You all have one definite reader in me The RSS-reader software is a bliss for dial-up homes like mine….

Two people I turn towards for advice…

One I have known very well…rare kind to find in real life…gem!
Other, I have known through virtual medium….not met in real life…but somehow have confidence to turn for advice…But real nice person…so much by spending 40 minutes by calling me from UK….Thanks a lot…

I should say talking with these two has helped me a lot…

In the mean time, I have started loving list of things…God of small things, Short term goals, Compact Flash card, small-scale industries, Storage bits…

Finally, watching the climax of a Tam movie yesterday, gave me a flash of insight..and cleared the fog in mind…State of Crystal clear is bliss!

Pardon my cryptic post…Want to journal the happening but don’t want to make things explicit.

I spent the past few days by sleeping blissfully and eating good home-made food. Apart from that I haven’t been doing anything significant.

I have been living in my hometown for nearly 27 years. I have never felt bad about my place, even though there were many problems and I was aware of those. But now, I am feeling disadvantageous for living so out of the city. This place is good for people to settle down finally….But not for people who are so full of energy and at the stage of life where they want to explore things.

Yesterday, had a small meeting with Chennai Admits (around 5). I travelled almost 2 hours to reach the destination. The main incentive for me was to meet my friends while meeting the admits.

Almost all of my friends have cars and live in good posche areas. I had some strange feelings about the same…about being the odd-man out…! Anyway, these things can be bought out anytime…it’s the human relationships which is tough to obtain…

As expected, my parents started the talks of Marriage. I put the topic down by saying, “I am so undecided now. Let me settle with my job for 3-4 months. Then, we will see…”. There are some things in life, which you cannot discuss openly with everyone. I am facing exactly one such thing. I have never faced such a situation in my life….I am hoping that things smoothen out….

I am also in the process of transitioning the blog to next phase. Thinking about themes to follow. I have some things in mind. Will update soon….Blogging is one of my favourite hobbies. Will continue that at any cost….

The last 4 days took me through Multitude of emotions…Happiness, excitement, fulfillment, anxiety, sentiments and I also went through some riveting moments, which are deeply bolted into my heart…

I spent last 15 days with just an average of 5 hours of sleep per day. Partying and having fun hard! Outings for movies, dinner, coffee, icecream or ordering food from outside or playing “need for speed”/volleyball or playing cards or simply lying down and thinking about the ‘rocking’ year.

We had the Graduation day rehearsal on April 7th. We had good time trying out the graduation robes and learning how to wear the hats, hoods. I also understood the importance of shifting the tassle from left side of the hat to the right side to signify the completion of graduation! Students were completely having fun…After the demonstration and the rehearsal we headed to the Atrium to capture the group picture. I would say they made us to stand for almost an hour before capturing some 50 odd pictures to ensure atleast one great picture. Well, I wouldn’t bother as long as it turns it to be good…This one would be a treasure.

Finally, after the photo-shoot, we throwed the hat into the air and shot loads of pictures with unbelievable madness…Pure thrill…

In the evening, I attended the “Award ceremony - 2006″.I received my “Torch bearer award”. The defining moment for me was the moments of silence that the announcer brought about before uttering my name. He almost gave up before pronouncing my long name “Bharanidharan Viswanathan”. I thought he will never call me I guess the “h” following the “B” is causing confusions to many . Anyway, after presenting the award, they asked everyone to speak something..So I conveyed just a short and sweet message..”I am extremely honoured to receive this award. I dedicate this to the SPIRIT of ISB..Thank you”! The moments on stage were exciting . The complete event is covered in ISB website…including my pic ..Can’t believe it!

We played volleyball till 3′0 clock in to the morning of April 8th. Volleyball junta rocks!

I completed all my packing except for few final things. The big event began sharp @ 2:45 p.m on April 8th. It was an amazing sight to see everyone neatly dressed up in graduation robes and the parents eagerly waiting on the other side to capture the ‘moments’ of their ‘kids’. The huge hangar was was full! The logistics was as usual perfect! The ISB logistics and administration team simply rocks. You never see any major action going on…but things happen smoothly, seamlessly, silently and perfectly! I bow! You will understand that once you are here…

Mr.Ratan Tata gave away his graduation day message. The entire message is published in the ISB website.

The seating arrangement was split into two parts. Dean’s lister and others. I fell in the “Others” category. The seating arrangment was based on the alphabetical order of last name. That means, I was in the last 5 of the entire batch of 345! I waited for my turn by patiently clapping for all 340 students who went before me…Ankur Warikoo was behind me…So had a good company for me…All three viswanathan’s of ISB were put together (Anand Viswanathan, Ravi Viswanathan, Bharanidharan Viswanathan)…We ended the graduation ceremony with a huge uproar! That was followed by hat-throwing event. Those last moments cannot be described in words….has to be experienced. I thought to myself, I will not get sentimental! Well, inspite of my best efforts, few drops of tears seeped through my eyes…Atleast, now I know there is water inside my eyes

After all the excitement, I headed for a dinner hosted by our Aikya family (Dr. Manohar & Family) in their hotel. It was a great dinner with everyone in my study group, including the near-and-dears, invited. We also had a chance to meet few entrepreneurs and few medal winners from the recently concluded Common wealth games. Pleasant evening. Mr.Manohar proved yet again that very few can compete against him as a great host.

I came back to ISB. Put my parents in their allotted rooms. Rushed back to my room. Finished my final packing…and wrote this blog entry without even having a second look. Crap generation at its best…

I have officially completed my education. Definite Milestone. As I write this blog entry, my eyes are moist…Great ride came to an end…I completely enjoyed my stay here. I learnt a lot. I established many good contacts and developed few strong friendships…

I cannot hide but only say…”I will miss ISB, my quad, friends, environment, year-long-vacation, and my dear amigos (you know it amigos)”…I remember saying to my friends in the final moments…”I am one of the most cold-hearted persons you will every come across…In 2 days time, I would ask you ‘who are you’?”…My attempt at saying that was a failure…I am indeed one of the most warm-hearted persons! Sometimes good…sometimes bad…For now, it’s bad for my mind, as I have to go through sentiments for next few days….

PS: Will try to upload some pictures later…I don’t have energy to find and upload the good pics…

This will be my last post from ISB…I will end the journey here…

I will definitely try to blog further, though not as consistent and frequent as now…

Wishing the batch of 2007 good luck. Whatever you do, don’t freak out yourselves. At the end of one year, you will realize that many things that you took upon yourself very seriously isn’t worth the pain. As every outgoing batch said in the past, I repeat…”This will be one of the best years in your life. Enjoy and savour it….An experience which will be enriching in all ways - intellectually, emotionally, professionally….”

I will be based in Hyderabad after ISB. I will be joining on May 2nd. So, anytime, if you need an ear to listen to your achievements, need any advice to your problems, need any assistance professionally please feel free to ping me at bharani@gmail.com. I will do whatever I can within my limits.

I am not coming for Orientation week, as I prefer to spend the 20 odd days that I have with my parents and visiting places…

Good luck and godspeed Batch of 2007…

Dear Class of 2006,

You don’t know how you have affected my life positively in various ways….It has been an amazing ride all through the year…I am privileged and honoured to be among this awesome group…As we venture into new realms, I am sure we will cross each other at various stages of our lives in different ways…So I am not going to say “good bye”…

Let the fellowship last forever…

Three cheers to the class of 2006!!!

Cheers,
-Bharani.

Around 1400+ people are expected to attend the Graduation ceremony on April 8th. The Atrium in ISB, though big, cannot accommodate such a huge number of people. There were rumours couple of months ago that the graduation day ceremony will be held at Gachibowli Football stadium. But many students were against the very idea of that. After all, what better way than getting that coveted paper within the confines of ISB…So, the powers that be in ISB decided to erect a huge Hangar to accommodate the event and the people. The construction of the structure is underway and is almost complete. The entire structure will be air-conditioned! Word is that the total expense related to this structure alone is around Rs. 15 lakhs…Fee paid by a single student…So, I can say “I am sponsoring the structure”

There was a sizzling news item in Today’s Economic Times about ISB. Attached below is the press clip.

ISB grads rake in $200,000 packet

ISB spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the news saying: “We will be making a public announcement about the placements this year next week.”
—-

To my knowledge there is only partial truth to this news. May be I am ignorant! But the issue here is not about the news, it’s about the media’s intention about the news.

I wonder how “word-of-mouth” news about placements can be published just like that without proper verification. Media people are clearly after selling “hot” news without verifying if the news is authentic or not-authentic. The situation is same in all countries especially as far as B-schools are concerned. I can see this news in two ways…Either there are some people in ISB who are providing “insider” information or News reporters are trying to hype the situation and setting up the institute for failure! To be honest, I am fed up with these kind of “Highest salary 1 crore” (The figure which is apparently a result of B-schools converting the GBP/EUR figure into Dollars and then into Rupees, each at the highest possible exchange rate at any point of the year!!!)…Phew! There is much more about B-schools than just placements or salaries….

PS: Couple of weeks back, I mentioned that 25 odd people are jobless and searching for their fit. The situation has vastly improved with many of those people getting a job offer according to their requirements. One of my friend in that 25 group, now has 4 offers to choose from ! It’s just the question of time….Patience is the key!

Completed my final assignment in ISB. The classes are done. I have now officially met all the course requirements and have majored in Strategic Marketing and Information Technology. Now, I can proudly calll myself as “MBA” (or “equivalent to MBA” for the purists!). It would be tough to hold back my excitement when I get the certificate duly signed by the deans of Wharton, Kellogg, London Business school and ISB. Was this experience worth it? Have I transformed in a positive way? Have I acquired sufficient entrepreneurial and leadership qualities? Will I bring about positive impact to my professional life, personal life and society? Right now, my mind is numb…Sometimes, I have this empty feeling when I try to think what have I gained from this programme…The change has happened beneath the conscious layer of mind…So, the important changes might be latent for quite sometime, before it reaches the melting point and shows up….As always, Time will answer. But I can definitely say that I am a satisfied customer as of now. How much value I derive from the product depends on my usage preference. Unlike the electronic products which lose value exponentially, this one increases in value exponentially…It should and it would!

In 9 days time, I will get the complete ownership and title for my investment. The biggest investment that I have every made in my life…[16 lakhs + Opportunity cost]. I know it’s ’sunk costs’, ‘non-recoverable’ etc., I would see this as a strong foundation…just like the strength of foundation is determined by the depth to which the pillars are ’sunk’!

Now only the exit formalities remain. There are some ‘pending’ items in “TO-DO” list. Will try to get it done asap.

My attempt at ranking the blogs of my colleagues at ISB. A tribute to the fellowship

Consistency of Blogging, Content, Style, Informational value, Entertainment, number of visitors, bringing in new traffic etc., (not necessarily with same weightage)

My ranking: ISB Blogs [Batch of 2006]
========================

1. Vijay Mulbagal

2. R Ramkumar

3. Raghini Rarajam

4. Ankur Warikoo

5. Amit Sharma

6. Ford Perfect

7. Ramakrishnan A

Other blogs that I enjoy much, but couldn’t differentiate:
Chandrashekar Vattikutti
Anoop Vijayakumar
Vaibhav Fadnavis
Venkatesh Adavi
Vineeth Kumar
Alok Srivastava
Girish Krishnan
Karthik Ganesan
Karthik Ramachandran

There has been quite a few cribs that went around about the ‘information asymmetry’ or ‘informational advantage’ exploited by some of my colleagues in ISB.

First and foremost is the Academics. Thought I don’t want to name any particular person or any particular incident, I would like to make a point on the “Transition of notes” from previous batch students to current batch. The academic curriculum in ISB is more or less same every year (It’s the same case with every institute/university in the world). So, Possessing the notes/solutions from previous batch in fact provides the person with ‘unfair’ advantage. Though this definitely hampers the learning, this serve the purpose of getting good grades! (Yes, incentives for getting good grades is high for some career-aspirants). The onus is largely on the outgoing batch to maintain the decorum. When there is no supply, demand will be automatically curbed!…But given the fact that there are some close friends who enjoy the alum-student relationship, this cannot be completely curbed…In my opinion, incoming students who will be future business leaders, should keep out of this definitely….The pressure and stakes are so high that some students go to any extent for getting good grades. Though, we have a strict ‘Honour code committee’ in ISB [wherein the punishments/penalties are very severe], it has not completely eliminated the trend…Keep in mind though that such cases are very few…but have significant impact!

Second is about placements. The general opinion is that the ex-professional relationships help in placements. For example, if a person is coming from big FMCG company, and is aiming at big 5 consulting company, then chances are that there will be alums from FMCG company who hold key positions in consulting companies. This relationships or ‘bonding’ opens the back-door for few. I don’t quite agree that this is ‘unfair’. In this case, the personal relationship is helping the student to gain a foot-hold in to the destination company. Moreover the kind of ‘acquaintance’ or ‘past relationship’ helps only as far as getting to know the insider information. There is no way a person can pass through just by ‘knowing’. Now this ‘insider information’ is extremely important [Resume tips, interview tips, job-related-info, positive word-of-mouth etc.,]. This is where the ‘networking’ ability of students play a role! But from what I have seen, this kind of pro-active networking/contacts helps big time…

This kind of bonding is strong among IITians, some top FMCG Companies, etc., For many students, who don’t have either of the above background, that ‘bondage’ does not exist. ISB will provide them with such a ‘bondage’ which they can exploit later…!

Third is about ‘insider information’ within ISB. For example, there has been stories that some people enjoy preferential treatment from CAS [Career Services wing in ISB]. The information about the arrival of some key companies or job postings circulate among the select few much in advance, where as the majority of students will know the news only one-two weeks before the deadline! This ‘lead time’ helps in getting a head-start in preparation! Here, the personal rapport with relevant personal helps…again, it can be argued that it is the initiative of the students, which is paying off!…but I wouldn’t buy that argument, as the information asymmetry shouldn’t have existed in this case atleast…

The purpose is not to take a swipe against anyone. The purpose is to convey that such situations might occur and to be prepared to handle such ‘information asymmetries’. I hope people are smart enough to handle the situations….! As far as the outgoing batch is concerned, this is what we will be dealing day-in and day-out in real life! Life…please be kind on us

Got hold of this pic couple of weeks before….when I was searching my past archives. Big pat for correctly guessing the person….!

80 people, all Students and family members…
One cruise boat, entirely ours for 2-and-half hours…
Food on board…
DJ on board…
Free booze on board…
Dance floor on board…

Excellent experience…! Everyone enjoyed the evening fully…

Admissions department arranged this party for the volunteers who helped in evaluating and interviewing applicants. Kudos to them.

I was counting the number of True friends in ISB, who I can say that I know very well and can turn for help anytime. The count stopped at 8! There are numerous other good friends, friends and acquaintances. I have good relationships with many people, but the desired depth has not been established, mainly due to lack of sufficient interactions and spreading the effort with vast number of student body…

I perceive the 8 to be true friends. In 20 days time, the 8 will be dispersed throughout India spanning Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad….There is a common link between all 9 of us…No one is from Dean’s list! Not that my association is bad

MBA - stuff!

The following websites captures the essence of MBA. They neatly provide the summary of all key concepts.

www.quickmba.com
www.netmba.com
www.valuebasedmanagement.com
12 Manage [Thanks Vijay for the last 2 links…]

Supporting materials:
Damodaran Online
“Finance made easy!” - That would aptly fit the title. Prof. Damodaran has even put up all his lecture videos for others to learn!

Kotler - Marketing Textbook Complete - Online The bible of Marketing. I Haven’t read the book end-to-end yet!

Online Statistics Reference

Consulting Preparation: [Amazing resource for Consulting interviews]
Kellogg Consulting Club

Coming to the blogging world:
http://www.weblogsinc.com/ [A network of more than 90 top-notch blogs on subjects ranging from economy, electronics to automobile and cinema!. A very good starting point for top-notch blogs…]

The Indian Economy Blog [This one I like very much. It’s all about perspectives ]. Do remember to browse through the wonderful links on the side bar of this blog. Good Starting point…

Happy browsing…I am posting this for my personal reference too…

For the past 6 months, my blog has been a target of SPAMS. The Spammers target the old posts which are 4-6 months old and inundate them with words describing private portions of human body and some ugly acts. I mass-delete them every fortnight. But in the recent past, the intensity has increased and they are targetting posts which are just 1 months old!

In another 20 days time, I will neither be able to dedicate quality time for my blog nor get access to high-speed connection in home. So, keeping in mind about the long-term needs, I did two things. I installed “Spaminator”. This has done a good job in killing spams. But still 20% of the comments leak through. So, I enabled an option which says “Accept the comments from people who have one approved comment in the past”. So, you might have to go through the first-time moderation. I think this is an optimal approach. Please don’t hold this moderation against commenting…Comments form 50% of any blogs

- People are going out for dinners, purchases, pubs, outings etc.,
- Efforts for yearbooks are in full swing.
- Parties in ISB are on hold until everyone is placed or until CAS process is closed (March 25th). I am hoping that everyone is placed by then so that parties can be celebrated without a zilch of hesitation.
- People are backing up their stuff in their newly bought external hard-drives or in CDs, depending upon their requirements.
- The DVD section looks empty all the time, as everyone is watching movies like maniac.
- Recreation centre is always full.
- Orientation activities for next batch are being planned. Yes, while we are preparing to leave, we are also preparing to welcome the next batch and to make the transition seamless.
- Video gaming and network gaming activities are on all-time high!

We have very good professors taking the courses for us in Term 8. Unfortunately, the students are in fun mode, with very few days remaining in ISB. The professors understand that and excuse us for not reading the articles But, I should mention about Mr. Phanish Puranam, who took the first 5 sessions of “Managing Strategic relationships”. He was phenomenal. Clarity of thought, Amazing fluency, probing the students on insights provided…Too good!

Every now and then, some music will catch my attention. Some attention are short-lived. But few songs move into my permanent ‘favourite list’. One song which moved into that list recently is Enya’s “Only Time”. I listened to this song when I watched the movie “Sweet November”. Was mesmerized by the song and picturization. Immediately searched and downloaded the song. I have been humming the song all along since then.

There is a soothing feeling. This is a healer music. As you listen to the music, you will get a feeling that time will calm down every problem and a sense of serenity will prevail in your face and mind. Quite a few of my friends knew this song before…Ignorant me…At least knew about this now.

Download this song here

I bumped into one good friend in ISB yesterday after a long time. Don’t remember how long…Should be more than 45 days…

He wasn’t looking normal. I could see a dejection in his face. I didn’t remember him seeing during placement season too…So I asked him…”Long time no see…How are you sir?”. He replied, “Doing good..how abt you?”. “I haven’t seen you for long time…things are fine at your end?”. He replied, “Yeah sort of..”. I asked, “You are alright?”…He replied..”Hmm…Actually my dad passed away..”. I was stunned and speechless for a moment. I just replied, “I am sorry…”

Honestly, he seemed to have just recovered. I did not want to press on that matter again. So left after moments after exchanging few words.

On one hand, many people are enjoying and having fun during the last term. This young man is bearing an unbearable sadness and deprivation. I sincerely pray for his father. May his soul rest in peace. On the similar lines, there are 25-30 people (as against 10 quoted earlier which apparently seemed to be a rumour) still jobless and searching gallantly for their fit. I am sincerely wishing good luck to them. These people will do exceedingly well after weathering such a storm. I regularly talk with 5-6 of these people and they have confessed about how difficult it is to see celebrations all around and cannot be part of the fun whole-heartedly. Still they carry themselves beautifully…I am proud to be associated with these guys…They teach me invaluable lessons…I am observing and learning from you guys…

This question has been troubling me for quite some time. “Is not voluntarily revealing the truth or not practicing absolute transparency same as telling a lie?. Does it have the same impact on the recipient of the messages as a lie has”.

Let’s take an example of organization. Every organization has so many drawbacks and lot of internal politics and turmoil. The employees of the organization have the first-hand information about such things. The outside world does not have any idea about such things. The organization creates an official ‘PR’ group or ‘corporate communications’ group to communicate the messages about organization to the outside world. Needless to say, the messages are carefully and selectively let out. Of course, the near and dears of the employees will have a much deeper insight about the happenings within the organization. This sort of ’selective communication of good things’ creates the so called ‘Information asymmetry’.

The governments are subject to the utmost scrutiny by the Media and Analysts. The more the scrutiny, the less the information asymmetry. The same level of scrutiny applies to some of the most famous organizations and institutions across the world.

Let me turn my attention towards the Universities and Institutions. There is really no ‘absolute transparency’ in any Universities/Institutions/B-schools. Every institution has the so-called ‘interface’, which is responsible for official communications. Take for example, the recent placement scenario in the B-schools. The news floating around like “86 lakhs International salary”, “34 lakhs international salary” is portraying only the bright side of the situation. No news comes out about the infamous ‘bottom-of-the-pyramid’. This information asymmetry inflates the hopes on millions of aspirants to pursue Business education. After all, only a handful can command such salaries.

But then, if you look from the B-school’s perspective, they are playing the game according the rules. The maturity level of the audience also comes into the picture. The readers if they read some negative news should be mature enough to gauge the unpleasantness and appreciate the reality. There is (mis)expectations from both sides. The day when everyone is mature enough to accept the news and every institute is nice enough to be truly transparent…this ‘information asymmetry’ will die down. Until then…it’s the ‘due diligence’ of the individual which will reduce the information asymmetry for him/her.

I am hoping that the growing popularity of blogs and anonymity provided by the blogs will help in reducing the ‘information asymmetry’. In the absence of anonymity, the individual will face pressure from the institution or the organization in writing about all the things…Sometimes even from his own peers. Because the ‘brand’ of the institute is under the hanging knife.

If there happens to be an individual who is completely dissatisfied with the institution, then no one can stop him/her from writing about this ‘disappointment’ anonymously. But then, some people might dismiss that by saying ‘biased opinion’!

On all probabilities, there will be 50+ blogs for the class of 2007. This is good for increasing the transparency…After all, not all 50 students will have the same opinion! So, gauge the transparency level of an institution by the number of blogs from the institution

PS: The information asymmetry can be witnessed anywhere and everywhere. Be it the case of buyer-seller, recruiter-interviewee (remember the resumes and PPTs!), Classifieds (matrimonials, rentals, for sales), media (some television channels and news papers are biased too!)…

http://govar.blogspot.com/2005/02/when-spade-is-never-spade.html. This post is more relevant to the topic…

Since Holi falls on a working day, we decided to celebrate Holi in advance. It was absolute fun…Some pictures for you…

Spouses had great time too…

After some time, people became violent and started tearing T-shirts

Snacks for Free!

And me…

When I joined ISB, alums were saying…”Prepare for the roller coaster ride ahead..Prepare for the best year in your life”. I could not comprehend the true intensity of those words. I just thought the words formed an overstatement. But now I realize it…

The kinds of emotion that one goes through in ISB is complete. May be this can be said about every year of one’s life. But what makes this year special is the ‘total experience’. The isolated location of ISB atop hilly regions, kind of infrastructure, freedom from work, intellectually stimulated environment that also fostered some strong relationships, vagaries of emotions, living with some like-minded-people who have strong ambitions and convictions in life everything contributes to the wholesome experience…

Towards the end of the year, I just wish I learnt more about some people here. I thoroughly enjoyed my circle of companionship here…Truly awesome…If I just take away the mask of academic workload and look at ISB, the freedom that I enjoyed here stands out…Will miss that very much…

I have changed in some aspects definitely. I have a strong desire to enjoy life to the fullest extent…My first and foremost wish that is floating in front of my eyes is to lead a balanced life. No doubts I need to succeed at the professional front…But I also have to take care of personal front, pursue hobbies, explore the world, learn different cultures, languages, live true to myself and to help others…I have identified this as a goal…so, now definitely there should be a way to make it to happen…as mind cannot conceive what it cannot accomplish!

Well, I will stop my rantings there.

I have borrowed 10 books from the library and exhausted my limit for the first time. One of the things that I want to take forward from ISB is the habit to read, read and read wide variety of topics. This may be the right time to get it started…so started

I have to fill the CAS questionnaire based on my recruitment experience. I am also asked to prepare for a possible video recording session about my recruitment experience with the target firm. In fact, CAS is pursuing around 2-3 persons (from each firm) to do this activity. The resulting materials will stand as a repository for the subsequent batches.

The Yearbook preparations are in full swing. Since I do not have one from my undergraduation, I am looking forward for this Yearbook. Will treasure it. Please make it professional and fun-filled guys.

Holi celebrations are planned for next week. Looking forward to that. I have seen last year photographs, which depicts mirror pools of Student villages filled with coloured waters and everyone rolling over on the colourful pool! I hope something similar to that will be organized this time…

Away from all these things, I am surprised by the power of internet to link up totally different people. To be precise, I am talking about the power of blog. I have received emails like, “Bharani, I know one senior project manager in so and so firm…If you want I can arrange a meeting with him…”! Not to forget the loads of wish mails…and enquiry mails. I have replied to some…haven’t replied to some…Apologies to those who haven’t received replies from me…Will enforce myself to reply to all those pending emails. I have also made few friends over the net, who share similar values and philosophies in life.

I would like to link up many blogs. But my page design does not allow me to put up 100’s of links. I am looking for a good solution (long-term) which will solve the problem of endorsing and linking other blogs, without worrying about growing list or growing page size (preferably new idea other than putting up in side bar). I am planning to create a separate page just for links…But I am worried if that will dilute the gratitude that we show by putting up the links in first page? Any suggestions…?

PS: Dave has raised some concerns about Lack of ethnic diversity in Indian B-schools…I agree with him to some extent…It will take time to build international diversity. We do have ‘few’ foreign students coming here under exchange programmes..But apart from that international diveristy does not exist. Give us 5 years….may be there will be an improvement in this aspect

Almost everyone is placed in the batch (Less than 10 waiting for their matching placements). The Average salary, highest domestic salary, highest international salary, number of consulting jobs…all the records are broken and new benchmark has been set for the next batch! ISB will be publishing the placement details only on April 1st week. Please hold on till then…

Everyone seems to be relaxed in Term 8. Definitely I am! Have 3 classes each on Monday and Wednesday. Rest of the days are available for all other activities, including time to study. Have been watching movies for past few days. Went out for dinner. Sleeping a lot. I have decided to pamper myself as much as possible by eating/sleeping/playing lot. Need to regain the 8 kgs back. I was around 70 when I came to ISB…Now I am 62.5!! This is stark contrast with few people who have grown thicker by miles! Stress seems to have opposing effects on different people…

Planning to clean my room and pack things slowly. Need to purchase an external hard disk to store all photos, documents, mails etc., Looking for some good deals. Have to start the hunt for apartment/house in hyderabad…preferably near Hi-Tech city (Banjara hills/Jubilee Hills). Also, I am expecting a trip to office to meet the management team, sometime during next week….

My parents are already after me for marriage…I cannot keep them waiting for long. So in a way, my bachelorhood is also fast approaching an end…though I don’t know how soon!

Mr. US President was impressed by ISB’s infrastrucutre and Entrepreneurial focus exhibited by ISB.

The ISB website has comprehensively captured the entire visit.

The person sitting behind me commented, “Both Mullford (Ambassador) and Mr. US President had their mouth open when they entered the Atrium!”. Well, I didn’t notice it or I missed it apparently..

George Bush was his usual self when he walked in his quick style and with his hand wave to the audience. As soon as he sat down on his chair, he started speaking…Effective time management. He was convincing for most of the answers, though not all…Well, the entire feeling of Mr.President sitting and chatting with young entrepreneurs and students, and being within 50 metres of radius from President was surreal. The axis of world power was sitting at the axis of ISB (Atrium)…That’s what is called Centre of attraction!

I guess, Somebody should have mentioned to him about the 300 million middle class in India, because he was emphasizing on that fact and the potential associated with the fact on more than 2 occasions.

He has good sense of humour. One person started introducing himself by saying…”My name is X. I am doing so and so…I graduated from this college…I listened to your speech yesterday..I think it was spectacular…”…Mr. President snubbed smilingly…”Let’s leave it there…”

One lady introduced…”I graduated from Carnegie..”. Mr. President replied..”You should be smart…Because only smart people get admission there!!”..

Another person introduced himself…”My name is …I am into Textile and Media industry…”. There comes a reply from Mr. President, “Textile and Media…Interesting combination…You can dress well in movies!”

He answered questions on topics ranging from Outsourcing issues, Bilateral agreements for funding, Pace of globalization, Economic patriotism (Mittal case), Port clearance and issues, Textile & Media Industry, Telecom & Power, Renewable energy etc.,

His Suggestions for developing countries (like India) to become developed countries:
- Focus on Infrastructure development. Especially infrastructure that will expedite market movement and knowledge movement.
- Atleast 50% of population (especially under 25 years) should have basic skills (read, write, subtract!)
- Emphasis on Good Tax policy. Current tax policies encourage tax evasion. Moreover, the current tax policies are quite complicated. They need to be addressed.
- Focus on HIV / Trafficking issues(Prevention, tackling, distribution of drugs etc.,)
- More tools and opportunities should be made available for entrepreneurs.

Something for myself…I noticed that our side of audience seats were captured by Times of India..with a caption “ISB Students listen in rapt attention…”!

Myself, Gautam and Vineeth sitting next to each other

I read an article “Top 25 powerful women in Indian Business”. It was inspiring and encouraging to read the success stories of such women. From male chauvinistic society to women-empowerment-oriented society…India has come a long way…

The things that are happening at B-school are no exception. Corporates are spending efforts to enhance the women-men ratio. B-schools understand the phenomenon and are accordingly increasing the percentage of women in each graduating class.

The words of a HR personnel of a reputed firm sums up the situation…”Yes we do have quota for women. We are looking to recruit atleast one female from ISB…We have orders to maintain certain ratio of women-men in management”.

The benefits@work are also more skewed towards women. They have special IT exemptions, special flexi-timings, special holidays (well apart from maternity leaves!), special career path (fast track) etc., Sometimes, I think…”The benefits are more weighed towards women…unfair ”. From women asking for equal rights…soon the situation might turn towards men demanding for equal rights!

So, if you are a smart female, and are ambitious and career oriented, it makes all the more sense to join B-school and enter into the corporate world. They are waiting with their arms wide open…All you need to do is pick your line/career and work towards that…But the challenges on personal front such as parental pressure, marital challenges etc., still remain…Women who can balance both personal front and professional front do succeed exceedingly well.

The batch of 2006 in ISB has 19% females (which translates to around 70). The number and % are expected to go up in the class of 2007….There are scholarships exclusively for women (Like Anand group, Novartis etc.,). Even ISB has increased the merit-based scholarship amount and numbers (some reserved for women)…ISB is leading the way in empowering women…no doubts.

The visit of George bush is officially not yet confirmed, because it never gets officially confirmed! But as of now, he WILL BE visiting ISB on March 3rd.

The security is top-level. Sniffer dogs, Snipers, mine-sweepers, security gadgets, detailed plans, special passes and ID cards and the list goes on…

It will be great to see him and hear from him first-hand! ‘Once-in-a-lifetime experience’…that’s what DIG of Police has to say about this visit….But this visit is definitely good for ISB community.

One week of decision, indecision and associated mental stress…
Moments of courage to leave the offer and to say…”Let’s call it quits…”
Periods of determination to prepare for unexpected interview opportunity…
Days of awakening of mind…enrichment of my soul…
I have become more capable of treating events independant of each other…that’s biggest take away for me…and I feel like a much improved human being…

I have accepted the offer that I originally got. Things were clarified from other end and it was convincing…As expected, there was some communication gap…Anyway, I am happy with the offer that I have in hand. Comprises of decent role, good pay package, decent career growth and high visibility in the organization…

I had my last interview experience yesterday….with that, I officially hang up my suit! I am out of placement process now…Around 40 odd people remain, who are still searching for their matching jobs…I fear that they might not get their kind of jobs if they search through ISB. They need to go out on their own….I am sure they will….and I am sure they will find their jobs…It’s just a matter of time!

Got in touch with S, to get a broad understanding of Product design, development, marketing and challenges.

Got in touch with S, to get a broad understanding of what to expect in Advisory firms, what kind of Technology roles are available in Advisory firms, and on how to prepare for such roles.

Got in touch with R, to get a broad understanding on Solutions, Telecom billing etc.,

Got hold of R and S to get a broad understanding of one Advisory firm. One worked their before and one got job their now.

A suggested me quite a few matrices, articles on Information risk mitigation.

“Extend your arms, help comes”….I am already witnessing the powerful network of ISBians…Not exaggeration….absolute reality…This network IS THE TAKEAWAY in any B-school….It will follow you for the rest of your life….Professional advice, Business partnerships, Knowing about opportunities, Strong friendship, Influential contacts…are some of the many benefits of the network…

Moreover it feels very nice when you see that people around are wanting you to succeed and willing to help you in whatever way they can….I will definitely repay them as and when I get opportunity….

On Friday, one mid-sized software firm, having ODC’s in chennai and bangalore, offered very good salary for Business Consultants and Delivery manager positions.

As far as placements are concerned…There are some interesting trends that I am observing here:

1. Lot of people who have worked in a specific firm are not recruited by the same firm after MBA. This goes to show that firms don’t give any importance for your past relationships with them. Having said that, there are some exceptions too…But overall, it’s pure business and no loyalty/sentiments…”you contribute, we pay you”…

2. Companies with good brand (especially IT companies) are paying very less salary. Companies of lesser known brand are offering 40-50% higher salaries. Brand vs salary trade-off in action.

3. One who has strong vertical knowledge/horizontal knowledge has good chance to get an offer than a person who has spread his legs on multiple verticals/horizontals (in IT)

4. For mass-recruiters, Academics/Grade is a big elimination factor. For a selective recruiter, experience matters and only experience matters…

Today, one Media company, which has one very-well known and respected person known to ISBians on its board, made excellent offers. Salary was decent. But the roles were all tailor-made on the spot. Involves challenging responsibilities. You can see “Head - XXX” on many offers!

Few big names are in pipeline. They have requirements for excellent roles. I believe one of these offers will catch the attention of media soon…Let’s see…

The placement tempo has stabilized…Slowly people are taking things in their stride…

Will update my placement scenario after things are confirmed…

In 2 days, Term 8 begins…Looking forward to my last academic term (possibly in my life)…

Life is interesting and full of lessons….provided one has the eyes to survey the landscape and ears to keenly listen the surroundings.

I was genuinely interested in the firm that I got offer with. But looks like HR perceives me as someone who is in desparation…and trying to play games. The designation promised and CTC Promised (still it is better than other IT salaries) doesn’t match what is printed on the offer letter that I received…So, the element of trust is broken. Even if he comes back and upgrades the offer, in all probabilities I would not take it up…unless the circumstances has been the culprit…

I am not in desparation. I will go on without a job even for months…until I find the job where I will be happy with. Mostly it will be Technology firm, preferably product firm! I will wait…In no B-school does placement happen in a week or 10-days time…It takes time…Especially for a school like ISB, which boasts huge number of experienced candidates, it does take time to satisfy everyones needs…So, there is no need to take any pressure…It’s better to rather wait than to take a job that you don’t like out of pressure and compulsion…There might be short-term pleasure but definitely there will be long-term regret. I know good number of very nice people who are still waiting for their number to turn, patiently and pleasantly…

Since there were not a single firm that were lined-up interested me, I volunteered for placement session on Thursday. It was my turn to pay back all my colleagues who were patiently volunteering the whole day, bearing the heat and boredom. This also gave me an opportunity to sit with HR of one particular recruiting firm as coordinator. She was very friendly and shared a lot of information. She told why candidates are being rejected? Why candidates are being shortlisted? Which parts of Resume will be keenly looked at? What kind of evaluation will be done in interviews? Why having an attitude is bad? etc., Was quite valuable for me atleast. Next time I walk into the interview panel, I will keep her simple suggestions in mind…I realized that I naturally come across as a credible person, provided I am relaxed…so next time, will try to maintain cool…

One interesting situation….

There were 7 candidates sitting in the hall…including the candidate who just finished his interview. The HR came to the hall and announced looking at the particular candidate, “I am sorry…you are rejected…you may leave!”…The candidate silently left the room with his head down…I felt bit awkward about the situation….

Being a coordinator, I went upto her after sometime and said politely…”You might as well invite the candidate inside your room and announce the decision instead of openly announcing in the middle of the hall…It will hardly take 1-2 mins”…She replied…”I don’t want to go into details…but everyone has to face rejection…otherwise you guys will not grow up…you should have maturity to accept rejection…One should understand that the rejection doesn’t mean anything about his/her qualities. It is just that there is no mutual fit between company, needs and candidate.”…There was a little friendly argument that followed…Since in between the interviews she was free, she was chatting with me…I liked her statement about rejection…even though I knew it internally and disliked her tone!

After some time, she came to the hall for announcing the next decision…This time she called the candidate,”X, can you please come inside for a moment?”…Shortly after that the candidate left the room, for reasons of rejection…Hmm…I respected her view…she respected my view!

Among all the hullabaloo, there was one smart lady…She was meticulously getting an appointment with HRs of all the company and personally getting leads for a job opening matching her requirements, either during the lunch or during HR’s free time…She is even open to HR positions…She did it professionally without creating any turbulences! If the HR was not fine with the request, she would not bother further…Hmm…where there is a will, there is a way

Today the highest domestic salary record and highest international salary record was broken…So, the philosophy that…”One who exhibits patience succeeds!” is justified…still.

Negotiated with relevant person. I made some trade-offs (Like moving minor portion of salary towards the end of the year as a lumpsum payment. This is apart from the variable pay)…He made some trade-offs (like giving me 3 more days to accept the offer). May 2nd will be my joining date. Location would be hyderabad. Will disclose the company and role in few days. Definitely not big Consulting/Banking. Mid-sized Software/BPO firm.

Now, I have only few more roles that interests me…Will go for gold with those roles…with absolute confidence…

Rejected for Program manager position after 3 rounds of interview. Reason quoted was lack of sufficient fit with the position! Superficial feedback, but still is of some importance to me…Significant number of hours of work was invested from my side to prepare for Microsoft. An effort which started month ago and which finally gathered momentum 3 days ago…

I was surprised that even some really sharp people were rejected for lack of fit…Hmm, throughout my 3 interviews, I was asked only puzzles, algorithms and design problems (Stress interview! can’t believe Microsoft employs stress tactics, as it is clearly not their philoshophy). Anyway, whatever happens is for good…

It took some time for me to accept the reality…Then, the first thing that I did after hearing the news was to reach room and catch some sleep…so that I am in decent shape for tomorrow’s interview…

The first ball has been disaster and taken my middle stump for wheeling!..Now, I am ready to face the next ball…Different bowler, different pitch…Mood: Charged up more than before…

PS: M/S finally offered just 2 program manager positions. The selected candidates have significant Product design and development background.

Life is kind on me….atleast it has shortlisted me for 4 of the 12 positions I applied for. My tryst with M$ is still on…Cognizant, Infy, Dell are other companies that I am shortlisted for. Waiting for Virtusa, KPMG, Amazon….TCS, Wipro, and other software companies have announced their job postings recently..so need to take a call on that soon…was dinged by BT and BP.

M$ is coming on 17th! That is, one day before the planned date…Now, all the M$ related books have found its way to my study table…around 5 in total!!!

Was disappointed that two of my M$ focus group members couldn’t penetrate the M$ wall. A and K. A had such a reputation that he will be selected by M$ by default…But as he says, his relatively low experience might have played against him and K. I only wish they both keep their hunt going on…and not let this deter them from their pursuit…

Among all the Business Development roles & Sales-and-marketing roles, I spotted a strange looking offer. It read as “Senior Java Architect”…Yeah, you got it right…Java architect recruitment in B-school? Hmm..ISB is also building up a parallel reputation of Technology school

How to break into the supreme slotting process that has been almost finalized? Well, there’s an easy way…Offer international placements. Companies that are willing to offer international placements command premium in this part of the B-school…for obvious reasons…$$$

Yesterday, there was a job posting from a Tier-2 (or Tier -3) private software firm, for around 30 odd positions, with abroad promise and decent salary. With only 24 hours given for deciding whether you want to apply, many people applied. The shortlisting was done in flat 8 hours past the deadline. Interview is planned for today….Things happened like a whirlwind….

I too applied…but, have been thinking since then about why I applied? So far I have applied only to 12 positions. This is in stark contrast with few people who have completed their quota of 25 slots and couldn’t apply for firms like Accenture Consulting!

Fortunately or Unfortunately, I am not shortlisted for this company…and this didn’t bother me a bit….I am expecting calls from certain list of companies..I will be worried only if I don’t receive calls from those companies…Many shortlists will be announced in couple of days…

Now, IT people are seriously worried. With 100-150 applications for each position, chances are that only 20% (max) will be shortlisted. And all the shortlists are coming in a single go….So, there is a high chance of overlap and some may never figure in any of the shortlist (God forbid)!

Going back to international placements, there is a catch. With H1-B Visa applications invited and processed only in the later part of the year (around october), chances are that one has to work in Indian division till that time…What will be the salary paid till that time? What will be the work one will do till that time? Once you begin to think, lot of questions pop up…Clarifying these during the interview becomes imperative….

4 days to Day 1….

BTW, wish everyone a very happy valentine day….and special wishes to couples in campus…both married and about-to-be-married

‘Rang de Basanti’ was a good experience. Going to city, watching movie and subsequent shopping in the evening was relaxing…I was locked within ISB campus for around 2 months!

I am far from being sincere towards placement preparations. Even though I am doing some sort of preparations all day, I feel like I am not doing much! I can feel a huge ‘void’ in my preparation, though I am not sure what it is…I just hope I don’t fall inside that!

Yesterday, I accompanied one of my good friend for shopping. His parents also accompanied us. The reaction of all parents towards our [guys in our age group] shopping patterns is same My dad use to say “For this Rs.800, I can buy good quality clothes and stich 3-4 shirts”. Sometimes, even I wonder if I am paying too much for my laziness…if I am blindly paying for the brand…Actually, If I spend some quality time doing “Search comparison”, I can definitely find a good deal..But who has the time for all these? We end up paying more in the name of convenience…

Subsequent to that, we took an auto for reaching a restaurant…We negotiated Rs.20 for the ride. The auto-wala had to travel little extra to reach the destination…So my friend’s dad gave him Rs.5 more and was mentioning me, “We pay without even thinking 800, 1000 rupees for brand in good-looking shops, but we think twice for paying to poor auto-rickshaws…”. I agreed, atleast to this particular case.

We have a tendency to enforce our power only upon people who are less influential/powerful than us..or people whom you take for granted…

PS: I saw the quote somewhere today. I used to have this quote as my signature in office.

“For the world you are someone. But for someone you are the world”!

Very good….isn’t it…If I am able to make the life of atleast one individual in the world better, then I can say I achieved success…

okie…back to placement prep!

Hi Everyone,

- ISB Admin.

Initiative well-timed! and the ticket is on the house!!

Slept 7 hours in the past 72 hours. Woke up 3 consecutive nights…Kept away from the blog forecefully for 2 days…

All the assignments, projects and presentations are over today!….Starting tomorrow I can concentrate COMPLETELY on placement efforts. That would be 8 days of effort. Come Saturday (February 18th), the placement begins. The slotting of the companies are done. So, we now know which companies would come on which day…Most of the companies that I am applying to, are coming in Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5. Day 3 features 4 companies that I am applying for. If I am shortlisted for all 4, then it would be one hell of fun and drama

I didn’t apply to some companies after some thought. For companies like Diamond cluster and Trilogy which has 2-3 and 3-5 positions respectively, there would be 150+ applications filed!! That’s the level of competition Moreover there is a clear indication of what companies are looking for. Diamond Clusters is looking for its India operations and specifically looking for people with Telecom background. Trilogy on the other hand is giving importance to people from Automobile background….

British Telecom came up with a shortlist of 30 candidates (Market information) out of 200(?) odd applications…Already some people were interviewed through telephone for a pre-liminary evaluation.

Till last week, CAS was sending out the shortlist for each companies to everyone in the batch. But now, they are sending the shortlist details only to the relevant person. This is more to my liking…Why should everyone be updated about every other person’s shortlisting details?…and this confidentiality reduces the peer pressure BTW!

8 days to PLACEMENT MAYHEM…..

Ramki’s blog has some highly relevent stuff on Telecom Industry. He has done a great job in writing those summaries…

I wanted my personality to be reflected in my blog(Bharani’s blog)…and not my blog to reflect as my personality (like being called as Blog Bharani or people remembering about blog as soon as they see me!) I fear that the latter is becoming a reality….I am not sure if this is an area of concern…but definitely in the long run I would like the former to happen….This is a dilemma every blogger goes through…how do other bloggers feel about this? any opinions?

Abstraction of my learnings:

You belong to a community. You find many good things and a few bad things about the community. Overall, you are very much satisfied, so you have something ‘nice’ to say about the community to others. And you share the ‘bad’ things with your community so that they think about it and do something constructive about it. They take positive actions to eliminate the imperfections, and you are more satisfied and everything ends up in a positive cycle.

You belong to a community. You find good things and bad things. You bitch about the community to the outerworld. You praise about the community to community members. Basically, you do good neither to the outer world nor to the community. It is nothing less than back-biting! Definitely not good in a long-run…

First scenario is ‘constructive’, second scenario is ‘destructive’!

Open question… Is ‘not saying things’ same as ‘lying’?

3rd Feb, Friday

18:00 p.m: I check the Airdeccan ticket prices from Hyderabad to Chennai on April 9th. It shows Rs.500/=. Call my parents to confirm if they will join me for graduation day and if I can go ahead and book the tickets.

18:30 p.m.: My parents get back to me and ask me to hold for some more time for getting a confirmation from my brother. I refresh the page, the price this time shows Rs. 771! I urge them saying that prices have changed and that I am going ahead with the booking.

18:40 p.m.: I Get a confirmation. But, Network becomes very slow. After some moments, manage to get the reservation page. This time the price shows Rs. 980/=. Not willing to take more risk, I booked the tickets.

18:45 p.m.: I check back the prices for curiosity and the price this time shows as Rs.1829!!!!

We received an email from ISB saying that everyone should positively vacate the campus by April 9th, 2:00 p.m.. There are quite a few chennaites in campus. Probably they are driving the demand? Anyway, I was able to witness the ‘dynamic’ nature of ‘dynafare’ in action today!

Anyway, the title is bit far-fetched…;)

Prof. Krishna B Kumar won the “Best Professor the year - Core terms” for the second consecutive year. Great job! He deserves the honour for the way he won the hearts and minds of the students…

Recently, we had a student poll to identify the “Best Professor the year - Core terms 2006″. It was a tough call to single out one professor for most of us, considering the quality of professors we had during the core terms.

The following was my initial shortlist:

1. Mark Finn (Financial Accounting)

2. Richard Waterman and Robert Stine (Statistics)

3. Jagmohan Raju (Marketing Decision making)

4. Anjani Jain (Decision models and optimization)

5. Krishna Kumar (Global Economics)

6. Subramanyam A (Investment Analysis)

Narrowed down to two choices between Anjani Jain and Krishna Kumar. I finally voted to Krishna Kumar. Hearty congratulations to him…Another polling is due for “Elective terms” which will see the likes of Nirmal Gupta, Sreenivas Kamma, Dishan Kamdar compete for the crown…

Yesterday we received an email regarding Graduation day details, logistic details regarding accomodation for visitors, last day to evacuate(!) the campus et al….Hmm…Time is flying so fast….Hardly 60 days remaining…

We had a very fruitful placement practice session, except for last few moments. Something happened that was very funny! Very funny!…It is long time since I laughed so much…that my stomach ached and face blushed so much! When I listened to the recording, the laughing has magnified…:)

Microsoft is coming on Day 1(Feb 18th). That’s a change from the original plan of February 21st (Day 4). So need to make some changes in my plans.

What would be my ideal slotting? I wouldn’t like all my preferred companies to come on the same day. I would like to see that the competition to my dream company is minimum when it comes to campus (Dean’s listers don’t apply!). In order for that to happen, it’s beneficial for me if my dream company comes as late as possible so that all dean’s listers would have been placed. But there is a problem. If my dream company comes as lates as possible, and if I get shortlisted and selected for my lesser preferred companies before that date, then I am in trouble, as there is a cap on number of offers one can accept. Tricky situation…but not impossible to handle! Need some level of maturity to make trade-offs from our side and bit of ’smartness’

Anyone are eligible for applying to IT companies. Even the operations guys and finance guys are in heavy demand for functional consulting jobs. So everyone can theoretically compete for IT companies. That makes the competition for us little ‘larger’!

Constraints facing us:

1. Number of job positions one can apply for.
2. Number of offers one can ‘acknowledge’ at any point of time. (When a company ‘offers’ you a role and you ‘acknowledge’ it, then it is officially recorded by CAS. Company will give a time frame to ‘accept’ the offer. Could be a week or could be a month. Depends on the company. Needless to say, it is beneficial to us if there is more time to ‘accept’. Once you accept/confirm the offer you are out of the placement)
3. Number of offers one can ‘accept’ finally.
4. Number of companies that can visit the campus per day

So, as you can see, this is not the time to ‘experiment’. This is the time to be ‘focussed’. Making an educated choice is important. Making a safe set of choices is also important (Backup offers).

Everyone here understands that ISB-Brand will come with them for the lifetime and that job immediately after the MBA is not be-all and end-all. But everyone wants to get a ‘job’ which will meet their ‘expectations’, so that ‘peace of mind’ will prevail when he/she leave campus

The BCG Shortlist was announced today. Almost 75% of the McKinsey Shortlists figure in BCG Shortlist too. There are some additions and deletions. Overall, the list gives an indication that BCG is more academically inclined than McKinsey! A made it to the BCG list…Good…

Irrespective of how much the consulting firms downplay the importance of grades during the placement talks, the shortlisting is always predominantly done based on grades. History is the best evidence. The recent shortlists strengthen the claim.

There is an apparent disconnect among the people who deliver presentations, who design compensation structures, who evaluate applications, who interview the candidates and who finally work with you in the firm. This disconnect is the reason for mismatch between what’s being said and what’s being done. What’s surprising to me is how strongly few alums pushed us to apply even if one does not have attractive grades. Let me hear from someone who wants to defend that “Grades are not important for Consulting/I-Banking firms”. This is India. The examination-based mindset is still the most reliable method for top firms. I don’t see a change in the trend for long time to come!

Going to IT services firms, some firms are quoting low starting salary, expecting the students to bargain. I personally thing that’s unfair. Relatively new and medium-sized firms are giving more salaries than established and top firms. Top firms use the “onsite opportunity” as a negotiation weapon.

Slotting of the companies will be finalized in couple of days. The major concern seems to be same set of people getting shortlisted in each company. Whole lot of game theory is going on to reduce this shortlist overlap!

Next 10 days will be very busy. The end-term projects for all the subjects are due next week. Companies have already started inviting applications, so we have to spend quality time in writing good EOIs and Resumes. On top of this, we have to keep our placement preparations running….

The running continues….

One gentleman from HLL delivered the Pre-placement session. During the talk he said:

“…It makes sense to have Group Discussion as a selection mechanism in IIMs and other Indian B-schools, where majority of the students are freshers. But in ISB, to subject experienced candidates to Group discussion for 15-30 minutes is not logical. We will have only interviews. We would talk with all the shortlisted candidates and identify their needs and offer roles…”

He also said…”Suppose one has been in to sales and marketing in his past work experience and is willing to move into same function, we will definitely attach some “value” to his “experience” and offer appropriate roles and salary. But if he/she wants to shift to Finance, then we have no other option other than recruiting him as MBA Trainee…Let me be frank on that”

I nodded silently in agreement…!

But one problem we witness with all the pre-placement talks is the lack of clarity on compensation. Most of the companies which come to campus quote the figure which is applicable for freshers and mentions that the compensation will be upwards and the ‘upward’ potential will depend on the relevant experience one brings to the table…Some companies give examples like “For 5 years of ‘relevant’ experience we will give this position and pay this much salary…”. Few others mention “The range will be from X-Y lac rupees per annum”…

Companies mention that they will evaluate the “Value” that each one of us bring to the table and then compensate us accordingly. So, the “Value” / “Experience” is going to be big “negotiation” factor. Companies will try to discount it as much as possible. We will try to extract as much premium from our past “Experience”.

Hmm…Now, where did I keep my negotiation book? …Time to blow the dust and brush up some “Salary negotiation concepts” that Mr. Dishan Kamdar gave us.

Thanks to Venkatesh Adavi for sharing the gyaan on BD roles in IT.

Kind of activities under “Business Development”

1. Pre-sales: This is the starting position in a BD hierarchy. Bottom of the pyramid (BOP) in IT Business development, if you can call so The designations associated with this role can change from company to company (But predominantly it is “Business Analyst”). What do these guys do? They spend significant time in preparing RFI (Request for information), RFP (Request for Proposal) and RFQ (Request for Quotation). They also spend time in preparing “Presenations” of company’s offerings tailored to customers. To grow in to a sales position in IT, this is a pre-requisite. One has to undergo the “Pre-sales” experience. Later, when you become a “Sales” guy, you can understand the nitty-gritties of Pre-sales and can understand the deliverables that you receive from your pre-sales team. Travel to client location might sometimes be needed. Otherwise, work is based on offshore.

2. Business Development: Here, professionals would be identifying new business opportunities, modifying the service offerings according to the customer needs, etc., The border between this and pre-sales is very blurred. The kind of activities one would do under “Business Analyst” will change from company to company. Few companies clearly separate this role and Pre-sales.

3. Competitor Intelligence: Some companies offer such a role to gather ‘intelligence’ about competitors of the company. What offerings do they provide? What clients are they targetting at? What developments competitors are making? etc., These are ‘esoteric’ roles and are rarely offered.

4. Sales: Front-line selling: This is the pinnacle in Business Development. The most happening place. Some of the activities include Cold-calling customers, explaining your company’s offerings to clients, pursuading them to do business with your company, negotiating the deal and price etc., Most of the time, the local people will be recruited for these positions. Americans for US clients, Britons for UK, Europeans for Europe etc., These are the guys who will be influencing the clients to begin with. Once the client
has shown some interest, then the entire Sales team will be involved. The Sales team can be organized based on geography, vertical, business-offerings etc.,

Bottomline: Each company has its own definitions of roles. So it is absolutely imperative to clarify before you accept the offer.

What is the Career path?
Pre-sales –> Sales –> Group-sales/ Relationship manager (For large client accounts) –> Territory/Country/Regional manager –> Vice president/Senior Vice

president/Executive Vice president –> CXO!

Bottomline: The career path differs from company to company. It’s imperative that you clarify it.

What are the related functions?
This is important to understand because one has to know what are the functions one would interact with while at job.

Some known functions: Sales-support, Corporate marketing, Public Relations, Event management, Competitive intelligence, Consulting, Account management.

Bottomline: Understand how all these divisions work together.

What are the questions one should ask a recruiter?
- Career path
- Performance indicators and Evaluation process (On what basis one would be evaluated during appraisals for promotions and hikes)
- Salary structure (Fixed and variable components)
- Individual role/Team role
- Company’s strengths and competitors
- Type of deals preferred
- Future strategy

Since the sales in IT fall under “Business-to-Business”, the strategies are different from typical B2C sales & marketing.

The roles for MBAs in IT services companies is still evolving. Expect more refined roles in future…

Regarding the “Program manager” offered by Microsoft, the following link comprehensively explains the job function.

Steven Sinofsky’s insights

Chris Pratley’s insights

This is different from typical “Project manager” role in IT services company. No one will be reporting to you. But you have to ‘interact’ with Clients, Marketing team, Product managers, other Program managers, your development team, testing team, user interface team etc., Lots of communication involved in terms of convincing all the parties about your ideas. You have to draft the entire project plan. So only scheduling is involved and no resource allocation involved (no people management). Program manager is “Project manager” - “People management” + “Client interfacing”. You have to constantly identify ways of improving customer experience. In summary, you have to identify “needs”, convince involved “parties”, get approval, schedule the project and oversee it at broad level. After some experience, you can later move to Product management/Product planning/Sales & marketing team within Microsoft.

I was one of the recipients of “ISB Torchbearers award”, which was announced today. Around 32 people made it to the final list. Four among them stand out strongly, and were fittingly given “ISB young leaders award” in addition to “ISB Torchbearers award”.

That’s for the positive side.

Over the past 9 months at ISB, I have heard many sarcastic comments on blogging. People see “blogging” as a waste of time. The most hurting comment one can hear is “So you got it due to blogging..huh?”, “So all the bloggers got it huh?”…If someone invites me for party/dinner and If I turn it down, they will say..”So you will go and blog?”..Even though it was used in a fun context, the frequency of such comments make me sick of such comments…I am going to speak only for myself atleast here…

Blogging is not easy. First of all, it needs solid commitment and discipline to do it consistently and to make it informative. I do it mainly because I love blogging. So, I thought I will make it as a fruitful exercise for ISB too…Many a times, I blogged under hectic schedules…I think I have done a decent job along with few other fellow bloggers here…

People think they have been using their time most productively by not blogging. Just take a moment and think…”Didn’t you spend time in chatting unnecessarily about bollywood, cricket, masala items…?”, “Didn’t you waste time in drinking whole night and sleeping for the next whole day?”….Blogging is much better use of time than those!!! BTW, I don’t take more than 15-30 minutes per day in blogging…I do it religiously…..

For the first time in my life, I am not proud of receiving an award…

The “Award” committee should have made the process more transparent. They should have atleast announced on what grounds people were given awards…that would have closed mouths of many!

There has been quite a few cribs going on especially on the “ISB young leaders award”. Just imagine the plight of the guy (not me) who didn’t even nominate for himself, but who has done tremendous volunteering, and received “ISB young leaders award”, and eventually being questioned on the award!!!! If the grounds on which ISB gave these awards is announced, it will atleast avoid the cribs…People will really appreciate the grounds of recognition…I personally feel all 4 of them deserve thoroughly…

Couldn’t resist from posting this stuff…I tried hard…but…

ISB Through the lens
“A Pictorial reflection of Life at ISB…”

This is a photo blog from THE PHOTOGRAPHER of ISB Batch 2006. It’s tough to see him without his tiny and compact digital camera. He is also a veteran with SLRs. How many of us can claim to ‘click’ the moment before ‘returning’ some fast serves in volleyball game? He definitely can…He has captured all the moments…moments of people dancing, partying, studying, laughing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and even clicking snaps! Here it is…”ISB through the lens of Vickie the clickie!”

Bobo Writes…

This one is from Vibhu Walia. He was the moderator of ISB-Admits yahoo group for our batch and his was an established name before everyone met at ISB. He is currently pursuing his exchange program in Darden, Virginia along with Shrutkeerthi. He too has decided to capture his journey in the blogosphere…

Conversation that I overheard:

X: “Who do you think will make it to the final list of McKinsey from the announced shortlist today?”

Y: “Hmm…X1,X2….”

X: Cuts short…”X2??”, “Man what do you think about X2?..I heard he was some lead before coming here..”

Y: “No..he is good…his fundas are very strong!”

X: “Is it…what’s his GMAT?”

Y: “Wait let me take the excel sheet(!!)…Hmm…he has got 720…”

X: “What’s his undergrad?”

Y: “He has done his engineering from no name college…hmm..his undergrads marks are less than 70%”…

X: “less than 70%….???”

Y: “Yeah…even X3,X4 will make it to the final list…You know what X5 was making only 2.7 lacs before coming here and his GMAT is less than 670! but he is doing good here…”

X: “Ok..can you tell me who else has got 750+”…Supposedly X is proud of his GMAT score…

Y: Checks his excel sheet and tells him the stats…”Hmm..I was earning X lacs per annum, look at this fella, he has 9 years experience and was earning less than me…Hmmm!”

Man, this is the kind of talks happening in the campus…People who were previously not noticed are getting noticed, all because their names are in the shortlist..and everyone wants to suddenly know more about him/her and question their success in ISB…My question is simple…”How does all this matter to you?”…”Plan your game buddy…”!

BTW, today the first short-list from McKinsey was announced. 35 people made it to the final list…Many people are disappointed as they couldn’t make it to the final list…The list has predominantly dean’s list guys and some strong experienced guys…But this was just like what I expected…so no surprises for me!

A particular Indian Electronics equipment company has promised high-level roles with sky-rocketing salaries in their presentation! Man, can’t imagine getting such high salaries in India!!! Of course, they are in look out for very experienced people with relevant backgrounds…which ISB has supply of!

I was talking to one of the fellow bloggers (I wouldn’t want to name him, but soon the world will take a notice of him highly ) and I am pretty sure he will be one of the top-salary earners in ISB this year. He was already talking numbers equivalent to US salary!

I am only talking about Domestic salaries. My quadie G, got an offer with a up-coming Pharma research company through his personal network. The role is pretty high-level (2-3 levels from the top) and salary is very good! He is one hell of a focused and smart guy…He will go places…

Isn’t all these strong evidences that Indian market is HOT?

IT service companies and product companies are predominantly offering the following roles or flavours of the following role:

Business Analyst
Business Development
Program Manager
Product Manager
Project Manager

Other roles are:

Account Manager
Domain Consultant
Associate Consultant
Technology Consultant
ERP Consultant

Depending on the number of years of relevant experience one has, one can expect to attach the word “Senior” in front of all these roles.

The most popular roles among IT guys are Business Analyst or Business Development.

The Business Analyst is the most commonly offered role in all IT companies. One needs to have relevant sales experience for getting a Business Development role (The client-facing position or rather Client-acquiring position!). Largely, one will be recruited as Business Analysts for appropriate verticals in which one has past experience(Healthcare, Financial Services, Telecom, Retail, Energy & Utilities…etc.,)

I somehow have a feeling that the BA roles are highly diluted in IT services company. Companies have been recruiting from even second-tier and third-tier colleges for these positions! Most of the work will be RFP and PPT preparations. If one has patience and shrewdness to grab visibility for his work, then he can quickly obtain a client-facing role and can grow further. But to begin with everything is offshore.

Somehow, the Program manager roles offered by Microsoft appeals to me. But again, it’s personal preference. I just let my heart to speak without any hindrance from head…and I found a lot of ‘inherent’ interest with that role. But my head says “Maximize your MBA returns..go for more ‘appealing’ roles”. Now, that’s where the dilemma comes…for me atleast.

Don’t get me wrong…I am now-a-days giving lot of preference for work-life balance, location, ‘love’ and ‘passion’ for the work. That’s what is going to ultimately keep me happy…

It’s become a chore to regularly attend PPTs, some out of compulsion, some out of interest, some out of influence!! Yeah, everyone has something called mandatory attendance for a set of Pre-placement talks. If anyone misses the mandatory PPTs, the number of job postings that a person can apply comes down by one! The penalty increases exponentially for further absenteeism…Just a mechanism to ensure minimum attendance for all PPTs. I think it’s fair…The facility to trade PPT allotments increases the active trading within ISB community

In ISB, we get to decide even the slotting of companies. Students bid for the company slottings. For example, if majority of students would like company ‘X’ to come on campus on day 1, they would bid high for that company and slotting…Again, it’s to bring equality…But with majority of students from IT background, the scale can easily shift towards IT companies…One can witness the Consulting giants, I-Banking giants and IT service giants to compete on the same day for the top minds…The top brains will be sold out in 2-3 days…The experienced hearts will be available for grab after 3 days, but for a premium

The 10 days from February 18-27 is going to be a logistical nightmare…Since there are many rooms needed for interviews, word is that even some rooms in the executive housing block will be utilized. The onus of getting the student to the right room at the right time falls on CAS. So CAS faces a logistical nightmare. But given the good track record that they possess in logistics, I think this will be a minor deal!

If one is lucky, placement process can end in as quick as 1 day! or it could drag for months…Just the matter of time, luck, fit, performance…everything should fall together…

As of now, I have decided to apply for around 8 companies…out of which I am confident of getting in at 2-3 companies, need to prepare more for another 2-3 companies. The remaining companies are a long shot…

Just some observations…People are becoming increasingly defensive..some are becoming more agressive…All due to stress…With so many things happening around, disorientation happens very easily…

Anyway, I am trying hard to remain calm…but failing at times!

The whole day was screwed up. Slept at morning 9! Wanted to wake up in time for 2:30 class. In stead Woke up at 3 to my dismay..So had to attend 5-7 class, which means I had to call up my focus group and convey them that I wouldn’t make it to the meeting scheduled at that time…Wanted to review ITBS group assignment…But the write-up was sent around 11:00 in the morning for review, and I was sleeping at that time. Submission was due in the evening, so couldn’t devote time to review it…

Went and attended the presentation of one of the well-paying company. At the end of the session, the ‘expected’ impact was not made, so there were disappointments around. But the salary, location are still attractive. Whatever big the company might be, if the people who deliver, fail to impress, the interest on the company takes a jolt….’Projecting’ a positive image within the stipulated timeframe is key to success and failing to do is recipe to disaster.

Later, forgot that there is a IT-focus group meeting scheduled at 10:00. So gave committment for quad-focus group. Had to chuck one after realizing the clash in schedule…

Still have some more readings for tomorrow’s class….couldn’t read today’s newspaper…

What the heck, will see it tomorrow…Am hitting the bed…tomorrow is a fresh day!

On Monday, I had two options in front of me. Either to attend Infy Placement Talk or Hindustan Times - Media Placement Talk. I chose to attend the second since I thought I have enough information about Infy. Three top-level gentlemen from HT came over to deliver the pitch. I would say their sales pitch was very good. They greeted hands with few people present in the room. Then they went ahead and portrayed the Media landscape in India. Then they briefed about Hindustan Times and its strategies. I was curious to know what roles Media can offer for MBAs apart from traditional Marketing and Sales. The role that HT Media is offering is of strategy and implementation.

Also, they said they created a job for a MBA graduate, who wanted to exploit her writing skills while at the same time wanted to harness her MBA skills. Got some details on that. Compensation is competitive. I somehow have a feeling that Media is one of the places to exhibit and nurture your “creativity”. Anyway, I will keep this as “eccentric” options !

After I came from the talk, I heard that Apollo Hospitals also gave a good sales pitch. Hmm…attending these kind of non-IT company sales pitch is enriching in a way…

I signed up for Mock Interview-GD-Sales Pitch organized by CAS on January 23rd. Interested students are grouped in buckets of 10. Business attire is compulsory. The purpose is to create an experience as close as possible to the actual recruitment. Consulting Club is also organizing similar event.

One of my focus-groups [am Part of 2 focus groups] had ‘Sales pitch’ session today. We cleared the room of chairs and sofas to create a ’stage’ setting. Video recorded the session. Probed the candidates deeply. Provided critical feedback. Then, watched back the video. Group was satisfied with the ‘quality’ of this session.

It’s becoming tough to manage between Placement preparations, Company Presentations and classes. But, it’s all in the good interest….

Three of my important Comrades have done a great social service to some people in ISB. One of them listens to the lectures or interviews very patiently and retains them permanently. He is the most prominent one among all my subordinates. He has been of great help to many people…literally MANY. He has even travelled with the people to assist them in their journeys! Another one of them remembers the images picture-perfect and retains it permanently. Yet another of them listens and observes others carefully and portrays their weaknesses or strengths HONESTLY when asked for!

I am talking about my dear electronic gadgets. iRiver-multi utility jukebox, which also doubles up as Dictaphone [Amazing quality…no doubts]. The other one is Canon Digital Camera [Canon -A95]. The third one is Digital Camcorder [Sony-TRV25]

I will feel my day as incomplete, if I am not been of help to even single human being. So, I make it a habit to help voluntarily…It might be as valuable as evaluating applications, reviewing resumes, observing people and giving feedback…or as trivial as opening the door for someone to enter, or showing up a smiling face to a depressed mind. But these three Comrades have significantly reduced my burden by doing social service on behalf of me

Well, Just submitted my resume + EOI for McKinsey & Co. Huh! Also, spent significant time in shaping the resumes of two of my close friends…Polishing resumes is tough job!!! Damn tired…

Don’t have energy to write…Instead decided to point to a “Brief-Biography” (The date of the post is tampered with!), that I wrote quite a while ago…!

Recently ISB announced a award called “ISB Young leaders award” and “ISB Torch bearer award”, for students who have displayed strong extra-curricular activities, or helped in building the brand of the school, or displayed strong leadership skills…

Now, what I feel strange about the award is we have to nominate ourselves or somebody else can nominate for us(But given the pressure everyone is under, I strongly suspect if the second case will ever happen). Few people I know, who deserve this award are not nominating saying that its ISB who should recognize the students and honour the awards.

“Self Sales pitch”, seems to be the norm these days. Be it admission, recruitment, award, election…Ultimately you represent yourself…World is self-centred…anything for others is only beyond you!!

But when I put myself in the shoes of school, recruiter, position, the notion of “sales-pitch” becomes clear…I would pick up the student who conveys a strong image about himself…Because the time is limited and you have to believe what you see and what you hear..no time to research deep!

This brings to my mind another sensitive topic…Exaggeration in resumes. In the beginning phases of career, I was of the opinion that exaggeration is not good. But over a period of time, when I interacted with recruiters, I understood that exaggeration is not seen upon as negative attribute, but as some skill! Recruiters are clever to make out the difference between ‘extreme’ exaggerations and ‘polishing’ exaggerations. One of my belgian colleague who was my project manager was also of the opinion that exaggeration to some extent is acceptable…Exaggeration puts you across as ‘mature’ candidate who can see the business impacts of your activities!

If you have a look any MBA resume, chances are that you will find some portion as non-factual and some as factual. It’s the non-factual portion which is tough to substantiate…

All of a sudden, all the technical aspects of your job evaporate and only the business aspects emerge! Now, that’s an art…As long as you can defend your statements.

Various Companies are on campus for delivering their pre-placement pitch. Now, it’s the time for them to do the sales pitch…One month later, it will be our turn to do the sales pitch Anyway, Going by the demand and market boom, looks like this year it is going to be the ISBian’s market

Yesterday I had a dream. I saw the average salary of ISB as 15.7 lakhs..The image was so vivid that I remember it still! Time will answer if what is saw was a day-dream or a foresight!

Things at home front are improving slowly. I am also feeling much better with more sleep….

Had my round of “Sales Pitch”(Why EDS? Why You?) for EDS. Didn’t go well…Could have done lot better…

I wasn’t feeling well throughout the day. Was Feeling feverish. Am going to sleep well for next one week and take enough rest.

By the way, happened to see “Sales pitch” made by others…Some people were rocking! Ooph! Man, intensity is high..stakes are high…I think the best route is to just chill out…being your own-self is the route to success…and being chill is the best way to be your own-self!

It was a good experience…At least, I have broken the ice as far as placement call is concerned…

Am shortlisted for further rounds of EDS-job interview…Wasn’t expecting a call to be honest, given the kind of role and competition…Hmm..atleast this gives me a confidence that my resume is fine and I am able to gather attention of recruiters…

Running to press my shirt..Was very confident that I will not go through, that I didn’t press my shirt even…

Let me give a shot at it…After all, I have nothing to lose..isn’t it?

My Ex-employer, who is a self-made entrepreneur, has began his new Software Venture. The venture is in the initial stages…

www.appliedevelopment.com

Just sent my resume + EOI for a role in Corporate Strategy group of EDS. Huh! The role, responsibility, salary, location everything is attractive….I think entire campus would be applying Not disclosing anymore details…

Thus begins the recruitment season….From monday, many Preplacement Presentations by companies are lined up. God, may the force be with me for next 2 months!!!

Last one week has been the MOST hectic and taxing week in ISB for me so far…On top of this, mouth ulcers, fever + cold. Never in life have I craved for sleep like this…honestly!

Now, don’t ask me where the hell do you get the time for blogging…Because, blogging is something close to my heart…Will blog even if I have an interview with my dream company the next day morning! A way to relax…For some people it’s smoking, for some people it’s gossipping, for some people it’s watching television…for me it’s blogging….

PS: The first round admission results would be announced today as per ISB website. Can’t imagine that we are nearing the end of programme. Anyway, my best wishes to all the applicants…May the deserving applicants go through…

One of the most pleasant and service-minded people that I have seen in my life are Sarovar House-keeping guys. They rock!

You get to wake up with a call “Housekeeping….”. Then you get to hear “Good morning sir…”. Then they mechanically change your bedsheets, clean your room, fold your clothes if you have any unfolded clothes, fill the water bottle…and the list goes on…Before they begin their cleaning, they report to their superiors that they are cleaning so and so room…If they find any valuables on the table/shelf, they quietly note it down and report it to the administration. In the evening, the concerned quad residents will get a mail saying “Valuables were found in your room. Kindly lock it in a safe plac…”

There is a new person who has joined the sarovar housekeeping team. He is hyper-active. He will always have the last word…How? He will say “Good morning sirrrr…”, and I reply “Good morning…”, he will reply back instantly “Thank you sirrrrr”…Ok..how about this..”Cleaning ho gaya sirrrr…”, I reply “Thank you!”, he goes instantly “Welcome sirrrrr…”..Somehow he wants to have the last word

On the new year day, he wished “Happy new year sirrrr!”, I replied back “Happy new year to you too…”, then he smiled and went towards the kitchen…After about 15-30 seconds he came back and smilingly said…”Thank you sirrrrr…” Sweet guys…

We are being pampered as far as housekeeping is concerned…Life will be tough after ISB

These guys are amazingly well-trained. Daily morning, all sarovar guys assemble at Recreation centre and repeat some sort of prayer. Then they get to know their allotments [Which rooms to whom?]. Again in the evening another drill…Their pleasant behaviour and images will always linger in my heart….

I have attended 4-5 mock consulting case interviews so far. I am able to crack the case to an extent. But the last 2 cases are something special. In the last but one case, after understanding the problem statement, I asked my first question to start my information gathering process. The very first question made the 2 interviewers to laugh…I couldn’t understand what’s going on…then, we continued. At the end of the case interview, they told me that the question that I asked was exactly reproduced word-by-word in the solutions document! That isn’t my problem!!! They even suspected that I have read the case before…wherein I haven’t…

Today’s case interview went one step further. The ideal approach for today’s case suggested a set of questions that the student should ask to finally arrive at a conclusion. But, I arrived at the expected conclusion within 3 minutes of my interview, with just 2 questions!!! Interviewer just kept me engaged for another 10 minutes by leading me into different areas. Finally, the interviewer rejected me saying he couldn’t evaluate my thought process!! Hmm…I made whole lot of assumptions in mind and asked the question that led me to the right conclusion…I know that I am a high-context person. But didn’t realize that I am very-high-context!! Need to shift to low-context…Case interviews need low-context culture! After all, the thought process is what is being evaluated in interviews!

To give an analogy, what I did was analogous to writing the final answer without writing down the intermediate steps. Might work well in objective type examinations, but not in subjective type exams!!!

BTW, I am doing these exercises just for learning. I don’t have any hopes of getting a consulting job, as academics plays a major role. And I don’t have attractive grades! But this preparation might come handy down-the-line…

Had a very unique examination today. Nothing special about the subject. But the way it was conducted was different…The answers had to typed in the word document while racing against the time. Unlike the usual sound of pens torturing the paper, this time it was the sound of keyboards pressing against the rubber padding that was distracting people…appeared to me like a typing exam!

The formalities after the exam was even stranger. The IT assistant came to each laptop and downloaded the answer document on to this pen drive. Took years to finish the process. So, some 2-3 people including me, pitched in with our own pen drives and eased up the process a little.

The paper was quite easy, in hindsight! There was a question to find price elasticity of a product given the sales and the total variable cost. After thinking some complex regression approaches, realized that the solution can be obtained through the simple cost-plus markup formula! Few more questions were like that…Life is simple most-of-the-time, but our complex minds make its tough

On the recruitment front, I rented couple of interview CD’s [Microsoft, McKinsey, BirlaSoft]. Will watch it over next 2 days. My promises to review resumes of my focusgroup is unfulfilled. Need to fulfill it during this term-break.

Received our User Id and Password for CAS website. All the job postings, Pre-placement talk schedules, resume submission will be done through this website. The pre-placement talks will begin promptly from the beginning of Term 7…that is, 5 days from now….