On Ice Cold water

You can see the early morning dew. Sun God is still too shy to show his face. There is biting chillness in the spring air. Before me I see crystal clear waters of the great river with even ice cold surface.

I slowly dip my leg into the freezing water. Its like a mini electric shock. I remove my leg from water as fast as I can.

I stand just on the bank dilly dallying should I or should not. Should I plunge into the water or head back to close warm comfort of my hotel room and tuck under those cozy blankets.

This is an one time opportunity, its a risk. Standing on the banks of Ganges I mull, what if I take a plunge and satisfy my insatiable desire and experience an exhilarating phenomenon.

Being a Nature Lover, I cant but compare this situation to classic Why MBA question. Most of the prospective MBA students are leaving well secured jobs - read warm blankets and cozy sleep to 1 or 2 Year rollercoaster, life changing MBA experience - read exhilaration one feels after overcoming initial shock of plunging into ice cold water.

The experience is personal, its bliss, it may sound risky and uncertain, but its worth every initial chill across the spine and the soothing calm that follows a dip in pure, cold waters of Ganges in an early spring morning.

Common what r u thinking folks. Ready to take the Plunge..

adios.

Leadership and Persuasion

Persuasion is one aspect of Leadership. I read an article about Persuasion in CIO magazine and was impressed. The author emphasizes content as well as context in scenarios where lot is at stake.

Also the author presses on 'Establishing a credibility' for any successful persuasion.

I have been wondering how many times I have failed to sail my points across in meeting even though valid. Looking back I can see atleast couple of cases where context would have really helped to turn the tide in my favor. One incident I remember is when I had make a presentation about recently completed project to my companies top management. I made a powerpoint packed with all metrics/ROI for client/New business won because of the successful completion of this project etc.

Stage was set but our VP came late 15 minutes. I started, breezed through the entire presentation and ended. Mid way I realized that some thing had gone wrong and VP looked disinterested. What should have been an excellent presentation turned out to be a damp squib. I later came to know that he was not happy with our quarterly results which were just out that morning and boy here Iam preaching how my Project had generated new businesses for our company. Though my contents were cent percent apt the context didnt help me. I should have realized the bad quarterly performance and altered my presentation accordingly concentrating on Execution efficiency instead and leave the new business talk for a later day..

Lesson learnt. Adapt your presentation to suit the audience mood. Before going into a major presentation a little status update on audience and latest happenings is absolutely essential.

adios.

Snippets of IIMA

These courses at IIMA are interesting. I donno if these courses will be available for Pgpx batch but I have heard these are very interesting courses esp ERI.

communication area, ERI (Explorations in Roles & Identity), CRI (Careers, Roles & Identity)

Some of the various special interest groups and clubs on campus pertain to: marketing (Niche), finance (Beta), drama (IIMACTS), nature (Prakriti), astronomy (Star Gazers), entrepreneurship, consultancy, music & literary activities, to name some.

Mad Money - Jim says Google and Yahoo will end lower tomorrow and over the rest of week. And ebay is the stock to watch for and invest a little money. Though I donot own Google ($265 and trading at 52 week high) , it may end lower as I agree with Jim that there is a Internet stocks overload now and these stocks may go down in next couple of days.

Lets see what happens and What Google's Eric is going to reveal inGoldman Internet Conference..

League of Extraordinary B Schools

When deciding on applying to 1 Yr MBA program at IIMA I followed a Natural thought process. I wrote down all questions that came across my mind and answers to these questions. These are some of my thoughts..

What will happen to the image of ISB with IIMA's program?

ISB and IIM will compete and cooperate. Competition is always a welcome change. But sooner or later ISB will have to get permanent faculty as in the long run this really matters in the long run. My guess is that each program will end up with only a smaller common set of applicants as both the programs though 1 Year have different flavors.

Do companies that come specifically at IIMA (talking IBs/MCs here) will consider the Pgpx candidates?

Yes. There is a tremendous opportunity for these companies to recruit at Senior Levels. Since many of the top companies have excellent relationship with IIMA, this will be a win-win situation for both. IBs may not show that much interest as its a 1 Yr program and normally most of the Banks recruit from pool of summer interns. MCs will find a new recruiting ground and new leaders from Asia's primier business school. I can see IIM Ahmedabad on the leagues of Ashridge/Insead/IMD/Oxbridge supplying students with leadership experience and transnational management skills.

What impact will Pgpx have on IIMA's flagship 2 yr MBA program and viceversa?

IIMA' s flagship program has been running for last 4 decades. It has moulded many a leaders over the last 40 years. The inputs for this program is great and participants best of the best. The only missing piece is the lack of realworld business experience. Most of them have minimal or zilch experience. The energy and enthusiasm displayed by these students are great. Where as the 1 Yr Pgpx program caters to mature crowd with many years of leadership and business experience. I believe there will be great synergy between these two programs. Realworld perspectives from the Pgpx crowd combined with the zeal of Pgp students will elevate IIM Ahmedabad to a higher level playing field.

More trickles will fall....

Mad Money

I have been watching Jim Kramer's Mad Money program in CNBC. This guy rocks with enthusiasm. But this show pales in comparison with Kudlow and Kramer. The latter was much enjoyable to watch with analysis from Politics to Petroleum prices.

Jim looks a tired person but he still carries much of his exuberance that was visible in K&K show. Today he listed top 10 stocks 'that have not done anything yet'. He bets on these stocks as a safe investment in these times where no one can say its Bull or Bear..

Out of 10 I root for Yahoo and UPS. Lets see what happens in the coming days..

Whats happening with Siebel though?? This stock is now lingering in single digit mark and how long will it be before IBM or SAP or Oracle or do I hear Microsoft come knocking with a quote at Siebel's door..

On the MBA front - I still have lot of pending action items. I hope to resolve atleast 2 items by this weekend. One question that is lingering on my mind is What will happen to the image of ISB with IIMA's program. Do companies that come specifically at IIMA (talking IBs/MCs here) will consider the Pgpx candidates? What impact will Pgpx have on IIMA's flagship 2 yr MBA program and viceversa? Will International students consider India as a MBA education destination and join Pgpx (After all ISB's 5Yr old program with International professors still doesnt have a sizable chunk of International students. Most of the internationals are NRIS)
And are Indian corporate really warmed up to the Idea of 1 yr MBA program and recruiting at Lateral levels) How about the faculty at IIMA will they be efficient enough to tackle,inspire and prepare students with high Industry experience and maturity. How dramatic a shift it will be for them to enter a classroom filled with kids of almost zilch experience and the one filled with students in their late twenties and many years of corporate experience under their belts)

Will Pgpx finally propel IIMA towards the International top 20 league. (CEIBS is already almost there, FT ranking of CEIBS is 22. International students 20%)

I will answer these questions in detail tomorrow.

My verdict is that I have immense confidence on the value Indian Management can offer to the world and the potential of this world class institution called IIMA.

adios.

The Three Four Rule

Bruce Henderson the legendary founder of BCG came up with this wonderful rule based on empirical data.

Three Four Rule - For any product there can be only three major competitors in any market.
Also the market share of the largest firm can not be more than four times the share of smallest firm. Or if interpreted in a different way, a firm cannot compete effectively if it's market share is less than the quarter of market leader's share.

A very interesting thought indeed.

cheers

MBA Humm

Last weekend I did a casual scan on how much it costs for some of the top MBA programs
including living exp, excluding opp costs (in USD)

All top 10 MBA programs in US - >125k
Insead, IMD -> 90k
Oxford/Cambridge/Ashridge/Manchester - 75k

Such high costs even after internship money and pre mba savings of 20k One is going to end up with 90K in debt for any top US program. While with European programs one can expect 70k debt for Insead/IMD with around 50k debt for European programs.

Compare this with IIM - 22k, ISB - 36k and CEIBS - 36k.

For a person interested in working in Asia the Asian programs are really great.

With avg MBA sal of 85k the after MBA salaries have remained the same from 2000 levels in case of top US MBA programs. If you have a 100k debt how long will it take to repay it considering higher standard of living post mba. Anywhere from 5-8 years I believe.

cheers..

Case Interviews and approach Strategy

Case interviews are increasingly used not only by top MC and IB companies but also by many top business schools to filter applicants.

Generally any case interview falls in one of the following types - Project, Market Sizing, Analytical, Puzzle type or one which tests one's leadership skills.

I am familiar with the Project, Market Sizing and Puzzle type cases. In my preparation run up to IIM A interview (What a high confidence you may mention, I need this one badly and I am not going to leave any stone unturned) I have divided the preparation into 5 parts.

1. Know thyself completely
2. Know everything you can about this institute.
2. IIM A questionnaire - From Why MBA to Whats buoyancy
3. Leaderhip/Case interview preparation
4. Awareness of current business happenings in India and abroad.
5. Other Misc things.

Trickles will fall...

Woods do whisper

There is a very good library near to my house. Every sunday its my routine to check out some of the fine books in the library along with a fresh cup of White choclate mocha from the inhouse Starbucks..

Its my favorite past time. This week I came across a book called 'The secret ways of the Forest'. Interesting and intriguing read. I also watched one program called Nature in PBS. How do the big Brazilian Walnut tree is spread over the amazon basin. It part of the amazons natural ecological structure. Its seeds are as big as a canon ball.

The reason lies in the numerous burrow rats that bury these seeds in ground and forget to retrieve the treasure back. These seeds often lie underground dormant for many years until some of the growth above diminishes and sunlight seeks its way into the forest bed. Result new growth and a new Walnut tree.

Lessons that nature teach us are enormous. Like the Brazil Walnut tree we have to strike when the opportune time arrives, till then persist with patience.

More trickles will fall...

Vietnam and its lessons

I have been reading a case study on Major Shoe Company in vietnam. Its an amazing read about how a global coalition of Non Profit organizations and volunteers helped bring a positive change on the company and three of its Vietnamese sub contractors. Almost a decade into globalization things have started to stabilize now and both the private companies and national governments through out the world have come to realize that utilizing cheap labor while ignoring the social issues will put everyone at peril.

This case study is effectively written by Prof Deepti Bhatnagar of IIMA. If get a chance get hold of this case study. A good read.

On the IIMA front my official GMAT score hasnt reached IIMA. I am little worried as I have already requested ETS twice to send my GMAT scores but in vain. So atlast I contacted Ahmedabad and spoke with a nice gentleman called Mr. Bose. He is taking up my cause with ETS..

Some thing very important happened over the last few days, Lenova a chinese company buying IBM's PC division. Its a watershed for Asian business community.

I will not be surprised if in the future an Indian IT giant buys a top US based technology service provider.

More trickles will fall..