The placements have been stunning this year. At least three ceilings have been broken!

We have definitely set new standards which other IIMs and ISB will find difficult to better! A piece of thought, a wonderful one which I came across recently, to these fine lads as they go out into the outside world :

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.  ~ Mark Twain

Life has been much fun the last few days. What’s up here is ‘Backwaters‘, the annual festival of IIMK. This is by far one of the most sponsored and most colorful of B-School fests in the country. The last couple of days have been much more fun than a ‘mela’ (translated roughly to a ‘fair’ in English).
The campus is swarming with some really artistically made colorful banners, enticing punch lines, our own folks so seemingly busy with their responsibilities and bright gay tags announcing the ‘position-of-responsibility’ they hold. The make do Walkie-Talkies or the constant buzz of cell phones kept most organizers on their toes and running. The air was filled with the sounds of ‘K-Dio‘ our own Internet Radio broadcasting the various happenings, the gossips, the updates, the contestant views, the prizes and absolutely everything that was so interesting and so much fun in and around the Campus.
Some of the really Fun events which took place are (These are the ones I actually ended up watching.. giving up the couch luxuries any MBA student relishes)

Khichdi: A dance cocktail featuring most of the supercharged dance from bhangra to gidha to what not
Twelve Angry Men: A Captivating play based on the movie by the same name. This really saw some spectacular performance from the students of IIM-K
Mr. & Miss Backwaters: The event which was more aligned with building camaraderie than testing one upmanship. More in a duo format with guys and girls coming up from the differenct colleges and them being asked to prove their worth in tasks which ranged from wild to rib-tickling to ones which really needed to whack up your creativity.
K-Band: Our own home band played some mellifluous numbers. It was a magical experience to sit in the carpet green grass of the amphitheater and listen to our friends play such fantastic music.
Mother Jane concert: a concert by the Desi Rock band ‘mother Jane’. It was sheer ecstasy for hard rock fans. Whether it was Pink Floyd or metallica or Aerosmith. all the super cool numbers were played starting with the iconic ‘We don’t need no Education’! The lighting and the sound system were impervious to any chinks and it roared and screamed through the musical night
Kite Flying: We also flew kites, an ode to the spirit of Makar Sankranti. Surprisingly my kite flying skills were still sharp from grade 8 in school when I last flew them. On the 15th of August the Delhi skies used to be colored with confetti of bright colorful kits which now but looked like specs in the vast expanse of the blue skies. A lot of the memories were relived, even as my kite flew for about 3 hours soaring to the runner’s up position in the ‘height of kite’ criteria.
Euphoria: This was by far one of the best concerts I have heard in a long time. Palash Sen & Co. really felt the pulse of the crowd. The crowd wooed-swooed with them. Plus not to mention the ‘Kabhi aana tu meri Galli’ and ‘Dhoom Pichak Dhoom’ numbers! The icing on the cake was for the first time palash got some very pretty ladies as a sing-along choir. Eyes kept meandering near them every now and then when palash took a break to catch some breath, which was not too often.

A lot of ‘Kodak-Moments’ of these events are captured on my flickr site.

This is one think that does not change irrespective of how my age counter keeps ticking or how the context or the geographies keep rolling. It happened during my under graduation, during my the period when I was on a job and now when I am finally doing my MBA, it still comes haunting back. Whenever I am set to go to home, the last days before that big day passes in a jiffy. with almost the whole world ‘conspiring’ to keep me on my highest spirits. And then before I can bat my eyelid its time for the return journey, now this seriously hurts! That day its almost like everything works against my wishes and no matter what happens I sorely miss home and my folks there! It always was this way, as far as I can remember!

Currently these are the things that I miss sorely of my home.

1. The cozy place called my house and the luxury of having a refrigerator, a microwave oven and a car at your disposal (if you know what I mean)
2. The chilly and fog smeared mornings, the nice colorful sweat shirts and the warm and comfortable quilts and of course the TV remote and the time to indulge in it abundantly
3. The numerous FM Channels that are there on air. This time there were two new FM channels and my favorite of them all shifted from Red-FM to Radio-City
4. The nice and friendly people of Delhi (Not to mention the pretty ones of opposite sex)
5. The hot Cup of Coffee or the aroma of Darjeeling Tea which my mother is so excellent at preparing
6. All my favorite foodstuff during the meals and other generous helpings (on a self service basis from the refrigerator)
7. My nice room which beautiful oak furniture and my excellently lit table.
8. Lastly, my Family who would always go that extra mile to provide me all my wants (Not NEEDS, mind you! WANTS!)

Yup the pain in the neck finally ceased, hopefully! This by far was the most taxing and the most strenuous term so far (Ok.. now we have only had two terms so far, but what the heck!) The take home from this term was almost proportionate to the number of sleepless nights we spent. (None for me ..Thanks .. but No Thanks !)
We understood the true essence of the Harvard Case Methodology, which was overused to an extent bordering abused in one of our subject. The efforts we were asked to pour in were clearly insane, and there lies the catch, we were almost pushed off the cliff and had we not opened our parachutes (Read Unofficial Co-operative work) we would sure have been dead meat by now.
Something which is really sad is that in our system the profs see that students readily cheat or resort to ‘un-ethical’ means but they don’t see the greater picture that they in fact push us to this point by blindly copying the western system without applying the minimum required customizations.
While a Harvard MBA graduate student spends on an average 4 hours in class (taking 5 subjects) and another 6-8 hours studying doing projects, assignments and so on, an IIM student has to take 6-8 hours of class (taking 8 subjects) and at least about 8-10 hours of house prep after that. This leaves almost no time to even relish whatever are learnings of a day and is more like a mad guzzle which leads to at best an indigestion and at worst a Puke! Not to mention that a Harvard/Wharton/Kellogg student rarely needs to muggify for subjects and here we are made to save humongous amount of data even for social subjects like ‘Ethics’! I really wonder how much ethics we end up learning considering that all we learn is various theories like Piaget and Kohl berg and its pro’s and cons. Some things which are absolutely abhorred from real life significance.
There was a big issue regarding Plagiarism this term in one of the subjects, but what the instructor failed to understand was that he was giving disproportionate workload to the amount of credit hours his subject carried. A two credit course should no way carry a case and two text book chapters to read every day (This requires 8 hours on a conservative note to do), irrespective of his beliefs regarding the importance of his subject. Some people had to pay a heavy price for omitting certain references in their term reports. But there is where the fun begins.
The Faculty actually flunked a number of students for quoting verbatim certain research papers in the term reports even though proper references were provided. His logic goes as follows,”When in a 50 pages report 10 pages are from an external report quoted verbatim, how can I not give an ‘F’ Grade”.
A very simple counter logic that should have worked in any JUST system is that “if a report is relevant it can be quoted end-to-end even if that is all what is contained in the student’s report. After all why should anyone re-invent the wheel. In worst case scenario the instructor may choose not to give any marks to the student on grounds that he did not do any new path breaking work, this would qualify for a ‘D’ grade; but no way an ‘F’. Moreover, the instructor should have made clear that he expects authentic path breaking research work from MBA students for 20% weight in a 2 credit course”
Unfortunately for the students, the IIM system posts more faith in its faculty than in its students and goes to an extent of giving them ‘SACROSANCT’ powers wherein no one has the right to even question him.
I would have indeed loved to get into a debate with the said instructor PROVIDED I am assured that I can speak without fear or favor, and this would in no way have any effect on my grades.
The best part is that the said instructor justified his ‘HARSH’ punishment because a group of this students were caught peeping in another subject quiz. Talk of impartiality of judiciary. I mean, following the same logic anyone who has stolen once should always be punished in the event of any theft in the locality he/she lives. And Does that sound Fair!!
Anyways, as someone said, ‘If Life was fair it would have been as interesting as an algebra Equation!’

Finally when this subject almost lost its complete relevance, I am able to pen my thoughts about the wonderful experience of having the dabbawalas with us in IIMK at our Operations Management seminar OPUS 2006.

On 26^th November the junta of IIM managed what would be undoubtedly one of the incredible feats, that of waking up at 7:55 AM on a SUN morning braving the intoxicating lethargy and the uncanny sleeplessness which always brings an incredible listlessness to any IIM student. The occasion was the onset of the Dabbawalas, a marvel of Six sigma for the professional community, that of immaculate reliability for the common office go’er and that of high curiosity value for the likes of globetrotting royalty, the likes of Prince Charles.

Let me describe the quintessential dabbawala for those who have never been to Mumbai (Bombay), they are ‘the daughty little man in distinctive white Gandhi cap, who delivers thousands of hungry lunches to officer-goers every afternoon. The dabbawalla gets his name from the dabba, the aluminium containers fitted one above the other, held in place by a wire grip and lowered into an outer tin case, which serves the double purpose of keeping the food warm and preventing it from splashing out during the dabbawala’s rushed and jostling journey’

Two senior folks in their largely flat hierarchy came over, Raghunath Megde the President of New Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier Association and the secretary Mr. Gangaram Talekar. The both were very plainly dressed with the signature ‘Gandhi topi’s’ on. They spoke not in a faked accentuated Hinglish (An un-cognizable amalgamation of hindi and English) but in their natural and earthen Mumbai-Hindi. The fact that they had no pretensions about them and spoke witty one liners like ‘Teaching IIM students about management is like Teaching Amitabh Bachan acting!’ help in capturing rapt attention of the sleepy and drowsy junta.
To state some facts about the organization, as revealed to us by them. The Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association is a streamlined 120-year-old organization (started in 1890 and registered in 1956) with 4,500 semi-literate members (Average literacy being 8^th grade schooling) providing a quality door-to-door service to a large and loyal customer base(roughly 200000 in numbers) at an unimaginably low cost (Rs. 300 per month). The organization is an absolutely flat structure with everyone a stakeholder in the final profits. Every individual gets equal share in the overall profit at the end of the year irrespective of rank, age, work etc. There is a body of seniors ‘The Mukhadam’ who do the overall monitoring of the process and engage in any crisis management. These are simply the folks who have been in the business for about 30-40 years and are now in a position to guide and mentor the others. A common misconception goes that these are the contractors which is not true as in the true spirit of any co-operative they draw the same salary as any other.

The whole chain starts with the friendly dabbawala knocking at your door to ollect the tiffin case at 0930 from your doorstep. This tiffin case has a uniquely marking which indicates the Originating rail station, the destination station the building name and the floor number of delivery. The color of the marking indicates the groups responsible of collecting this dabba at any particular point. This is a simple but very very efficient system designed and as any Operations Consultant would tell you involves failsafing techniques, called POKA-YOKE.

The marvel of this organization goes beyond operations management and encompasses cross-functional stuff like Organizational Management and Logistics Control (Supply Chain Management). But most importantly it is the business model which works seamlessly even in an environment as uncertain as ours. There in an inherent discipline that ensures that order is maintained. For every 6 people on active duty in the structure there is one who acts as a backup for contingencies. Load balancing is done through a heuristic involving human expertise and previous field knowledge. The mantra always being ‘The Show must go on’. Members adhere by a liberal but inflexible code of conduct which includes never being in an inebriated state at work and always donning the signature ‘Gandhi Topi’. Moreoever all duties and responsibilities are collectively owned, just like the whole profit earned are collectively distributed amongst member partners. Also, their regiment is not tailored for VIP visits and/or other ‘Occasion Specific’ demands. So when Prince Charles wanted to meet them, they eagerly consented on condition that he would have to meet them on Victoria Terminus (VT) Railway station at exactly 10:00 hours and he would have a maximum time of 20 minutes because at 10:20 hours the train to Andheri/Vile Parle departs and most dabbawalas need to board it. Lesson from all this is simple yet pivotal in any successful engagement. Its of prioritization and identificatoion of core responsibilities. The customers, the recipients of the tiffin boxes are the first priority of the dabbawalas. Everything else comes second to that, or maybe third or fourth. There are no compromises made with the core responsibility of delivering the boxes on time and at correct destination.

All in all it was a wonderful experience having them there with us !

It was not long back, or so it seems when I first stepped into the world of IIM. It’s been 1.5 terms past now. Been thinking that it might be a good idea to reflect on the subjects covered till now. So listed below are some of the more interesting subjects with a line or two about them along with my ‘two cents’ on them.

Term 1

Micro-Economics :
This is a subject which deals with the fundamentals of economics at the grassroot level. Talks about how an individual is affected by the economic policies and market scenario and how in turn he contributes to it. It could be remarkably interesting in a 6 month course but for a 2 month B-School paper things become a little too much to digest.
A good book to read for this is “Microeconomics” by Katz & Rosen

Marketing Management:
A subject which is by far the most practical of all the stuff covered in this term. It is the term which actually relates to your day to day life an your interaction with the different products and services that you consume. Pity then, that what is best learnt as a live experience is taught using textbook and simulation cases. But, on second thoughts it would take upwards of two lifetimes to get the same learnings (or almost!) as what is normally obtained from a well designed and structured course. A very apt course for anyone who wants to make his mark in the field of business. An excellent book to read, and by far the undisputed de-facto standard is “Marketing Management” by Philip Kotler

Quantitative Statistics
A course which is the stepping stone to any quantitative or statistical analysis. its like the alphabets of language. An absolute must for any advanced paper in any discipline. Whether it is Financial Derivatives or operations Management or Corporate Finance or Market Research or even Financial Accounting. A clear and undisputable understanding of the fundamentals of this subject is a must. Even if the advanced concepts are not well known, those could be picked up in the due course of time. A good book to read is “Statistics for Business & Economics” by Anderson, Sweeney and Williams.

Organizational Behavior (I)
One of the most interesting subjects in this term, though unfortunately not that critical in your career unless you really want to specialize in HR. A subject which helps you to understand the ‘people’ working in an ‘organization’ and hence lets you reflect more on yourself and your previous employee/employer; has lots of room for introspection and deep thinking. One of those subjects whose worth can be really appreciated and whose beauty can be truly savored only if you have some professional work experience. An excellent book to read is “Organizational Behaviour” by Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki

Management Accounting
One of the most critical and probably most challenging papers in this term. Something which is quite demanding in terms of your time and efforts in order to master it. The concepts are not so logical in the very beginning with the T-Accounts and the double-account, cash flows/profit and loss account/ balance sheets all getting jumbled up. But if persistent effort is put, the pieces will hopefully start falling into place like parts of a jigsaw puzzle showing you the bigger picture and the inherent coherent nature of the subject hence. Any descent accounting book would do for this.
An important note for this is : This is one subject which requires an active involvement. Practice putting pen on paper if you are really serious about understanding this.

Term 2

Corporate Finance (I)
By far the most awaited subject in this term to anyone who is even curious about ’stock market’, ‘NASDAQ’ and Sensex. Teaches you about the nuances of the world of money; its birth, its life and its culmination in the corporate world. A very interesting subject indeed and also one of the subjects which really does not require a book to learn. Internet with sites like ‘wikipedia’, ‘Investopedia’ and of course the numerous business newspaper sites offer a plethora of information in this field. It is actually a pleasant surprise to find one of the best written textbooks for this subject. “Principles of Corporate finance” by Brealey & Myers is one of the most captivatingly written books I have come across. It will almost keep you leashed on to it. A must read for anyone who wants to know how action takes place in the world of Business

Operations Research
A subject which found its roots in the times of World War II and is now commonly used in every manufacturing concern for efficient utilization of resources and planning of activities. A person with some experience in any manufacturing setup will almost jump in joy when going through this. A subject which is a very scientific in its approach and yet retains an uncannily earthen touch. Has mathematics involved, bit then which nice subject doesn’t ? A good book to read is ‘Management Science with Spreadsheets’ by Stevenson & Ozgur. This is a much more reader friendly book and is much more lively in its approach. A second preference for those who have a knack for a formal learning style, would be “Quantitative Methods for Business” by Anderson Sweeney & Williams. But according to me this would be a distant second preference.

Cost Accounting
This second in the series of accounting talks of cost and materials accounting in the production setup. Typically process and organization level costing and cost management. Something which is less regimented in norms and accepted practices and more bent on logical progression. Any off the shelf book would suffice as a reference material for this.

Operations Management
An applicatin of various OR techniques to solve management decision problems. An interesting and close to real life subject which often is tangled between shop-floor to boardroom to supply chain management and to agency management. Another subject which would be a great value addition for anyone who has an experience of a plant functioning or of a production setup management. A wonderful reference for this is “Operations Management” by Chase, Aquilano & Jacobs

Macro Economics
This is really the more interesting sibling of Micro-Economics. This talks about the larger scenario in which countries and their economies are critically analyzed and understood. The policies of the country towards maintaining its growth are studied and its movements understood. It is the first insight into the world of ‘Fiscal Policy’ and ‘Monetary Policy’. It also explains the various export and manufacturing control systems put in placed by the regime and why they are required. It has a lot more logical string ing that Microeconomics, and of course it is of much greater relevance and significance in the real world. A very good book to refer is “Macroeconomics” by Dornbusch, Fischer & Startz

Finally dust settles on MBA Sem-I at IIM Kozhikode. With the commencement of the end-term breaks people can be seen fleeing faster (from the campus) than from a burning house. The past three months have been one of re-discovery.

Students started on a journey which would change their way of life, and this is in no reference to the career prospects. They would emerge better and stronger individuals; with a wiser overalls.

With an open mind replacing an empty one; with a co-operative growth replacing a competitive one.

One a lighter note, people now truly know the power of information, with the SPAMMING being the fastest mode of communication. In case you are wondering what you are referring to, the Kampus has an inbuilt messaging facility, a special messenger which is used for file sharing, message passing and any kind of data exchanging in general. This is both highly productive as well as counter-productive.

Whether you are looking for some critical business information or looking for the latest music video; whether the search is of some urgent software or that of a spare bike for a quick outing; Spam everyone with your problem/requests. And yes, do not forget to attach the TIA at the end (TIA: Thanks In Advance)

Some other ‘useful things’ that this wonderful application, affectionately called ‘IP’ by us is used for:

1. Staying awakeat nights by catering to the chain of PJ’s (Poor Jokes)
2. Finding out which all K-Dio ( IIM Kozhikode Radio ) stations are playing what
3. Finding, who all are game, from your hostel for a Maggi, at 2AM in the night at the Night Canteen (NC)
4. Locating a person who is required immediately
5. Ensuring all Birthdays are duly honored with the traditional Birthday Bumps
6. The Menu at the Mess on any particular day 
7. Passing the latest Gossip doing round, the ‘Taaza Khabar’ straight from ‘Unconfirmed sources’ 
8. The expected pattern of questions in the next Quiz or evaluation (Purely speculation: the more weird your speculation the higher will be its TRP rating)
9. Finding out who was the DCP champion of the day (DCP: Desperate Class Participation)

And last but not the least .. killing time in any of the class lectures, in the case of a TOHT (Total Over Head Transmission)  

Celebrated Independence Day on 15^th August. Joined the Director and faculty for flag hoisting along with a small function culminating with a round of snacks. Was pleasantly surprised to see a rather significant student turnout, in spite of the fact that the event had only ‘Requested Attendance’ and was void of the ‘Compulsory to Attend’ tag. Don’t know if it was patriotism or the post-event ‘refreshments’ which was the motivator for the fabulous outcome. Like every patriotic and foolishly optimistic Indian I would like to believe it was the former.

A couple of lines for the occasion then would be in place,

As a nation India Never followed the plot,
Just when it was endangered with being written off,
It stuns with its technological know how,
Its truly an idea that defies the croakiest of plots,
An absurdity, a madness, an incongruous hodgepodge,
An absolute pandemonium, a labyrinth and yet order evolves and patterns emerge.
An Adventurism, a clairvoyance, a vision that statistics can never do justice to.
A Feeling, a fever, a taste that can never be explained.
A true and befitting ode to Freedom,
Vande Maataram!

The next day saw the celebration of Janmashtami with the traditional ‘Matka Phodh’ competition along with the customary puja with arati. The dinner consisting of special ethnical cuisines was a welcome change from the regular grab that we consumed.

Meanwhile still struggling with Managerial Accounting and Microeconomics. With every passing day a realization just firms up, It is not difficult leave alone unconquerable. All what it demands is bit of respect, a bit of attention and a bit of time. A preference over a hostel gossip, a privilege over a weekend movie and an adjustment with the extra holiday sleep… not always but for one weekend. And that is all it will take!

Time management has evolved to become the single most important aspect of B-School life. You have loads of assignments, case studies, worksheets, projects & then of course course material to read up. None of these are optional or have a shared domain. They all give a different flavor/ a different perspective. So doinga lot of projects or assignments will land you in no better a position in the examinations that doing none. Of course they carry their own evaluations but then that’s a different story. On top of these every weekend we keep having seminars and symposium. Last week we had CTO IBM, CIO HLL and some consulting company honchos coming down for talks. This week we had ITC, CTS, Yash Raj Films and some others being represented by their who’s-who. There is a perennial time constraint and at every nook and corner you have to take a call. Weigh your options, evaluate your priorities and pick the one you value the most. Sacrifices are inevitable.

This I think would be my greatest takeaway from Business School Education, apart from a chain of buddies and loads of memories to augment them. Another aspect is the essence of team work. Sooner or later one realizes that not everyone in a team can or will contribute equally; in fact not everybody should be expected to contribute the same amount. Then what really matters is hoe the dissymmetry is exploited to the maximum, how you play on strengths to cover each others’ weakness in order to evolve as a much more stronger and a much more formidable entity.

Just to Explain the Title:

eMpower is the marketing interest group at IIMK and Synopsis is the current Marketing seminar it is organizing. (The one in which ITC and Yash Raj Films are coming over)

By the way, An interesting event is happening in campus, Certain parts of our facilities are being used for a movie shooting. The entire crew including the star-cast is present hence in the campus. A sad fact hence that being a south Indian movie/star-cast, we find it difficult to appreciate their stardom. (They anyway don’t look so aesthetically enticing!)