Parrtyyyy !! Or may be just Relaxxxx !!

Well, although a couple of plans were made for today, none of them materialized. I was to go out with my cousin and his friends, but they canceled the trip; all the local friends decided to stay at home and celebrate the new year, considering the increased vigilance and checking by police on the roads - so I decided to stay home as well - and enjoy the last day of this year, by doing what I like most i.e. cooking.

Went to our regular mutton shop, and got some meat, and then to our regular grocer and got a good quality Basmati rice, and then to the market to get some greenies.
Overall, in this process, I got a chance to visit all of these people, wish them happiness for coming year and share some chat with them.

Once I was back, it was time to make "Mutton Dum Biryani" and so, I made the Biryani Rice, and the Mutton Masala, and then, mixed the two in layers, to finally give them the steamed "Dum" by covering in a big wok.

Everyone at home enjoyed it and that made my day today :-)

A day to rest and plan

After a long and eventful day yesterday, today morning was a lazy one. Afternoon was then spent planning for New Year's Eve.

Also spent some time reading some case analysis methods to help with mock interviews with CMC once I m back in Madrid.

Hopefully, I will finish all the basic preparation by the time this vacation is over :)

A park of many sorts :)

Well, the plan today was to spend the entire say at a water park some 150 kms away from my home town, and so we went there.

While I enjoyed the whole day with my family, what also impressed me about this park in a place called Akluj was that they had an amusement park, a children's play zone, a boating lake and add to it occasional sculptures and statues of traditional Marathi folks doing their daily chores like milling, pottery, gardening, praying, etc.

I think it's a nice place to take children and for adults to go, not only for all the adrenaline rush it has to offer, with all the fun at water tanks and all the games in the amusement park, but also for the fulfilling experience it offers. The thing about this place that I liked most, and this is something I have not seen in any amusement park so far, is that they had a special room for senior citizens to rest.

Yepp, I know there are shades and resting areas in many parks, but this one was specially meant for those grand-dads and grand-mas who accompany the children of house but eventually need to rest for a while.

Found a great place for dinner on our way back, by accident, and had a sumptuous meal, only to return home for a good night's sleep :)

Doctor Doctor !!

Completed another task for the holiday - to visit the eye specialist and do the routine checkup for my eyes. I have always found it better to have these routine check up visits instead of trying to find doctors in foreign lands if some problem arises due to my neglect of it.

Anyways, I also met one of my school teachers, I mean my secondary school teacher, not the IE business school, after a long time today. Spent some time chatting over past days and current happenings in our lives and in school. It was a good chat today.

Planning to go out with my family tomorrow and then my cousins would be here for some year end celebrations. I guess I will resume my readings only in the next year :P

Thank you Coursera :-)

Well, I knew that there is this platform Coursera, where each top B-School is adding some content in terms of classes and tutorials, for common benefit of students as well as the general masses.

Today, I decided to browse through - and I found an interesting series of classes on corporate finance published by Wharton Business School. Just the thing I wanted, as I am trying to consolidate and strengthen my know-how in the subject, as a preparation for some advanced courses coming my way in the next term.

Happy to go through these new found lessons and enjoying them to the fullest.

And yes, right on the landing page, I also found a link to course by Rolf, with the IE logo shinning bright on the top corner, igniting a subtle sense of pride in me for a moment :-)

And for all the good things I found on this page today, thank you Coursera :-)

Finally, the readings begin :-)

Started the day late today, thanks to the party which went on past midnight yesterday and after having a brunch, started my laptop to pick up on my pending tasks.

Apart from checking the time table for the electives I have opted for, I also began the readings I have planned for the vacation.

I believe if I can spare an hour or two everyday for these readings, I would be in a good state, by the time I return to Madrid.

Its already time to get serious :-)

Feliz Navidad - and - Happy Birthday Pappa :-)

Yepp, while the whole world rejoices on this day for Christmas, my family has one more reason to do so - it's my dad's birthday today!!

More of a reason why I came home for these holidays :-)

Best part about this day, many of our family friends, close relatives and acquaintances come down to our house to greet my dad - which means, I get to meet all of them, or talk with all of them [over phone] all in the same day. By evening, the house was full of guests and we had a small dinner party which went on till mid-night.

Feliz Navidad readers. I wish everyone, all the joy and prosperity on this day of Christmas :-)

Meeting Friends :-)

Well, I had a list of things to get from the market, so I took out my bike from the garage, and then after I was done with all the list, it was time to have some chat with my friends.

Surprised a couple of them by showing up without any notice that I have got holidays and will be in town and then enjoyed sharing updates about each other and many others for almost three hours.

Didn't follow through the agenda of reading anything as per the plan, and I know it ain't happening tomorrow as well - but then, the holidays have only just begun :-)

One Vacation - Two Agendas

Yepp - this vacation brings with it its own agendas - one of them - to do some sightseeing with the family and take care of a couple of personal matters, the other - read the books for case analysis frameworks and for corporate finance, to make myself ready for job preparation and for electives season beginning after the vacations.

Today I started on both of these.

By the way, also showed the class videos to my parents and family members and they all liked it :-)

And every time someone likes the video, I feel great - being involved so much for the past one and half month in making it :-)

Change is in the air

Well, today morning I reached Mumbai and then reached home at around 5:30 PM. But that is not the change I am talking about.

For starters, this time I took the Emirates flight - and the first thing I noticed [being a movie buff] is the wide screen that this airlines has - impressed at first sight :-)

And then the next surprise - among the many movies this airlines had in its library, there were seven, yes seven Marathi movies [Marathi is my native language in India] and yet another change - this time I traveled watching Marathi movies :-)

Baalak Paalak, based on how sex education is need of the hour and Ek Divas Majha, based on how a chief minister of state changes the way administration works, although only for a night, to ensure that an old singer gets his long due accommodation.

And then, I saw a Hindi movie D-Day, again based on fiction about how a group of India agents bring back Dawood to India - again change was the theme of this movie :-)

Anyways, may be I will write a separate blog soon on all of these, but for now - considering that I am home after so many days, I just want to relax :-)

India Calling ..

Yepp !! It's time to take a flight and get onboard to fly to India - to my home in Satara.

The journey that will begin shortly today, will comprise of two flights one from Madrid to Dubai and the second from Dubai to Mumbai and then a six hours drive to Satara - totaling the travel time to almost 24 hours. But then, who cares - I just wanna go home :-D

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping and some Quick Packing :-)

Well, past few days have been real busy for me - so I couldn't really do any shopping for things to take back home.

That is why, I feel good that even though my term ended yesterday, I have a day before I fly back home - yess - I am going home :-D

Spent entire day today shopping - at IKEA, at ToyrUs, at Zara, at H&M, at El Corte Ingles - a busy day; and in the night, it was time to dump it all in a bag - a real quick packing I would say :-)

Excited to be going home tomorrow :-)

CORE MBA: Been there, Done that :-D

Yess !! With the Corporate Finance exam today, concluded our term 3 of the International MBA program - the last among three core terms :-)

And while we will resume our MBA after vacations, it would be an electives period. Speaking of vacations and electives after vacations, today we spent almost the entire day with those of us that didn't fly immediately to their home countries - having celebrations, drinks, lunches and a good Ethiopian dinner. 40 People from our section showed up to the dinner - the rest are anyways already in a plane or at their homes outside Madrid :-)

Felt good about all the celebratory mood also because today is the Marriage Anniversary of my Parents, and even while I am not at home, I am a part of some jubilation, celebrating their anniversary in a different way :-)

And of course, it is going to be a long night, spending time with friends not only form our intake but also from the previous November intake, as they will graduate tomorrow and move out of Madrid real soon.

As of now, the just enjoying the relaxed moments. Soon, it will be time to look back on the core MBA, but then, that's where this blog will help us, isn't it? ;-)

The day before tomorrow :-)

Yes, the best way that I can describe today is that its the "day before tomorrow" and what is so special about tomorrow? It is the last day of term 3 :-)

By the way, today marked the conclusion of another great class of Business Government and Society, a class which provided us with so many insights about day to day political and business happenings around us - the factors that influence them, the reasons why they occur and the impact they can have.

Excellent way to complement our Strategy understanding by introducing an element of non-market analysis to it, I would say; and Jeff was too good, handling all the case discussions, providing inputs on why certain events took place and getting us to generate so many ideas when it came down to analyzing the non-market environments in cases we did.

And yes, we could not resist ourselves from playing the class video before and after the BGS class - looks like at least for a few more days, we are going to be addicted to watching it over and over again :-)

Last case discussion class as A2, and finally the A2 video goes live :-)

Today, we had the last case of term 3 and last case we would all discuss as the A2 class. This was for Talent Management finale session.

Although the class was at noon, our group met before to finalize details of the Business Government Society final report and presentation. Turns out that I am one of the two people presenting tomorrow :-)

As of today, we finally released the A2 videos - which did not happen on Friday night due to technical issues.

So, here's a small compilation that I did that takes us through the making of this video:

And here is the A2 video - the best International MBA video so far:

Being the person behind camera, shooting every member of the class for more than a month now, with one or two people everyday, at different locations in and around IE and Madrid, today I feel so much fulfillment, so much happiness, its beyond description in words.

I would just say - check out the videos and join us in the "good times" :-)

Another day, another assignment off the charts ..

Well, I did go out last night and took some pictures of colorful Madrid, as it gets ready to welcome Christmas.
As for today, as I had stated previously, these days, everyday is different, and everyday is dedicated to one thing.
Today was all about Business Government and Society final group work  - a report and a presentation to be made, on which me and my group worked for almost the entire day.

Anyways, at end of it, we are all happy as the last group work is now done, and so is another final assignment !!

One presentation and one exam to go now, for this term to close :-D

Another Exam done :-)

Yes, yes .. it is Sunday today and the school is not open. But we had one exam as a take home exam and today I spent most of the time understanding the questions and analysing the related case for answering these questions. By end of the day, this exam, of Supply Chain Management, is finally done. Feeling happy considering there is one less thing to worry about now :-)

Plans are now to go out for some pre-Christmas night time photography of Madrid central area. Lets see how it goes :-)

Cleaning the house ..

Well, after a long time, a long weekend, when I don't have too much of workload, or even if I have a workload, I am not exactly in the mood to worry about it :-)

My brain is thinking more of the term end, and in my mind, I just want to be home :-)

Anyways, so today was the day, when with help of a maid I got from owner of the house I stay in, I got the entire house cleaned. All the garbage, all the dirt that was lying around for months is now out of the house. The internet connection which has been extended from owner's house to mine, and which always tended to get screwed up as soon as it was rectified, is finally up and running, thanks to owner opting for a new fiber optic movistar line now.

And after all of it was over, indulged myself into some cooking :-)

so, all-in-all, a day spent in cleaning up and improving my habitat here in Madrid and relaxing :-)

Happy Friday :-)

Last Friday of the term - a Friday with only two sessions making the school finish before noon - a Friday when our section will have its grande finale party - a Friday when we release our section video - yepp, the secret project that me and some others were working on, from more than a month now - video shooting every member of our section, putting the videos together as per the script we had, and editing the final video !!

This is going to be a long day [and night] preparing for the party and the release, yet its going to be a really happy day - so, while I get ready to do all the work, just thought of putting today's post early, as who knows how the night will end up :-)

by the way, I will post links for our section video here tomorrow, once we release it officially tonight :-)

Happy Friday, everyone !! Have fun :-)

Wrap Up of another great course

Yepp - with a double session today, it was time to wrap up the Business Government and Society class.

A different perspective on various market happenings, implications, reasons and influences behind them and a lot more insights on how a non-market situation can influence a company's business.

I liked the overall theme of this class, and Jeff was excellent in carrying the class discussions.

Today, we also had a class on supply chain management, with Daniel discussing financing options based on supply chain management, e.g. reverse factoring, etc. Interesting concepts I would say.

Anyways, stayed after school to work on the BGS final report - I guess the next couple of days are going to be dedicated to the BGS report and final presentation, followed by the supply chain management take-home exam for a day or so and then the corporate finance exam on last day of this term. Plan for next week has already been laid out and I can't wait to get through this week :-)

that extra space ..

Well, today was all about marketing strategy presentations by our section. We spent the morning preparing for it, making sure that the flow is correct, and the people presenting did their rehearsals.

And then the marathon of marketing strategy presentations began. As it turned out, I could see that there were two distinct types of presentations - ones which are for established companies trying to do offer a new product or go to a new market; and the other from teams with a member or two devising marketing strategy for their own ventures in venture lab.

One notable observation was that apart from one team, I found that all venture lab related projects, were pitching more about their venture or their product and making people familiar with their business model, etc. In fact the questions they were getting were also based on how they will operate and hw they will overcome entry barriers and things which made it look more like a QnA for entrepreneurship class than marketing strategy class. Anyways, that's just me :-)

As for our presentation, despite being 8th in the queue to present, we did a good job I think. Erik also had a unique system for peer evaluation - entire class rated each presentation, except their own, both quantitatively and qualitatively and this feedback will go anonymously to the groups for improvements in their work beyond the course. A good idea I would say.

What I and many others would remember more though was the closing note by Erik, where he made us all stand up first and relax and then told to fold our fingers together. In a while, he told us to change hands and then what we realized that it was actually a little painful to do so. And then, he told us to go back to our usual way of fingers of two hands, and suddenly we felt much more comfortable even more than the original attempt.

And then, he gave the message - this is the extra space that is created by this course, a space of knowledge - use it to your advantage :-)

Well, when I relate the statement to all the work we have done in this one class of just 10 credits, the meaning becomes so clear. We were in our comfort zone and could have stayed so, if the work was supposedly justified for 10 credits - but we were pushed beyond our comfort zone, we came out of our usual self and worked harder, and now when it is all over, and we are all back to our normal life [or will be soon], we have learned so much by that extra load of work we executed - learning as we were doing the work !!

That extra space which we achieved in terms of knowledge expansion is surely going to be a help for a long way ahead !! Great conclusion to a great class :-)

First online exam for both multiple choice and subjective questions :-)

Well, it is not that I haven't taken any online exams before; but today was the first IE exam where we took the country economic analysis exam online, and this was not only a multiple choice exam, but also had three subjective questions to answer - all online as well. In terms of exam, it was more open ended questions that we needed to answer based on what we learned in the course than straight forward questions, and they were all random for everyone, selected from a question bank.

Anyways, another exam is now done and its time to prepare for the next day - to prepare for the marketing presentation.

There hasn't been a time before when I have actually lived the doctrine 'take everyday as it comes', but somehow these last few days have been just that for me :-)

Every day brings with itself a new deliverable to be completed, a new exam to be studied for or a new presentation to be delivered, and all these things being spread across two-three weeks, there hasn't been any preparation or studying that I could manage to do. It is just revisions and nothing more. While its not really bad, I think I may have to spend some more time on corporate finance, after the term, to get in speed for the electives coming up.

Yes, and on that note, our final bid results for electives are out and I got all that I had bid for :-)

it IS your problem :-)

Well, the Business Government and Society class today was about Nike and its reaction to the controversy in Indonesia that it recently faced, with regards to the working conditions, and the labor employed. What was going on, was it right - for the company, for the people, for the share holders, how did Nike react and how should it have reacted, what did Reebok do differently, and all other aspects of this discussion today stressed one point - as long as a firm is past of your supply chain, or as long as you own a firm - no matter where it is located, any problem in the firm IS your problem. Shrugging off shoulders is a real bad move when it comes to media attention on issues that are not even critical to your business model, and hence knowing what is critical and not critical and preparing to compromise on non-critical matters early-on is a key to a good media image.

After this interesting class, it was time for studying Country Economics, or shall I say revising all its classes, to be ready for the exam tomorrow.

Our group did meet for marketing strategy report final-final read, and we submitted the 50 pager to Erik once the review was done. But it was a short meeting today, and my major focus is on revising country economics.

I know I will be busy with it for a while tonight, so for those who don't have any exam tomorrow, good night :-)

World War Z :-)

Seriously, I mean who comes to school on a Sunday and in such a number that it almost feels like we are in a movie where there is an outbreak of zombies occupying every meeting room in the building, every chair in the study rooms and every table in the launch pad?

And who are all these people - so many with faces I don't know? Are they the old November trying to work on their final presentation, or are they the new November getting a hang of things, right in the first week of school, or are they MiM, whose exams may be around the corner !!

It took me 15 minutes just to get a seat in launchpad, and then after passing my time on some non-school things, I finally began reading economics :-)

This is of course after I had spent an entire morning at home, doing chores, and cleaning my room.

Surprisingly there was no pattern for the crowd today, as usually groups meet for only a few hours over the weekend and then the building can be reasonably empty on a Sunday evening. At least for now, the world war Z, to get a seat and maintain it, so that we can study, ignoring all the discussions and talks and crowd and buzz that is going around, is still on !!

By the way, on a positive note, today marks the 250th day of my MBA journey :-) Yeah, I know, time flies !!

And here's the section picture for my class that IMBA team took a few days back:

 

Yet another day - and the saga continues !!

Yes, today was again a day when my group worked from 11 AM in the morning and is still working on the marketing strategy report fine points, reviews and for preparing the presentation for this class.

While, we are not yet done, I just thought of sneaking out for a bit and write this post of the day. Nothing different done today that we didn't do yesterday.

That being said, I won't say that I did nothing special in the school today. Today marked the final day for one of the secret project that I am doing with a few other people of my section.

More details on this will be revealed on the 13th when we disclose the project to the entire world. Till then, just know that I am having a real good time, working for it :-)

A day for Marketing Strategy Report - and the dilemma it created :-)

We have spent last few days meeting occasionally for this report, and making some changes or other to the material we gathered for marketing strategy final group work.

As we have a long weekend, today was the day designated to work only for getting this report to its final stage - after all it is due on Sunday :-)

After spending from 10:30 AM untl 8:30 PM in the night, finally a group of 5 of us got the report in its final version - there are some formatting changes to be done, but that's now :manageable"

So, the question which kept haunting me whenever we got stuck today was - is it worth spending so much time, to create a report that is almost 50 pages long now - for just 3 credits in this term [30% of 10 credit course]? But then, each time I had this question, the answer came out to be the same - YES :-)

And the reason - this is probably the only time, I would create a full scale marketing strategy report for any product. So, while I am at it, why not go through the process properly, prepare a good report and get a hang of it !! After all, you never know when this knowledge will come handy :-)

While, we are now thinking about the presentation based on this report, that is scheduled for Wednesday, I wish all my readers a great weekend ahead :-)

Longest exam so far: now a history :-)

Well, today was yet another interesting day at IE :-)

While, I started the day thinking that most of my time during classes would go thinking about the Business Government Society that I need to write from 4 PM onwards, the case discussion on welfare state in Sweden, during the country economics class proved me wrong. It was an interesting model of economics that Sweden followed as a complete welfare state, and is following after it made some changes to it. Patricia also discussed prospects of this model - being replicated in future in the EU and in US, the timeline it would need and so on. All in all, the final day of country economics class turned out to be yet another interesting day :-)

And then, finally at 3:55 PM, we received a mail from Jeff providing us the exam case and the question that we had to answer. We had time until 10 PM; yes - that's 6 hours. While I spent first hour and a half to read the case, and then another hour to think about what it is all about, when I finally began writing I kept getting more and more thoughts.

I had already booked a quiet room for myself to be able to concentrate on the case better. As I went on writing, I never realized that it is already 9:25 PM, by the time I was done :-)
Gave another read to the analysis, made a few cosmetic changes and mailed the exam back at around 9:45 PM. I have taken long exams before, but this has been the longest so far.
Yet, I didn't feel exhausted after writing it, as the case was interesting enough to keep me occupied with my thought process for a good 4.5 hours, after I had read it. I liked this aspect of the exam - it was challenging, but not to the extent that it would lose me mid-way :-D

Anyways, after that Operations Management exam case that Amrou shocked us with, in the last term, I think any case based exam would never be too bad :-)

And now, it's time to relax for the day :-)

One more down :-)

Yes, after a class in the morning on how emotions and cultural elements can affect negotiations, and how these can be either avoided or employed favorably, it was time for the final exam of negotiations.
IT was a traditional way of exam, with a small case and 6 questions on the case to see how we applied the concepts learned during the course; and 4 questions testing the knowledge of these concepts directly.

We had to rush a little to make it in the time of 45 minutes provided, but eventually I could write it all. Happy about my performance during this exam.

But there is not much time to relax or rejoice, as tomorrow it is going to be the next final exam for Business Government and Society. So, its time to revise the technical notes and slides for this class, so that these can be applied tomorrow in the case-based exam.

This busy week is almost about to get over - one more exam is done, one more hurdle towards vacation is now down, and I can't wait to finish it all soon :-D

Take-aways time :-)

Well, a session before final presentation for Marketing Strategy and a last session before final exam for Country economic analysis - so, sessions, which elevated the learning experience to a different level, sessions which gave us something beyond the usual theoretical concepts, sessions which discussed what we can use and what to watch for in the coming future :-)

Too abstract right?? Let me elaborate :-)

Today, it was last session by Gayle, and she used it to debrief on the simulation of unknown country analysis that we all did. It was interesting to know the general parameters, a template to analyze economy of any country irrespective of its location, its history and our bias towards it. The anonymity was successful to the extent that one of our economic experts in the class from Egypt ended up selecting to invest in a country, that was revealed to be Israel in final few moments !! Interesting, ain't it?

Anyways, as Gayle said, she wanted us to take away a framework to help us decide in future, whenever we are taking decisions pertaining to investments, start-ups and expansions to any country - and she delivered us that framework today. Another interesting class, I would say :-)

And then, it was last class of marketing strategy by Erik - or rather, last class before we meet one last time for group presentations. Erik today took us away from the usual framework of the C's and the STP and the P's and we discussed the Inbound Marketing concepts, with relation to the HubSpot case.
Interesting case related to application of technology concepts, the web 2.0 and the SEO - all of that combined with marketing strategy aspects of the business :-)

The owners of this firm, and their confidence to create a disruptive technological innovation, was worth knowing and applauding.

And towards the end of this class, Erik gave us a sneak peek into what are the futuristic trends in marketing from the viral social media campaigns to the 'No marketing' campaigns to the Islamic marketing on the rise. Not to forget, the neuro-scientific marketing:-)

As a take-away from this last class, we were advised to keep an eye on these trends and watch out for them to take over the world of marketing as we know it :-)

After two great sessions this morning, spent the afternoon to give finishing touches to the economics group report and submitted it; this was followed by a meeting about my fellowship work and our paper to be presented in the conference next week; and then, after a brief siesta, it is now time to study for tomorrow's negotiation exam.

Buenos Noches Amigos :-)

Now I know how they choose people for the Colgate Ads :-)

Well, first things first !! This morning began with the Talent Management exam. Prof Monika had structured the exam to reflect more on what we leaned throughout the course through various technical notes and case studies, and how this learning can be transferred to the Mission Hills case which we had for exam, what can be improved, what is good already, and what can be learned from the Mission Hills case itself.

It was a good exam I would say :-)

And then, in the marketing strategy class, we had a case on Colgate-Max Fresh, aiming for a global launch in the US, China and Mexico.

Even while we discussed various factors and aspects of the marketing strategy for these three countries, the part which I would remember the most is probably where the class discussion centered on why they choose the actors/models/celebs that they chose for their ads.

The target, the concept, the message, the adaptation cost, and the decision whether you want the people to remember the model or the message - all these eventually help us decide what actors to chose.

So, all those back in India, if you are wondering why they chose Shahid Kapoor and Genelia for their ad-campaign, or those in US, if you are wondering why they chose Emily Proctor, here's your answer - so that their message is spread by someone who is known to most people through TV or movies or sports, but by someone who is not big enough that people end up remembering only the celeb and forget the message - Instead, these people help to make people remember the message.

Interesting isn't it? From now on, I have a reason to analyze every TV commercial for various factors that we studied today.
Not sure what is better though - to just sit back on the couch and enjoy the commercials while swapping tv channels or to take a pause and try to dig deeper in to each one of them :-P

Exam Mode On :-)

Yepp !! Tomorrow being our Talent Management final, I spent most of today preparing for this exam. There is already a case that we have to prepare for this exam, so I spent the day reading the case, and trying to figure out various dimensions of talent management associated with the case, that can be asked tomorrow.

This was of course not before I completed the initial write-up for my economics group work :-)

The busiest week of term three with three exams and two group submissions to do, is now ON, and today marked its beginning :-)

Economics and Analysis - an attempt to master a rare art :-)

Today, after waking up at noon, when I finally got ready and came to school, it was time to perform an online simulation set up by Gayle, for us to analyze and understand economics of an unknown country. This also helped me to do my part of the economics group work. Moreover, it helped me to develop an economics analysis without any bias for the country, as the name of this country was not known.

I would say the anonymity in the whole exercise was the best part of the simulation I did today and it is going to be a major milestone for me, as I pursue this course of country economic analysis, to master a rare art of analyzing national accounts statistics for any country, to benefit me in future :-)

By the way, today being the last day of Movember, I exported a collage from my Mo Tracker, a collection of photos that I have been uploading daily to the Mo Tracker. It is a good way to look back at the last month and have a moment to myself remembering all those crazy moments that I had due to my Mo. For all those who are curious to know about this, here is the picture :)

 

Social Responsibilty Mania :-)

Well, when most part of our school day is occupied by the Business Government Society class discussing BP and then Patagonia, about the social responsibility initiatives at BP, and about the values and mission at Patagonia, that help it be a leader in environmental friendly products and initiatives, then you know that your day has been marked by this theme :-)

And why would it not be so, because soon after the last class, we set up a Movember Charity Sales Shop in Launch-pad, to sell things that many from our class had donated, proceeds of which would all be donated to our Movember team.

I spent all three hours in the shop, and by the time we wrapped it, we had collected 390 EUR :-)
Feeling great about the whole thing, and it was good to see people donating from 1 EUR to 50 EUR for the cause, as we called upon them to donate, when they were passing by :-)
An activity to demonstrate our commitment and commitment of many others, towards the society and social causes :-)

Of course, this mood is about to change soon, as I am now heading to a party that is thrown by one of my classmates, and then its the IE India Night - So, time to change the socially-responsible face and put up a party face :-D

Have a great weekend all :-)

Nostalgia continues :-)

Today, in Supply Chain Management, it was the case of UBS at the time when financial crisis began. It discussed how the things were at UBS before, what it meant in time of crisis, and what were the measures that UBS management planned to bring the costs under control.

While reading the case, and while the discussion was on, I couldn't help picturing myself in the UBS Tokyo office, at Otemachi First Square building, enjoying the perks that were mentioned in the case; experiencing the different conditions that the case talked of; and having fun. Those were the "Good Times" :-)

To add to the nostalgia, I had already dressed up in one of the UBS t-shirts today, that I got during the community service activities that I was part of. Of course, when you have worked for an organization for five long years, even though it is in the role of vendor consultant for Infosys, it is hard, not to have a nostalgia, when everyone around you is talking of the good-old-days !!

My economics "dream team" got together today to discuss the group work due next week, and after going through the case and the questions and all the numbers, we knew we need to do some real work for this assignment. Good thing is, once we are done, we would be able to analyze economy of any country, once we know the numbers for past few years :-)

Fortune down Under and the Quest for it :-)

Today, in Business Government and Society, we had two cases - one of Chevron trying to establish its foothold in Europe for shale gas exploration, other of China and its recent stance on the Rare Earth Elements [REE] and position of many industries and nations with regards to this stance.

Another double session of an interesting discussion on intricacies of business strategies, governments, social factors, monetary risks and benefits, leverages, possibilities and future outlook on this two important contemporary discussions in the current international politics and business worlds.

Both cases were written by Jeff himself and they were indeed very well written - I liked the REE case for the sheer readability of it, and the flow of topics arranged within this case; and the Chevron case for the amount of data made available for different countries in Europe and the US in a single place. Not to mention, both cases are about something, which is still a burning issue out door - two very current cases :-)

Had a long siesta in the evening, and now gearing up to work on Corporate Finance assignment, to prepare myself for tomorrow.

By the way, Movember is almost about to conclude - so, if you have not donated yet - here is the link for you:
http://es.movember.com/en/mospace/6944853

When Nostalgia meets Analysis :-)

Today, we had the case on Japan's economy in Country Economic Analysis. While going through the case, which described the journey of Japan in last century until now, and the various reforms - political, social, economic that took place in this country of rising sun; my mind often wavered to the memories of those good-old-days I have spent in Tokyo - the three years that I enjoyed so much; and all the gifts &boons - direct and indirect that this country has conferred on me.

So, I was curious to see how Patricia takes the discussion on Japan forward. As I had commented earlier, she is a believer of things - and through today's discussion, although we discussed what went wrong in Japan and how that caused an impact; and while we saw the plight of a common Japanese family due to these economic changes through eyes of Kurosawa-sensei's movie "Tokyo Sonata"; towards teh end, Patricia also offered the ways out of this current situation.

What can be done in Japan, and what will work to bring it out of the current economic crisis successfully, what can help to increase its working population, and so on - were the points we discussed to conclude today's session.

After the class, I took a toll of things that are now lined up in front of me [and my classmates], as this term is in its final phase. Here's a list for my own reference in coming days, and for information of all of you:
28th Nov: Corporate Finance Group Case submission
29th Nov: Supply Chain Management Final Report submission
2nd Dec: Talent Management Final Exam
3rd Dec: Country Economics Group Case Analysis Submission
4th Dec: Negotiations Final Exam
5th Dec: Business Government & Society Final Exam
8th Dec: Marketing Strategy final report submission
10th Dec: Marketing Strategy presentation
10th Dec: Country Economics final Exam
and then, after a break for one week, we will have the Business Government and Society final presentation on 18th Dec and Corporate Finance final exam on 19th Dec.

To sum it all up, its time to step up, its time to stock the red-bulls and burns and other energy drinks, its time to use the most hours that we can from 24 hours of the day, its time to get set for the steepest and final part of the roller coaster ride that is term three :-)

Can't please them all :-)

Today, we had a negotiation case with multiple parties and their own stakes involved; and then with random assignment, people were chosen to play their parts.

It was fun to see how people could be adamant, how they can use their influence, how the positions and stakes involved can make people change their behavior and their positions.

Also, learned an important lesson - it is good to have everyone on-board when starting a new project - but even if you don't have them all, as long as you have enough number to fulfill all your criteria and realize all your stakes from the deal, there is no harm in moving ahead. You cannot please them all, after all !!

Interesting class today, I would say :-)

Spent some time in afternoon bidding for second round of electives and then after reading the cases for tomorrow, went home early - as I had to do some shopping at the grocery store on my way :-)

Hibernation :-)

It's getting colder outside. And that was enough of a reason for me to do nothing today. When I say nothing, I mean nothing apart from some quick cooking and eating - all the other time, I was in my bed, lying down and watching movies online, browsing net and sleeping - mostly sleeping, if you ask me :-)

So, with winter beginning, today was the day I hibernated a little :-)

Cats, Food, Whip or the Bottomline !!

Well, my day was spent today attending various panels of the Social Responsibility forum that started yesterday.

I was fortunate to listen to views and opinions of many esteemed guest speakers that had flown in from all parts of the world.

The flow of topics was also interesting for me, as it started with discussion on whether Corporate Social Responsibilty is just a mandatory expense or can it be a value add to the shareholders, followed by a session on green energy and the energy landscape in Latin America thus giving us practical insights on what various industry leaders in this arena are strategically doing to make their mark and at the America time help to make this world a better place and the final session I had chosen was on means to have a future with sustainable waste management.

Overall a complete life cycle of the product from strategy, design, implementation, business cycle, disposal and it's after effects - I think it was an interesting day today.

And a key take away from today was a question, and I am going to use some words by one of the speakers when he said that Instagram today mostly has photos of cats and food - to extend into a rhetoric : What is it that I can do as a manager, as a human being and as a member of this world to ensure that sustainability is not targeted just for publishing the photos of cats and food (Attention, Credit, Cuddling, Reputation) or for the fear of the Whip (Regulations), but is also done to improve the bottom line, and to create value for the shareholders and the society as a whole? 

IE Social responsibility forum

Today, we had a day off although it turned out to be a longer day - not that I am complaining, but just saying. 

In morning, our group finally agreed to proceed with the SCM simulation exercise, after a lot of brainstorming for almost 10 hours in past few days. We started at 10 AM and continued to work on the simulation until 3 PM for four years of SCM planning and execution. Got a decent result at the end.

And then, it was time for the 8th IE Social Responsilbility Forum. It started at 3:30 PM at Ciaxa Forum exhibition hall in Central Madrid.

Keynote speaker opening the ceremony was the CSR chief at Loreal, who told us about Loreal's Vision 2020 and then there was an excellent panel discussion about ' Social means Business'. 

After a short break, event resumed with individual panel discussion kicking off. I had opted for the Education panel and the discussion was really good. We had Prof Gomez who talked about his experiences of how education can enable sustainable businesses helping society, we had founder of 8 belts - the Entrepreneur of the year in Spain for this year, we had two people from an organization teaching underprivileged students, and we had a lady from an NGO in Sweden that teaches Math to anyone who needs to learn for "free".

All in all, a great panel and I got to hear many new innovative ideas that these people are practising or have already implemented.

Day concluded with a cocktail at the Hub Madrid - yepp, the same place where my team won the IE impact weekend at beginning of my MBA :)

And now, even while I am writing this post,  I am thinking if I can go out tonight and have some fun :)

Secret to the Secret Formula :-)

Well, finally after we had our learning curve and experiences with marketing strategy simulation, which really tested us on how we apply various attributed of marketing strategy, in terms of segmentation, targeting, positioning, and in terms of marketing mix, along with customer satisfaction, market share and profit considerations, and after we have already sent our reflection report to Erik yesterday, today was the day - the day when the secret to successful simulation was revealed.

What we did, what we could have done, what would give best results and score - who did better and who made money - who possibly colluded in their attempts and who did bad - all the secrets were revealed today - in the one session of 80 minutes.

It was the day when we tried to listen and read and try to get the secret to the secret formula of simulation :-)

Met with Alvaro and Manan today to discuss our further stages of fellowship work and analyze the work we had put together last week.

Tomorrow is the Social Responsibility Forum which begins only in afternoon, so expecting a relaxed morning tomorrow :-)

Multinationals and their impacts

In the talent management class this morning, prof Monika opened the floor for discussion on compensation policies of Costco vis-a-vis Wallmart - to send the message that higher employee salaries and employee benefits can yield better results in stock market and in market share.

After spending a good hour and a half on what wallmart is doing and what Costco is doing, it was time for BGS class with Jeff.

In this class, we discussed the reaction of Chiquita - one of the prominent players in Banana market - to changing markets and policies; what went wrong and what could have been done better. And then, it was the Pharma companies with their lobbying for intellectual property rights protection back in the 90's and how the changing political and health issues landscape made them change their stance eventually.

It was an interesting day where we discussed four different companies, and how their policies and lobbying and positions on certain issues and aspects, made an impact in lives of general population, and what could have been done better.

Analyzing Life :-)

Well, morning started with a double session of Supply Chain Management by Daniel. After spending some time in explaining us the SCM simulation, he began teaching the various inventory management models. It was a more of a lecture style class today, although the examples he gave to explain these models were all day-to-day life examples - from queues at amusement parks to airline check-in to planning a birthday party for kids to buying chocolates.

It was like we were presented with models for analyzing the simple events happenings in our daily life.

By the way, he did give us a quote today, "All models are wrong. But some of them just prove to be useful".

A statement made by some statistician to explain how no matter how much we try, there is always some variable that we assume or miss or ignore, making every model incomplete in a theoretical sense.

And then, it was the country economics class by Gonzalo with a case on India. While reading the case last night, I found myself really efficient, as most of what was written was known to me anyways.

Today, it was time for noting and analyzing some of the events in history of India that shaped its economy. It was like I was looking back at my own life and life of my fellow countrymen with an additional lens of economics.

At the end of it, Gonzalo also nicely explained why countries like India had the import substitution policy up until early 90's.

The whole economic sense that this explanation provided was an interesting thing to learn.

Had a real long group meeting today to work on SCM simulation, and now that we finally decided to take a break, I thought of quickly putting up this post for today.

Considering all the readings for tomorrow, looks like I have got a long night ahead of me :-)

Compensation, Benefits, Negotiations :-)

Today was the day when the negotiations and talks for compensation and benefits ruled.

In the morning, Prof Monika discussed the HP case for Pay-for-performance experiments by HP and then there was a double session of negotiations where-in we role-played a negotiation for benefits for person who has recently received a job offer and is discussing her salary, perks and other benefits.

Later in the day, I did some work for my fellowship project, so be ready for my meeting on Wednesday and then read cases for tomorrow. Tomorrow, it is going to be a case on India in the country economic analysis, so looking forward to it :-)

Reflection time :-)

Well, we have had three attempts at our marketing strategy simulation, each of which was around 12 quarters of strategic and tactical decision making. Now that we are done with it, we also need to submit a report reflecting on what we did, why we did it, and what did we learn from the overall exercise.

So, even while there are a couple of days before this report is actually due, I sat down today to reflect on my learning and my experience during the three rounds of simulation.

Also did the readings for tomorrow and some work for my fellowship project.

As the weather outside is chilled and there is a sprinkling rain on top of it, I am happy that I spent this day indoors, doing some reflection :-)

Visiting some History :-)

Well, today me and a group of other people from my class, we gathered around Plaza de Espana, and did some sightseeing around the Egyptian temple, the Royal Palace and the Plaza Espana itself. Then, we had an amazing lunch on top floor of Corte Ingles on Gran Via - truly a gourmet experience, with a great view of the surrounding.

Knowing these various historical monuments was an additional bonus :-)

Came home to relax for some time, had my dinner and then I am now in school to make up for all the work that I have not done in past two days that were off.

Tomorrow being Sunday, I think I will stay in MM31 for some time, and get done with most of the work I am supposed to do :-)

Induglence :-)

Well, I had already decided to not do any work today. Thanks to the crazy party at Ani's last night, that went on until 3 AM, I had a good reason to be in my bed till noon :-)

And then, I started the day by having a nice brunch at Zumuz, after which I spent some time browsing some pictures and videos that I had taken in the past and doing web surfing for nothing.

Later I wrote a post for "When Pictures talk" blog [http://when-pictures-talk-to-parsooram.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/immortals.html] and in the afternoon, spent some time relaxing and watching movies online :-)

One corner of my mind kept knocking, that may be I should have registered for the Alumni forum that is going on today [thanks to which, we have a day off]; but then I have also registered for the social responsibility forum over next weekend and traded-off this weekend for rest. After enjoying a relaxed day indulging in doing things that I love, there is no more knocking that I hear ;-)

Meanwhile, and I have to mention this, today, the GOD of Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, played his last innings for International Cricket.

Having grown up watching him play since my childhood, Cricket without him doesn't sound real.

I think, this compilation by Google to thank him, says it all:

 

When Institutions can't adapt to changes

In the Economics class today, Gayle made a really good point [among many others]. Even after European Union was formed and Euro was accepted as a common currency, countries and their government as institutions running them, continued to behave in the same way as they behaved when the currencies were separate. Germany continued with the same policies as it had when there was a rising Mark, and Spain continued with same policies as it had when there was a falling Peseta.

Net Result, movement of these nations towards the extreme ends of being the "Spenders" or the "Savers" accelerated rapidly and that is one of the main causes of the state that Spain or Greece are currently in.

Today the class was about economic analysis of Spain, and the way Gayle plays around with numbers, interpreting them and making economic sense out of them, is simply astounding !!

I enjoyed today's class even better than the one for U.S. as there were so many perspectives, on Spain, Euro, European Union, US, etc involved and I am happy that I learned a lot of new insights today.

Worked with my group for some time and had a siesta for some time in the evening. It's a day off tomorrow, thanks to the IE Alumni forum scheduled here at IE.

Already got done with third and final round of Marketing simulation and got a decent score for it. All-in-all, I am all set for a good restful day tomorrow.

Yippee !!

Wanted: Rest !! Rest !! Rest !!

After spending some time reading even after coming back from group dinner last night, and thanks to an early telephone call I needed to attend this morning, I didn't really sleep very well last night.

The result was too evident in the classes today - I could get myself to participate much in the two hour BGS class.

While I am now habituated with less sleep during weekdays, today I was also feeling a little feverish, thanks to the changing weather in Madrid everyday - one day very cold and windy, other day very hot !!

Anyways, to tell you all the truth, today I was just physically present in the classroom and could not focus much on the learning or participation part of it.

After school, I decided to complete all the readings in the afternoon for tomorrow, so that I can go home early and sleep more tonight.

Right now, as I am writing this post, all I want is to rest !!

Bringing the cannibals in family :)

When you are a firm which specializes in a certain product and boast of providing a value, but when the value you provide has a risk of being secondary to something that is slowly becoming a trend of future; when you see that competition is coming up with a product and a marketing budget which can potentially eat your market; can you step up and broaden your installed base, launch an innovative product and ensure your presence in the upcoming tech?

Well, do the numbers and you will know. Today's marketing strategy case was focused on qualitative and a bit more quantitative analysis of various strategic options, given the budget constraints we have and determining the right or the most profitable strategy. And if the strategy to launch new products yourself even though it cannibalises your existing market to some extent is the most profitable option, we should go for it.

In words of Erik, if there are going to be cannibals out there, they better be part of our family :)

Carlos today discussed about how the expected value we get for NPV can be divided into periods of monopoly or competition or can be run through various worst, best and most likely scenarios sensitivity analysis, to determine whether the project is really worth investing in or worth re-investing in.

He also held an extra session for those who are struggling with modeling this afternoon for almost three hours. although I had another work of higher priority, I heard that this session was really good. Feeling a little sad that I missed it. 

Anyways, there is a reason to cheer though. My group this term is going out for Italian dinner tonight, so it is going to be a good night :)

Managing Creative People

Today's Talent Management class was about how to manage creative people and this aspect was discussed with respect to case of a small firm with 24 employees working in creating IT product solutions.

Owing to my previous background in IT, this case was an interesting one for me. There were arguments and counter-arguments involved yet, a TedX talk video that Monika showed in class supported the [my :-)] argument that a small team of creative people should better be left without pressure of performance and bonus earnings and relative compensations :-)

Good discussion in the class today. Need to work on Corporate finance preparation for tomorrow and then tonight, I will read the marketing case for tomorrow.

And yes, as for Movember, its work in progress :-)
Here is the link for my Mo Space again :-)

http://es.movember.com/en/mospace/6944853

Time to work :-)

Ok, there was enough partying last two days and today I had to get back to work and finish tasks for multiple classes and for my fellowship work.

So, today was the day spent in MM31, completing the second round of Marketing Simulation, creating a model for Corporate Finance, reading cases for tomorrow, some group work, some fellowship work, and some blogging :-)

Having a good time ...

Well, the Colombian party last night started at 11:30 officially, I reached there at 12:!5 AM, and most of the people from our class reached by 1 AM. What followed was a crazy party which went on until 5:30 AM.

So, after this party, and after resting for some time, when I woke up, it was almost time to be in MM31. A few of us plan to start with case interview preparation and today was day one for this initiative. I rushed to school, and after this meeting and another short meeting with Manan to review our fellowship work, I went out with a few people from my class, for a walk around Sol. We ended up in Mercado San Miguel, had amazing food and wine there and then headed for a Cuban restaurant. Although we finished there at aroun 11 PM, we came to know that they have a live band from mid-night onwards for an hour. So, we stayed back and then enjoyed some amazing Cuban music with everyone singing and dancing and cheering. The whole place was full of positive vibe and energy.

I had a good time today :-)

Using Businesses to control International Politics :)

So, the question for the day: why is EU forcing its ETS for carbon print control on all airlines and not just European airlines. Simple answer: Because whether these airlines accept the ETS or decide to follow an alternative that their countries would develop, they will essentially cause their countries to comply to Kyoto protocol :)

It was an insightful discussion today about how international trade can influence international politics.

Had a long siesta after school firstly because I was not feeling very well during the day and secondly because I am going to the Colombian party tonight - courtesy Martin :)

Enjoy your weekend readers :D

Step up time :-)

Today's Country Economics Class was by Prof. Gayle, was actually about analysis of economics. Starting with a sheet with ten years data of GDP, Unemployment, debt, etc economics metrics, we discussed many theoretical concepts and saw them at work for analysis of U.S. economy, we figured out what was done differently from theory and why and also how it affected the economy in future years.
We got insights about the balance between the "Savers" and "Spenders" as nations in the global economy and importance of role changing in this context. And then, when it all came together, we could understand how U.S. currency changing or not changing makes so much impact on global economy and also why countries like Greece went into downward spiral and are struggling to move upwards. Amazing class of Country Economics Analysis today.

And yes, now that we have almost gotten the WISP paper completed, today I met with Prof Alvaro and Manan to discuss the plan ahead. In the hour long meeting this evening, we chalked out a lot of details, regarding the plan of action and the milestones going forward.

Tonight, I also got together with Sophie, Hanna and Carla and we cooked some Indian food at Sophie's place. it was a fun evening today.

Waiting for Friday to get over now, as thanks to all the work this week and also the cold and running nose that I have got for past two days, I just want to have some rest.

And to sum it all up for today, it was a day when the economics class and my fellowship work led to a step up :)

Negotiations Time :-)

Today, after we spent the morning for group work, we had a double session of negotiations, with two professors teaching the course. Yepp - double the session, double the professors, double the learning and double the penalty if we miss this one :-D

After going through the theory of it for first one hour, we started practicing some negotiation exercises from simple ones like splitting a cake to a relatively complex one with no information exchange and price as a target object for negotiation. It was fun :-)

Got a lot of readings to do and a one-pager to write for country economics class tomorrow - so, will spend this evening doing the same. Until tomorrow, good bye :-)

Towards a better future :-)

Well, in the Talent Management class this morning, our group made a presentation regarding talent development practices - the history, current state and futuristic trends involved for the first 10 minutes. Following this began discussion of 3M case for best practices in talent development.

Overall, various practices adopted by 3M and how they are helping this company develop leaders of tomorrow in a more effective way, was the core of discussion today. After walking through the history of talent development practices by our team, we were discussing models and frameworks that can create a better talent development practice for any company. We were discussing a better future prospect.

And then, in the corporate finance class, the discussion was centered around determining the fixed assets in our model correctly, so that our forecasts are more accurate, so that our future outlook is more accurate. Again a tint of better future in this approach, by adopting right techniques and tricks.

Finally, the Country Economic Analysis class of today was about Euro - how it was conceptualized and why, what have been the challenges so far and how can these challenges be overcome to have a better future for European Union and its members. This was the first class we took with Prof Patricia and she handled the entire class discussion in a very structured manner. She will be back for discussing Japan and Sweden economies, but from today's class, I could sense that she is a firm believer in normative aspects of economy that can be achieved in the long run and this reflected in her opinions, which she expressed a couple of times, and her overall outlook about a better future for European Union. Of course, that's just me saying :-)

the beaten path in woods ..

Well, the Diwali party last night went on until 3 AM, and I slept only at 3:25 AM. As you can imagine, not an ideal sleeping time when the next day is Monday morning.

Yet, thankfully, I could get myself out of the bed and in school on time. Marketing Strategy class today was revision or overview session, discussing the concepts and cases we have seen so far, and tying it all together. We also learned a couple of new frameworks to look at marketing strategy and role of marketing within the organization as such.

What was interesting was that Erik started this class by a quote by Emerson, which basically says if you have something better to offer as a product, then even if you go and stay in the woods, people will make a beaten path to your doors.

And then, we could see how this is a thing of past, as all three cases we discussed so far, were of companies that came up with innovative and better products - but without a proper marketing strategy, they were handicapped anyways.

Erik also introduced the third leg of strategic advantage of customer intimacy - apart from cost and differentiation advantage. My mind got curious about this though, that why is it not taught or even mentioned as part of our Strategy class though and I did speak my mind in class, although I think the question didn't come out exactly as it should. I did get my answer though in form of "which is why it is taught in this course" which kinda stresses the importance of this element.

In BGS class, although I had skimmed through the case yesterday, thanks to the fatigue from last night, I didn't participate much today. The class was interesting though - about how politicians can use companies, specially those carrying a nationality with them, for their advantage, and how can such situations be handled.

the IA-IA-IA framework which was introduced in last class proved useful to understand this case better as well. Jeff also announced that we can now decide about our group projects - this project I think is going to be an interesting one - as we need to apply a theoretical framework and provide solution to some issue, which so far we have been just ignoring to think beyond a daily news about some company or some country.

There was also a session by Career Strategy, where a lady psychiatrist provided us some insights on body language, personalities and tempers of people.

Had a real long siesta in the afternoon to make up for last night's sleep and am back into action now to do the readings for tomorrow :-)

Chores time :)

Well, I had my fun with the sightseeing on Friday and doing nothing on Saturday, so today was the day to transform back into reality.

Today was the chores time. Spent the morning in cleaning, laundry and washing dishes, followed by a lunch with a friend and then got to the study chores a.k.a. Readings for tomorrow :)

There is Indian Diwali party at Akshay's place at 8 pm tonight, which is why today's post is early. Besides there is not much to say anyways :P

Happy Diwali :-)

Happy Diwali to all my readers. The biggest festival that is celebrated in India has one of its important days today, and at many places today is also the "official" start of Diwali.
I say this because, we have a couple of days prior to today as part of Diwali as well - It begins with "Vasu Baaras" - the day dedicated to Cows and Cattle, for expressing our gratitude towards them; second day is "Dhan Trayodashi" which signifies the importance of Health in our life and is dedicated to Dhanvantri - one of the ancient scholar and expert of Ayurveda - the Indian traditional medicine; the third day which is today, is the one which is celebrated all over India - it is "Narak Chaturdashi" - the day when evil demon Narakaasur was defeated as per Indian scriptures.
Tomorrow is the day of "Laxmi Poojan" when everyone worships the goddess of prosperity - Laxmi, followed by "Bali Pratipada" - the beginning of Hindu New Year and "Bhau beej / Bhai Dooj" the day when brothers and sisters express their love for each other by exchanging gifts.

While, I am here sitting and commenting on the whole structure of Diwali festival, I am also missing it all, with an only exception of the Diwali Party arranged by Akshay and his flatmates tomorrow. And to top it all, it is also my niece's birthday today.
So, a lot of things happening back home, and I am here doing my M.B.A. !!

There are always a few moments in life which make you home-sick. May be that is also a reason, why I didn't feel like doing anything today - apart from talking at home, and exchanging Happy Diwali messages on facebook and on whatsapp, and editing some photos of the trip that I took yesterday, there isn't much which I can claim that I did today :-)

Life is full of trade-offs and this is one of it. Anyways, today being an auspicious day, let me wish you all a happy Diwali and a prosperous year ahead !!

It's time to Mo !!

Decided to do some sightseeing today around Madrid and thanks to the list of one day trip destinations that Cian and Lisa had given me last week, I knew exactly where I am going. Avila and Segovia - was my plan for today. Got up early and even while I was rushing to get ready and start early, suddenly I realised that I don't have to shave today. It is first day of November and hence it's time to start with the Movember. It's time to Mo :)

Had a long day today with lot of walking around Avila and Segovia. Took some good pictures which I will post on my FB soon.

As for the Movember, request all my readers to do visit my Movember profile below:

es.movember.com/en/mospace/6944853

Help to spread the word, and help with donations. It's Mo time :)

Planning for non-business factors and for un-real candidates

So, the BGS class this morning was about how the non-business factors can have a huge impact on businesses in terms of revenue losses, reputation damage and so on. Jef discussed examples of how companies who fail to identify and react to these factors fail and while also giving an example of a company who has managed this balance of non-market and market components in non-business mix well and turned these factors towards their advantage.

Even while I was wondering about some of the new facts that I came to know e.g. the "Cheeseburger Act", it was time to prepare for the Talent Management class.

Yes, last night, I went out for a surprise Colombian dinner and could not do the reading for this class - I could postpone it happily though after seeing that the case is small and we have 40 minutes between first class and the second.

Talent Management class started with discussing the interview questions we would ask to the candidates described in case we read and our thought process for choosing these questions. Gradually, the discussion turned towards some other relevant and important concepts for interviewing - Prof Monika took us through the theory of it, by using a short video of a guy asking too many questions and his superior answering him even while explaining the concepts.

There was a good discussion on various types of questions and then we soon landed ourselves in the most wide spread aspect of interviewing that we find today - when candidates fake the information they provide, either slightly or completely.

We discussed results of surveys based on this, and a couple of ways to identify those who are faking and are un-real in terms of information they provide to the recruiters.

This discussion brought out some interesting information, I would say.

Our group met after the school to finalize our presentation for Tuesday - it's going to be a long weekend with holiday tomorrow, so everyone rushed into the meeting right after the class, and managed to leave early as well.

I spent rest of the time today working on first round of marketing simulation, again to ensure that there is no work during the long weekend.

Time to go for dinner, and those who have similar long weekend, enjoy :-)

Simulating businesses and OUR LIVES :-)

Well, the morning began with SCM session, where Daniel had already given us some excel sheets to play around at home. These sheets had some models designed around revenue of a news-stand -  he then used these sheets as a means to transfer our learning from simulating various situations in the excel model of news-stand into principles of SCM for perishable goods. The underage and overage costs and their significance when deciding whether to order lesser or more than the mean demand forecasts available, was an interesting take-away from this class today.

Then began a two-session Leadership module, where we continued to work on our vision. There were questions about how we see ourselves 20 years from now and so on, all designed to help us find the mission of our life. Basically, in this class today, we tried to simulate our life going forward and see if it provides us with the purpose of our existence. Too philosophical is it? Or may be too Psychological :-)

Truth is today was the day when both classes used simulation as a tool to help us understand and develop some of the concepts that would help us in the long run as we move ahead with this MBA and with our careers and lifes.

In the evening, we kick-started the Movember Madness, by shaving our beards and moustaches in MM31 launch pad area. And after postponing it once, we also had our section photo taken by IMBA today.

At night, while I was resting, doing "nothing", got a message from Martin asking if I want to go for Columbian dinner - Well, food is my weakpoint and I had never tried Columbian food before - So, it was an offer I could not refuse - went for a late night dinner with 2 other classmates and had amazing food, with tips and explanation from Martin all along.

Life is good :-)

The medium is the message

Well, the day started with talent management course, where we saw concepts like yield rates at work. While analyzing how different yield rates are affected by factors internal and external to a firm, Monika gave out a statement 'The medium is the message' pointing to how candidates form an opinion of the firms based on their interactions with the interviewer.
This statement was enough to stress importance of having a charismatic person as a recruiter.

Next was our group meeting where we kicked off the work for our talent management presentation.

In the Corporate Finance class today, Carlos summarized all the concepts we have seen so far, and the concepts we need to be familiar with for developing a good model. I think we will jump into developing finance models right away, starting next class.

And then, Gonzalo was back with a case on China. While it was an interesting case, where we got to know about the history of China, and the gradual economic reforms it has been implementing, the class also indulged into discussions such as how this relates to the way Russia and Eastern Europe went on with their reforms.

I think one of the important takeaways from this class was that the policies you implement as government talk a lot about what message you send to your population and to the world outside. Again, a common theme discovered in classes of today - the medium is the message :-)

Beginning of the Halloween week :-)

Well, a couple of Halloween parties planned by different student clubs, a halloween event planned by IMBA team, a secheduled photo shoot where we will all dress up casually, a shave-off party to launch Movember and a long weekend with so many appealing destinations calling ..

Sounds so good right? But then, this week also is the one when we need to be done with the first round of marketing simulation, our group needs to prepare for talent management presentation, there are lots of readings for everyday, I have some fellowship related work to be done by end of the week and probably all of us need to start squeezing in some time for job hunting and interview preparations. Add to it, this is a short week, if there is anything planned for the long weekend.

I know, I know suddenly - all that sounded so rosy about this week is not so rosy anymore. Add to it, we are still waiting on four of our grades, almost 75 credits, which has kept the anxiety within many of us still alive.

So, when Erik started his class today saying, the case for today about a company with innovative blood substitute nicely fits with the whole Halloween theme for this week, I couldn't agree more. At its onset, today being Monday, the week ahead does look scary.

Anyways, leaving behind this side-talk, today the in the BGS class, we discussed the effect that a political regime can have on economic situations in the country and how the policy makers can alter the faith of industries - of course, we saw it more from the perspective of the industrialists and analyzed what are the situations that we should not get our ventures into, when it comes to dependence and influence on policies.

Marketing Strategy class was about 'going to market' when we have an innovative product and how? We also discussed some numbers on finding the market size and potential market share.

A common theme - in both classes, we discussed ventures that have already been shut down.

Scary isn't it? Welcome to the Halloween week :-D

It's half time !!

Yes, if you have not noticed the number of posts in this blog yet, now is the time to look at the total count - the first post for introduction followed by one post per day - that will tell you that as this day ends, we will complete half the time of our MBA program here at IE.

"Time passes so fast !!" I am sure that each one of you will wonder - but what is more noticeable is how everyone is now thinking how time "will" pass quickly going forward.

We already have IMBA team arranging for our section photo, our class rep and a bunch of other folks are already planning some souvenir for remembering the class, many are packing their bags to go on a long exchange or on internship, many have begun looking for jobs, and many more are preparing for launching their ventures.

Life at IE, may not be the same again, for many of us. And that is exactly the reason why I thought of publishing this post early in the morning - although the earliness has been escalated a bit, thanks to the day light savings change this morning, where clocks went back an hour - nevertheless, it is Sunday, it is the day when we are all relaxed, and it is the day when we complete half the time at this program.

Just wanted to highlight this fact early in the day, so that we can all take some time to think back on all that is past, and all that we still need to achieve while we are all here.

Good Luck to all my fellow classmates and congratulations !! We are half way there :-)

Of Simluations, Surveys and the signal to get set ..

Well, today I spent some time, downloading all the material that was added to campus online by various professors - some have put in a lot of stuff, while others have put in documents relevant to past classes.

I also registered for marketing online simulation, answered the online survey for corporate finance and went through the course pack for next week.

Suddenly, considering the group work that we are already beginning to work on since last week, and all the materials, assignments, exercises that I found for coming days, I realized that it is that time of the term already - to get set - for the next lap of study and work load is going to start real soon.

Bring it on 'term 3' - I am all set now :-)

When numbers alone don't add together to provide value

Today, there was a double session for BGS, with first session dedicated to an online simulation and second to debriefing of the simulation.

We grouped to be 8 different companies, using water of a common lake, and trying to use this water, even while we were to take decisions regarding whether we will treat water after use or dispose without treatment. And then, there were flavors like rains, fines, awards. Overall, we had fun at the simulation.

Our group started believing that after the Strategy class, people now understand the concept of prisoners dilemma and will all treat the water. When that didn't happen, we played to maximize our relative gain.

While I expected the debriefing to be the same as what we had in the Strategy class simulation, it was actually different this time. With each element of the game, from lake to the fines to the awards, Jef discussed about how it relates to and represents some aspect of the business world and government norms and took inputs from the class about the hows, the whats, the likes and the dislikes.

I enjoyed this debriefing today. It gave us so much information, by referring to just a simulation, which I had initially thought to be just another form of prisoner's dilemma.

Later in the day was marketing strategy class. Today Erik discussed the Polyphonic HMI case - again a product with amazing innovation by a start-up trying to make its mark. The Plumber metaphor and question of 'who is the plumber in this case'? came up today as well. By the way, if I have not already mentioned this, this is with reference to the first case, where plumber represents a customer side stakeholder and an influencer, who needs convincing and converting, for successful sale of your product.

I have to admit, today I had only managed to read the case and didn't work much on solving it. But, even if I had solved it in all aspects, I could not have thought of using simple tools that we have already learned in the past like Bayes theorem to identify the value created. This was a good learning for me today. In fact, we saw a lot of numbers today, but none of them appeared out of place and they were actually relatively easy to do - reminded me of something which I have heard a few times in the past about cracking the case - that if you can't do the basic numbers on back of an envelope, you are not cracking the case correctly.

Today, I saw a demonstration of how to crack a case on back of an envelope. Not bad for a friday afternoon class, I would say.

And yes, the common theme in today's classes - if you only look at numbers, you may not be able to generate full value - for simulation in BGS, we had to look and think about what others are doing or will do and for marketing strategy, we had to identify the plumber and think on how we can engage this person to create value. 

Our group met right after the classes and at 6 PM, we finally concluded our work, and with that I also concluded my study for the day.

Last night was a long night with the Korean dinner and the after dinner gathering at a Turkish restaurant, so tonight I need some rest.

Enjoy your weekend readers :-)

Urgency, Optimism, Change and Innovation

Well, morning started with a class by Erik for the Aqualisa Quartz case - a innovative product, created with huge expense on R&D, as a newly minted MBA leading the company wanted to shun the complacency developed in this firm and sensed an urgency to bring in new product lines.

We discussed this case from a marketing strategy point of view and at the end of it, saw the measure actually adopted by our protagonist in form of his video that was available. I was surprised that when this innovative product was not selling, they did something very counter-intuitive when it comes to targeting the consumers.

Erik reminded us of how this case can also be looked upon from a change management point of view.

And then after our group meeting, began two sessions on Leadership Vision. Well, our mentor for the session Jill, after introducing herself started talking about overall program structure. Turns out - this is also about how leaders can behave in situations that demand change - how important it is to identify urgency in a timely manner, how important it is to be optimistic about future plans and how important it is to communicate a concrete action plan to all stakeholders.

We looked at a societal case of Martin Luther King as first example and then at a business case of Sony in recent times, and discussed various aspects of leadership vision aspects.

All-in-all, a common theme across all classes of today, and that is something I am always amazed with.

Small Probability, Big Impact events rule the day !!

Well, first of the Marketing Strategy classes by Erik in morning today, began with a metaphorical picture of some people trying to build a bridge and reach the end labeled 'Customer'.
What began with the question 'what do you see when you look at this picture?' eventually landed up on 'Does it bridge to reach customer ever completes? Can business ever build that perfect and long lasting bridge?'
That is where the discussion actually got philosophical.

Anyways, to stress the importance of Customer from Marketing Strategy point of view, Erik gave us an example of Dave. Dave Carrol, a small time country musician, whose custom guitar was broken while it was checked it in united airlines and who struggled to get a compensation for this 2000 dollar guitar from the airlines, created a song and posted it on Youtube. Song was titled 'United breaks guitar' - and this relatively low budget video, went viral with current hits reaching 13.5 million. The company itself suffered a 10% drop in its share price on fourth day this video was out, and caused a market cap loss of 180 million dollar.

While it is also a case for Social CRM, the lesson this example provides is that events like this with small probability and very high impact cannot be ignored and in today's world of internet and mobile phones, every single customer matters :-)

While we were still pondering over our discussion in this class, in came Carlos for the Corporate finance session. His lesson for today turned out to be the same - while forecasting, we cannot just rely on most likely scenarios - and this is especially important in cases where the outliers with small probability but high impact create a downside risk - well, he did state that risk is better understood and quantified if we look at it as variability between the expected outcome and the most likely outcome. So, if an event with small probability and huge impact is present on both sides of the expected outcome, probably nothing with change much - but if the risk is only on down side, at least the expected return and cash flows will change and we have to factor them into our model.
And then, depending on the variance of expected value, we can determine the risks involved and also the premium we can pay for the risk.

Interesting lesson, yet counter-intuitive to think that while a down side risk will definitely impact the expected return, it may not necessarily impact the risk involved and hence the discount rate associated.
It is this counter-intuitive nature of this argument which invited so many queries and doubts from many in the class today and Carlos ended up answering these queries for a long time even after the class was over.

While we suddenly have a lot to decide as a group now - for marketing strategy report and for talent management presentation, and spent an hour doing so, the day only concluded after an over-stretched session of career strategy by an head hunter lady. I don't really remember her name, but she spent almost two hours giving us tips and tricks of the trade.

Spent time post-lunch to do the readings for tomorrow, and now I am thinking of also completing the readings for Friday, as I have some dinner plans for tomorrow :-)

From Internationalization of Businesses to Economics of Countries :-)

Well, the day began with a mail waiting from Luis S., waiting in my inbox, providing us with our group feedback, so already a happy note to begin my day.

It was a double session of Talent Management today with Lincoln Electric case - the classic example of a company with completely counter-intuitive yet successful implementation of piece-rate system, paying high compensation in a high cost location, and yet sustaining its market leadership for more than 100 years now. This case in particular was about discussion on whether Lincoln should go to China with same HR practices. Along the discussion, Prof. Monika provided us with some survey data as well - to provide trends on behavioral and aspirational influences in U.S. and China, the differences in them and similarities in them.

While it was an interesting discussion today, what I liked the most about this class was that Prof. Monika was not only moderating the discussion based on inputs by people, she was actually helping people by reading into their comments and helping them state their case clearly.

Our group did pretty much nothing as part of group work today, as it is a little early in the term anyways and then it was time for our first session of the Core Plus elective class.
Basically, this is an elective offered during the core period itself. While the choices included Strategy, Finance, and Management Control as other options [both in English and Spanish], I along with 56 others [yes, this class is full] chose 'Country Economic Analysis' - firstly because the cases and countries covered in this class are interesting to know about and secondly because the professors for Economics are really really good. Prof. Gonzalo, Prof. Gayle Allard and Prof. Patricia Gabaldon, each with an expertise in economics of different regions of the world. Not to mention, my decision like many others was also biased by the fact that we had already taken Managerial Economics class with Prof. Gonzalo and we all liked that class and Gonzalo's teaching very much.

Anyways, today's opening session was by Prof. Gonzalo where he discussed where the world is today, the history of economic development, the future trends in demographics [he doesn't really advocate economic forecasts, so only forecasts we saw were the demographic forecasts, which are pretty much accurate due to data availability] and how different countries and their economies have evolved and are are currently placed.

He used references from Malthus to Rosling to the recently published report [just ten days ago] by world bank on GNI and GNI-PPP figures of various nations.

As usual, a lot of ground was covered in this class, even though this was the first session. We also got to know the overall syllabus, what countries we will cover in details, what are the grading criteria and other logistics stuff.

Anyways, by the end of this class, Investment Analysis grade was already out and I am really happy about this one.

Spent the rest of today reading for the first Marketing Strategy class by Erik tomorrow, and doing the Financial Forecast simulation as part of online exercise that Carlos has assigned us. This exercise was fun as it helped me revise the concepts of both financial accounting and investment analysis together in same exercise.

Need to apply to one more company today before I call it a day, and needless to say, it was a good day for me today :-)

Leadership, Businesses, Politics, Cash and Income :-)

Well, today started with the leadership module session for us to give feedback of term two to our work group and receive feedback from the work group. It was a good start of the day, talking about things we liked about each other, things we would our friends to improve on, and so on.

Then came the Business, Government and Society Class. Our professor for the class - Jeffrey Timmons started the session by telling us about himself and the course structure in general. And then, he took a poll on how many people like successful businesses and businessmen and how many like successful politicians. Obviously, the hands raised for second question were much lesser than for the first question.
And then began a series of questions, triggering a discussion around what makes business successful, what is it that we like about businesses and what we don't like about them and Jef established a correlation of all these things with politics and illustrated to us, how both are similar in so many aspects.
Discussion then built into economics and free markets and invisible hand and role of government.
He concluded the class by stating briefly how government is required for a market to work properly. IN absence of government, there are ways to ensure free market, but these measures ultimately cause efficiency losses.

Interesting class, with a very engaging discussion on various aspects. I know I am going to enjoy this class.

As BGS class ran a little over time, Carlos was already in the class. He saw the slides for BGS while Jef was closing them and during discussions in the class, he actually referred to that last slide on which Jef left us, and explained the concept he was talking about in terms of example that we studied in the previous class. That reference he made of something which is not his subject and not his slide was really impressive.
Today's class also had some of the slides with movie characters and quotes used to refer to basic concepts of finance. We had clickers distributed in the class and Carlos made a good use of these clickers to illustrate before us how bias of market participants don't cancel each other as put forth by some economists, but goes on adding to each other. He also related this to why we need to work with intrinsic value approach to find value of our investment, rather than going for market based approach - because true equilibrium doesn't really exist in the market.
One quote said by him, when he was explaining the different aspects of balance sheet, which I liked the most today was "Cash is the only fact. Income is an Opinion. And the future cash flow is also an Opinion."
Gave me a better perspective of things.

After classes today, I worked on a job application, and then after finishing readings for tomorrow, worked on my fellowship related paper, which has received some review comments.

A good beginning of this week and with classes for some of other subjects also starting in couple of days, I am hoping this week will be interesting one.