The Grand Finale

The Grand Finale of my. International MBA at IE, the graduation day, the day of last post for this blog, the four hundred and sixteenth day, the day to receive acknowledgement and appreciation and certification for all the hard work put in past thirteen months, the day to remember, to reflect, to rejoice, the day when I officially become an alumni and join 40,000 others at the IE alumni association.

When we started from Madrid towards Segovia, it was raining. Many in India believe that rain on an auspicious and/or important occasion is a good omen. And if that was not enough, when we reached Segovia, we saw a rainbow in the sky - full of colors, full of joy, full of hope, full of excitement, full of accomplishment.
And then, as soon as we walked down with our diplomas and transcripts, the sky was clear and it was warm and sunny all around. The sunshine of achievements, the brightness of future ahead.
Thinking of metaphors and good omens and signs, there were many. And yes, not to mention, we graduated from the same place where Columbus had sought permission from the queen of Spain for his Voyage - the voyage that led to discovery of the Americas. To top it all, the biggest factor that made me feel really good was to receive my MBA transcript and diploma in presence of my parents, and of course my new found friends and their families.

Jeff who taught us how to make business sense out of many non-market events from the decisions that governments make, to the choices that people make, and who received most votes from my section A2, was voted as the best professor for the year. Phillip received award for the best student, and from what I have come to know him, in the classes we took together, in our interactions inside and outside the school, I had a feeling that he should be the one to receive this award. Natalie delivered an extra dose of emotions in what was already an excited arena, and I could see tears in eyes of many, as she spoke about the spirit of IE, of togetherness, of helping each other, of being socially responsible and of being thankful to our families, friends, peers and all those who have helped us in the past and will be there for us in the future.

There are many mixed emotions that gather in my mind this day, from thoughts of the day I decided to go for an MBA, thoughts of all criticisms, and of the love that has made me what I am today. More on the reflection on some other, at some other place. Today, it was the day to "Keep Calm and Graduate"

Getting ready for the graduation

Haircut, Suit, Ironing, checking for IMBA team posts, charging my handycam [now that the dslr is history] basically everything and anything that is related to getting ready for the graduation day tomorrow - was the agenda for the day. Also met Prof Alvaro to return his book and bid him farewell - yeah, its the season of farewells.

IT was way back in 2004 that I participated in a convocation, to receive my gold medal for the master in civil engineering from Mumbai university. Much has taken place since then, I have seen many ups and downs of this life, have had a professional career, visited many countries, gotten praised for my work, and have been questioned about my abilities; and all this just makes the graduation of International MBA tomorrow, even more special for me. Sleeping early tonight, got a big day tomorrow, and not to mention the day when I will conclude this blog, this journey, this MBA :-)

Rest day

After spending eight days traveling, and losing my camera in the process, today was the day to rest - and to do "nothing", and I did just that - comments from friends and relatives kept pouring in on my FB update of lost camera through out the day and all I did was check on them, apart from watching some Marathi and Hindi movies recently released in India.

By the way, its already time to count down for the graduation day.

Got Robbed in Rome !!

Well, I knew the trick - I knew that there are places in Madrid where I need to be careful about my bag, but in Rome, I didn't expect something similar. And it was not those teenage girls like in Madrid, but a suited guy, who walked in, showed some writing on the wall, and by the time we looked back, my camera bag, with my dslr, all the lenses, sunglasses, usb cable, batteries, filters - everything was gone. Tried looking for the guy for next 10 minutes and then gave up - I knew from similar experiences of my friends in Madrid that there is no point in looking any more.

A great trip came to an end by a frustrating theft. Got to experience this side of Europe as well. Spent the day thinking about photos of all those beautiful moments lost with the camera, and also how Tokyo, Singapore, India are all so different from these deceiving encounters that many of us have experienced around Europe. WTF .. I got robbed !!!

The Roman Ruins

From Colosseum to churches and walls, today we first took a full ride of the hop-on bus and saw it all and then got down at the Colosseum to spend more time. After this was the time to visit that famous fountain in Rome, where you throw coins while eating ice-cream.
Today was a better day, as we knew how and where to get the bus, and we covered more things.

The Vatican

Long queues, long walks and a hop-on-off bus and towards the end of it all the Vatican - it took us the whole day to visit just this one place - good that we have reserved two full days in between the travel dates to see this place - the food around Vatican was expensive and there were many hidden charges, and it wasn't really that good food. The food we had back in the restaurant at our campsite, that was a different matter altogether - it was yummy, and it served the craving for Italian food really well. Hope we can cover the rest of the places tomorrow.

ROME calling

Time to move to the next destination, in Italy to Rome, the city of Colosseum and of the Vatican. We arrived in afternoon to our resting place, and liked the arrangement made in the hotel we were in - every need served in short space of the bungalows that we were in. Spent the evening in this place enjoying the breeze and the atmosphere - it was a campsite anyways, so many people around were already having a party and good times :-)

From Mona Lisa to Modi

today, we spent the morning at Louvre museum, took a picture with the Mona Lisa, had breakfast watching the inverted pyramid that is center of mystery in the movie of The Da Vinci Code, went on top of Eiffel tower in the evening, and enjoyed the wind there by sipping a cup of hot coffee, had Indian dinner in a neighborhood full of Indian grocery stores and restaurants, and came home to hear about two wins - our local candidate for Indian Parliament, Mr Udayanraje Bhosale; and Narendra Modi of BJP with a clear mandate for the party - an era of new hope begins in India today, and I am all eager to be part of this new nation and the new world :-)

A First look at Paris

It was the day to move on from Barcelona to the next stop - Paris, another country, another language, another significance.

Took the hop-on, hop-off tour of the river ride in Paris as it stopped at exact same spots as the bus and was a different experience in itself. Day to take a first look at this city, famous for so many things from romance to poetry to museums.

Spent the evening on banks of the river Sein just next to Eiffel Tower :-)

Birthday Time :-)

Another Birthday in Madrid, an inflow of wishes on social network, some calls back and forth to India, day spent with loved ones and great weather of Barcelona. Spent the Birthday having great food and seeing great sites in this beautiful city of Spain.

Thankful as always to all those who remembered me on this day :-)

Travel time

Well, there is nothing on my schedule until the graduation day, so the plan is to travel, travel in Europe for next eight days, starting today with Barcelona. Not sure how the internet connectivity will be, so, next few posts may be irregular. Its time to break free and see this part of the world, before bidding it farewell.

Suit Up, The Finish Line awaits !!

Today in the afternoon, I was all suited up, and presenting my analysis with my group to the panelists - my final presentation at IE - the finish line. Followed it with a loooong lunch with family and close friends. Finally, the International MBA is done, the finish line is crossed, and its time for some relaxation and jubilation and reflection ... the overwhelm of feelings is such that there are not many words I can think of right now to describe the whole thing :-)

The Last Submission

Yesterday was a long night - slept at around 1:30 AM after preparing the executive report initial version and then woke up at 6 AM today again to review and revise it for one last time. Submitted it at 12:30 PM just to make sure that the last submission at IE has no issues, or if it has, they get taken care of. And as feared, there was a minor issue which made me sit until 2 PM to redo a few things and submit the document again. Basically, it had to be original and not a scanned or pdf version, which needed some amendments to submit the signed first page.

And then, it was time to work on the final presentation - yes the "FINAL" presentation here at IE. By the time, I prepared first few slides, our group met in the evening to give it that final touch and finalize the flow and practice.

A long day, one last time at MM31, at IE Business School, for this MBA.

Last few hours for the finals - lets keep working :-)

Last few hours for the finals - lets keep working: that was the spirit seen in many workrooms of MM31 today, where many from my intake were busy trying to "Crack the case", write the executive summary and prepare for the presentation - just as I was :-)

Met many folks whom I hadn't seen in days, thanks to the final exam work that everyone is doing in MM31.

In less than 24 hours now, my final report for this MBA will get submitted and in less than 48 hours, my final exam will be done. Not to mention, I also took care of the fellowship related work, just to make sure that after Monday, I am not working on anything that is related to school curriculum or enrollment :-)

Of meetings, cooking and changing plans

Today started with an agenda : to have my house owner couple and a friend over to my place for lunch. Went to the supermarket, hot the grocery and just when I was to start cooking, got a message from house owner that she won't be able to make it, and will meet in the evening over a coffee instead.

There was still one guest invited so I continued thinking that left overs are never a problem when you are away from home. During lunch hour, it turned out that this friend of mine cannot make it either. 

I decided to enjoy the food for which I had invested entire morning anyways by myself and then soon it was time for that coffee with the owner couple.

To make the long story short, my final exam related executive summary is due in 2 days and the presentation itself is to take place in less than 3 days, and here I was spending all my day cooking and meeting people.

Not that I mind it, but a day spent entirely in a different way than what one would imagine, and by the time it was evening, I am already too tired. So ate the food, watched some programs online and sleeping early today - tomorrow I need to finish a lot of work, so I better start the day early :)

MM31 .. after a long time :-)

Its been a while since I last spent so much time in MM31 in a single day - today, I came in early in the morning and booked a room, to read the final case, do my thinking and create an outline of possibilities in my mind. In the evening, it was time for the group meeting - and we discussed our views, findings, and future plan with each other. We also distributed the individual work.

Strangely, there wasn't much excitement today about the whole deal - and the feeling of doing it for the sake of it prevailed :-)
Good thing is now that we have worked on so many cases, it is not going to be a difficult task to crack this one :-)

It's time to bring it all together

Today, we got our final case in an info session by the IMBA team. It's a case that we are supposed to analyze using everything that we have learned in this program, using the MBA toolkit and then submit our executive summary of it, and give. Presentation.

It was good to see so many people from my intake together after a long time and good to meet many familiar faces.

Today, we just browsed through the case and the real work will begin tomorrow. 

Photos, Movies, etc

Today was spent in editing photos, a lot of them - taken last week in Retiro for Besabijou, taken in San Sebastian, and taken yesterday in Retiro, and to go along with the work, some entertainment in form of youtube movies and videos :-)

Busy day, spent in doing stuff I like :-)

Waiting for the info session tomorrow - never had i thought that I would actually wait for getting a case from the IMBA team to work on it so eagerly, or may be the eagerness is to work on it and be done with the final exam of this course :-)

Retiro Saves the day :-)

Well, ever since the classes are done and school is over for most of us, every day in the afternoon someone sends a message in the group 'Anyone up for some Tapas and drinks' :-)

We are missing the school and its routine already. Well, after an eventful last few days, it was hard for me to stay back in the home for the whole day - so, when it came to choosing between going to MM31 and sitting in LP browsing things on the internet, and going out somewhere, I chose the later.

Went to Retiro Park and spent the day relaxing :-)

Hala Madrid !

Well, after spending last three days here in San Sebastian, it is time. Time to go back to the base camp - in Madrid :-)

And soon I will be getting that final case for exam and will have to present it. So, it is also time to get back to the real world :-)

Sunny days are here again :-)

Third day in San Sebastian, and while all the regular touristic places and a couple of Paella and Italian places are already covered by us, today the Sun is out. So, time to enjoy the beach and its breeze for the day. Life is good :-)

Praying the weather gods ..

Well, arrived in San Sebastian yesterday, only to face rains and cloudy weather from Burgos onwards. While there is no rain since morning today, the sky is still cloudy and I am not sure how the day will turn out. Well, fingers crossed and praying the weather gods to be nice to the tourists from today onwards. Lets see how it goes :-)

North Calling ..

Well, I am in Spain and in Europe right now, it is sunny weather and there are no classes for me anymore. Yes, of course there is the final exam coming up, but its still far away. So, time to hear the call for travel and this time, it is the north calling.

Going on for a trip to north of Spain until San Sebastian for next three days. All set to enjoy the sunny beaches, the delicious Paella and the picturesque scenery of the north :-)

Packing, Printing, Preparing :-)

Well, tomorrow I have a trip planned, so today, most of the day was spent in printing out the tickets, doing the necessary shopping, preparing the travel bag, packing the things I need including my Camera of course and yes eating and sleeping :-)

Sometimes I think, whether I should really be writing these 2-3 liners everyday anymore, considering that all my classes are done and I will go back to school only in about a weeks time for final exam related work, but then, I think every day spent in Madrid, is in itself bringing new things for me, so why not :-)

A walk down the memory lane

While I did some minor job browsing and a couple of cases, spent most of the day reading past blog posts I have written here and getting nostalgic.

Past one year went by so fast, and now, this last month in which I chose no classes, has been so very slow in its pace.
Also went to the Circulo de Bellas Artes rooftop and spent a couple of evening hours, watching the skyline of this beautiful city Madrid, trying to figure out different places from the buildings seen, and trying to run down the memory lane about those areas.
While my classes were done on 9th April itself, as many people are finishing theirs today and tomorrow, there is a race on facebook among those who want to update their status of MBA last class done, and that race is making me drive through these memories even more !!

Hope to get back in action with some activity or other real soon :)

Chores

It has been a while that I had cleaned around my house, and so today was the day spent for doing all the chores from cleaning to shopping to laundry.

And also, now that I have caught up with the most recent episode of the Game of a Thrones, I finally had no reason to NOT do some cases :)

Today passed by really quick as there was some or other thing coming up one after other and I was busy doing many different things and yes, I did wish happy birthday to one of my childhood friends, and welcomed a couple of tourists to Madrid today :-)

Shooting Guapas :)

Today, I had booked my time for outdoor photoshoot of models, yes models showcasing the besabijou jewellery. So, from 11 AM in the morning until 4:30 PM, I was busy taking pictures of three beautiful girls or Guapas as they say in Madrid. And then spent the remaining day with my IE family, enjoying a pizza, some sangria, the amazing Spider-Man and some chitchat.

A good Sunday :)

Case Solving Prep

Spent the day browsing the case study prep material and watching season three of the game of thrones. Yepp, by the end of tonight, I will be catching up with the latest episode that was aired :)

I mean if all that there is to do is case prep and job applications, there is plenty of time for things like television series. I like the pace of this all :)

Another round of the job hunt

All those job hunting sites, they take a couple of days to have a fresh lot of jobs published. So, last couple of days, I had to just sit back, as most of the jobs available were already seen by me.

Today, I found a couple of new ones though, and did the necessary applications. Also practiced some cases and created profiles in a couple of places.

All in all, a day well spent. Now planning to watch the game of thrones in the night :)

The Game of Thrones

I have to say that in these past few years, moving around from one place to another, with different local languages, my habit of watching TV series has been long lost. Add to it, there is enough entertainment and engagement online these days from social networks to the movie streamings.

But then, there are a few series that I am hearing about so many times, that I finally gave in and decided to watch at least one of them - the Game of Thrones. One of my friends had DVDs of season one and two, so borrowed them from her, and starting watching the series at around 11am. I must say the series is addictive, as by the time, I went out for a Korean dinner at 8:30 pm, I hardly moved away from my PC and till then had already watched all of season one and first two episodes of season two.

After returning from a good Korean dinner at restaurant Maru, I am already too exhausted to continue with the series, so time to publish the post of the day and sleep :)

Sit-in .. And that changes the last class

Well, my Nigerian friends were going to make a presentation about Nigeria in their Africa, Poverty and Development class. They had been talking about it so many times, that I got tempted to attend this one class and be an audience to their presentation.

So, today at 4 pm, I went to the classroom, asked Gayle if I can sit-in in this one class, even though I have not taken her class as an elective and she said yes.

And this is how, today between 4 pm to 7 pm, I attended the Africa class, and this class is now officially the last class I took in IE, instead of the Corporate Governance class that I attended long back on the 9th of April.

Enjoyed being a spectator in a class and being a part of MBA learning yet another time :)

Back to School

Well, this morning as I was walking towards MM31, it felt a little different - As if I am doing this after a real long time, although its been only 10 days of vacation in between.

Spent the whole day in launch pad, browsing job postings, preparing job applications, solving a couple of cases, all-in-all the day has been spent well - as per the plan, so I can relax and have a peaceful sleep tonight :-D

Indian Food Fiesta :-)

Today being the last day of our Easter vacation, we all got together to have a good time, at my place. Me and Hitesh cooked a few of varieties of Chicken recipes and it was a day spent having loads of fun. Also went to a long walk around central Madrid in the evening and enjoyed the great Madrid weather.

Tomorrow the school re-opens and I need to get my act together and start applying for jobs again. Going to bed early tonight to start fresh tomorrow :-)

Happy Easter :-)

Well, a friend of mine Jeanine, said this morning, considering that I have attended all the processions that take place in the Easter week anyways, it would be a good idea for me to also attend the Easter Mass, to know the entire set of rituals and ceremonies that take place for Easter. So it was that today I went with her to the 'Our lady of Mercy' church in Madrid - the only church with English-speaking services and attended the Easter day Mass.

Another first, and it was a good experience - the whole atmosphere was full with hope, happiness and delight and the vibe was positive.

Spent the rest of today partying at her place with couple of other friends - the Easter celebration, if you want to call it :-D

Anyways, to all my readers out there, Happy Easter :-)

El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen

Spent the day today in a beautiful small town of El Escorial and its surroundings. This place is famous for its Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo, which was both a palace and a monastery in its early days - and is now a collection of museums and a monastery. The collection of paintings and tapestries in this place is too good - but more than all of this, what I enjoyed was the time I spent outside, in a small restaurant terraza as they call it here - there was a peaceful calmness in the atmosphere, a couple singing and playing soft music on the street, good Sangria and some finger food to go along, and we didn't realize how two hours passed by.
Next up was the valley of the fallen - another great scenic marvel - a giant cross constructed here on top of the hill can be seen from as far as 30 miles [in fact, I have seen it before while going to Toledo] and the monument constructed here is a marvel for its architecture, its design and the way it has been created in a tunnel of the hill.

Returned to Madrid around 8 PM, uploaded the pictures in FB and will go to sleep now in some time :-) A good day today :-)

Viernes Santo

These days are so much dominated by the fact that it is the Easter Holiday going on, that I cannot help myself write names of the same days here in the subject line. I mean all that I did today was to watch some movies, browse the internet, check facebook and then attend one of today's processions :-)
Not like I am complaining, but I can see that pretty soon, all this leisurely vacation time will need to be covered for, in kind :-)

More of the Processions

The highlight of today - went to the Plaza Mayor neighborhood for watching a couple of yearly Easter week processions, with a group of friends and ended up having a good time until past mid-night. Took some great pictures to add to the collection that I have started on Sunday. All of them are in my Facebook :-)

Vacation mood .. Yaawn !!

It's hard to get rid of the vacation mood when you know that there is no work to be done for next 5 days. Today, I fell prey to this mood completely. Spent the day watching movies on Youtube, even the ones that I had prevented to watch for last 2-3 years, just because I had so much time today. Also read a book about MBA of today. The only time I did something was when I cooked some pasta for lunch today :-)
Happy Holidays everyone :-)

Hanuman Jayanti Wishes to all

back home, in our courtyard, we have a small temple of lord Hanuman and today, we are celebrating 25th year of Hanuman Jayanti in this temple - Hanuman Jayanti is the birthday of this Hindu god - I was on fast since yesterday like every year, and after completing some tasks in one of the government offices here, had a sumptuous Indian lunch in late afternoon.

By the way, no matter how much fun people make of the speed of work in offices here and the ahora and the siesta phrases used here, my personal experience today was too good. I needed some document and despite me not fluent in Spanish, I got all the help, right in time, to get this document. In fact, while I was speaking in English, and they were speaking in Spanish, people were friendly enough to complete all the procedures based on all the paperwork I provided, and give me the documents in two days. I have become a fan of the government system here - yes, it is not as automated as in Singapore, and not equally customer-friendly as in Tokyo, but it is something - it is in a state where Indian red tape of government offices can target themselves to be, in a few years time.

Anyways, went to MM13 this afternoon to scan these documents, met some familiar faces there, and have made a half day trip plan for tomorrow. Lets see how it goes !!

For today, Hanuman Jayanti wishes to all. May lord Hanuman bless everyone with strength, courage and happiness in life :-)

Monday without an Alarm

Just yesterday I read a post on my facebook news feed - Blessed are the days when we sleep knowing there is no alarm to wake us up :-)
And the blessing effects gets doubled if this day is Monday :-)

Anyways, lazy day spent at home, doing nothing but movie surfing for most of the day, and taking siestas :-)

MM31 will be closed for the whole week starting today - MM4 will be open for some time though - but then it is a little far away for me than MM31, so less incentive to walk up to MM4 everyday, just to be in the school. Let's see how the week unfolds :-)

Domingo de Ramos

Domingo de Ramos or Palm Sunday - that is the day of the Easter week or the Semana Santa today and there was a historic procession around Opera that I had planned to go for.

Started in the afternoon, had a few stops on the way in 100 Montaditos, and after reaching the place of procession, took a lot of pictures. This time around as I am in Madrid for the entire Semana Santa, plan is to see all the processions that go around and capture the moments of Easter week here in Madrid.

Spent the night till late editing pictures on the laptop, while watching Hindi movies after a long time, on the iPad.

Not really a day related to IE by any way - but then, I am here in Madrid, courtesy of IE ain't it? :-)

setup time

What do you do when you know that you are just done with a major assignment? you start looking for a new one - or if you have already got one, you start working on it - but then, in between these two, just like any production line, you need to have what we call in operations management as a "setup time" - to get rid of things that are no longer relevant, to bring in things that you will need for the next job and to align for the next level of work.

That is exactly what I spent my day today in doing - from the stuff in my room, kitchen and living room, to the material on my computer, to my thought process, it was a setup time for all - to eventually transform from the MBA learning mode to the next level - for an assignment that I have in mind, and that I will be working on in these few days, and for post-MBA job search.

And while I woke up only at noon, by the time I was done with all of this, it was already 8:30 PM. A busy day, when I didn't even realize how time went by :-)

Just did it !!

That report I was writing, finally got submitted at 4 AM this morning. And because I was all awake trying to review it and to make sure that the last submission that I make has no issues, once I was done and I tried to sleep,  couldn't - not until it was around 5:30 AM.

And then, as a friend and his family were leaving Madrid for good, I woke up again at 8:30 AM, got ready and went to see them off. After all the packing and re-packing and stuff, they finally took off in their car at 2 PM.

By then, I was completely exhausted - got some take-away food and came home to have a siesta - a real long one. When I woke up again at 8 PM, I started thinking of what to do and suddenly the feeling sank in - I am done with my MBA - I mean yes, there is this final presentation on a case in May, but apart from that, all the classes, all the submissions, all the learning, it is all done. Couldn't help myself from saying - Just did it :-)

Wrapping it all up ..

Spent most of the day today helping a friend wrap up his belongings in the house as he is leaving Madrid with his family tomorrow.

Spent the evening in a siesta and planning to sit for whatever time it takes, to wrap up the corporate governance report. I have been dragging it for too long, but considering that the deadline is tomorrow, there is no more of such luxury to sit on it available to me anymore anyways.

Need to also prepare for the fellowship meeting tomorrow. Let's see how the night unfolds :)

the Future ..

last class of Corporate Governance .. last class of the term five .. last class of the International MBA .. mixed feelings and an eye towards the future. It was only appropriate that today's class of Corporate Governance was all about the Future of Corporate Governance and during the class Prof Nieves also showed us a video where a group of MBA students go to a Jail for white collar criminals and listen to people who have been sentenced to prison for committing corporate crimes.
No matter what you do, do not fall for shortcuts and fraudulent practices, was the overall message that came out. And then, Prof Nieves also showed us a general survey in US about how much people trust various professionals and Business Executives came in way below ranks, lower than many others and only slightly higher than the members of the congress. To change this image is the challenge for future generation of executives and this challenge could not have been posed at any other time than today - the day of my last class here at MBA :-)

Anyways, still working on that report for Corporate Governance class and spent rest of the day working on it. Its not that the report is too complex, its just the last one I will write, so no matter how many times I come back to it, every time, I want to add some more to it, make it a little better and in this rush, I am spending more time than I had ever expected to write this one.

After this report is done though, I will have no excuse to not give my hundred percent in job hunt - so, lets see what the coming days bring.

Future awaits :-)

Before it all ends ..

Yes, before it all ends, lets write this one final report, lets have this one lunch together, lets all meet one mroe time and have a good time together.

Sounds poetic ain't it? Well, that was kind of theme for my day today - I had invited Hitesh and his family for a lunch at my place - cooked some Pav Bhaji, Chicken Tikka and Chhole and had a good time.
By the way, an article about start-up of Hitesh was published recently in the Businessbecause.com website.
Here is the link for it:
http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-entrepreneurs/2495/entrepreneurs-tech-startup-shines-stockholm

After a long siesta that the good Indian lunch fully deserved, came back to school to finish the corporate finance final report, which has been dragging for a couple of days now. Plan is again to finish it by end of the day - lets see how things unfold :-)

And yes, tomorrow is the day when the Corporate Governance Class will also wrap up - looking forward to the finale :-)

Operating Leases are back with a bang !!

Well, today's Corporate Governance case was about Restoring Trust at WorldCom - So, apart form the Richard Breeden's recommendation report and its various aspects, Prof Nieves also discussed what the accounting scandal was all about - and then the topic of leases came up.

The question that the discussion eventually landed was : when even today many large corporations put their long term leases as operating leases and this is not just airline operators, but also banks and other firms alike, are we still providing loopholes for scandals to occur?

Of course, Prof Nieves was kind enough to discuss the differences between capital leases and operating leases with the class and remind us of what we had seen previously in term one class of financial accounting, but at the same time she also discussed the current state of regulations in this regards, and what the authorities are working on currently to address the situation. The Right-to_use clause among other things was mentioned.

And then, during the last session of the Real Estate Investment class today, where Prof Cristina discussed about various financing options for Real Estate Projects, this same topic of operating leases again came up. This time, to discuss advantages of the Sale-and-Lease-back method of financing, that many firms use. In fact, we ended up discussing the benefits of operating leases in this regards :-)

Two different perspectives with respect to two different arms of a corporation, by two different stakeholders - yet the central issue was the same today - operating leases :-)

Still working on the Corporate Governance final report, and I may take a day more to make it submission worthy - nevertheless, a good start of the week, I must say :-)

The Season of Farewells begins ..

Today, I woke up late, thanks to the late night yesterday, and by the time I got ready, I realized that I need to email the final exam, feedback and assignment to Dr Jaime Alonso for the International Business Strategy and Modeling class.
So, after reviewing and updating a little all the documents one last time, I sent out the emails, got ready and headed towards Plaza Callo. Today, me and a few friends had planned a lunch with Hitesh and his family, as they are leaving for good in four days.
Spent a good four hours at the Gourmet Roof-top Food Court of El Corte Ingles at Callao and had fun chit-chatting and treating ourselves with the gourmet experience.
One thing that was most discussed was the plan everybody has after graduation, along with other aspects from jobs to future commitments, etc
All in all, the season of farewells has already begun and I know there will be more of such lunches and dinners going forward with a lot more people, as everyone winds up at their own pace from Madrid.
And yes, people have actually started to like it here, no matter what their view was when the school begun last year :-)

Lets do this !!

One essay, one final report of five pages, one case to read, and one submission of final exam which is now almost done writing - that was the amount of work outstanding for me this morning and I came to school with an agenda to complete it all.

One final lap, one long day and night, and I had a feeling, that I can finish it all - so by end of the day, now I stand to yet finish one report of 5 pages and one case reading - need to keep working. It's time to say to myself "Let's do this" :-)

The IE Doctorial Consortium 2014

Today, I had no classes and so I had decided to join Prof Alvaro and Manan in the IE Doctorial Consortium, where Manan presented our research work [as part of my fellowship] to the panel we were included in.
And this panel was about Risk Management. What I liked the most about this panel was that even though all four research works, three from IE and one from Universidad Carlos III were based on the theme of Risk management, they were all so different and unique with respect to each other. The first one was in field of Risk Hedging in Commodities Market using Financial and Operational metrics, the second one was ours i.e. risk management of crowd funding platforms using CORAS methodology, the third one was Risk management for near-miss events, and was based on behavioral and decision theory research and the last one was CEO-risk taking analysis for family firms.

I think you got the vibe by now. It was an exciting two hours, with each topic being presented for twenty minutes followed by a QnA for 10 minutes. Got some good feedback and some guidance for future work during our presentation and I am happy about it - this feedback is going to help us improve.

Although the event was all day long, instead of sitting in more presentations and discussions, I headed back to MM31 to complete the final essays and assignments that I have for various classes. Got really tired at around 10:30 - luckily, I had picked up some food from the newly opened Lunch&Dinner outlet across the street - so after going home, all that I had to do microwave the food and eat it before writing this post and falling asleep :-)

T minus fifty :-)

Well, its that day of the year, when we had our opening ceremony last year. A lot of exciting memories of the day, and before I could finish reflecting on the days that are past, it struck me that today is in fact the 366th day of the IMBA, which leaves 50 days now before gradaution.

Mixed emotions about the countdown and too many thoughts cropping up in my mind - from learning that I had in my MBA to the job hunt progress that I need to make and from life here in Madrid to thought about returning to the real world - yes, that's the real world which is out there - this here, being back to school/college after 9 years of work has been more of a dream run - too fast, too elusive, too glamorous and a so much fun than the real world.

Anyways, I had to take care of a few errands in the morning and by the time I returned, it was already afternoon. So spent the afternoon working on my fellowship project - we are now making a good progress in terms of generalizing our findings, our framework adaptation to different platforms, and use of CORAS methodology in general. This was followed by a meeting for discussing our progress.

Prof Alvaro, Manan and myself -  we also spent some time towards discussing the way ahead for our research. It was a good meeting today in terms of coverage we had about various topics.

Came back home for a siesta, as last night was a long one, and then after a late siesta of around 2 hours, I am here, writing this post, and planning to complete the International Business Strategy and Modeling related work I have after this post is published. Another long night in front of me, yet I am all charged up thanks to the siesta I just had :-)

Anniversary celebration by passing on the baton :)

Today I complete a year here at IE - 365 days of MBA journey and another happy coincidence is that today I went along with Hillary to the new April intake for sharing our experience so far. A presentation on IE, Madrid, Spain and then a QnA with lots of queries, questions and comments.

It was an enjoyable experience and fun to knee all the new faces that have arrived here with all the enthusiasm and dreams of a better future ahead.

As for the rest of the day, there was a double session on Corporate Governance today, where-in Prof. Nieves discussed some executive compensation practices with us. The second session was dedicated to the crisis of 2008 and we discussed whether the compensation that executives got at that time was really appropriate. Highlight of the day was a short video that Nievas showed us about the Britsh comedian duo Bird and Fortune, who described th whole situation in a comical and sarcastic way - making people understand the issues and make them laugh at the same time.

Will spend some time in the evening for working on Real Estate investments final submission and then will have a good night's sleep :)

No hay clase perro mucho trabajo

Well, that is about the level of Spanish I can speak and understand - the basics of it, so don't get your hopes too hig :-)

Yes, I didn't have any class today, but then the deadlines of various group works, final assignments and take home exams are approaching closer and so, the entire day was spent doing a lot of work, for a lot of classes; not to mention, I also went through the presentation that I have prepared for tomorrow. Yes, the New April started today and so we are all now - the "Old-Old-IMBA" as we used to call the folks from April intake prior to us :-)

Time moves on .. that's the way it is, ain't it?

Progressive Learning :-)

Well, the class of Real Estate Investments revolved around discussion of the Golden Opportunities case, which we were supposed to work on until today and for which we had to submit answers to five questions sent to us by Prof. Cristina.

Today, Prof. Cristina took us through each question. As the discussion unveiled, I figured out that I have done a part of analysis right and part of it is missing. It was good to know each it of the analysis as it came together towards helping us to determine the valuation of this property we were told to refer to.

I found this class of today particularly useful because the MBA learning methodology that we were told at beginning of our classes, helped me perfectly in today's session. I had done some analysis and submitted my answers last night, which was part of my individual analysis and learning. Then, I also discussed the case with Hitesh later, which helped me to think about even more aspects, giving me benefits of the group learning. And then, Cristina provided additional insights in the class today, elevating the learning experience even further.

Spent the rest of today working on group work that I have to complete for the International Business Strategy and Modeling Class. I will also have to write answers to the individual questions soon, but that I will do some other day. Today, sleeping a little early, and planning to wake up early and complete the final assignment of Real Estate Investments by afternoon :-)

That final Lap of Deliverables :-)

Yes, two weeks, five deliverables, one presentation - that is what stands between me and the final exam now. So, today began a marathon of completing deliverables, one last time. I mean yes, there will be work for the final exam/presentation, but that's just one case to be done in five days, whereas currently its the final deliverables of different term five classes.

My work group for International Business Strategy and Modelling met for five hours today to define, discuss, and distribute the work amongst us. It was a fruitful exercise as we came up with some really innovative ideas for our group work. Feeling excited to work on this one.

Later in the day, spent some time completing the Real Estate Investments exercise due for tomorrow.

There is still the student presentation to be given finishing touches, but then the night is still young, so I am sure I will complete that tonight as well.

Didn't feel like a Sunday, this one - as it was spent mostly in MM31 :-)

Almost time to hand-over :-)

However scary it may seem, its time to admit that we are in the last phase of the MBA - but then, this very fact can be used in a good way for advantage of others - like providing useful tips to the incoming batch of MBA students - to share all the wonderful experiences with them and to answer their queries.

So, I have volunteered for a student presentation that will take place next week, where-in I will go to a class of new intake and spend an hour with them presenting my experience so far.

After taking care of all the chores by afternoon, came to MM31, to work on preparing this student presentation. Also, did some readings needed for classes on Monday, as I know that tomorrow is going to be spent working in the International Business Strategy and Modeling work group :-)

Good rest, completion of chores, some study, some initiative: Not a bad day for a Saturday, I would say :-)

Anniversary de Madrid

Well, when I started to come for Madrid last year, I lit the Holi in my courtyard, offered my prayers and sat in our car to be driven towards Mumbai. That day was 27 th March. However the fact that I left on night of a festival has stayed in minds of my family members so strongly, that they spoke of this to me last week, when there was Holi being celebrated in India.

But then, as per British calendar I landed in Madrid on 28th of March. This is the day I complete a year here, a year that has been a roller coaster ride.

Call it a coincidence or a destiny, I spent the early half of today preparing a presentation of exactly this roller coaster ride for the new April intake - yes, I am going to talk with them during their orientation week, as planned by the IMBA team.

Later today, I suited up myself to attend the McKinsey BTO presentation, which  a couple of us followed up by a round of drinks at boring with the speakers.

Planning to spend th rest of this evening with Hitesh and other friends, leisurely at my place. Happy anniversary Madrid - today is the day my love affair with this city started :)

And its a Wrap-up :-)

With six sessions scheduled today for International Business Strategy and Design, it was the longest class in my IE history.

Today, in the morning, we had our group presentations - Well, company my group selected was airbnb, and we suggested a few improvements to the current strategy of the company :-)

Next it was time for the two cases of the day - the Ron Santa Maria case, where we saw how the owner is helping the surrounding gang members to rehabilitate and have jobs, and then the Starbucks case about the whole Starbucks experience.

Prof Jaime Alonso also gave us our final exam and questions that we are needed to answer in our groups.

As the session concluded, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I enjoyed this Seminar from Prof Jaime Alonso. I think the expectation that I had set, based on hearing him at the IE Social Responsibility Forum for five odd minutes, were exceeded for sure.

Not to mention, I can clearly see myself using many of those adjectives and adverbs that Prof Jaime Alonso used so many times in his seminar to describe a situation, or a personality or just to create that humor or sarcasm in the story  - examples? "Improvable", "Entrepreneurial activity", "Intellectually bored", "Intellectually insulting" and so many such phrases, which I am sure that everyone in this class will remember for sure :-)

Going for another photography freelancing tonight - at opening of one of the start-ups. Should be fun :-)

What to look for in Leaders of tomorrow

frankly, there have been the organizational behavior class we took and the talent management class after that, but I was more impressed by the guest speaker that came to our International Business Strategy and Modelling Class of today, in terms of information he shared regarding what practices companies are following, what are the challenges, what do companies look for while hiring for executive level positions, etc

Prof. Jaime Alonso had invited Dr. Alfredo Jacobo, VP and in-charge of the Global talent development at Coca Cola as a guest speaker today. Dr. Alfredo Jacobo has a rich corporate experience, a PHD, and also academic experience. And his communication skills - amazing !!

The one hour for which he was interacting with us - he talked about so many aspects ranging from hiring practices at coca-cola to the nature of work he does, all the way to what future leaders will look like, in terms of attributes and skills and talents, of course.

Prof Jaime Alonso also discussed some further examples of how the 5 Ps - People, Profit, Planet, Prosperity, and Peace - if included in the business strategy can help not only a business but also the ecosystem around it.

This has been an interesting class, making us think about so many things - things that can make a difference.

After finishing at 8:30 PM, our group met for finalizing the presentation that we were preparing since morning 10:30 AM [apart from the time spent in class] and finally when we have something close to final version at 10:30 PM in the night, I am spending some time to write this post of the day.

Another long, busy and fruitful day :-)

Optimal or Viable

Well, the seminar on International Business Strategy and Modelling continued today. What was discussed yesterday was summarized to start with and then Dr. Gomez also provided us a couple of examples of a good business model design, which is helping multiple parties including the bottom of pyramid population to prosper.

We also saw some insights about Apple as a company, and then discussed the different elements of business models of all HP, Dell and Apple, comparing them to one another.

One of the important messages that Dr. Gomez gave today was that in real world, there is never a optimal solution possible, but there can be many viable solutions. He did tell us a couple of stories around this concept.

We also started to work as a group today for assignments of this class. We have a lot of group work in this class - in fact, almost everything is to be done in groups - one presentation, two case analysis executive summaries, and a final exam - all to be done in groups. This is another thing that I will be experiencing for the first time here at IE - the final exam in group I mean :-)

Lets us how it goes - for today, I am happy about another good class :-)

Executive Decisions

Morning started with the Corporate Governance class at noon, where Prof Nieves took us through the need, history, composition, regulation, pros and cons of an audit committee.

We also discussed how effectiveness of audit committees can be measured and can be improved. It was a good class to learn more about how the boards of directors and the audit committee they are a part of, can help to maintain discipline in the company affairs.

After this was the Real Estate Investment Class, where we did a breakdown of the market value of real estates and what criteria can be looked at before making investment decisions.

While, this may be considered as not exactly an executive level decision, what followed next was all about being C-Suite executives in firms, and most of the times, thinking like the CEO of companies.

Dr Jaime Alonso Gomez started with his International Strategy and Business Modeling Class yesterday. And he laid out two rules of engagement - that we will comment in a concise manner considering ourselves in a board meeting, and acting like a CEO; and that we will get a break after every 70 minutes, to take care of whatever we need to take care using the electronic gadgets.

And then, the seminar, as Dr Gomez likes to refer this class began. From 4 PM until 8:20 PM, we spent time learning about various aspects of different changes that took place over time at Dell, and at HP, and also ventured into different discussions around bottom of Pyramid markets, blue ocean strategies in action, what were the reasons for various transitions in Dell and HP and were these correct or needed, all the way up to - what is moral and what is legal.
Yes, there were a few elements of philosophy, as well as there were a few personal experiences shared by Dr. Gomez that were both business related and emotional in nature. And yes, participation in this class, for first time here at IE, is by Dr Gomez calling upon one of us to answer as directly as possible, the questions he poses. And these questions were such, which really made us think, and demonstrate our judgement of things and our values.

All-in-all, a day spent around how executives work, and what goes behind the decisions they make. A day spent discussing and understanding the executive decisions :-)

[Followed by a nice Italian dinner at Maruzella :-) ]

Cases, Cases, Cases

Well, came to MM31 at around noon and then did 3-4 cases with Hitesh for some time. Today was a day spent doing case practice, reading cases for tomorrow and uploading photos of yesterday on Facebook.

A quiet day spent working at our own pace for enhancing our skills during job search and interviews. Will sleep early today as tomorrow is going to be a looooong Monday :-)

A Day of Initiatives turned Crazy

Well, in the morning I came to MM31 for some case practice and then at around 1 PM went back home to get ready for Retiro. Today, as part of talentree.net initiative, I was going to conduct the first ever photography training session - DSLR basic photography session.

Reached Retiro at 2:55 PM, and then waited for students to join until 3:!5 PM. By this time, 4 of them showed up - so decided to get started. While there were a few folks moving around Retiro with flags, when I was explaining the concepts to everyone in the session, at around 3:45 PM, we started hearing a lot of sounds - of people, firecrackers and drums. When we looked around, there was a huge crowd of protestors passing by. We could not resist our curiosity and went near the Retiro compound to see what it is all about, talk with the people and take their pictures. Came to know that they have gathered from all around the Spain, and some from outside Spain as well, to protest against the recent tax increase. It was a really big crowd, at least 100,000 people I would say, or even more.

After a while, we came near the Retiro lake to practice what I had explained and while we were busy with this, a guy started dressing himself in a ladies swim wear and then without any notice jumped in the lake. Damn !! What a crazy day - he lost his breath half-way and his friends then called a nearby boat for help, jumped into it, and went to the guy to get him out of water.

By this time, some more friends joined us at Retiro and we then spent some time roaming around in Retiro and finally headed towards Sol. Met a lot more protestors and too many cops on the way. It was a sort of crazy adventure.

Spent some time at a nice restaurant near Gran Via while my friends went shopping, and later had a nice Indian dinner at Sagar with all my friends.

What can I say - it was a day when I wanted to proudly state about how I took the initiative to teach photography, as it turns out - I was more excited abut all the crazy things happening around :-)

SOL, SOL and SOL

Well, why the three SOL?

Firstly, the risk management work we are currently doing, as part of my fellowship with Prof. Alvaro - considering that we have to analyze the Security, Operations and Legal risks of various crowd-funding platform, I came up with the acronym - SOL framework in our meeting today, and both Alvaro and Manan liked it.

Before this meeting at 11:30 AM, I woke up early today to go for my Regreso appointment which was scheduled at 9 AM in Aluche - around an hour's distance from my place. And that also means, that after a long time, I slept only for 3.5 hours today between 3 AM to 6:30 AM. Of course, the reason was not the work load at school.

Our Chinese Dinner last night went on til late and when we were done, the girls decided that they need to A) digest the food, and B) make up for their walking quota for the day. SO it was that at 1:30 AM [call it late night yesterday or really early morning today], we all started walking all the way from SOL to our places around MM31. It turned out to be around 40 minutes of walk - not that I haven't done this walk before, but not at this hour of the night. So, that is the other SOL in today's highlights.

And then, despite all the busy schedule in morning, I had to do something today - I had to prepare the material for talentree training that I am giving tomorrow - this time it is about DSLR basic photography and we will be conducting this around Retiro and SOL. Came up with around 20 slides, and I think I have covered all concepts and practice examples for anyone to feel comfortable using his or her DSLR. Plan is to have a 2 hour training tomorrow and in case you missed it, this is about the third SOL in the subject line.

At 8:55 PM finally, this day, which started early morning at 7:30 AM is finally going to conclude and I am going to do nothing more than have a good night's sleep as soon as I put up this post for today :-)

Have a great weekend readers :-)

A day to run errands and day of aloo parathas

Well, apart from a meeting at 4:30 PM near school, there was nothing on agenda for me today. So, I decided to take care of all the pending work and errands today.
Completed the remaining bit of fellowship work to be discussed in meeting tomorrow, went to the bank to pay the taxes for my regreso appointment, created copies of documents required for regreso, collected my new debit card from the bank, stocked up grocery in the house, sent a contact email to couple of head-hunters, did some research on basic photography concepts.

And before I knew, it was already time for my 4:30 PM meeting. Well, the meeting was just an informal coffee with Jana to talk about different things, me and my class have been doing in the past, in terms of videos and photos and outings, etc. So, enjoyed this talk :-)

After the meeting, spent some time to work further on fellowship at Manan's place. Highlight of the work was chance to have some delicious Aloo Parathas that Manan's mom had sent from India. Life can't be better when you get home made food out here in Madrid.

And yes, plan for the evening is to go have some Chinese food with a couple of friends.

A good day, a busy day - taking care of many different things, which although little were necessary.

Waiting for the D-Day of Saturday now when I will conduct a basic photography course for talentree friends :-)

Let the Corporate Governance framework unwind ..

Well, say it with respect to the Coca-Cola case, or the industry trend in general, or in terms of the structure of the theoretical concepts discussion, today, we saw how corporate governance structure gradually matured and has reached its current forms.

Prof. Nieves also provided us some additional information about the current day situation in Coca Cola.

We also discussed the concept of dual boards, and different models with respect to the common law and civil law countries.

Overall, today's double session was a good introduction to the way corporate governance influences and monitors the board of directors for any company given the context of discussion.

Later in the day today, after having a brief siesta, I came back to school to work on my fellowship work and continue with the job hunting.

Not a bad day for a Wednesday, I would say :-)

Corporate Governance, Coca-Cola and the ebrary :-)

Well, I had no class scheduled for today, so spent the day to have some nice Indian lunch with friends, did some experiments in photography [], and did the readings for corporate governance class of tomorrow as my own leisurely pace, today.

Having said that, the readings turned out to be really interesting. One of the readings for today was a chapter from one of the corporate governance related books. Up until now, whenever a professor has given us chapter readings, it has always been a PDF file with only that chapter extracted out of the book.

Prof. Nieves however introduced us to the ebrary. Well, not that I had not heard of ebrary - the online book library here at IE, and I have registered myself for this one, and downloaded a related app - but to tell you the truth, I had never used this one until today.
And I was amazed after using this tool - it gives an interface very similar to Google books page, where I can have a preview [with zoom-in, zoom-out, and other features] on the left hand, a chapter summary and index on the right, with a wide variety of other options to help me read, download, print, browse and interact with the book in a better way. I must say I am impressed with the interface.

This feeling of delight was soon topped by feeling of amazement. After doing a chapter reading, and a technical HBR note reading, it was time for me to read the Coca-cola case for tomorrow.

While I had the usual expectations that I have developed about the Harvard cases on major corporations, after I started the reading, I could not stop - this case is almost out of some fiction book - and the most memorable part - how most of the coca-cola management for almost 60 years was actually the decisions taken mainly by one person, a person who took up the leadership at Coca-cola at an age of 33 and retained it until an age of 95. I am not sure how corporate governance looks at this, but if you ask me, i would love to be that man :-)

Why the Core is the Core :-)

Today was another session of Real Estate Investments class, and Cristina took us through the concept of Market Value, what is the importance of it, when is it used, and what can be the different ways to find this value.

Slowly, as the class moved towards these different ways of finding the market value of a real estate property, I could not help realize the fact that this is just a special application of what can be regarded as the classical investment analysis.

And, I am seeing this more and more often, at least in the finance related classes. Yes, there are some specific concepts that we learn, but those concepts are just the drivers to take us towards the basic modeling that we learned in investment analysis class - during the core term.

So, whatever queries I had regarding why a class is scheduled to be in the core terms is now answered, as I gradually take my electives. Ultimately, a core is a concept, a foundation upon which many layers or electives can then be built. Feeling glad about this discovery of the day :-D

Chores, Readings, Write-ups and just like that a Sunday is gone :-)

Today being Sunday, I spent some time doing my weekend chores from cleaning to laundry to grocery shopping. And then, I had to do some research and write a few things for my fellowship project. After doing that, when I also finished my readings for tomorrow, it was already night and the day was gone, without me realizing about this - of course, when the day starts around noon, after a long sleep, it has got to be shorter, ain't it :-)

Cases, Coverletters, Photos, Documents :-)

A Saturday spent to do some case practice, write a couple of cover letter formats, look for some jobs, edit the photos of IE Venture Network Vertical, prepare some documents to apply for my Certificado de Regresso and have some good meal :-)
It was a day spent to do a lot of ad-hoc tasks, but all of them kept my Saturday occupied anyways :-)

And yes, those curious about the photos taken durng the IE Venture Network Verticals pitch slam this week, here is the flickr link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94951116@N04/sets/72157642384472563/

I hope you enjoy the pictures and join the upcoming events by Venture Network team :-)

When the Vendors arrive :-)

Today, Prof Jose Curto had invited vendors from Jaspersoft and Analytika to our class. CubeNube was another vendor that was supposed to come, but had to cancel last minute.
It was interesting to know about these vendors from their own folks, and the sequence of talks was just perfect. First the Jaspersoft rep talked about Jaspersoft, and his presentation revolved more around the concepts, the architectural elements, and applications of Jaspersoft as a BI/BA tool. And then, the rep from Analytika explained us about a specific product that they use in banking domain for credit/debit card users. It was an interesting way to use their platform, create network effect and involve large banks to be an integral part of their platform.
Interesting way to conclude a session I would say :-)

Big Data: the 3Vs of it

yes, there was business analytics tools existing before and yes, there were business intelligence tools existing before. MS Excel is in fact promoted as the most widely used Business Intelligence tool.

But then, what is so different about Big Data. It's the three Vs: Volume, Velocity, Variety :-)

With that and more, Prof. Jose Curto today took us in to the world of Big Data, discussing various elements of it - from vendors to applications to architecture to the future of it.

And yes, if the processing capacity and memory utilization trends continue as they are predicted to do, there will soon be a time, when today's "Big" data becomes just data of tomorrow :-)

Today was also my fellowship meeting after a long long time, and we decided on further work to be done for our research on risk analysis in crowd-funding platforms.

And them the second free-lancing experience in IE, when I took some photos for the IE Venture Network Verticals - the first ever event where Venture Network focused on a single industry - this time it was travel :-)

Photos coming out soon. Stay tuned :-)

Business Analytics: Cracked the case :-)

Well, while the last night was long, it was fruitful for sure. Today morning, we met at 9 AM again to resume our work and mostly to give finishing touches to the report and presentation.

Class of today started with our presentation, I am happy to say that we were probably the only group that could find the discrepancy in data that was seen in the case facts - looks like we cracked the case. This was also commended by Prof. Jose Curto Diaz, towards the end of our discussion. We managed the QnA session quite well as well.
All-in-all, I don't feel exhausted about the looong day yesterday anymore :-)

In the Corporate Governance class, Prof Nieves Carrera today took us to the double agency problem that arises in dealings between shareholders, board of directors and the management of corporations. We discussed various aspects of why the moral hazard occurs, what are the various aspects and forms of it, and what measures can possibly prevent these scenarios.

One such measure in form of Shareholder activism was a new concept that I got introduced to, today. In fact, the ongoing activism by some of the Apple shareholders, right at this point of time, was an interesting news for me, and I am still wondering how I missed this entire story in my recent news readings.

Anyways, had a short siesta in the afternoon and then did some readings for the class tomorrow. Going home much early today and will have a decent sleep before a new day starts tomorrow :-)

A day for Business Analytics

So, today I had only one class - that of Business Analytics and I was thinking that it would be a relatively shorter day - of course I did not remember of tomorrows's presentation while thinking all of this.

And as you might have guessed, myself, Hillary and William met in the afternoon today, and worked past mid-night to get that report and presentation in good shape. Second day of the term and I am already stretching my schedule !!

While I did my readings for the class in morning, as class was to start at 10:30 AM, today we discussed the case on Sysco and implementation of BA at Sysco.

all-in-all, the entire day from 9 AM in the morning until 1 AM in the night was spent working for Business Analytics class. What can I say? There are days and there are days :-)

The Birth of a Corporation

It's interesting how every class I take here brings in something new!!
Today was the first day of term five, three classes in a row with ten minutes of break between each of them - a busy and full schedule for a Monday.

The day started with a class on Business Intelligence for Analytical Decisions. Yepp, that thing which everyone is talking about :-)
Jose Curto Diaz, our professor for the class, started the class with his own introduction in different forms and patterns from a simple bullet list items type collection of information to a graphical view to a timeline view of his career and academic profiles. Interesting way to get the class of big data and analytics started, i would say. Although this class is only five sessions, it would have a group presentation and we have this class everyday of this week. So, a lot to talk about it this week. And the take-away from today's class for me was the frameworks and process of business analytics implementation in companies, that was discussed in class today, which creates a competitive advantage to the firm. We also saw a few reasons why firms fail in BI implementations and also why some companies shy away from this incredibly useful tool. For this class, I am part of the group that is going to present a case on Wednesday, and I know that this class is going to keep me busy for next five days.

Next was the Corporate Governance class by prof Nieves Carrera. Although belonging to a finance background, Prof Nieves is doing her research in the field of Corporate Governance and hence offering this elective to share her understanding on the matter. This was another great class, where we talked about different aspects of Corporate Governance from what we think it is to what the books have to say about it and from why it is needed to how it affects the corporations. And on that point, I would like to highlight the biggest discovery of the day for me - Prof Nieves showed us a short clip from a film, which shows how the Corporations of modern day took their shape - the origin of corporations. It was interesting to know that the 14th amendment that was introduced in the US for giving equal right to all citizens of US, was eventually exploited by the corporate lawyers to turn those rights towards corporations, after succeeding to assign a "person" status to the corporations. Yes, that's right - first it was made sure that a corporation gets considered as any other person in the country, and then it was made sure that it gets all rights and privileges as that of a person - thus avoiding liabilities for the actual owners of the corporations. Interesting history to know about.

And then, the day concluded with first of another five session class on Real Estate Investment. I am not sure why exactly I took this class - whether it was the fact that this class needed a certain mandatory GMAT score or a certain GPA in Investment Analysis class, and that gave an elite status to this class; or whether the fact that my dad runs a construction business back home attributed some familiarity to the matter and I wanted to know more about investing correctly in real estates; or whether it was just to ensure that I have at least one finance related class in this term - either ways, today was the first day of this class, in which our prof. Cristina Olmedo gave us some basic layout of how the real estate markets work - for rental spaces, for real estates that are treated just as any other asset, and for buying and selling of the real estate. Factors from micro and macro economics, to finance were considered today while discussing these matters, and it was a good start to a course that I am sure will equip me better for any prospective real estate investments that I may make :-)

Getting ready for that one last lap

Yepp !! the term five begins tomorrow. Three Classes, a regular routine until afternoon, and a lots of pre-reading to do already :-)

So, apart from trying to look for some jobs and spending time on facebook responding to comments received for yesterday's picnic pictures, today was spent reading the cases and technical notes and online materials for tomorrow's classes.

I guess it was a day to get ready for that final lap here at IE - the final term which will wrap it all for us real soon :-)

Picnic Picnic

Sunny Madrid weather, some Indian snacks to go along, some Pasta, some Sangria, a couple of friends and family, and a big park to roam around - what else does one need on a Saturday afternoon anyways :-)

So, around 2 PM today, me, Hitesh and his family and Manu went on to Retiro Park for a picnic. Hitesh had made some pasta, while I had prepared Bhel and Aloo Chat, the Indian Snacks to have during the picnic. And, we had some Sangria to go along. The day was spent relaxing in the park, enjoying the sun soaked view around and doing nothing other than relaxation.

Came home walking around 8 PM, and before I edit the pictures taken during the day and have some light dinner and sleep, just sneaked in to my laptop for a while to write this post of the day. Enjoy the rest of this weekend folks. Cheers :-)

TGI Friday :)

Waking up at 1 pm, visiting school just because there is a tripod that needs to be returned on time, having a relaxed lunch with 3-course menu, browsing through internet - just for fun, visiting Facebook every 15 minutes, making plans to do something special in the evening - Friday has its own luxuries, specially the one which is already a part of vacation week.

Today I was in two-states of mind. On one hand, I felt bored that the day is so relaxed, and on the other hand, I wanted to do nothing other than relaxing and enjoying a restful day. Odd combination I would say, but who cares, because TGI Friday ;)

IE Photography club comes to life

So, after a lots of announcements and posts and resolutions, finally the IE photography club came to life today with its first photo taking event in recent times ( at least since I am here). Plan was to do night photography at locations in the heart of Madrid. So we got together in launch pad at around 6 pm, and then headed towards Gran Via, went to a rooftop of Circulo de bella ar there and then I tried the time lapse photography for the first time. Basically it involved taking a lot of pictures after a set interval of time, and then combining these pictures into a single video - much shorter in length as compared to the time lapse that was used to take the pictures. Thanks to Sebastian the passionate photographer amongst us to drive this one.
And then Abhishek helped me when I was struggling to take good pictures of frozen street lights, as the sun had not set fully.

hBy the way, Here is the video link for the time lapse movie, and the frozen lights picture is on my facebook wall :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XerbKIFVkA

Event was fun as it was about photography, and it also allowed me to network with some more people from IE who have similar interest as me, in photography.

Hope these outings continue and increase in number.

As for the rest of my day, I spent it lazily today, trying to soak in the sun that is shining bright in Madrid this week, and lying around in my bed watching some recent movies.

For a day, I was enjoying my holiday to its full extent today :)

If you have forgotten: Accounting is Sexy, Accounting is Fun :-)

So, as part of the preparations phase that I am going through currently, I thought that it would only be better if I not only try to solve some cases, but also revise my finance concepts.

And here it is, today after a relaxed morning, and a heavy lunch, I went back in time, fetched notes from Garen's Financial Accounting class, and began reading through them. Thanks to all the usage of accounting terms so far, I could read the notes at a rather quicker pace, much quicker than what I remember when I did it during term one.

And yet again, I got a chance to read those headers and footers that Garen has spread all over his notes, from the "if you are printing this, SHAME on YOU" to the "Never Forget, Accounting is sexy, Accounting is fun" :-)

Life has its own ways to bring those little moments of smile, and reading these lines now, and trying to remember our struggle with accounting, just did the trick for me today :-)

When the previous day never ends :-)

Well, I had come home early last night, and I had my dinner early, and had gone to sleep early. But then, while I was still awake, I began thinking of this facebook-whatsapp deal, that I was trying to get a justification for, since it was announced. One thought led to another, and soon, I had a blog figured out in my mind. All that was needed was to do some numbers to support the theory I was trying to put forth.

And so, around mid-night I could not help but to get myself out of my bed and soon I began typing my thoughts and also did all the number crunching in next couple of hours. I then refined these thoughts using some basis for actual revenue, stock prices, etc kind of data from google finance and financial times websites.

Finally, around 3 AM, my blog was ready and live :-)

As you can imagine, if you have slept at 3 AM after "working" during your "vacation", there is no reason for you to get up early the next day - at least there was none for me to get up early today.

So, without further ado, this here is the link to my blog that explains details of facebook-whatsapp deal, and provides related numbers as well:
http://mba-and-me.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/facebook-and-whatsapp-deal-applying-mba.html


And yes, as for today, spent most of the day preparing cases, revising cover letter, and preparing for behavioral interview questions :-)

Concluding the freelance experience - Iberian PE conference photo released :-)

Ever since I had been to the amazing Iberian Private Equity Conference, that was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Madrid, my schedule was full of classes, presentation, group work and exams. Finally, this weekend gave me some free time to crop and convert the pictures taken.

After spending the entire morning on these snaps, finally, I have them in my flickr. A good use of the day I would say, although it also means that I need to spend some time in the evening to continue preparing cases.

Feeling good about the whole photography thing for it gave me an opportunity to accomplish three things: firstly, a chance to try my photography for some official and important event; secondly, a chance to help a club of IE business school viz, IE private equity club which was helping to organize the conference, and thus create a positive impression for IE, and lastly, a chance to be in all panels and opening, lunch, closing keynotes of the day, and hear to some amazing speakers holding prominent positions in the private equity industry.

And for those readers who wish to browse through these snaps, here is the flickr link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94951116@N04/sets/72157641805344634/

Cover Letter ready. It's time for the cases :-)

Waking up at 12:30 PM, having a relaxed time to get ready, and reaching school at 4 PM, has its own soothing effect on oneself - and then, after spending some time editing pictures taken at the Iberian PE conference, and browsing, I got down to the real work - to prepare the basic format Cover Letter.

Today is only the first draft though and as I progress into next week, preparing cases, etc, I am sure the final version of cover letter will come out good :-)

CV final version - done :-)

Yes, after three rounds of updating and reviewing, finally, today my CV looks good. Its now ready to be sent and uploaded and forwarded to contacts and HR personnel and recruitment executives. Tomorrow is the day for a basic cover letter format preparation, which I can build upon and tailor as per different applications.

They say that this is a vacation time for me, and I am relaxed. Well, yes I am relaxed as I am driving things at my own pace, but I don't want to be idle in next week. I have to get started with preparation for case interviews, and job search, and there can be no better window of opportunity to start with all of that than this next week.

Planning to spend some time with friends for a nice dinner in the evening. Have a good weekend everyone :-)

adios term four :-)

Finally, the term numbered four is done and it comes with a vacation.

So, no more classes, no more group work, no more presentations, for next ten days.

But, I need to use this time now to prepare cases, revise my finance concepts, finalize my CV and start applying for jobs.

It's high time I did all of this !!

And yes, today's final presentation of talentree.net that we did, I think it went really well. So, the term is ending on a good note :-D

Chilling out during electives?? Naah~

Well, the last of written exams for term four is done now and I have submitted the individual write-ups for Internet as a Sales channel class as well.

And now, I am working with my group for the Internet as a Sales channel presentation tomorrow. The last one.

By the way, when I tried to feel good about this double feat, I realized how small it looks in front of things that some of my friends have done today. Most of them, who have taken all electives in Finance have either four exams, or three exams and a presentation, all scheduled for today, from 9 AM in the morning, all the way up to 10:30 PM in the night.

I am not sure if they even got to read for each of these exams and whatever score and grade they get, they deserve my respect.

But then, that made me think of a deeper issue - I mean, aren't electives supposed to be flexible and relaxed and chilled out? So, why is it that while we had classes only between 9 AM to 3 PM during the core term and only one work group [for most part of it] to deal with, electives have brought along a different work group with each class and schedules that made us take classes from 8:30 AM in the morning until 10:30 PM in the night?

One reason is of course that everyone seems to have front loaded their classes in term four, and another reason is the concentration that each person has taken during the electives. For a person like me, who has taken a mix of technology, finance and strategy, there is one exam or a presentation per day for almost all days of this week. For someone, who has taken only finance classes, there are four exams all on the same day of today.

That is the price we pay for flexibility. And that is a result of our choices - because I know of people who have taken only those classes that have no final exam or only those classes that have no group work - thanks to their own version of MBA experience during the core terms - and having this week with no exam was a real possibility for all those who got stresses up with four exams in a day.

So, what am I talking about? Well, I am saying that if we are not chilled out enough in terms of schedule during the electives, it was the choice we made, and we have no complains :-)

Anyways, its just one more day and the term is going to conclude anyways :-)

two, two and four

yeah, two plus two is four, two multiplied by two is four, four minus two is two, two raised to two is four ... hshhh

I know by now you must be thinking that finance related exams are taking their toll on me .. well, they are .. but not so much that I start blaberring :-)

just thought of mentioning that update, which I usually put during exams of each term in a different way, that's it :-)

And the update is: two down and two to go, for term four to conclude :-)

And with that, I need to resume to my studies, tomorrow is the big exam worth 60% of the grade for Applied Corporate Finance class.

As of today, the exam for Applied Financial Engineering class proved to be more a test of working under limited time, than programming skills test or finance knowledge test for me. Not much time to think how it went though, too many things of platter already and too little time.

Hasta Manana Amigos :-)

Read, Read, Read

A final of Applied Financial Engineering tomorrow and then the big final of Applied Corporate Finance on Thursday - when I looked back at the amount of technical notes, and class slides that are available for these two in the campus online, I was taken aback for a moment. Didn't realize that I have gone through so much, in such a short span of term 4.

Anyways, done with some hands-on for Matlab in the morning before the Internet as a Sales Channel class of today, and since noon, I am doing just one thing - reading :-)

Another couple of days to go, and then I will have a lot of leisure time. Until then, its time to read, read and read !!

When brute force is not an option

So, throughout the course of Applied Financial Engineering, Antonio stressed the importance of brute force methodology, but on the last day of the classes today [class before exam], he threw some light on what-if the computing power available is not enough to apply brute force. What if we cannot generate 100,000 random numbers for our calculations, what if we have to work with a limited set of only 1000 past values?

Well, the only option available is then to get the values under constrained samples and reduce the error margin as much as possible. So, it was today that we saw various techniques to reduce the variance of calculations, but considering the processing time as an additional attribute to go along. Eventually, Antonio shared with us a research done by one of the PhD students which clearly showed the amount of variance reduction each method discussed in class can bring in the results for different number of samples, and also the amount of time taken by each method for these samples.

And to bring a sense to all of this discussion, Antonio aptly told us to consider a product of both processing time and the variance reduction value, as our criteria for evaluating each of these methods.

Anyways, spent entire afternoon today to work on the Internet as a Sales Channel group work and now, I also need to complete the Internet as a Sales Channel individual writeup that I have started working on yesterday, and start preparing for exams today. Its going to be long nights these couple of days, and I am all set to live every bit of them.

A train of submissions

Today has been so busy, and so fruitful. One submission out of the way after another. First the powerpoint slides for Internet as Sales Channel group presentation, then a meeting and almost-final version for this presentation, then the final take-home exam for Technology & Business Strategy class, then a exercise for Applied Financial Engineering class, and now, I am exploring the prospects of whether I can stay up for a couple of hours more to get done with the individual report for Internet as a Sales Channel class.

All-in-all, too much work, accompanied with a lot of Starbucks coffee [by the way, for next two weeks, there is a 50% off at Starbucks for us], and a really busy Sunday :-)

warm up time

It's the finals week starting tomorrow. I know you are wondering how does a final start on Sunday - well, it is a take-home exam, which has been handed over to us on Thursday and which I need to submit by tomorrow mid-night - and I have chosen to do it tomorrow :-)

And then, I have a couple of final presentations and final exams next week. All-in-all, it's high time that I did some studying. It's time to warm up for the finale of term four and I spent all my time since afternoon [that is when I woke up :-)] in doing exactly that. And I think, you can guess that this whole preparation thing is keeping me busy, merely from the reduced size of this post :-)

Having fun the Marathi way :-)

So, there is this friend Manan that I have here at IE, who chatted me last night that he has developed a craving for Marathi food - the food that we have back home in my region of India, and if I can make these two special items. And I agreed :-)

After spending the first half in school, I started on my mission - first shopping some ingredients missing from my kitchen, then cooking and finally packing. Yes, Hitesh wanted to host this dinner at his place, as we had invited some other folks as well, and he was going to cook his trademark Lamb Curry for us. SO, I did the basic preparation and went to his place for that final finishing touch.

Together, the food turned out to be awesome and it was a fun night to spend, good enough to energize us for the exams week that is staring at us now :-)

And those curious to know what this food was all about, here's a picture:

Winnie the Pooh Syndrome

Final day of the Technology and Business Strategy Class today was marked by a case facilitation, some concepts discussion and then some words of advice by Prof Ramiro. We also went on to Boggo for a few drinks after this class, so that we can all mingle with each other and with the professor and get to know more about each other.

Anyways, a few new things that I learned in this class of today. Firstly, I heard a term for children of those parents that are too busy with their phones and PCs and stuff "The Blackberry Orphans" :-)

Interesting ain't it?

And then, there was this mention of an article, a book and a youtube lecture by one of the professors before he died - "The Last lecture" where he has mentioned the key factors to keep in mind when striving for success in life.

And the one thing that you are all curious by now - the subject of this post about "Winie the Pooh Syndrome". So, this Winnie the Pooh has a habit to come down from stairs only by hopping and there was some person [can't remember the name] who commented on it - that as engineers and entrepreneurs, we need to get rid of this winnie the pooh syndrome, we need to try new ways of doing things, we need to think different :-)

Anyways, another great class concludes today, glad to have taken this elective with prof Ramiro :-)

Another First: Case Facilitation

Another of those looong days that I am having in terms of classes in recent times - first a double session of Applied Corporate Finance in the morning, then the last learning session of Applied Corporate Finance and finally, the Technology and Business Strategy class between 3 PM till 7 PM. Thankfully, my group for the technology class is going out for a dinner today, and the first class tomorrow is at 1:30 PM. So, there is some relaxation coming real soon.

So, the applied finance class of today was basically taken by one of the assistants to Antonio, and he explained a lot of basic stuff and functions in MATLAB. My problem was that in order to do the exercises for this class, I had already done my googling and my code writing in MATLAB, and basically, all my efforts over past 2-3 weeks rendered today's tutoring session redundant.

Anyways, I think a lot of people in the class were actually learning a lot of new things, and may be it was worthwhile for them to have this class.

Conchita wrapped up her course today with a discussion on the IPOs. Next session for this class will be the exam - closed book, online exam !!
I know - time flies ...

Highlight of the day - the technology and business strategy class, where we facilitated the Recorded Future case. Tried to be innovative and creative in our facilitation, by making use of a couple of videos, some music, a relevant game, involvement of twitter, and visual slides. It was fun to do the facilitation and when we were in the process, 40 minutes seemed so less for this.

Anyways, Prof. Ramiro had centered his part of the discussion on Google Predictive Markets and on Cloud Computing concepts - and our facilitation was sandwiched between his topic discussions.

I am happy with the way the whole thing went, although I realized that at certain times, I was getting so excited, I was trying to talk what one of us was already talking about. I think I need to learn and improve on this. Overall, the feeling is good about the whole thing :-)

the world is changing ..

the world is changing .. I feel it in the air ... STOP !! Seriously?? Did you think I am about to start the narrative for Lord of the Rings here? No way !!

From what we learned in the Technology and Business Strategy class of today, the entire business world is now changing from the Push model to the Pull model, where more and more consumers are becoming informed, searching and learning online, doing price comparisons, and are demanding the exact thing they need or want, rather than staying satisfied with what the companies have on offer for them.

And this is making many companies to re-design their strategies, and those who are not doing it, are going out of business pretty fast.

We saw a couple of examples of changing landscape in companies, particularly in relation of technology involved and business model followed. It was yet another interesting class today.

Earlier today, we had the Applied Corporate Finance class on LBO and it was our group's turn to present. While we described some key concepts and the Dell deal, Conchita went on to describe some other key aspects of the LBO and discussed a few more deals.

Spent the time in evening after classes to rehearse the case facilitation for tomorrow with my group and going home at 10 PM early tonight, much earlier than past few days. Will get a good sleep today :-)

IT Factory .. yeah that's right :-)

Well, another busy and long day until now today, starting at 9 AM with Applied Financial Engineering double session after a long time, followed by Applied Corporate Finance, and then a four hour class of Technology & Business Strategy.
This was of course followed by a group meeting for our case facilitation for Wednesday, and then a loooong meeting for finalizing our Applied Corporate Finance presentation of tomorrow.

The night is still young and I still need to take a look at some group work for Internet as a Sales Channel presentation. All-in-all, the kind of Monday that everybody dreads to have :-)

By the way, what were the unique learning points for today?

In Applied Corporate Finance class, we started to venture into the Brownian motion and its applications in the Derivatives world. And, we ventured into the VBA scripting techniques. A new arena is now open to explore and it was fun to work on it.

And then, the applied corporate finance class on Private Equity seemed a little repetitive today, specially after attending the Iberian PE conference of Friday.

Technology Class had a good case discussion and during the concepts discussion, Prof Ramiro introduced a new framework to us, where need for current and future IT innovations was mapped on a two-by-two, and the quadrant where current IT innovations are important but future IT innovations may not be so relevant was termed as the factory. Yes, the factory - where we have to have the machines up and running and efficient, for company to keep running !!

Anyways, the presentation that I have made for technology case facilitation turned out to be a hit with the group, so it was worth staying up late last night to work on it :-)

Lets see when I wrap up for the day, for now, the applied corporate finance presentation preparation is still in progress ..