As part of the endless networking we are trying to do these days - I registered with the Open Coffee Club , Bangalore.I missed a couple of meetings at the OCC - when I was busy in A.P trying to market CampusTek and SchoolTek - products we built over the summer.
While the lessons learnt there deserve another blog - I had the chance to hear Prof Nandini Vaidyanathan (a prof at Princeton and IIM B and frequently conducts workshops at LSE) - a bit about her in her own words
"I have spent twenty years in the corporate sector growing biz for MNC's all over the world. I have had two separate stints as an entrepreneur. And now for the last three years, I teach Entrepreneurship at IIM-B and Princeton, sharing my experiential learning. My aim is to create the world's largest pool of entrepreneurs, because I see it as the need of the hour for India as it embarks on its growth trajectory. I started my company startups to help, to quote Aldous Huxley, 'ordinary people doing profitable and intrinsically significant work, of helping men and women to achieve independence from bosses, so that they may become their own employers..."
She started out with an introductory session - most of the junta were 'wanna-be' entrepreneurs with some of them who had come to 'fish' ideas out of the meeting.
Defining Opportunity in a story
--------------------------------
She heard this from Lee Scott(CEO,Walmart Inc) - WallMart is infamous for its high attrition rate of around 438% - when WalMart was a relatively smaller chain then - they were undergoing a hiring spree (you would expect that to happen very frequently when the attrition rate is so high) - there was a guy who came in when the interviews were closed at the end of the day - he asked the interviewer to give him a chance - the interviewer bluntly rejected his appeal , Sam Walton(Founder CEO of WalMart Inc) was passing by when he stopped to be - the guy asked him to be given a chance for a day - if he would'nt be satisfied with his performance , he need'nt pay him a penny - hire him if he was satisfied.
The next day(it was a 12 hr shift from 8AM to 8PM) Walton was interested to know what transpired during the day - eagerly questioned him "How many sales did you register ?" - the guy said - he was able to do a single sale.Sam Walton told him that wasn't enough because - 30 -40 sales/rep - during non-peak seasons and the figure went up to 70-80 during pre-Christmas season sales - so 1 was not even good for the count.Before Walton left - he turned back and asked him what was the value of the sale - he replied - a 100 thou ($100,000) - and then Walton asked him to tell the break up - the sales guy said "I sold him a fishing hook " -
"that doesn't make it a 100 thou"
"I sold him a fishing hook and a fishing rod .."
"that still doesn't make it a 100 thou..." said Walton..
"I sold him a fishing hook and a fishing rod ..and some feed to catch the fish.. "
"I dont think that still values it to doesn't make it a 100 thou..." said Walton..
And then he said "I sold him a boat , because he needed that to go fishing... and with that he needed something to row.... and before you calculate how much that would be I sold him .. all the things that he would need in a lake side house ....."
All those things put together would make that much though Walton , and not being able to come to grip - what the sales guy told him , in almost dis-belief he repeated "All this to a guy who came to you for a fishing hook...."
The salesman says an emphatic "No!" - before SamWalton could say anything else this guy tells him " Sir, the guy came with the want of buying an Asprin , I asked him if he was suffering a headache... - I told him fishing was a better way of coming to terms with a headache - than Asprin"...
I dont know if this story really happened , I'm taking it on the word of Prof.Nandini - but even if it was a fable , its worth reading/listening to because - it all boils down to 'SALES' - may be I did not realise this when I conceptualized TalkOfCampus.com , I ADMIT.
A bit about Vipashyin and what we are upto these days - very soon right here!!!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
13 hrs of Pure Entrepreneurship at Bangalore ....
In what can be termed as a PHENOMENAL day - a day where I met the Internet industry leaders.
13 hrs (without food,water or anything that keeps a common man alive - except the thirst quenching aspirations of many like minded gaints in the industry) of pure entrepreneurship
Pre-Lunch Session
The event started with
Sandeep Bhikchandani (CEO of Naukri.com) (An IIM A Alumnus,worked with Glaxo Smith Kline for some time before starting out)
His presentation started was titled 'Wisdom in Hindsight' - his was a 7 point note which had major focus on 'Customer Centric Business' - his key takeaway for internet start ups was that if your business is not solving a real life problem to make real money then - you cannot afford to be an entrepreneur.
If you are an entrepreneur just for money - you are doing the wrong thing!
Ajit Balakrishnan (Co-Founder of Rediff.com) - The only ".com" company that (An IIM C Alumnus - partnered with Stanford Graduates to launch Rediff.com in 1996 - in 1988 , they were in Jayanagar,Bangalore doing Linux Boxes :)).
His presentation was about a picutre - the most primitive form of a car - which was a modern/engine version of a 'horse' driven carriage - with the horse replaced by engine (1888) - this took 15 years to migrate the engine from the rear to the front and then till about 25 years (when Ford T was launched 1913) - Car Sales and the industry took off - he feels that internet industry across the globe is still in the 1888 phase - and the revelations are yet to come.
The other major thing that he pointed to was - Rediff as a part of its re-branding strategy was going for a model , which was 'NO ADS' on the homepage (he recently announced this in the Wall Street and he said his annual Y-O-Y would be reduced by 40% - he said he didn't care for that as long as the end user is getting a good experience,additionally in a recession scenario 40% down would be less interms of the actual revenue lost than a non recession scenario - which is the good thing about recession.
Amazon.com(GM,FPS)
They basically talked about Amazon Web Services - better explained here http://aws.amazon.com/what-is-aws/ .
SunStartUp Essentials
We(TalkOfCampus via Vipashyin) is already a registered firm with Sun StartUp Program
Sun Startup essentials program consists of:
They've agreed to give us access to test and implement Solaris/Glass-Fish/PhP/MySql (against W/LAMP that we are presently using).
NokiaForum
It's free to join, and enables you to take advantage of Nokia's rich development, testing and signing, go to market, and community resources. (more at http://www.forum.nokia.com/ )
Sanjay Nayak,CEO Tejas Networks (Tejas Netowrks is the ONLY Indian Networking Product company that gives CISCO,Juniper a run for their money - its a 600 employee company with a revenue of 600 million year over year)
Sanjay foucsed on how India and China are potential threat's to the once a US dominated Telecom industry.
Answering a question from an entusiast - Sanjay said 3 of the 4 co-founders of Tejas - did not know what they wanted to do when they started , only the 4th one knew - and it had taken 3 months before they ever realised what they were doing.
The other major factor that they leveraged on was this that - each time they went to sell out their product customers would be asking them for 1/5th of the price of what they wanted to sell at - and 18 months later - they would be able to sell the product at that price - and he also attributed a lot of their success to the very short product development life cycle(9 to 12 months) they had when compared to industry gaints like Cisco(18-24 months).
Post-Lunch Session
There were about 100 startups that presented their case to 14 VCs - there were these tracks
Internet
Mobile
Services
Health Care
etc....
Post-Tea Session
"The CEO Conclave "
237 CEO's across India one auditorium
Panelists :
Key Takeaways
Suresh Elangovan (CEO,MIndLogix) ended it all like this :
There was once a CEO who would handover 3 covers to his successor and say this "Man,open this when intimes of crisis - one cover at a time"
The first time the successor has trouble after 6 months into the job - he opens the first one to read this "Blame it on the predecessor" - he calls for a meeting with the media - blames it on his predecessor - and the stocks of that company are back to shape.
The second time the successor has trouble - after 6 more months - he opens the second one which says "Blame it on the market situation" - he blames it on the market situation - gets out of trouble.
The thrid time - this time - 2 years into his job he faces quite a crisis situation - opens the third to read "Prepare 3 covers for your next".
All this that I typed , I promise is not written anywhere - its all still there in my head!!!.
13 hrs (without food,water or anything that keeps a common man alive - except the thirst quenching aspirations of many like minded gaints in the industry) of pure entrepreneurship
Pre-Lunch Session
The event started with
Sandeep Bhikchandani (CEO of Naukri.com) (An IIM A Alumnus,worked with Glaxo Smith Kline for some time before starting out)
His presentation started was titled 'Wisdom in Hindsight' - his was a 7 point note which had major focus on 'Customer Centric Business' - his key takeaway for internet start ups was that if your business is not solving a real life problem to make real money then - you cannot afford to be an entrepreneur.
If you are an entrepreneur just for money - you are doing the wrong thing!
Ajit Balakrishnan (Co-Founder of Rediff.com) - The only ".com" company that (An IIM C Alumnus - partnered with Stanford Graduates to launch Rediff.com in 1996 - in 1988 , they were in Jayanagar,Bangalore doing Linux Boxes :)).
His presentation was about a picutre - the most primitive form of a car - which was a modern/engine version of a 'horse' driven carriage - with the horse replaced by engine (1888) - this took 15 years to migrate the engine from the rear to the front and then till about 25 years (when Ford T was launched 1913) - Car Sales and the industry took off - he feels that internet industry across the globe is still in the 1888 phase - and the revelations are yet to come.
The other major thing that he pointed to was - Rediff as a part of its re-branding strategy was going for a model , which was 'NO ADS' on the homepage (he recently announced this in the Wall Street and he said his annual Y-O-Y would be reduced by 40% - he said he didn't care for that as long as the end user is getting a good experience,additionally in a recession scenario 40% down would be less interms of the actual revenue lost than a non recession scenario - which is the good thing about recession.
Amazon.com(GM,FPS)
They basically talked about Amazon Web Services - better explained here http://aws.amazon.com/what-is-
SunStartUp Essentials
We(TalkOfCampus via Vipashyin) is already a registered firm with Sun StartUp Program
Sun Startup essentials program consists of:
- Discounted servers
- Discounts on storage
- Open source software
- Discounted partner hosting
- Free technical advice and training
- Co-marketing opportunities
They've agreed to give us access to test and implement Solaris/Glass-Fish/PhP/MySql (against W/LAMP that we are presently using).
NokiaForum
It's free to join, and enables you to take advantage of Nokia's rich development, testing and signing, go to market, and community resources. (more at http://www.forum.nokia.com/ )
Sanjay Nayak,CEO Tejas Networks (Tejas Netowrks is the ONLY Indian Networking Product company that gives CISCO,Juniper a run for their money - its a 600 employee company with a revenue of 600 million year over year)
Sanjay foucsed on how India and China are potential threat's to the once a US dominated Telecom industry.
Answering a question from an entusiast - Sanjay said 3 of the 4 co-founders of Tejas - did not know what they wanted to do when they started , only the 4th one knew - and it had taken 3 months before they ever realised what they were doing.
The other major factor that they leveraged on was this that - each time they went to sell out their product customers would be asking them for 1/5th of the price of what they wanted to sell at - and 18 months later - they would be able to sell the product at that price - and he also attributed a lot of their success to the very short product development life cycle(9 to 12 months) they had when compared to industry gaints like Cisco(18-24 months).
Post-Lunch Session
There were about 100 startups that presented their case to 14 VCs - there were these tracks
Internet
Mobile
Services
Health Care
etc....
Post-Tea Session
"The CEO Conclave "
237 CEO's across India one auditorium
Panelists :
- Suresh Elangovan (CEO,MIndLogix)
- Rajiv C Mody (CEO & Chairman of Sasken)
- Narendra Patni(Founder - Patni Computers a $750 Million company)
- Sanjay Swamy (CEO,mchek - one of the most promising startups in India at this point of time)
Key Takeaways
- Building a team is important : Always hire people who are smarter than you are - if you are the smartest in your company - your company would be soon facing the exit door.
- Big Companies can scale very fast , smaller companies can innovate real fast - leverage on this advantage.
- Recession is the best time to do a startup because all the BIG HEADS in the world are either not there or they are not spendinig money on R&D which will bite them 10 years down the line
- Persistence and Passion (the 2 P(oints) for successful startups)
- The CEO/Leader of the company should be always willing to do anything from cleaning the room to QA to be taking a developers kid to the loo.
- Recession would be ending December - but they dont know which december!!!
- 'The greatest barrier of success is the fear of failure' and this fear of failure would never die in anyones heart but at any point of time the will power to succeed should exceed the fear of failure.
- Thinking ahead of time - Cloud Computing is the way forward (Sasken started working on 3G in 1996 - which is still very nascent in India - MMS in 2000 when still the mobile industry was new in India)
- What you think is obvious - is already obselete.
- In technology startups there are 3 prizes (Gold for the first one to capture the market, silver for the second (eventhough - he has a better product than the gold medalist),Bronze for anyone who is trying to keep up with the Gold and Silver)
Suresh Elangovan (CEO,MIndLogix) ended it all like this :
There was once a CEO who would handover 3 covers to his successor and say this "Man,open this when intimes of crisis - one cover at a time"
The first time the successor has trouble after 6 months into the job - he opens the first one to read this "Blame it on the predecessor" - he calls for a meeting with the media - blames it on his predecessor - and the stocks of that company are back to shape.
The second time the successor has trouble - after 6 more months - he opens the second one which says "Blame it on the market situation" - he blames it on the market situation - gets out of trouble.
The thrid time - this time - 2 years into his job he faces quite a crisis situation - opens the third to read "Prepare 3 covers for your next".
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Satyam - Can the "TRUTH" return?
Before you start reading this blog - I suggest you to read my brother's blog - http://karsandilya.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-mr-ramalinga-raju-being-given-his.html.
Let us come back to the the matter of contention here - I would not take the stand of the media to make Ramalinga Raju a villan and all the investors drought and flood hit victims - throughout this blog - as a "want to be" entrepreneur - I would analyze where Satyam is at this point of time and how we can best re-build the company?
I am inspired by Anand Mahindra's way of looking at the Satyam debacle - rather than trying to make it a huge mess - lets try to learn lessons from the mistake and not hyping up the mistake itself.
Before you go any further , I suggest you to question yourself with this - (In this blog I am imagining myself in one of the most riskiest jobs as Satyam's CEO)
"What would you do if Satyam Computers was put into your hands?"
Before we decide on what we should be doing - lets do a quick review of where we are (I as the CEO would know these facts):-
1)I am not trading in the BSE/NSE at this moment
Deduction:- Since I would not be till atleast 1 month - or nor do my investors expect something huge in the coming 3 months - I would only worry about the longterm health of my company than any of the shortterm fluctuations that the company might face (so I have one less worry for atleast sometime).
2)I have about 40,000 - 53,000 employees
(We are yet to come to terms with whether the 50k+ that Satyam is quoting is truth)
Deduction:- Abundant "Human Resource" - can be a boon or a bane - but at this moment it is a bane - so I would identify areas which are not IMMEDIATELY adding value to the Value Chain of my company.
Drop ( 3 to 4 months of UNPAID holiday )
I would drop teams like the "Campus Recruitment Teams" and the other "Human Resource" employees who take care of the employee welfare.
I am assuming that the composition of the HR Team would be around 4%-6%
I would pressurize the development and bug-fixing teams - to test the product well enough - so that we could drop the Q&A and Testing Teams.(18%-25% of the people)
I would halve the number of the "Domain Experts" and "Functional Experts" for this we need to consult the project manager to choose between 2 and drop the other.(2%-3%).
Sales and Marketing should remain and the incentives should be doubled for each deal closure.
And hence we have atleast 30% less people to worry about - which will better the equation.
For operational efficiency - I would remove the Development centres at the most costiliest centres(in terms of Rs/sft) and auction them to pay my staff.
3)Invite other companies to handle few projects
At this moment , staying afloat is more important than revenue generation - I would auction/lease few projects away - taking an assurance that all my employees will be kept intact for the project and any cost or income(revenue) can be taken by the company which buys it - which would generate certain immediate income and start re-building the core competancies.
They will not atleast leave a client unsatisfied.
4)Brand Rebuilding
Satyam should leave no stone unturned in trying to give re-birth to its brand - even to an extent of changing its name.
While these are things that I think are vitally crucial at this point of time - the new board with their experience might have a matured complex way of solving the crisis.
At this time of the IT debacle - lets forget(not forgive) Ramalinga Raju(if at all he has some share in the cheat story) and his aides in the crime - and come out with a healthier checks in the corporate reality - so that no one can ever hide the real "Satyam"
Let us come back to the the matter of contention here - I would not take the stand of the media to make Ramalinga Raju a villan and all the investors drought and flood hit victims - throughout this blog - as a "want to be" entrepreneur - I would analyze where Satyam is at this point of time and how we can best re-build the company?
I am inspired by Anand Mahindra's way of looking at the Satyam debacle - rather than trying to make it a huge mess - lets try to learn lessons from the mistake and not hyping up the mistake itself.
Before you go any further , I suggest you to question yourself with this - (In this blog I am imagining myself in one of the most riskiest jobs as Satyam's CEO)
"What would you do if Satyam Computers was put into your hands?"
Before we decide on what we should be doing - lets do a quick review of where we are (I as the CEO would know these facts):-
1)I am not trading in the BSE/NSE at this moment
Deduction:- Since I would not be till atleast 1 month - or nor do my investors expect something huge in the coming 3 months - I would only worry about the longterm health of my company than any of the shortterm fluctuations that the company might face (so I have one less worry for atleast sometime).
2)I have about 40,000 - 53,000 employees
(We are yet to come to terms with whether the 50k+ that Satyam is quoting is truth)
Deduction:- Abundant "Human Resource" - can be a boon or a bane - but at this moment it is a bane - so I would identify areas which are not IMMEDIATELY adding value to the Value Chain of my company.
Drop ( 3 to 4 months of UNPAID holiday )
I would drop teams like the "Campus Recruitment Teams" and the other "Human Resource" employees who take care of the employee welfare.
I am assuming that the composition of the HR Team would be around 4%-6%
I would pressurize the development and bug-fixing teams - to test the product well enough - so that we could drop the Q&A and Testing Teams.(18%-25% of the people)
I would halve the number of the "Domain Experts" and "Functional Experts" for this we need to consult the project manager to choose between 2 and drop the other.(2%-3%).
Sales and Marketing should remain and the incentives should be doubled for each deal closure.
And hence we have atleast 30% less people to worry about - which will better the equation.
For operational efficiency - I would remove the Development centres at the most costiliest centres(in terms of Rs/sft) and auction them to pay my staff.
3)Invite other companies to handle few projects
At this moment , staying afloat is more important than revenue generation - I would auction/lease few projects away - taking an assurance that all my employees will be kept intact for the project and any cost or income(revenue) can be taken by the company which buys it - which would generate certain immediate income and start re-building the core competancies.
They will not atleast leave a client unsatisfied.
4)Brand Rebuilding
Satyam should leave no stone unturned in trying to give re-birth to its brand - even to an extent of changing its name.
While these are things that I think are vitally crucial at this point of time - the new board with their experience might have a matured complex way of solving the crisis.
At this time of the IT debacle - lets forget(not forgive) Ramalinga Raju(if at all he has some share in the cheat story) and his aides in the crime - and come out with a healthier checks in the corporate reality - so that no one can ever hide the real "Satyam"
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Ram Mynampati's Open Letter
From: Ram Mynampati
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 2:05 PM
To: SatyamAssociates (Global)
Subject: Open communication : Today’s developments
Importance: High
Dear colleagues
I write this mail to update you on some critical Board and Leadership level changes in our company, effective immediately. A series of extremely unfortunate events led to this, which I am sure you have seen covered in the media over the past few hours.
A SWAT team consisting of senior leaders has been formed. Many of them are Satyam veterans with a minimum of ten years experience in our company and more than twenty years in the industry. I have been requested to play the role of an Interim CEO and this team will support me, as we steer Satyam through this challenging phase. These are the leaders on the ground and have always had the final call on most customer and associate related matters in the company, so far. This team has committed to work together, to make it happen. The SWAT team represents all Customer Facing units, key Horizontal Competency Units and critical Support Units.
Over the past twenty one years, with your passion and commitment we have built significant customer assets, formidable service offerings, excellent delivery processes and scalable support systems. Satyam has been consistently acknowledged for our leadership bandwidth and has a demonstrated reputation for collaborative functioning. Our renowned Full Life Cycle (FLC) model encouraged ‘Distributed and Empowered’ leadership and prepared us for all situations. This is the time when we have to apply it in real life. What we have been trained for, we will now put to work. Let us continue to handle our respective areas with total autonomy, freedom and control. This is as good a time, as any, to remind ourselves that we have been acknowledged as being amongst the top three Best Employers in India by Hewitt and Mercer in independent surveys in 2007 and American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) named us as the best globally, for our Learning practices - the first company outside USA to be ever awarded this honor. Satyam continues to have everything that is fundamentally required for its success - a strong customer base and a committed universe of approx 53,000 associates.
What we are confronted with is the challenge of continuing our business operations, seamlessly. We will need your involvement and ideas to make it happen. This might involve even more effort at every level, in the near term. This is the time to prove to the world that we are united and will succeed in overcoming the challenges.
This quarter will be tumultuous for us. Rumors will abound and it would be fair to assume that competition will try and leverage it to their advantage. As a proactive measure, we have formed fully empowered Cross Functional Teams, headed by seasoned leaders in the respective areas, to address pan-organizational issues like Delivery Excellence, Customer & Associate Retention, Pipeline Management, Cost Controls, Collections etc. You have helped to build Satyam to be what it is today - and we believe that this cannot be allowed to fail, at any cost. I am confident that I can count on your continued support as I commit to our customers that we will ensure deliverables and commitments are serviced.
On behalf of our new leadership team, I apologize to you for the uncertainty and inconvenience that this incident has caused to you and your families. I assure you that we will emerge stronger, because of this. Increased focus on transparency at all levels, integrity and ethical functioning will be ensured. I want you to stand confidently in front of your families and friends and say that we will now be a better company and that we shall soon be a successful case study of how organizations have turned over a new leaf.
We will be conducting “U Speak” (our Meet-the-Leadership sessions) in each city in India starting next week and will have numerous Webinars to address associates in various countries. We will be meeting many of our customers in person over the next two weeks and will meet those of you onsite, at that time. In these sessions, we will explain to you what happened and articulate the actions that are being taken to retain your confidence in our company.
Let us fight this battle together. I am confident that we will emerge stronger, TOGETHER.
Ram Mynampati
Monday, November 17, 2008
The road ahead is very clear !!!
It has been quite some time since I've blogged - Are the preperations for CAT,the reason?A yes and a no .. I've been working on few projects some mine(TalkOfCampus.com America Launch)- some outsourced(Jobaphiles.com,LocalsTopTen.com .......) the fact still remains I've not blogged - while this happened , there were few old time friends who asked me the link to my blog - I did not want to disappoint them having nothing new here.
CONNECT TO PEOPLE.Recently I've been reading some of Jim Collins work and I've found it amazing - in it he says - the most important thing in setting or starting to venture is to first - to know who before you decide on what - because self motivated people always give their best in anything to do and motivation can do the magic.
Like all my other blogs , I would try and justify the title to this blog.I know there are few people and more importantly like me who are staring at what life holds each day in office , the exams they give,the placement preperations they do, job searches, waiting for call letters,trying to meet their EMIs.Of all the people I pity the most who fall under 3 or more of these categories.Those are the people who stare at life each moment and I am one of them.
Please bear in mind that - I am the last one who would complain against life - I understand we need to know the sweetness of loosing battles.... all I am trying to explain to you and therefore to myself is how to do a SWOT analysis of the situation that all of us are in at this very moment.
To understand whether the road ahead is clear or not - we need to know few things
a)Origin
There are lot of people who donot know where they stand and often mistake it to be ignorance of where they would want to head.
To know what you are good and what you are not good at - is,I consider more important than where you want to go - because in a way selecting where you want to be has lot to do with how do you tune both the aspects to get to where you want to.
b)Destination
A popular belief is that people who dont yet have their destination decision made and wander in generality - loose out in the long run , I disagree.As Steve Jobs says - people need to invest time in finding out what they really love - rather than being an early bird in something that is not a perfect match to their love.
Quote Steve Jobs
"I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
"I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20.Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
If I say a word more , I would be plagiarizing Steve Jobs.
c)And finally the road(the process) :-
There was a famous quote I read "All of us would want to go to heaven, but donot want to die to get there".
The process....the turmoil....when do we know things are not on track ... are some serious questions that we stare at.
I know an MBA is a must if you would want to assume leadership roles - but it is'nt the same for someone who would want to gain functional knowledge.I've heard people want to do an MBA because they want to stop coding - I find this weird ; you want to escape something you are not good at and you would want to take an MBA.An MBA should stem out of the necessity of knowing structured business thought process and not as an alternative career option to being a programmer.
Okay - I know I've not been my best at CAT this time - How does it matter ?
What is the ultimate objective of doing an MBA for me?
CONNECT TO PEOPLE.Recently I've been reading some of Jim Collins work and I've found it amazing - in it he says - the most important thing in setting or starting to venture is to first - to know who before you decide on what - because self motivated people always give their best in anything to do and motivation can do the magic.
As a process of connecting to people - you need to know the right kind of people - I would put it this way - everyone has 24 hrs in his life - and the best you can do is to be able to put up 24 hrs effort each day and beyond that you cannot - you've reached a level of incompetency.Imagine this situation where you know 2 good people - who can work , what is the limit 24*(2) +20*(you) because you are loosing 4 hrs to manage them.So it is also about "Whom you know?" and not just "What you know ?"
The road ahead is very clear :-
a)Know where I stand today
b)Understand what I need to do to get to where I want to
c)Connect to the best brains
I would like to sum up everything in a sentence
"If you think the road ahead is narrow,you are looking too far".
As always type in your comments.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Is your job safe? - A Wall Street perspective
Today - morning , I realised that my mock CATs weren't good - I asked myself a question - Is MBA the best thing to do ? or is it as good as it were 2 days ago.
I wanted to write something called "Am I loosing the Game?" then I thought - I should be writing "Are YOU loosing the game?" - I finally settled to a more politically correct statement "Is your job safe?"
What will happen if Lehman Bro,Merrill Lynch,AIG - bite dust , I am working for Oracle,Yahoo,Cisco,MS,Google - I will not get hit?
Why - because I am in a different domain altogether - all companies that are crumbling are FINANCE based?
If you find that the above arguments are right in any sense(this is a MOCK CAT Question - Can the argument be logically deduced) - you are wrong , read on to realize why.
Lets go from some things that are obvious to things that need Sherlock Holmes to deduce.
"Elementary my dear Watson"
1)All finance companies got hit - it implies that all IT Companies that provide Finance oriented IT serviced will get hit badly - they will have fewer customers => lesser money.
2)All BPO's of these respective companies- based in India - will get hit because the companies cease to exist.
3)Banks like ICICI which have invested into Lehman Bros and its other struggling brothers now will regret their decision
4)Lehman Bros has invested close to 1% - 3 % in lots of Indian StartUps which might have to look elsewhere now.
"I am not able to make a thing of what you are saying"
1)With the present scenario - the working pool of IT will increase and the earnings on IT will decrease - which will => that the wage would decrease quite drastically.
2)Integration partners will do very great - why? When there is a takeover or a merger or an acquisition - the 2 independent functioning systems have to be integrated to work coherently - and hence companies like Accenture will rule the roost.
3)There is a systematic imbalance which gets corrected.It will also give you indications into when your investments are not safe - when does this come - there are 3 factors that have to be considered
a)Opportunity Cost - the cost of you spending your time over an activity - the typical $/hr rate of programming
b)Cost of skill - with skilled labor understanding the cost associated with the skill.
c)Relativity of Skill - the difference in the cost of hiring the skill/difference in the difficulty of attaining such a skill.
When the disparity increases then death bells ring for your investments and hence it is really important to understand this.
4)The average salaries at MBA colleges as well as some tech institutes will decrease drastically - why? because if we go down to the root cause of the >1crore sals at the IIMs it was the Investment banks (I Banks) that started it - and other firms had to cut down on other costs to attract talent -which will no longer be the case , because there will be no one to compete with , atleast marginally.
And the answer whether your job is safe or not is in being able to answer this question.
Can your Team/Product/Company do without you? - if yes , your job is not safe - if no , wait for an apprisal - you cannot change job in immediate times.
Please visit my venture http://www.StructuredSettlementsAid.com and http://www.TalkOfCampus.com for more news on BPGC.
I wanted to write something called "Am I loosing the Game?" then I thought - I should be writing "Are YOU loosing the game?" - I finally settled to a more politically correct statement "Is your job safe?"
What will happen if Lehman Bro,Merrill Lynch,AIG - bite dust , I am working for Oracle,Yahoo,Cisco,MS,Google - I will not get hit?
Why - because I am in a different domain altogether - all companies that are crumbling are FINANCE based?
If you find that the above arguments are right in any sense(this is a MOCK CAT Question - Can the argument be logically deduced) - you are wrong , read on to realize why.
Lets go from some things that are obvious to things that need Sherlock Holmes to deduce.
"Elementary my dear Watson"
1)All finance companies got hit - it implies that all IT Companies that provide Finance oriented IT serviced will get hit badly - they will have fewer customers => lesser money.
2)All BPO's of these respective companies- based in India - will get hit because the companies cease to exist.
3)Banks like ICICI which have invested into Lehman Bros and its other struggling brothers now will regret their decision
4)Lehman Bros has invested close to 1% - 3 % in lots of Indian StartUps which might have to look elsewhere now.
"I am not able to make a thing of what you are saying"
1)With the present scenario - the working pool of IT will increase and the earnings on IT will decrease - which will => that the wage would decrease quite drastically.
2)Integration partners will do very great - why? When there is a takeover or a merger or an acquisition - the 2 independent functioning systems have to be integrated to work coherently - and hence companies like Accenture will rule the roost.
3)There is a systematic imbalance which gets corrected.It will also give you indications into when your investments are not safe - when does this come - there are 3 factors that have to be considered
a)Opportunity Cost - the cost of you spending your time over an activity - the typical $/hr rate of programming
b)Cost of skill - with skilled labor understanding the cost associated with the skill.
c)Relativity of Skill - the difference in the cost of hiring the skill/difference in the difficulty of attaining such a skill.
When the disparity increases then death bells ring for your investments and hence it is really important to understand this.
4)The average salaries at MBA colleges as well as some tech institutes will decrease drastically - why? because if we go down to the root cause of the >1crore sals at the IIMs it was the Investment banks (I Banks) that started it - and other firms had to cut down on other costs to attract talent -which will no longer be the case , because there will be no one to compete with , atleast marginally.
And the answer whether your job is safe or not is in being able to answer this question.
Can your Team/Product/Company do without you? - if yes , your job is not safe - if no , wait for an apprisal - you cannot change job in immediate times.
Please visit my venture http://www.StructuredSettlementsAid.com and http://www.TalkOfCampus.com for more news on BPGC.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Supplied by the Supply Chain,retailed by Retail - my domain story.
When I was small - something just fascinated me beyond the chocolates that I had no access to as my parents wanted me not to have them because I was allergic to chocolates.
What was I fascinated about? About when I was 7,I wondered how someone could produce so many varieties , was it with my taste buds or with the flavor - I grew up to realize that the secret was with the flavoring.While I was growing , I realized - how the Litany that was there opposite to my house able to satisfy so many kids.All this rested for sometime until about when I was doing my 10th , I saw a warehouse , I knew where they were coming from "here this GODOWN" - as it was popularly referred to I was deceived and this I did not know till I almost was in my second year of graduation in MSc(Tech) Information Systems at BITS Pilani Goa Campus.
All starts in a faculty's chamber :-
I was looking at a book in my faculty's chamber by name Supply Chain Management - here is when it all started , interest in economics was taking a domain shape - I asked him so many questions that he finally gave up and asked me to take the book to my room.
Book Supplied because of my interest at the retail outlet
Visiting the chain backward
I wanted to be doing a Study Oriented Project with a faculty from the Management Dept at BITS Goa - who had been researching on Supply Chain.
I registered and have done a course called "Role of Information Sharing in Supply Chain Management" which talked about various stages in which information is shared - which would help reduce "Bull-Whip" effect.I learnt a lot about Supply Chain right from basics - and that mis-conception about GoDowns got Bull whipped.
The pursuit did not stop there when I went on to make a paper presentation about "Tackling BullWhip effect and e-Business Supply Chains" with my friend Rahul Y at Quark07 - the annual tech fest at BPGC.
Big Break - Practice School the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
When I got an internship at Sterling Commerce (an AT&T Company) for 6 months , the first thing I got to know about and was happy about was that it had a 20,000Rs stipend - not knowing much about the company - I googled it - heavens be praised,it was a "IT enabled supply chain service provider"
It was at this time that I learnt the basics of Warehouse Management System (WMS) and Distributed Order Management(DOM) working with a client called Michell in Australia.
I worked on a project called "Loftware Labelling" which I would discuss at my other blog at http://www.bitsblues.blogspot.com
The association continued when I made a job on campus with Oracle Retail as an Associate Application Engg working on Oracle Retail Application named Retail Invoice Match (ReIM).
Why am I telling you all this? - not for nothing
I would want to quote Steve Jobs here - "like with your life partner it is very important to find what you love even in job - because that would occupy a major active part of life"
It is very important to chase what you think is what you might get in love with in the near future.With reference to my story - my internship at Sterling might have been an accident for good - but nonetheless I was pursuing even before I had entered there.
My advise to all BITSians is that in the 3rd or the 4th year apart from various other things there are somethings that you think interest you - try giving them a thought and direction - who knows you might end up in love with that.
Please make sure you let me know how reading my blog is like ... POST COMMENTS :).
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