Bitsian Blues!!!

Why theBargain.in? Reason 2

2012-01-26T23:49:00.001+05:30

2) Real Deal

Recognizing Indian consumers were looking for savings while spending was elementary. This lead to most print media retail shopping deals to be grossly misleading in the savings they mentioned. A ‘95% off’ cannot be true in electronics unless Santa Claus is so generous that he tours every night. To add to what was happening, people didn’t really have the necessary tools to benchmark price against. An organized grocery retailer with a promotion of ‘Save Rs 10 on 2kgs of Sugar’ is a promotion that consumers can compare with Kirana Store to validate the claim. But in categories like electronics they don’t have the necessary information. This information bias is what some evil retailers use to mark prices as promotions and sell products.theBargain.in is a team of ‘deal hunters’ that came together to make sure consumers have the necessary information to purchase. So never buy in the DARK

Why theBargain.in?

2012-01-24T23:59:00.002+05:30

As a sophomore in college, when I read a book that elaborated on Supply Chain problems, I read a cliché ‘The Supply Chain is as strong as the weakest link’. The statement stood true to all the problems that I solved as a Supply Chain/Retail analyst at companies like Sterling Commerce, Oracle, QB Consulting and the MadOverGadgets project that I worked on. During my work at MadOverGadgets, I realized the extent to which India was a 'value for money' market.

1) Spend to save

India is aspirational; according to McKinsey - the 14 Million households that had more than $7,000 income in 2005 is now at 40 Million. The major contribution in this market came from the growth in the “Seekers” ($7,000-$17,500) category, which grew from 11 Million to 32 Million. The consumption/spend of the sections of this category were truly aspirational – but their income levels meant they couldn’t go overboard in spending. In our journey from a culture that saves a lot, to a culture that spends a lot – at every mile we cover and at every purchase that we make we questioned ourselves; 'Did I save – while I spent?' This is exactly what BigBazaar cashed in – with their slogan, “Is se sasta kahin nahi!" ("Nowhere cheaper than this!"). When the same culture spread to online buying – consumers spent most time in researching the cheapest place in airline ticketing and today theBargain.in offers exactly that.

2) Real Deal

Recognizing Indian consumers were looking for savings while spending was elementary. This lead to most print media retail shopping deals to be grossly misleading in the savings they mentioned. A ‘95% off’ cannot be true in electronics unless Santa Claus is so generous that he tours every night. To add to what was happening, people didn’t really have the necessary tools to benchmark price against. An organized grocery retailer with a promotion of ‘Save Rs 10 on 2kgs of Sugar’ is a promotion that consumers can compare with Kirana Store to validate the claim. But in categories like electronics they don’t have the necessary information. This information bias is what some evil retailers use to mark prices as promotions and sell products. theBargain.in is a team of ‘deal hunters’ that came together to make sure consumers have the necessary information to purchase. So never buy in the DARK

Playing the game for the game's own sake

2010-02-16T22:15:00.005+05:30

"I play the game for the game's own sake." - Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.

Its been a while since I've been able to write few sentences about a freakonomic view on anything that's come my way - but there was one certain thing - next time I sat down to blog - it would definitely take the title straight out of Sherlock Holmes mouth - as a tribute to the Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes effort.

It is customary to write why : but this time it was more 'who' : it all is , where you are reading this from.

But 'the why' is nonetheless significant :

Why are the Google phenomenon or Yahoo trend not from India?

By asking this very pertinent question , we are eventually forced to answer three daunting retrospective questions

Can the next-likes of them,come from India?
Could they have been from India?
If they can,When would it be?

In my pursuit to try to get to these questions - I get the perspective from the way I've seen or been a part of the various interactions with startups which operate from Bangalore to Boston :

The Social Setup

The top pick in the blame game would be the way whole societal structure is interlinked for example :

Take a look at this :

1)A Brahman Boy - out of a well to do family narrowly escapes repeating 7th grade - we hear this : this fella should be caught in the exception block of the Indian caste system - Brahmin's are born to be brilliant at education and NOTHING else.We leave every other good bit of the Vedic chaturvarna caste system and its responsibilities and cling on to only the single glorifying characteristic of them.

2)Gets 12/75(16%)in Maths 1A in Grade 11 - has a brother who raked 100% in every possible exam in the very school - the younger brother went to.The instructor puts both of them in a COMPARATOR but the call to such a function is just with just one parameter 'MARKS'.The problem is we expect all siblings to be W'right' Brothers and their stardom - easily reproducible.

3)They guy next door syndrome - this actually stems from the fact that parents (most of them) try to identify the success/failure of their own son and that of others in the ward himself and be very attributive of this to the son and expect him to excel and protect their pride

An aggregation of the attitude we demonstrate in each of these situations will lead us to putting the premise this way - we force the son to choose the virtual 'path of glory' - which is often over crowded - more so because we are more than 100 billion people in which we belong to 2 distinct categories - 1)being the 'wandering generality' and the 2)wanting to push our son into the class of 'wandering generality' which sums upto the 100 billion - which is a reason enough that our Service Industry flourishes - not taking anything away from them that we've been able to build Infosys,TCS,Wipro,erstwhile Satyam.

The key element that goes missing here is the 'ability to risk anything,to do what you'd love to do'

Which is a amalgamation of discovering your work love - which is often inhibited at the roots because we are forced to take the path often traversed , the moment the lookout starts - the outlook changes.

Risk taking ability - Imagine if Sabeer Bhatia - wouldn't have given up the much respected BITS Pilani degree in between to go to the US - it would have taken much longer for us to see free web-based email.If the shackles of societal pressures would have played too much on Evan Williams(of Pyra Labs fame - which created BlogSpot.com) , Manoj would have had to forward this piece of thought to all of you.

While this is the 1st part of the series of why we need to play the entrepreneurial game for its own sake - would like to thank Manoj for having me guest blog on his 'very soon will be' famous blog-spot.

(M)ent(O)repreneruship at the Open Coffee Club!

2009-08-31T08:58:00.000+05:30

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!!!

13 hrs of Pure Entrepreneurship at Bangalore ....

2009-06-08T09:34:00.000+05:30

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:

Discounted servers
Discounts on storage
Open source software
Discounted partner hosting
Free technical advice and training
Co-marketing opportunities

The ones in the Bold-Italics are the ones that interest us the most at this point of time.

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)

Moderator

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".

All this that I typed , I promise is not written anywhere - its all still there in my head!!!.

Satyam - Can the "TRUTH" return?

2009-01-11T20:19:00.000+05:30

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"

Ram Mynampati's Open Letter

2009-01-07T19:01:00.000+05:30

Unedited open letter from Ram Mynampati

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

The road ahead is very clear !!!

2008-11-17T17:24:00.000+05:30

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.

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."

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.

Is your job safe? - A Wall Street perspective

2008-09-17T10:23:00.001+05:30

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.

Supplied by the Supply Chain,retailed by Retail - my domain story.

2008-07-18T10:26:00.000+05:30

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 :).

The gates that Bill Gates opened, while his closes.....

2008-06-26T14:46:00.000+05:30

I remember when one of my fathers cousin (an NRI) came down to my house when I was just about to turn 10 years, he then told me of the man called "Bill Gates”. Little did I know of him, little did I wanted to know, little did it make sense to me.

All my schooling I knew that when there came a question of who was the "Worlds Richest Man", I knew the answer. When I was 14 years old - I was at a barber shop when I read a news article which said "If Bill Gates converted every dollar of his into 1Re coins, he could build a ladder to the moon", how fascinated I was reading this? How could someone earn so much money?

And this continued till about when I was 20 years, when entrepreneurship began to dawn on me and this question came to my mind.

Is it the money that Bill Gates has, that I have to be fascinated about, or the "intent" and the "change" he brought to the system that is to be admired about? I most certainly know the answer now, because I realize "money" is just a consequence of a "thought process" of trying to bring in a new lease of life in the industry they are in.

I would not like to repeat the story of how Bill Gates made it to the big stage, but would like to throw few references to the man's story nonetheless. Also remember that we are not discussing Microsoft, we are discussing Bill Gates-the man.

1) Daring to take it against the IBM?

When Bill Gates made the first appearance before the IBM, for presenting the DOS (Disk Operating System) he never had anything written before him and named it instantaneously.

For every starter there is nothing to loose everything to gain and hence the loss out of risk would be very minimal when you are starting out.

2) Meeting up for Hotmail with Sabeer Bhatia.

The man knew what was happening in and around the world - he was very quick to pounce upon anything new, even it was disgraceful of what Apple claims to the UI of Macintosh that Windows has, Gates was over everything when he knew who was doing what instead or relaxing on the revenues that were generated out of licensing Windows and its versions.

The meeting was eventful when Sabeer Bhatia asked the world's richest man to "come to him" to bargain , Gates never let his ego come in , he let Bhatia ( a BITSian with MSc(Physics) drop out)
do the talking and take the bargain from him.

Entrepreneurs never sleep over glory; they always hunt to maximize shareholder's value.

3) Multi Dimensional to the core:-

I remember reading somewhere, Jack Sams - the IBM executive that met Bill Gates when he was 23 to strike a deal for DOS - said "After I had talked to Bill for about 15 to 20 minutes, I realised that Bill was a better programmer than I was,Bill was a better engineer than I was and at last I realised that Bill was a better lawyer than the lawyer I had." All this at the age of 23.

It is very vital to atleast understand,if not think beyond the box for an entrepreneur , he knew about royalty rights better than IBM did at the same point of time and that made him the man he is today.

4)Surviving Moments of Shame:-

In a court room in Washington DC - one of the most celebrated lawyers David Boies , prosecuted the case of the "Illegal/Un-ethical monopoly of the Software Market by the Microsoft" - it was by far the biggest legal battle Microsoft had fought , same was with Bill Gates.

To give you hints into how it was being done - Netscape was a browser ruling the roost in the mid-90s,when Gates saw it as a potential threat he released the IE for free and urged all manufacturers who shipped Windows as the OS had to have pre-loaded IE , there by killing the revenues of companies in that line.

The court ruled that Microsoft was not innocent. Microsoft was split; Gates lost about $30 Billion dollars. Gates came back strongly recovered about $19 billion over the next year.

Not being in the lows for long is what Bill Gates is made of - so should every young entrepreneur.

5) Philanthropy and Gates

Understanding that neither firms nor entrepreneurs exist in isolation is a key thing to show the humane nature of a successful business man. Gates understood this well and he understands that he is a part of a society which has a set of needs. Gates has also expressed his intent to support the $100/laptop campaign through the William H Foundation which started in 1994 on the lines of Carnige and Rockfeller which later through his wife Melinda Gates became the Melinda & Gates Foundation in 2000 and through this Gates meeting Warren Buffet became a phenomenal meet.

Gates will leave Microsoft to work on Philanthropy full time - which denotes that each one lives his life and the ultimate objective of it is to “make the world we live in a better place ".

June 27th, 2008 will go down into the annals of history for years to come - the man is still there ... his mark is there ... he goes to do another magic this time all towards humanity.

All this I would not say unless there is a Indian implication here - in the clash of the titans between India and China - there will be an edge that India will have - that is the kind of creative entrepreneurs and managers India can produce and all would have to take a leaf of out of Bill Gates' Story - yes the man himself.

Gates, I can say I lived at a time when Bill Gates lived.

This is also my first blog going to be put up in http://www.TalkOfCampus.com .

"Learn to Earn or Earn to Learn"- What is the Indian Educational System trying to teach?

2008-06-13T09:19:00.000+05:30

The lethargy seeps in with the arrival of the monsoon in the first week of June- I am spending what people say are the "last proper holidays before my retirement".

I have not been blogging for various reasons - one major one - I did not have a topic to.

All my blogs have always been trying to lay foucs on "Development Economics" - this when I went to classes , where I performed relatively lower than other Econ courses - but understood more than the others because it had immediate relevance and importance to real life.I will not delay to write the first rule of education that I found - understanding and marks are 2 independent variables.

I remember reading Debraj Rey and his books on Development Economics in the BITS Library ( a book overdue in the library accounts ) - be it the Harrod Domar model or Kuznets' principles all have been well laid in that book - but I loved one part of it in the whole paper of Economic Growth and Development and that was development - there were quite a few references to Welfare Economics by my professor Dr.Debasis Patnaik - why am I telling you all this?

The answer is here :- Neither Development Economics not Welfare Economics in its core,flaws if there is no reference to the technological upliftment or educational levels of the general public.Investment in human capital is of great importance in explaining long-run developments in countries' productive capacities and economic growth.Education, a source of much human capital accumulation, is often provided by the state or subject to extensive state intervention. An important reason for such intervention isthat purely private provision of education would involve market failures. A number of market failures havebeen discussed in the literature of economic development(human capital spillovers in particular have been emphasized); we focus oncredit market imperfections because little has been done in an intertemporal general-equilibrium framework to analyze their consequences and to explore the ways in which public policy may provide a remedy.

I would try to give it simpler - Andhra Pradesh Governement has recently announced that 6000 governement run schools across this South Indian State would be going in for CBSE - Central Board of Secondary Education which is far better than the present SSC (AP State Secondary Certificate for Education) - I know I would be digressing from the topic if the argument would go into this policy decision - but I know it would be very relevant as a running example that as far as the Eductational Development policies are concerned it is not the amount of fund out of the budget that is allocated to education it is much beyond that.

There are more number of IITs,BITSs,NITs,IIITs coming up across India - Does education mean only technology ? Indian educational sector has grown and all growth is alligned towards the market necessities present at that point of time - and due to the tech boom everybody understood that they can eat a piece of the cake very soon in IT.It is very good that we are able to produce such good technocrats and the governement is taking steps to meet the demand of the growing number of aspirants - but is that the right approach?

Indian education , I feel , should take a different path because unless there is sufficient amount of research backing we will never grow from an "opportunity parasite" on the outsourcing industry to an "opportunity provider" for this to happen the quality of education and the number of people getting educated should increase.

How and Why? The quality of education - understanding and comprehension are the 2 things that go missing in the Indian primary schooling , yes we are seeing great results but in this we are missing a crucial aspect whether we are testing the Law of diminishing returns - are we trying to reach the maximum potential that we could.If we don't improve this we will continue to be known only for mechanical outsourcing and calculations than for business logic or anything that involves market understanding or pioneering a technology breakthrough.

The government should understand that reforms especially those which have economic developmental implications should be progressively verifiable and object oriented than just a one time implementation.

As with any other reformist,I feel government under performs in a host of issues, but in a holistic perspective you can be what Gandhiji said, "the change you want to see in the world".

When will the Rice raise?

2008-05-28T08:59:00.000+05:30

There is a sense of belonging with the Godavari districts each time I visit them.Out of love breeds trouble to the heart.There is an unending pain in the amount of trouble the farmers face.Is it unique to their profession?No,every living has its set of problems,then why complain.But in all other living means there is something other than loss or misery,here there is not.

I would be doing injustice if I would not throw parallels at why I am blogging on the rice.My forefathers all have been agriculturists and I come from a family that has a deep rooted dependence on rice and land.

I come from a family where,when everyone enjoys the arrival of monsoon- it arrives with calculations for us , early or late - the remedial measures.Rain poses a question,a decision system for us.Its arrival can signify happiness or loss projection.Yesterday, I happened to go with my father to the place where we cultivate for a final calculations of the earnings for the year with the farmers.I vividly remember that, I started doing this when I was 9 years old - during a summer, then is when I realized that world is more than academics , world is epidemics.Each time I would return - the one and half hour of journey the discussions have always been leaving a strong impression on my life's ambitions and goals - the decision that I belong to here and have to give back to this place - have all had beginnings in some mutual confession sessions between my father and me.

I and my brother(who will also be a guest blogger) have heard lots of problems that farmers faced each time we visited - but the degree of desperation over the past 3 years has grown beyond bounds.

The problems :-

a)Labor:-

India has always been a labor intensive production country - in all its major GDP contributing activities labor substitution cost has been very high and this led to a system where everything is dependent on the cost of employing labor on a per-day basis.Even the Indian IT industry - which is considered one of the most modern forms of Indian growth catalysts - is very L intensive - Satyam,Infosys,Wipro have close to about 50k employees - can be easily categorized as biggest non- governmental head count across the globe.

And when there is a huge dependency on labor - this in turn is dependent on the opportunity cost variations across unskilled labor employment units.

For example a conventional Indian farmer can offer upto $2.5 to $4(Rs100 to Rs150) / day the present day - but when major companies like Reliance offer around $5(Rs180) for half-days work it will hit the farmer , more-over the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme where $4(Rs150) is payed to all unemployed youth for a period of 100 days in an year.

Is the government trying to save them from poverty or are they encouraging unemployment(sitting idle)?

How does one solve this problem? Government should not build policies without taking into account the local factors - in fertile lands give them a subsidy in fertilizers,subsidy in machinery.When you intend to do good it is also important to realize that you are doing good to the good and the good here is the people who deserve such a help for whom the cost of migration is high or there are no opportunities to work.

It might well seem to you that modern machinery might be the solution to this problem.

No.Why?

b)Mental Framework of the Farmer :-

Resistance to change is universal in nature. The degree of resistance might be higher in places where the technical or modern education is lower than most other places.

I am amazed at the response my father got when he proposed to the Harvester Machinery use - they said people would not be willing to use - just because they were afraid that the conventional output would get dampened.

The farmer takes a lot of time to change and change again - which might be a very strong threat to the use of modern machinery and technology in Indian Agriculture which is not a good sign.

It always amazed me when my professor in Economics talked about Adam Smith [of the Wealth Of Nations fame(1776)]'s "Paradox of Value" - also known as the diamond - water paradox - which says while agriculture - through the rice and vegetables we eat is essential for survival is less valued(monetary and at times quality) than IT or Finance (the metaphor to the diamond in the Diamond Water paradox comparison)which is making life complex and then again trying to make it simpler only ending up in further jinxing it.

This blog comes at the wake of my learning about the lack of proper and thoughtful governmental action and intervention into the acts.

I also congratulate Megastar Chiranjeevi (also refer to my previous blog at http://www.harshasks.blogspot.com) for his political declaration expecting at least he should take the farmer's side.

Please write your valuable comments - they mean so much to me.

The problems for Small Scale Industries - the growth machine of India

2008-05-20T14:36:00.000+05:30

Again,when I start typing this blog there is a sense of realization that I have waited for a cause to blog - while I have been spending lots of time blogging in my personal blog at http://harshasks.blogspot.com writing about my personal experiences at BITS, as I passed out.

But, when I toured back to my hometown where I am trying to do a small scale industry . I had a chance to talk to Murthy BVNS about my ambitions in life and then he said he met a man who took the graphite industry by surprise. I was asked to meet him up to know more about the industry and when I actually did that I realized how difficult it was to.

When I was reading the Economic Times in one of the articles I read that most of the entrepreneurs underestimate the resistance offered by the government and its manifestations,while I was interacting with Dr.S.Raghunananda Rao[BTech (Mech) Andhra Univesity and a MTech plus PhD from IIT Madras] it returned to me each time he spoke , I did not that it was so important.

It was quite a meeting,especially for a budding entrepreneur I was trying to be - why because the time changed but the attitude and atmosphere surrounding the industry created by the government has not changed for good.

Let me quote one of the best statements he ever made - let me keep that towards the last.

When he was in National Institute of Metallurgy as a scientist upon invitation by the director, was consulting to various organizations across India - he wanted to quit to come back to Rajahmundry .

On his return to Rajahmundry he realized that there were a number of graphite industry units in here which were importing graphite raw material from Ceylon and Madagascar - then he wanted to suggest them that graphite of 80% quality could be produced even with raw material from Orissa.

Bullet Point 1 :- Change is not accepted - neither is innovation - success is imitated.

When he suggested to the local firms that the quality was possible,none would hear him.

After lots of meetings with almost 25 to 30 graphite producing units - he then struck gold in pile of rubble - at one of the graphite unit he saw that there was a waste dispensing place and the owner said that it was a headache to them and then he told them he needed it and he struck gold - made it into 85% purity product and went on to make 91%,94% and then 99.4%.People started flocking around him.

"Nothing succeeds like success"

He told me that the other most important thing he would face once he met with success was the governmental red tape, bureaucracy and various other organizations - which would create trouble wherever there was success like ants trailing cubes of sugar.

According to him at least 15%-18% of the cost went to pay the bribes - here there are 2 fundamental beliefs of an entrepreneur at stake

1)To be unethical in terms of setting up a unit
2)To surpass law in producing every single brick out of his firm.

He also went on to point out the labor laws and problems due to labor in Rajahmundry were fewer when compared to other states.

He said there was also this need that you would have to bribe the customer side as well when they would have to compete for a customer whose sole consideration is not (Quality,Price/Unit) but also the amount of money he would make by getting the order - keeping aside the outcome such a raw material would yield when in the plant.

But coming to a positive note he said that an entrepreneur should understand the fundamental difference between industry vs business vs service - the rules for setting them up would be different and whatever he said in terms of production could be applicable to only the industry scenario, having said that I would like to give a general inference into what ever he said.

Quest for Quality speaks louder than anything else

He said that the quality he produced out of graphite was the USP for his production unit even when the cost of producing was higher than elsewhere. So all marketing activities should be directed to help people/customers understand that the product is of better quality and the rest will take care of its own.

Things small loom large over a period of time

When I told him that I wanted to do s Small Scale Industry - there was one thing that he told me was a cause of early exits from the industry going back to the traditional jobs people did , the weight that people associated with a factor that went into the production - which will tend to be the weak link later on - "the strength of a chain is dependent on its weakest link".

He quoted a law of science for an entrepreneur from the laws of physics

"Amount of Work Done = Amount of Resistance over come + the actual tangible work done"

He said that the amount of resistance over come in the first few years >>>>> tangible work done and said patience and quality are the key for success.

I would like to thank Dr.Raghu and Murthy BVNS for having given me this opportunity.

Till later

- Harsha Konduri

Stand in line and help India grow at a higher rate

2008-04-11T15:03:00.000+05:30

I always start my blog - the source of motivation for my blog.

And this time as always the source was a late night return to my room - I observed that there was a fan and a light on for the last 3 weeks and I have never seen the guy in his room.Then,when I actually went and asked one of my friend what happened , he said that he had not stayed in the hostel for the last 3 months and it was on like that and was only to come to the room once in a week.

What should I write? Is it a problem that can be solved?

There are a few assumptions that we have to make here :- we are one of the most educated people in India and we almost know the problems that India faces and continues to in the near future.And how do we contribute to this?

We switch on our light and fan and leave the room - when we already know that the campus is in a power crisis and we are running on DG sets.We expect the campus to be in full glow and what is our contribution we are wasting electricity and hence fuel.

There will be at least 40 people per hostel who do this that is almost 1/4th of the hostel - if it is like that then for 12 hostels we are running at the power of 16 hostels.

Who will be paying for this? If you think BITS is paying for it - then you are no better than any other person on the road.You are going to pay for it - let me explain how.

When the other day I was thinking of alternate fuel and stuff like that - Reliance closing down all pumps run by itself, around 900 - I suppose. And when I wanted to know why - I realized that Reliance is losing 3.28Rs/lt on Petrol and 5.13Rs/lt on Diesel and then I thought why are they not raising the price - 1)Government Regulation and 2)Competition from government run petrol pumps.Now the focus shifted on to how is the government able to sustain itself with good margins.I was wrong - it was the same story with the government as well,if not worser Rs 10.08/lt on Petrol and 12.2Rs/lt on Diesel - and yes all my decimals are right there.

How is the government able to subsidize? with the money being collected from you as Income Tax and Value Added Tax (VAT).And remember each time a Rupee is being collected as tax only 68 paise will reach developmental activities - rest goes into corruption.

So each time you waste a Rupee - you are actually wasting 132% of a Rupee.It just takes little discipline to switch off the light - not lots of effort.

Okay - I might raise this in another blog - but nonetheless it is worth a mention here as well. There was an article comparing India and China - which will almost be the best to mention here because of where India is losing in the global game.This will also tell the story of why standing in a queue would help the nation.

All these are small indicators of discipline while India beats China at its creativity we lack the discipline and when we become the future of tomorrow - we will still be like that - that is why we are not able to create world-class infrastructure which is the major differentiating factor.

If you are wasting electricity and fuel - you are wasting your own money which when properly utilized can be spent on infrastructure funding and as a super sale offer you are also becoming the future undisciplined Indian - whose state of affairs will reflect on the nation.And when we donot have proper infrastructure and working - people from other countries will never find India a better alternative than China to invest and then you are not fueling the economic growth because you are not allowing FDIs and various other investments.

You are the creator of your own destiny.You are India.

"Save oil,Save India"
"Save Energy,Save India"

American Recession - a characteristic vicious circle?

2008-04-08T17:00:00.000+05:30

It was when I was hearing to CNN Radio - on the Google Desktop that I learnt there was a serious problem with the way people viewed recession and how it is triggered.

Recession is a period of economic slump.More about recession* - at the end of this blog.

Where did it start with the US?

Yes the Subprime* crisis in the US - from my previous blog and when we end this blog

When people started thinking of the Subprime* crisis they began to accept that their economy was not doing as good as it had been for the past 20 to 30 years - and this perception was strongly backed up by the Fed rate cuts - it added insult to injury and they insured that the public did not come out of this when President George Bush - went to the NewYork Economic Society answered few reporters in his own witty way by saying "all is not well".

What effect does this have over the thinking of the common man in the US?

Few facts to be considered -

US lost almost 80,000 jobs in March

Why does this happen? because companies want to ensure that they remove their non-performers and cut the fat.

Companies want to cut the fat because they know(feel) the economy is not doing well and the only way to grow is to cut the cost - and remove employees through Cost Cutting Measures like DELL wants to remove 8000 employees in the next 3 years as part of their measures to save around $3 Billion.

The circle drawn evidently -

When others around them start losing jobs - people tend to think that they would either lose their jobs or not get the right amount of pay hikes and as a consequence of this they tend to spend less money because they want to save for the future (where they might need them in case anything goes wrong).

When people spend less - there is no buying that will fuel the market - all goods become abundant and companies start loosing out on margins because of less volume of sales and then this will continue to hit the job market and continue to hit until some drastic "feel good" factor comes into the economy.

You cannot avoid recession

Remember - you cannot avoid recession - recession comes and goes, there is not much the common public can do about it but to wait for strict remedial measures from the governement.

Recession can last more than or at least a year

The average recession period for US has been 10 months - that will hit all economies which are dependent on exports to the US.

Human mind and thought does it alll!!!! NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS.

Know about Recession - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession
Know about Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

BITSian Blues Blog on THE PRESENT

2008-04-06T22:17:00.000+05:30

Finally the day has arrived when I want to do what I never did - what almost the whole cyberspace did - to blogggg!!!!

Do the markets and placements operate independently?

It is an easy call - a BIG "No".

Are the days of hyped campus placements over, because of the market fall????

Are the days of $250,000 campus placements now a part of the pages of history ????

We would dissect the issue we have into two very crucial questions.

To address the first big question - is the market falling really?

If yes, is there any historic pattern that it follows?

and

What is the future BITSian's place to be ?

And finally the answers to a long list of remarkable questions to answer in a blog?

Read on....

These days there has been lot of speculation about the American market and is everything that is dependent on them.This is a popular feeling why there is a "happy business feel" that went missing over the months

People started telling me that my status messages on Gtalk meant more then the Economic Times by the Benett and Coleman Co Ltd,at times-just because I was so ruthlessly truthful about the fact that the market is not at its best and predictions have been pessimistic.

The start - well the sub prime mortgage crisis of the USA since this blog is not about what the basics of the sub prime are - though they are the root cause of all evil that is happening in the market - I have them towards the end of this blog,so that you don't miss them

Economics of Production(a technology perspective)

Economics has always been reliable and will continue to hold as good as the "Law of Gravitation" for the fact that again it leaves no scope for speculation or scope for myth unless you are fundamentally wrong in either your understanding of supply and demand or the production function curve which is handled below by me and it came out from the classical view that

Progress was dependent on production and consumption
Production is a function of Labor and Capital as is depicted in the equation below

Production = F(K,L) {Function of Capital - K and Labor - L}

But economists were haunted by a ghost called technology and they could not help but to re-visit their production function by introducing a new factor called Technological advancement implemented in the production and as a consequence the mathematical expression took a new form :-

Production = F(K,L,T) {Function of Capital - K ,Labor - L and Technology - T}

Production and Technology - brothers from the "Progress Family"

Production became severely dependent on technology sometimes substituting both Labor and Capital.

Technology in turn became overly dependent on Research and Development(R&D) because it was obsolete without it. And to add to the misery of conventional thinkers R&D needed that revenues that came out of the selling of production - here is a circle that in its rotatory and revolutionary motion has perplexed man by man's own imagination.

Technology growth was rampant for 20 years in each discipline of engineering and reached a saturation point where it could not defeat itself and then started to embrace new technology as a fruit of R&D.

Here is how it was :-

1900-1920's Civil Engineering - The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand was a good justification of how human mind's ego never settled with anything but creative genius and perfection. The need arose because man had to construct where he could produce,to construct where he could live and this became man's introduction to man's re-invented art because some of these foundations could be traced back to 1000AD when Raja Raja Narendra lifted many Tonnes of granite to several hundred Feet... in the Tanjore,India.

What next ??? What will FUEL his imagination???

1920-1940's the "Chemical Brothers" to be able to run something that man could not do by just all by himself.The focus was on energy sectors,man had to invent something that made something he made run. The food for the machines to be born.

How will I do without "I"? Mach"I"nes

1940-1960's the "Mech Pokiri " when man just knew that all he wanted is to duplicate himself at least mechanically though we are not far from the day where he could replicate him in the mental skills as well.Machines meant production,then he realized more machines meant more production and even more ... even more .....Man made machines cheaper,produced machines that could in turn produce machines which would be the wheels of mass production and this is how technology substituted labor - and enhancements in this meant substituting capital.

1960-1975 showed that man was progressing because two decades were cut short to just 15 years.The days of Electric progress -when electrical input was so important for electronics.

Motto: Generate - Burn - and now conserve

1965-1985:The days of electronics -when everything looked at the micro level to understand what circuits and signals could do to understand digital signal processing and to understand Micro electronic circuits which some of my EEE friends donot understand till day ......

1985-2008 Till today -people say computer is the single best invention by mankind from Babbage to Pascal to Gates to Jobs to Sage to Pain,from computation to computer to Hardware (PCs) to PC Softwares to Google to Vipashyin :P .A ride that has been the most hyped in the history of the mankind and then this had to end It will because HISTORY REPEATS - there will be a day when we will say there is something this is not the thing of the day .......

What next ???? Who knows?????

There will be very high growth phases for each industrial sector and everything in the sea .... would return to normal after a storm the IT industry today is in such a phase "the storm is over" but again the sea is silent before a storm.

Silence means violence for growth.

In my next part of this blog.... I will try and do more justice to the title .... when I will talk of what can be the future of pass-outs of 2009 , 2010 ,......

How does all that is above make sense from a BITSian perspective .....???

Keeep watching this space .....

Disclaimer : I am not god to be right almost and always .....but I am like you a human ..can make mistakes ......