That’s the way I like it

Is that experience is must required for a MBA? Recently one of my friends asked me this.

Does experience really make a difference in a B School? From my perception it is surely YES. MBA is completely abt 70% of business information and 30% of theories used in that business. A fresher, even though being a tough guy might assimilate the things very well but will never be able to associate. Things that we are able to associate really make a difference in the way we approach towards problems and solutions. Being experienced with the similar kind of situation raises lot of questions and we our self will start finding solutions for them. Else on the other case it will be same as we studied in our 11th or 12th standard.

Freshers tend to apply the learned formulae’s as taught in the class which might be helpful for exams but not in real terms…

Just for an example a Supply Chain problem explained in a class can be well visualized and related by an experienced guy rather than a fresher. Let the experience be in any field. Some or the other they would have faced the intricacies involved in the movement of either data or tangible goods.

We will be able to appreciate the basic concepts we went through all our school or college days now. Most of us even get the solution for most the problems faced in their corporate world.

Why the company was behaving like that?
Why they made such a drastic move when the market is not that competitive?
Why the HR behave in that way?
Why there is Functional review and Operational review meetings?
Why the hell these managers spend all their time in meetings?
Why the resource is not utilized 100% all the time?

You might ask that people who come out of IIT’s, go and start companies right out of college, or go and join IIM’s, Is that they are not capable in assimilating and applying things?

I am just trying to put forward that gaining some experience and landing into a B-School makes more sense. Especially the ones that are of one year…

Any point to add to this or against this?

We had domain lectures from Banking, Insurance and Health care industries so far. These lectures help us in deciding the Horizontals. We have here horizontals and verticals concept. Nothing but verticals is the subjects you want to major and minor in and horizontals are the industries you want to major and minor. The specialty about this is we can select marketing as our major under vertical and BFSI under horizontal. The course will be taught in such a fashion that you get the knowledge of marketing concepts related to BFSI. “Master of Business Readiness”. Just an inch above, making you ready for the industry you are targeting in.

But still there are people who say that, I already have exp why should I target a industry and learn things related to that alone? Even though basic concepts are covered…

Some say that, why they need to restrict to a particular domain? These people want to decide based on the placement incoming companies and salaries offered…

Still lot of discussion are revolving and evolving…. Let me wait…what you say?

Last week was not that hectic. Spent some time watching movies and learning salsa. Yeah it is SALSA. Some of us who are able to manage (think we manage…) with our Assignments have signed for salsa. John Britto and his team took the honor of teaching us. For a 10 to 12 hour session they are charging around 1000 rupees. First day we were initially dancing like robots and now it is bit ok. I don’t think this week we will be able to find time. Already we have around 3 assignments and will increase as the week proceeds.

Strategic Management starts by this Wednesday. Prof Sriram will be taking this course for us. He is the director of our PGPM too. Heard from the seniors that he used to give more assignments and classes will be only of case studies and very less theories. As of now I am very comfortable with case studies than compared to theory stuffs. Finding it very interesting to know where the things are going wrong but most of the time we are unable to touch the right problematic area. All the time I and my group are very confident on what we came up with. But when the professor solves it, it is completely another area which we should have targeted. Fact about the case studies is there is no apt/right/one/correct answer for any problems. So what we suggested might also be right… (Haha… ha)
Any way great learning…

Vision and Mission statements are the most important thing in one’s life.

Imagine we need to escape from an ISLAND and the first thing we need is a MAP. To know where we are and where we want to go. (very basic but still makes lot of sense…)

Spent quite some time on it to redefine and restructure it along with the professor. Also learned it is more important to put it into words. Every one has a vision but most of them don’t attempt to write it down. (try now…if you have not started yet). It is very important as for the simple reason from the vision the action plans can be sketched out and can be revisited and checked at regular intervals that whether we are traveling in the direction we want?

More over once I started writing it, I realized how vague was mine. It needs to be supported with proper mission. As we drill down to mission we search for the things that are required to achieve the desired vision. For example if we have a vision for 2015, it’s important to know what we are expecting in 2006, 2009, 2012…

Is that all who achieved so far had their vision and mission in place? (No…not to me…)

Dr. Henry S Bienen President, of Northwestern University, Professor of Management & Strategy, Kellogg School of Management and Dr. Dipak C.Jain Dean, Kellogg School of Management came to Great Lakes to unveil the foundation stone for our “Great Lakes Executive Education Center”. We had this event organized at the IIT Central Lecture Theatre. Prof. M.S. Ananth, Director, IIT Madras also gave a small speech on IIT - Great Lakes relationship and also about the amount of money that is need for research and how foreign universities can help them in raising funds. Following that we had interesting lectures on Marketing by Mr. Dipak and Emerging Economies by Mr. Bienen.

I really admire Dipak, an Indian getting into a foreign school and climbing to the level of Dean is extremely outstanding. Consistent and confident effort by him is very evident. He also shared couple of bad things that happened in Kellogg during the start of his career and how he walked across all those and able to achieve this position.

Persistence… Patience…Persistence…Patience – repeatedly running in my mind…

100 days complete at this knowledge ground Great Lakes Institute of Management. Just tried to retrospect what has happened in these 100 days…

Initially started with the fire of finishing all the things in a short time and realized things are huge and need consistent effort to be covered and completed.

Learned how to learn
Strategy has become the favorite word for many people here…of course for me too.
Either let it be money market or economic policies, able to assimilate and compare it with other countries…
Newspaper articles are now making some sense. Earlier except sports most of the other columns where Greek and Latin. I can’t say Chinese as I know a bit of it now.
Can Speak confidently on Consumer Behavior to Fiscal policies. 1929 Great Depression of America to India’s Depression on 1990.
Failed companies are always a case study in the business schools.
There is no one apt, perfect solution to any business problems. Also the successful solution may not be the right solution either.
Every week battery is getting more and more charged by meeting successful CEO’s
Started feeling that, There are only 24 hours in a day…

Jargons, policies, Assignments, Grades, Placement, Strategy, Wal-Mart, Enron, WorldCom, Infosys, TATA, Great Lakes, Branding, Case Studies, and Regression are some of the few words roaming in and around us after the three months travel in this knowledge boat…

Beginning: SRRS

Now: RRRS RSRR RRSR RRRR SSRR…

It’s nothing but S stands for Sleep, and R for Reading (Classes, Assignment, Case Studies, News Papers, Project and lot more)

These tight schedules have really helped in bringing out our actual potentials.

With full confidence moving forward…getting prepared… to kiss this world…

Great Lakers were running at Marina. It was Sunday morning 6 AM. You believe it?. Still I am not able to. After started working, I never remember a Sunday morning where I was fresh and running. It was during my school and college days where we played cricket, slept hardly during Saturday nights, imagining myself to be a Tendulkar who is going to save the match on Sunday. At least 20 or 25 shots I would have collected from the recent match and wanted to try all of them on the Sunday. As you all know what would have happened, either I would got out early with one of the shot or never would have got a chance, but lovely days…

Coming back to Marina marathon, Last Sunday we ran at marina for a social cause. We were wearing our Institute Tee shirt and ran for nearly an hour and covered almost 3-4 kms. Sunday morning Marina is completely taken up by lot of joggers, grandpa’s and grandma’s. Try once; you will really make it a regular practice of finding your path on Sunday at Marina.

Things I learned from this mini marathon…
a. It is extremely refreshing and invigorating
b. We are not supposed to wear a black Tee shirt and run at Marina (as a group)
c. We need to inform the Beach police station before we start.
d. Better to run with the girls if the kms are more…(we may not get tired…LOL)
e. People have completely forgotten the TSUNAMI. (but I was bit bothered and looking back …)