Anshuman's Blog

My MBA Admissions journey

2009-06-04T03:25:00.004-05:00

XLRI, ya this is name that I talk, hear and write about these days. I am going to soon join XLRI’s General management Program (GMP), Executive Postgraduate Diploma In General Management. It is one the three flagship programs apart from other two - much famed PMIR and BM. It is a one year full time residential program catering to students who come with significant work experience ( Avg 7-8 years)
While I was applying to various B-schools, XLRI was always on top of my list because of following reasons:
· XLRI’s brand name. It is one of the top 5 http://www.careerlauncher.com/mba/about_mba/top_b_schools_in_India.html B schools in India. It is one of the oldest institutions offering Business education since 1949.
· GMP program is oldest 1 year program. I was nicely surprised with the fact that 1 year XLRI MBA program was started much before ISB’s which is highly recognized for creating and establishing the acceptability of 1 year program among Indian recruiters.
· Indisputably very strong profiles of 2008-2009 batch, http://xlri.ac.in/downloads/xlri_gmp_2009.pdf . The batch had people from diverse sectors – Auto, Shipping, PSU, Manufacturing, IT, Steel, Power, Energy etc.
· Mature Batch in terms of age.
· Marquee list of top notch faculty.
I was in US when I applied for the program. It was the simplest application that I had written - Paper application with a Short note on my current roles and responsibility. When you are writing unending lengthy applications, XLRI’s application comes as a welcome relief. One more visit to USPS, Eden prairie from where I sent the filled in application along with Bankers check for $50.

The journey to B-school is very interesting. You come across students, alumni and tons of data on internet. In order to understand the program better, I wanted to hear from current students. My conversations began with Manish Ballal, who was then studying in GMP. You need some overlap to begin a conversation. I noticed Manish and I shared same level of prior work experience and same employer, Infosys. Since then he has always been very helpful in answering my queries and clarifying doubts.
While in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, I had small group of friends. Prasad and Urvi were part of this group. They were from XLRI and so were natural attractions to me. See, Man is so selfish; he discovers all the overlaps similar to ants finding out their source of food. Those were the days when I was readying to fly back to India as my US assignment was coming to a logical end. Urvi introduced me to Rajesh and Niti Singh, both were XLRI alumni. In fact Rajesh belongs to first batch of GMP.

During this application process, I have been very fortunate of getting attention from people whom I didn’t know before. I had privilege of having long, insightful and interesting conversations. I set an appointment with Rajesh. I called him and soon discovered that he is at Airport heading for a vacation along with his family. I was surprised with the fact how deftly he was conversing with me and doing airport boarding procedures at the same time.
He said, “Anshuman, MBA is for starting a business. Creating Entrepreneurs is what B-Schools are for”. This was the most striking line that I remember till date which has caught my imagination since then. I hope I can work on some ideas and craft concrete business plans.
My wait for result had begun. I was hopeful of getting shortlisted for interview but you never know what is in store for you considering the high level of competition in India.

Jan 23 2009- I was very happy at receiving Interview shortlist and nervous too as the real task of preparing my strategy for interview began.
I flew back to Bhubaneswar with cherished memories of my two year of stay in Minnesota. I was staying in Infy guesthouse, disconnected from world. With no Gmail access for a week, I was going crazy.
Feb 05 2009 - I happened to check my emails and not so nice surprise was in store for me. “You are expected to answer 6 questions/essays. Answer to these questions can be provided by 15th February 2009, preferably by logging in only once.” What??? My not so smooth US to India transition was not yet over and I am expected to write 6 essays in 10 days... XLRI never stops surprising you. This also showed its commitment for innovating new things.
I got to know that record number of applications have poured in this time and essays will help adcom in better evaluating candidates.
I was tensed, frustrated of not getting enough time to concentrate, was looking for accommodation as my guest house stay was getting over and worrying about trivial and not so trivial things but I was determined to give best shot at essays and submit them on time. Essay topics were on long term goals, conflicts and crisis at workplace, creative solutions that didn’t work, risks taken, collaboration and diversity.
Essay topics were unique and interesting. I had to really apply lot of brain to come up with well crafted and logical essays. I submitted essays on time. Thereafter, I shifted my attention back to Interview preparation. Interviewing in an Indian B-School is very different from an American B-school. B-school Interviews in India are full of cross questioning, grilling, intimidation and putting candidate at unease unlike US B-School interviews where candidates are very much at ease and interviewers follow a set pattern.

I was fortunate to attend a seminar on MBA Interviews at IMS, Bhubaneswar by Mr. Srijat MishraChief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Kalingasoft. It was very helpful and insightful talk. Being alumnus from IIM-C, his words carried credence. I built the question tree strategy that he suggested and was confidently prepared for the D-Day.
4th Mar 2009 - I was in Jamshedpur; getting ready for the final strike. I had plenty of time as I my interview was scheduled at the end of day. I confirmed plans with Manish for a lunch meeting at XLRI campus. I reached XL campus and was looking for directions for GMP hostels. I saw three mid age guys coming. I asked them for directions and reached Hostels. It was already way past 12pm. I was hungry. Immediately I accompanied Manish to Dining hall which was buzzing with GMP students talking about classes and placements.
Soon I was surrounded by other students and to my surprise; I was sitting among ex infoscions - Sandeep Vadnere, Sairam Iyer and Niraj. They gave me some tips about interview and talked about happenings @ XL and Infosys.
Loaded with a feel of XL, I came back to hotel where I was staying, was feeling uneasy as time for interview was not very far. I dressed up in Business formals, came out of hotel and looked around for auto in hot and scorching heat.
Here comes an Auto, one other guy and I stopped the same auto. He asked, - going for XLRI interview??. I said yes. There I met Saikat who had just finished his interview and saw going to see nearby attractions in city.
We decided to take the same auto and he shared his interview experience with me. In no time I was in front of MDP residence e block, got down from auto and went towards the building where GMP interviews were going on. To my surprise, I was the last candidate on the last day of GMP Interviews.
My mind was going blank as I was finally ready for the last step towards admission.
Interview panel had 3 Profs and to my utter surprise they were same folks who directed me to GMP Hostel when I came to meet students in the afternoon.
Interview lasted for 30 mins without tinge of ennui on their faces, although they were interviewing since morning.
Since I could answer all the questions very well, was very confident with the interview performance.
Now wait for final results began…
Last week of March 2009, someone sends me an email that XLRI results are out. I clicked GMP results link and closed my eyes for a moment before a “Congratulations” message appeared. I checked results one more time to verify that that I am finally in.
That evening, I was ecstatic, laughing from within and felt satisfied with outcome of a long drawn admission process.

Indeed, She is the future of Mandsaur

2009-05-18T11:54:00.006-05:00

So, She is the future of Mandsaur http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-she-mandsaurs-new-future.html . It has been more than a month that she surprised me with use of orkut for getting her political message across and now she has surprised everyone by defeating the incumbent MP, Mr. Laxmi Narayan Pandey. Mr Pandey would not have imagined such a defeat at hands of a political novice in his wildest imagination as rightly pointed out by Business Standard http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/meenakshi-natarajan-defeats-laxmi-narayan-by-30000-votes/62005/on But history is already made and it's time for her to deliver on her promises and meet expectations of Mandsaur. ET came out with agenda for next 100 days for the Union Govt. So has to be the case for Meenaskshi Natarajan. Here is what she should immediately focus and deliver on :

Increase number of trains and better rail connectivity.
Completion of four laning of Neemuch Ratlam National highway in next 6 months.
Attract small business and enterprises to setup their shops in Mandsaur.
Plan for eradicating water crisis.
Put a curb on corruption involved in Opium supply chain.

She should not and in fact no public representative should forget that public will punish non performance. So Ms Natarajan, ball is in your court. People will keenly watch your action and in action too.

Euphoric response to Tata Housing project

2009-05-10T10:46:00.003-05:00

Since I wrote last week about Tata's new low cost housing project http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/05/mr-tata-has-heard-me.html , there has been euphoric response. See this ET link http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4496483.cms . Success of this project will surely boost confidence of Tatas and other developers to start such project across India.

Mr. Tata has heard me!

2009-05-07T13:35:00.003-05:00

Ya, I am right. Mr. Tata or perhaps CEO of Tata Housing, Mr. Brotin Banerjee has given much needed hearing to market demands. I am so delighted with launch of Tata Housing project for Low cost houses in the price band of Rs 3.9 lakh-6.7 lakh . These days, my predictions are proving correct. I will write more about those predictions in future posts. But for now, it’s great moment for Indian Housing sector. Since I wrote in May 2008 http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2008/05/housing-needs-nano.html ,there has been a great evolution of low costs models. Success of Tata Nano bookings has awakened top line conscious business houses to new source of revenues. All big industrial houses such as Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and new age entrepreneurs should take a lesson from Tata’s low cost housing initiative and jump into the untouched, unserved markets of low cost housing for creating newer markets of middle class and lower middle class consumers. But I am surprised with poor coverage of this news, which according to me is transformational for Indian Housing sector. Let’s wait for more Low cost innovations coming from fast becoming Low Cost Capital of the world, India.

Why don't you not spend when you can?

2009-05-02T07:22:00.004-05:00

I have always been amazed with Brand Building exercises and Ad Spends of two companies HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum) and BPCL(Bharat Petroleum). Here are the reasons for my amazement:

1. Both are Government owned Indian Oil retailers. I have hardly seen any other PSU which spends the way these two companies spend on marketing. Perhaps, there are few government companies in B2C (Business to Consumer) market.

2. Both companies are in red as per ET(Economic Times) dated 30th Apr 2009. If you don't make profits, then you try to cut costs and reduce expenditure on things such as Ads. I have hardly seen any visible efforts in this direction as they continue to get their products endorsed by costly players such as Dhonis' of the world.

3. Both companies are in oil retailing where competition is crushed by Government’s populist policies (Read Closure of Reliance’s oil retailing business). Why the hell you need to spend on brand building (Endorsement Spend, customer loyalty programs etc) when you hardly have any competitor to deal with.

BETTER TO BE A LION IN INDIA, THAN A MONKEY ELSEWHERE.

2009-04-28T11:19:00.002-05:00

Got this interesting stuff in email. I have seen lot of people in US working in US below their capabilities just for sake of dollars... This just reminded me of people's love for nothing but "US dollars".

In a poor zoo of India , a lion was frustrated as he was offered not more than 1 kg of meat a day.
The lion thought its prayers were answered, when one day a Dubai Zoo Manager visited the zoo and requested the zoo management to shift the lion to Dubai Zoo.
The lion was so happy and started thinking of a central A/c environment, a goat or two every day.
On its first day after arrival, the lion was offered a big bag, sealed very nicely for breakfast. The lion opened it quickly but was shocked to see that it contained few bananas. The lion thought that may be they cared too much for him as they were worried about his stomach as he had recently shifted from India .
The next day the same thing happened. On the third day again the same food bag of bananas was delivered.
The lion was so furious; it stopped the delivery boy and blasted at him,' Don't you know I am the lion...king of the Jungle..., what's wrong with your management?, what nonsense is this?, why are you delivering bananasto me?'
The delivery boy politely said, 'Sir, I know you are the king of the jungle. .. but... you have been brought here on a monkey's visa !!! '
Moral of the Story....
BETTER TO BE A LION IN INDIA, THAN A MONKEY ELSEWHERE.

Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

2009-04-22T23:33:00.004-05:00

After fall of American Financial system, there has been growing debate on how to end existence of tax havens such as Caribbean Islands and Switzerland. US is negotiating hard to trace trail of American money in Swiss Accounts. At home, Main opposition party, BJP has been making black money as its one of main issues. I recently got below fwd email: Is it true or just an email campaign from BJP office?

IS INDIA A POOR COUNTRY? by M R Venkatesh
Revelation of Swiss bank accounts. This is so shocking.... ...If black money deposits were an Olympics event.... India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. U.S. is not even there in the counting in top five! India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined! Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective governments formally asked for it... Indian government is not asking for the details..... ..No marks for guessing why? We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so! This is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption! Please read on........and forward to all the honest Indians to.....like somebody is forwarding to you.......and build a ground-swell of support for action! Is India poor, who says? Ask the Swiss banks. With personal account deposit bank of $1,500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country? DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them. Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably. Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,' believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin! Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks? Black money in Swiss banks -- Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:
TOP FIVE
· INDIA : $1,456 BILLION
· RUSSIA : $470 BILLION
· U.K. : $390 BILLION
· UKRAINE : $100 BILLION
· CHINA : $96 BILLION
Now do the maths - India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens.. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones. In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled 'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System' -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970. It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens.. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?

Is she Mandsaur's new future?

2009-04-18T02:24:00.004-05:00

प्रिय मित्र ,इन्टरनेट आज के युग मैं संपर्क का आसान माध्यम है और इसलिए बदलते समय के साथ चलने वाली आज की पीढी से संवाद के लिए मैंने इस माध्यम को चुना है . मंदसौर नीमच जावरा संसदीय क्षेत्र से मैं लोक सभा चुनाव मे उम्मीदवार हूँ . मुझे आशा है की आप मंदसौर नीमच जवारा संसदीय क्षेत्र के विकास के मेरे और आपके सपने को पूरा करने के लिए मुझे पूरा समर्थन देंगे. यदि आपके मंदसौर नीमच जवारा संसदीय क्षेत्र के विकास हेतु कोई सुझाव है तो कृपया मुझे स्क्रैप करे.कृपया मेरे वेब पेज को देखें www.meenakshimandsaur.com सदैव आपके साथ ,मीनाक्षी नटराजन

This was the scrap that I got from Meenakshi Natarajan, Congress LokSabha candidate from Mandsaur Constituency. I was happily surprised with her use of orkut and internet to reach out to voters in a constituency which is agriculture driven, rural district. In spite of low internet penetration, she chose to reach out to prospective voters. Either she wants to not leave any stone unturned in her campaign or there is immense potential of internet marketing even in semi urban and rural India. It’s unique experiment as your candidates and representatives are getting closer to voters not just in cities such Delhi and Mumbai but also in low profile, grossly ignored areas of the country.
I visited the site to know more about her and her agenda. Here are some pros and cons of her candidature.
Pros
· She is just 36 years old. Her youth with be beneficial as she is contesting against BJP candidate Laxmi narayan pandey, who is septuagenarian (76 yrs old).
· Her offensive is based on poor performance of her opponent who has not done justice to his job in spite being in the office for 8 times.
· Excellent academic record.
· Excellent political career.
· She has consciously moved to Mandsaur while her opponent is on weak grounds as his permanent residence is still not in Mandsaur even after representing the area for 8 times.
· There is clear anger among urban voters over lackadaisical attitude of Mr. Pandey over negligence and non pragmatism. Issues of Railway connectivity, Roads, Water crisis, Electricity, Industrialization have been neglected by current MP that will sway voters in favor of Ms Natarajan.
Cons
· She hails from Ratlam, a neighboring district. Since her opponent is also an outsider, her outsider status is not of greater significance.
· She is new for Mandsaur and it would be extremely difficult to recall a new comer’s name at the time of voting. Her South Indian heritage might be a disadvantage as Malwis (people of the region) might not associate a “Natrajan” to be one among them.
· She is just riding on incumbency factor and has not come out with any concrete action plan for solving problems of water crisis and industrialization. Sadly this has been the case for all Indian politicians who never have any action plan to solve issues. They just have political promises.
Overall, I feel Congress has done a good job in fielding Ms Natarjan. Her youth, energy and qualification will prove advantageous in removing BJP bottleneck from progress of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Jaora.
Pic Reference : http://www.dpcc.co.in/aiccimages/minakshi.gif

SCM

2009-04-10T00:25:00.001-05:00

I found an easy explanation of SCM (Supply Chain Management ) concept. Here is the link
http://www.economist.com/business/management/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13432670&Fsrc=mgttkgnwl

Advani goes Obama way

2009-04-06T02:17:00.006-05:00

Mr. Advani has adopted Mr. Obama's "Yes We can" in style. He is visible on social community sites such as Orkut and Facebook. His blog is getting popular day by day. BJP Ads on television are able to touch hearts of voters. His site http://lkadvani.in is creating fleet of volunteers.
But Is it worth investing so much money on Technology marketing in India where Internet and PC penetration is minuscule in comparison to the population of the country. How did BJP evaluated that IT is the way to go? Can this time's campaign go haywire as it had last time with India Shinning?
But whatever the answer is, It will surely have impact on urban voters in Tier 1 cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. It's welcome change to see leaders going tech savvy by writing blogs and creating forums to interact with people on facebook and orkut. The day of live Prime ministerial debates on lines of US's Presidential debates is not far. You can catch Mr. Advani's Blog @ http://blog.lkadvani.in/
It is heartening to know that BJP manifesto reserves one page for Information Technology.

Two promises are clearly in sync with what is needed urgently.

Launch a National Digital Highway Development Project to bring affordable broadband Internet connectivity to every village.

Mr Obama talked whole year while campaigning to increase penetration of High speed broadband connectivity which currently pales in front of South Korean achievement. Eric Schmidt, Google, CEO has been technology adviser of Mr Obama. Here's where we see the differences in Indian context, there is no open support and collaboration between Indian Tech leaders and aspiring political leaders. Why don't Indian Tech leaders come out in open and join political landscape by supporting , advising tech matters to these leaders on the similar lines as we have seen recently in US.

Every Indian citizen to have a bank account; welfare funds to be deposited directly into end beneficiary’s bank account to eliminate corruption.

This is good idea although remotely connected with Technology. Perhaps, BJP is linking direct deposits in Banks with information Technology. This act would create a direct channel between subsidy provider and consumer but How will we achieve this, given the fact that ECS(Electronic Clearing Service) is available in selected 50-60 odd cities in India and Cooperative banks and Regional rural banks have not invested much in technology. RBI and MOF(Ministry of Finance) would have to surely work hard to materialize this.

Leaving you with BJP's ads , Bhay Ho on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Nodf1aetA and Determined Leader, Decisive Government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejuHr5FjtZg

USO for Private Banks

2009-03-19T10:31:00.007-05:00

Ever heard of anybody taking Education Loan from ICICI Bank? What do you say? Never. Ya that's right...You will hardly find people taking educational loan from big private banks such as ICICI bank, HDFC Bank etc.

While these banks chase you to give Home Loan, Car loan, Personal Loan but never ever they would agree to give loans that are categorized under Priority Sector Lending. This raises questions on universality of Priority sector lending itself? Is it just the job of PSU banks to offer all kind of such loans to Farmers, students, unskilled, semi skilled, rural population?

There is term called USO(Universal Service Obligation), frequently used in Telecom sector. IS USO not applicable to these private banks?

I understand that every private enterprise's primary objective is higher margins and bigger profits but when these enterprises grow big and their market share becomes dominant, they need to fulfill USO otherwise who will care to serve the underprivileged?

I guess banks such ICICI Bank should act as responsible bankers. Loans such as education loan provide them opportunity to build relationship with future high earners.

In one such instance a PSU banker sarcastically commented, You maintain salary accounts and deposits in ICICI bank and when you need education loan you come to us? No relationship, no loans..

Ms Chanda Kochhar, Are you listening? You need to revise your lending policies.

Satyam Saga

2009-01-15T20:07:00.002-06:00

Ramalinga Raju has done everything to smudge Lord Ram’s name. This was a shocker which came from Land of Tirupati. He is a disgrace for every Indian and Andhrite. IT business runs on transparency and integrity. He has maligned both. What was he thinking all these seven years that he would never be caught? Every person has to bear the consequences of his wrong doings. Some face them sooner and some face them later. Everyone is talking about that he would not have been successful in his deeds without complicity of senior management.

So far we have witnessed lackadaisical approach of ICAI. How can a self regulatory body act against one of its powerful and distinguished member like PWC? Will we see same fate of PWC as Anderson consulting? Probably not, So far, PWC has come out with the claim that it is not responsible in this mess. How a company like PWC be so immoral not to even accept mistake and come out with a public apology.

Other interesting thing is huge political support for Raju. It is strongly believed that he had put all this money(7000 crore) in real estate with full support from present congress government. How will state government find fault in Raju without itself getting caught in the muddle? People call it accounting scandal. In fact it is a Real estate scandal. Real estate in Indian is most non transparent and poorly regulated investment sector. It’s through this sector all the black money is converted into white. Realty investment is considered a safe haven as far as black money is considered. Until now, nobody has talked about bringing transparency and uniformity in Land Transactions, their valuations, regulations and affordability.

Everyone agrees in India that every company cooks books. Why don’t we have a single sting operation from media to uncover this? I guess their TRPS will equally boost if they focus on illicit relations of businessmen with politicians as well as on non performance of crooked politicians. CNBC has over the years given tips for buying and selling stocks, Why don’t they start and do some investigative business journalism than just talking about market techincals and having sophisticated talks with CEOs.

Everyone from NRN to Nandan has said that “you can’t paint every company with the same brush” which is true and everyone agrees to it. Economist has recently said that “not a single Indian company not even an IT company is close to corporate and accounting standards followed by Infosys. If that is the case then, why don’t’ we make it mandatory for all companies to follow those standards?

In India, common populace is always fooled for its financial ignorance and illiteracy. What have we done to educate high school and college kids about money management? For e.g. very few colleges such IITs have economics as a subject for students. How and when will these engineers learn about financial markets? Are they supposed to earn and not understand and learn about financial world? A greater understanding will lead to better valuations in terms of market cap and respectability of these companies.

Not a single PIL has been filed to sue Regulator such as SEBI and ICAI, Ministry of Finance, Company Law Board. Why Indian regulators are always reactive and not proactive?We haven’t seen any CEO behind the bars for cooking books and insider trading? Why are we so lax towards well educated, well literate, corrupt and immoral businessmen?

Businessmen have always been shown in bad light in Bollywood movies of 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. It was only after 90s post liberalization, we started not to see scripts written around sahukars, strikes and blood sucking businessmen. Businessmen and traders were always seen second worst after politicians. People had almost forgotten about malpractices and have for a decade or so appreciated entrepreneurial spirit before this Satyam scandal came into being. This event will once again shake faith on Indian businessmen as no one expected that somebody from new economy sector such IT, with transparent and suave corporate culture would do such a thing.

Numerous awards are given to such wrong doers; hardly anybody questions their methods and credibility. That’s why Golden Peacock Award was given to Satyam for corporate governance. One question arises, why was Infosys not chosen for the award when it is highly regarded as the company with best corporate governance standards? Can people who give these awards answer this question?

Now Coming to Investors, As soon as SEBI got letter from Raju, why didn’t it order BSE and NSE to stop trading? Why did it allow the freefall? Why did it allow gullible small investors to buy the stock during the freefall? Who bought the stock and who sold the stock? Big institutional investor sold the stock and small investors bought it? Why was this allowed? Why small investors have to suffer while they were paring losses of big investors? Can we sue stock exchange and SEBI for this? Have they ever paid a single rupee in penalty to investors for their non performance?
While we are hearing bailout worth Rs 2000 crore for Satyam, there is no such boon for marginal investors. Why don’t we try to earn the trust of individual investors by bailing them out at least this time? Only 3-4 % percent people invest in equities directly. Can we ever think of a bigger equity investor base in india?

I have been reading Basab pradhan’s posts on Satyam

http://6ampacific.com/
He has been very active in penning down his opinion on Satyam. How many IT CEOS have made their stand public? I heard neither from Mr. Azim Premji nor from Mr. Ramadorai. It seems only Infy has lot of media friendly senior management folks, with no work at their disposal to appear on all the shows of NDTV and CNN IBN. People who have nothing to hide, they always express their opinions freely. Have you ever seen an informal interview of Raju like Nandan and NRN does? I am not comparing personal choice of people but these are some cost efficient ways of making a good public image. You don’t need to run costly commercials if you can have a public conversation. This is why blogging from senior management is so important?

These incidents will have long lasting impact on how business is governed and accounts are managed. Hope we learn from this and make laws stringent, punish the culprits and make regulators active.

Glass ceiling in Corporate World

2008-12-26T17:25:00.007-06:00

While I am writing this, one of my school friends, Aarti reminded me of my incident in class 7th. When teacher asked me, what does my mother do? Instead of saying Housewife, I said, she does nothing. It was my ignorance and innocence and I didn’t mean what I said, but that line struck chords with my classmate. After 15 years she reminded on this incident that how she decided to be a working woman.

I saw this interview of Chanda kochhar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanda_Kochhar (next CEO of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank) and Naina lal kidwai, Head of HSBC, India. This show on NDTV celebrates Chanda's achievements and explores answers to the question whether glass ceiling in corporate world still exists. It was very interesting with way Chanda responded that women employees should not expect favors from employers and do whatever it takes to complete the tasks assigned to them.
I have always seen that women are always dealt in special ways in teams and organizations. In Infosys, women constitute 40% of staff. This is a huge number and senior management is pushing hard to bring this number to 50%.
I am fortunate to have worked with exceptional, hardworking and diligent women employees. I have always been very appreciative of women employees when they don't seek special considerations and do the job with same passion as their male counterparts would do but I have also seen women employees coming with expectation that their team mates and seniors would assign them with lighter workloads and that it's their right to be considered unequal in terms of work load and responsibilities. Many a times, peers and immediate team leaders are responsible for encouraging this kind of behavior. They treat women employees in special ways and become lenient in terms of work assignments. I have even some times seen them doing women team member’s tasks.
I have seen managers tend to oppose having women employees, as they associate them as under performer in case of firefighting or heavy workloads. They fear that they won't have sufficient reason to ask them from staying late although they can dictate male employees easily. In some cases, they are not left with any choice but to accept women employees in their teams. But what should mangers do when every 2nd employee is a woman? How do they mitigate project management risks in case their schedules go haywire and they are left with no other option but to work extra in already frozen schedule?
It’s important for both managers and women team members to learn lessons from Chanda's rise to highest position in ICICI Bank. Woman employees should live an active professional career. They should not lead a passive or supplementary earner in the family. There will always be pressure in life to manage work and family but an active career would give them confidence to balance both worlds.
Managers should build the atmosphere in their teams so that each member in the team is equally driven towards team goals and any wrong expectation on the part of male or female employees should be appropriately handled.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences when you have come across such situations in your teams.

View and endorse at PetitionOnline.com

2008-12-03T10:54:00.003-06:00

Please take a step ahead & join this initiative. Please view and endorse at PetitionOnline.com:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/26novAct/petition.html

On 7th December 2008, this petition will be attempted to be presented to the Prime Minister of India. Till 7th december, endeavour is to collect at least 1 million signatures. Probably such mass need may stir the administration to take visible and needful action.

Please sign and forward to as many people known to you as possible.

Why terrorists should attack parliament once more to wipe out all the rascals in Indian Politics?

2008-11-29T22:02:00.003-06:00

India's 9/11-Mumbai Terror Attacks

2008-11-27T16:00:00.007-06:00

Watching news coming from home on this Thanksgiving has made me sad and angry. There has been unprecedented coverage of Mumbai attacks in Western Media. Never in history have news channels CNN, NBC; FOX covered any terror attack in India in such details as they are covering since last 24 hours. CNN's partner CNN IBN and NBC's partner NDTV have been source of excellent media coverage to the western world. Most of the TV journos are on vacation here in US but the tragedy of this magnitude has made them engaged and busy over this holiday.
Because of foreign hostages, Western media and Government are very much interested in knowing developments happening in India minute by minute.
These attacks have put Mumbai's name in mouth of common American who otherwise doesn’t care to know anything other than what's happening here in US. It's a great learning for western media of what India and Mumbai are. Their lack of knowledge was widely apparent in shows such as Larry King live and American Morning on CNN.

Attacks after attacks from Jaipur to Bangalore to Mumbai have become norm and India is becoming one of unsafe places in the world. You go from Virar to Churchgate in morning for work but your family is never sure that you would return back Virar at night. There have been more than 7 attacks in India this year alone but not a single attack in US since 9/11 which happened seven years back. America has unique geographical advantage of being surrounded by Atlantic and Pacific oceans on both sides and no base of islam in whole of North America (Canada, US, Mexico) but that fortune is not shared by countries such as India.

These attacks were well planned and have achieved 100% success in causing damage to India's reputation and inspiring terrorist organizations from Albania to Afghanistan.
In all these attacks, ideological fanatics from Islamic world are involved. Time and again everyone has said that not all Muslims are extremists but incidents like this give bad name to 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. As Spiritual leader, Deepak Chopra rightly said, moderate Muslims have to do more than just condemning these attacks.

Indian Intelligence and Central and state governments are equally responsible for failure to get any clue on all the attacks including this one. They haven't busted a single attack till date. Because of appeasement politics, no party has shown guts to crack down on this Islamic fundamentalism. Various Islamic extremist organizations including SIMI continue to operate in India.
India is extremely complex and diverse society. It is difficult but not impossible to detain and destroy networks of these ill minded people. So what should be done now? Should we let this rescue operation over and forget these attacks as we have forgotten all other attacks? The answer is No. This time media should take this agenda of terrorism comprehensively and create a public opinion on terror. They should focus their stories on financing of these organizations. They should put pressure on Indian government to create strict Anti terrorism laws and form a Terror Intelligence body of constitutional structure.
Share your comments on what more can be done to bust these terror organizations?

Disclaimer: I have used Muslim and Islam words many a times in this post but I am in no way against any religion or faith including Islam.

image:http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/26/world/26india3-600.jpg

Meeting with Ashwin Madia

2008-11-01T13:18:00.007-05:00

I have been following US presidential elections keenly for last 12 months. The D Day (Nov 4) is just 3

days away; Radio and TV are full of all sorts of Ads.

It was surprising to know that elections in US for all the public offices happen on a same day unlike in

India, where elections happen almost every day for numerous public offices from Gram Panchayat to Central

Parliament. This practice of regular elections is time consuming and resource intensive. It keeps politicians and

bureaucrats busy all the time in contesting and conducting elections. Development takes a back seat

and vote bank politics keeps all the executive and legislative constituents occupied with elections.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam made a great suggestion for amending the Constitution and making

all the elections happen on same day. This would be huge boost for progressive and stable

governments. I am not sure why Indian media and intellectuals don't push for this idea.

What makes me write today was a surprise meeting with Ashwin Madia. He is a Democratic candidate

running for 3rd district in US Congress. He is another story of successes that American Indians had in

US. Indians went gaga after Bobby Jindal won elections for Governor of Katrina State of Louisiana.

It looks like it is Ashwin Madia's turn this time. With anti Bush sentiments giving strong lead to Obama,

Ashwin Madia is not far behind. Ashwin is young, highly educated and aa experienced Marines officer. However, His

opponent, Erik Paulsen is strong and experienced leader, which makes this fight tough for Madia.

Last week, my colleagues and I went to Culvers for lunch. While we were busy with lunch and usual office talks,

a man comes from behind and stood infront of our table.He said, "I am Ashwin Madia". I am

following him since he started his first Ad but never expected that I would meet him in person.

See his Ad:

As a natural Indian response, I stood up and greeted him while my colleagues were still sitting. I was

surprised and answered, Ya I have seen you on TV. My colleagues could not even recognize him. He

asked, Do you have any questions?, and I said, No, which ended our conversation. We shook hands

and he moved to other tables to meet other hungry voters.

I can never imagine that a politician comes and you don't stand to greet him in India. It was a

complete culture shock for me to see the response from my colleagues and lack of any such

expectation from Madia. Politicians don’t have a special status in US unlike in India where our

jansevaks and netas (public servants and politicians) consider themselves above the people.

This election is all about change; Can we ever have a change in India?

Finally Infosys goes for it

2008-09-08T18:41:00.003-05:00

Finally, Infosys wants to acquire a company. After several years of refusing to acquire a company, Infosys has come out with a proposal to acquire Axon Plc, an

based Consultancy Company.

During last several years, Infosys denied the need of acquisition on the grounds of strong organic growth, lack of suitable companies that can be acquired etc but things seems to have changed now. With growing need to diversify business mix, reduce dependency on US market and better deploy 6000 crore rupees of cash pile up(on which Infy was earning 6% post tax return) and slow organic growth, Infosys seems to be thinking correct that time has come to grow inorganically.

I remember asking question to Kris Gopalakrishanan, CEO Infosys, in one of townhall meetings regarding poor utilization of cash reserves and acquisition needs. He wasn’t expecting such a question which shareholders typically ask in Annual general meetings and he did comment that this question is an AGM question. He answered in his conservative style that we don’t have to grow inorganically when we can achieve the same growth in organic way.

By now internet is full of analysis on how good or bad the Infosys game plan is. People have reservations on this deal. They are worried about actual benefits out of this costliest transaction ever done by Indian IT Company. Some stock analysts have even downgraded infy stock on basis of likely downfall in Earnings per share in coming quarters.

I think Infy management is one of the cautious, risk averse management among all Indian IT companies. I feel they would have taken several months to arrive at this conclusion. Infosys is famous for playing safe and I believe they must have exercised acute diligence in arriving at this decision. However, I feel there are several questions which could be raised against logic of the deal. Let me try to capture some of them over here:

Cash is precious:

When markets are slowing down, cash can be precious. When ypu have 100,000 employees and you promise to give them salary for one year without doing any business, 100% cash deal looks illogical. Why couldn’t have Infosys tried to raise debt on its balance sheet and partially fund the acquisition?

Expensive deal

Axon has generated profits of 37.4 million USD on sales of 378.3 million USD. So, Infy is spending 700+ million dollars to add just 37 million dollars to its bottom line. Doesn’t the deal look pricey? I guess this decision reflects the desperateness that Infy and other companies are showing to grow in Europe.

Other Markets

Japan is second largest market after US and Indian companies including Infosys derive very small fraction of their revenues from Japanese market. It would have been bold decision to acquire a Japanese company to penetrate in an impregnable market.

We have witnessed many acquisitions happening in Indian markets. EDS bought Mphasis. Cap Gemini bought Kanbay. When market conditions are tough, it becomes conducive to make acquisitions in Indian market. There are too many Indian vendors small and big struggling to grow. I believe time has come for consolidation in Indian markets and Infosys could have tried to look inwards rather than outwards.

Margins

Infosys has always talked about preserving margins and maintaining them (27%) at highest level in the industry. How could you justify acquiring company which has margins of just 9.9%?

These were some of questions which can make anybody skeptic about rationale of the deal. Let’s hope the deal goes through and Infosys achieves its goals of achieving lion’s share of big business transformational deals out of this acquisition.

Oily Conversation

2008-06-09T22:13:00.007-05:00

These days, almost everyone discusses Gas prices, energy problem, and alternative sources of energy everyday. After some time, people will begin the talk with gas prices than with weather. Recently, Prasad, Sunil and I exchanged conversations on oil subsidies. An article in Economic Times became background of these conversations.
Here flows our discussion:
Prasad: interesting article. Oil is subsidized, but we seem to have the highest cost for petrol..... Wonder why? ;D
Sunil: assume you mean India by "we" and not Karnataka. The Govt. of India imposes a Central Excise Duty on refined petrol and diesel (apart from the import duty on crude oil) of the order of ~6%. Apart from this, each state imposes its own State Excise Duty and State Sales Tax. I believe these also run into high single digit percentages. Retailed oil still does not come under VAT for taxation purposes, which is the reason most states impose high duties. That effectively negates the subsidies I guess.
Myself: If new innovations for alternate energy don't happen then this issue is going to cause a global turmoil. Adding to Sunil’s point, one more reason behind Petrol being costliest in India is cross subsidization of diesel and kerosene with Petrol. Diesel runs tractors and tube wells in farms, so it has to be cheaper than Petrol. Kerosene is poor man's fuel, so it has to cheaper than Petrol and Diesel. And whole nation faces the consequences of this mad policy. People adulterate petrol with kerosene since kerosene is cheaper than petrol and India is probably the only country where every car manufacturer tries to launch a diesel version of car as soon as he enters in the market.
Sunil: I would disagree with "mad policy". Cross-subsidization is effectively the only way to provide a cheap source of power to farmers and the BPL population. Even after taking this into account, the petrol prices in India are not the highest in the world especially given that we are not a "net" oil producing nation. If I remember right, until a few years ago the oil prices were entirely controlled by the government and they had built up an "oil pool deficit account" of the order of many thousand cores (which was finally liquidated by former petroleum minister Ram Naik). The nation has done better without that additional burden. Adulteration of petrol is not so rampant nowadays. Most new vehicles will bust their catalytic converters if the gasoline is spurious. Auto drivers adding kerosene to petrol is an entirely different matter. Coming to manufacturers rolling out diesel flavors of vehicles, this again has to do with the price differential between petrol and diesel and is specific to India (and maybe some other emerging countries). Diesel vehicles obviously have lower maintenance costs in terms of fuel over a period of time. I'll put my environment-conscious-guy cap and say that diesel engines are also much more efficient than petrol engines.Again, if I remember correctly retailed petrol in India has a 5% ethanol blend. Countries like Brazil have already moved to a 25% ethanol blend. India is still struggling to get the Bureau of Indian Standards' (BIS) to accept the 10% ethanol blend standard (this was a while ago, not sure what the situation is now). I'll sign off a-la NDTV - "It remains to be seen if there is enough political will to implement cleaner fuel promoting policies"
Prasad:btw, new age diesel engines generate more power for the same amt of fuel, more efficient and cleaner (see wikipedia -Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines of the same power, resulting in lower fuel consumption. A common margin is 40% more miles per gallon for an efficient turbo diesel.)... unfortunately, we would probably have older diesel mixes which combined with older engines generates SO2 & particulate emissions. Noise is the other issue which is being tacked too in the modern engines....Blends are still iffy... they have a much lower calorific value and tend to clog the engines since they are thicker. Moreover, with the current food crisis, there are schools of thought against redirecting food generating land to fuel generation. The only plus in my opinion is that it is regeneratable (though at a high cost per some of the current research)
Sunil: Fuel from blend - ethanol can also be generated from molasses, which is the way it is done in India. And sugar-cane doesn't figure on anyone's list of staple foods :) And then there's Jatropha and bio-diesel.....
Sunil: India’s Warped Economic Policy - by Sunita Narain She stole my words! ;)http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/06guest.htm

Champion of Spelling Bee

2008-06-01T23:13:00.005-05:00

Sameer Mishra won 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee championship on 30th May. It was another year in which lot of kids of Indian origin made into final rounds. Sidharth Chand, Samia Nawaz, Kavya shivshankar, Jahnavi Iyer and Sameer Mishra made into list of top 10. http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/finishers They all love Math and Science. Most of them want to become doctors (that surprised me as none of them said they want to become engineer). For American Indian kids to make into finals has become a kind of trend since last few years. Their continued success is quite fascinating.
What makes these American Indian kids to do so well in this competition? Is it that they are following some kind of trend like Russian girls becoming tennis stars or is it about inborn talent which lot of American Indian kids share, that makes it possible for them to excel in this competition. It would be interesting to follow these kids’ career paths. I hope these kids do well in their lives and achieve their dreams.

Housing needs a Nano

2008-05-23T22:57:00.007-05:00

I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for all of you who visited my blog and shared comments on last post. It was startling and exciting to know so many diverse thoughts and opinions. Some agreed, some disagreed, but one thing evident was everyone’s zeal about development in India. I believe no one would disagree with me on this.
Last week an article caught my eye. It was about affordable housing in India. http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?tab=r&autono=323039&subLeft=1&leftnm=1

Omaxe, a real state player is planning to spend 20 bn dollars on constructing 1 million low cost houses. This move should be applauded and placed in same category of low cost innovation same as No frills hotels(Ginger, Tata’s venture), No frills airlines(Kingfisher, SpiceJet, GoAir) and low cost car(Tata Nano).
Housing sector has long been ignored and underserved. An 2BHK apartment in India’s Big cities like Mumbai and Bangalore is dream for millions of people. Hardly any one in India’s big cities can think of house with front and backyard like we see here in US.
There are various reasons to this housing problem:
Lack of government support and priority for affordable housing: There is lot of financing agencies, various housing banks but reality is none of them have revolutionized housing finance sector barring few such as ICICI bank and HDFC.
Lot of Black money involved in Land transactions: People with black(unaccounted) money have been parking their money in land and real estate for long time. Since it’s unaccounted, it gives an edge to these people in buying a property. Moreover, it drives the prices upwards and makes it even more difficult for people with limited white incomes to full fill their basic need.
Arcane Laws: Because Land is a state subject and not a union or federal subject, there is no common policy framework in whole country. Laws vary from one state to other. And for bankrupt state governments, land revenue is lucrative source of earning but they treat housing and land transactions like a butcher who kills Hen that hatches golden eggs. High property taxes, corrupt Land revenue department, low IT penetration, lack of transparency hinder growth of this sector.
Lack of corporate involvement: Companies have always structured their offerings for people with high disposable incomes,NRIs etc. There have not been large scale offerings of quality and affordable housing.
But looks like exciting times have come and things are changing. While taking cue from Omaxe, Tatas could consider venturing into this untapped, high potential market with a Ginger or Nano version of housing product. Mr Tata, Are you listening?

More things change, more they remain same

2008-05-03T13:11:00.005-05:00

It has been close to two months since I “put pen to paper”. Since I have just been to India, I think this is good time to share the observations that I made in this trip.
I went home after close to 1.5 yrs. Hence, I was anxious to go and see family and friends. I boarded from Minneapolis Airport for Chicago. Baggage check in and security check were smooth. These days, airport security staff and travelers have learnt to cooperate with each other and they are taking traveling travails in good spirit. The flight from Minneapolis boarded and arrived on time in Chicago. I had lot of time on my hand in Chicago and hence made use of time to see the airport, buy some gifts and read books and paper.
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is world class airport. I could see lot of shops selling promotional items for 2016 Olympic Games, planned to be organized in Chicago while in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Intl Airport, there were hardly any signs of Commonwealth games which are just 2 years away. This clearly tells you why sports are non priority for India.
I bought and read Financial Times as I had never read this paper before. I was surprised with lot of articles on India and China in paper and felt as If I am reading some paper from subcontinent. I was also carrying a book, “Exporting America” by Lou Dobbs. Since I had seen Lou Dobbs tonight on CNN several times, and main theme of this book is on outsourcing, I was interested to read the book. I was not impressed by reasoning presented in book. It seemed to be chauvinistic and exaggerated writing with sole agenda of presenting facts in negative light. But, I was impressed with the fact that after outsourcing of Manufacturing and high paying service jobs, how the employees and future generations would be trained to something that is unthinkable currently.
My American Airlines flight to New Delhi boarded on time. I liked the cabin crew services, especially sumptuous Indian food. I felt American Airlines serves good food and has good in-flight services. I am making these comparisons with experiences that I had with NWA-KLM which I feel grossly under serves.
My India experience started as soon as I landed in GMR Delhi Intl Airport at 9pm in Night. Nobody needs to tell you that you have arrived in India. The appalling infrastructure (more so because of revamp being done at the airport) and sad faces you see at immigration present a disappointing picture. You can make world class Infrastructure but how will you change mindset of people in immigration, customs and security check? All the claims of world class airport will fall flat if we don’t make folks at airports customer friendly and service oriented.

You are ashamed at mistreatment and feel like not coming to your home country. Nevertheless, one has to come and so did I.
To be on Delhi roads with so much traffic, noise and pollution is an experience in itself. I now imagine why foreigners become scary of Indian conditions when they are not accustomed to these in their home countries. while going to my friend’s place, I zipped through Chankyapuri area where all embassies and consulates are located. It was reminiscent of days when I came to Delhi for getting Belgium Visa.
I was soon going to start early morning when I was supposed to catch a train to go home.
I reached New Delhi Railway station early morning. It was crowded as expected but signs of grand railway station were missing. As soon as I entered the station my luggage was searched by two police men. I felt happy that there are people who are keeping eyes on people in such crowded areas. But, Here is a problem, when hundreds going in and out of station are two ill-equipped policemen sufficient to carry out this job? Can’t we have some x-ray machines installed at entrances and exits of National capital’s railway station?
My train came on time. As soon as it stopped, all passengers lined up at the door not even allowing passengers to get down. This is another typical behavior that you will find on all railway stations in India. Despite knowing that train is going to stop for 20 mins still people don’t have patience to let the passengers disembark from train. Why Indians are so Impatient? Why can’t they display more civilized behavior?
I was using Railway e tickets for first time. TTE came, saw my tickets but never bothered to ask for my identity card. After a while, a retired tourist couple hailing from New Zealand boarded the train. They were heading for Rathambore to see tigers. We had good conversations. At least it helped me pass time. One thing that I heard from them was differential pricing of tickets in tourists attractions like Taj Mahal. Indian govt charges Rs 20 to Indian citizens and Rs 750 to Foreign tourists. This lopsided pricing of tickets is unjustified and leaves a bad taste among foreign nationals. I have never seen this kind of pricing in any tourists location here in US.
After some time, lunch that I ordered came. I was surprised that IRCTC has outsourced the pantry services to RKHS(RKHS also serves in Infosys canteens) . I found no difference in service or quality of food which left a dangling question in my mind that whether organizations consider “customers” in their quest for outsourcing services?
My train journey was about to end as Ratlam(You can find references about Ratlam in "India Unbound" by Gurcharan Das) station was about to come. I reached Ratlam in evening after 12 hours of train travel. I have nice memories of Ratlam as I have spent my childhood days here. Out of station, I saw same old buildings, congested roads and tempos guzzling pollutants in plenty.
Dad had come to take me to home. We started our 2.5 hours journey to my home on a bumpy ride. I felt sad with road full of pot holes and more so uncomfortable life that has been in India for centuries. I was feeling drowsy and tired after traveling for more than 40 hours. Finally, I reached home with a thought in mind that “More things change, more they remain same”. I once belonged to the place and now I don’t desire to be part of it.

Better Know the restrictions

2008-02-24T18:43:00.004-06:00

These days, USPS (United States Postal Service) is quite active as they are coming out with new products and services on regular basis to meet changing needs of customers. Recently they introduced Large Flat Rate Box for domestic and International Priority mail giving customers option other than Regular Flat Rate box. They also started Sunday delivery with Express mail. This is one of only its kind offering in Parcel industry as none of big three UPS, FedEx, DHL offer Sunday delivery.
USPS has been taking right steps after momentous Postal law signed by President Bush last year to fight with other carriers as they cannot sustain the business by just delivering letters to each and every zip code from Alaska to SanDeigo.
They have to compete aggressively with other carriers in profitable business of Parcels and their moves are in right direction.
I will transition to another topic which actually prompted me to write today. Few days back, I was surprised to read some of the restrictions that various countries place on Shipments coming inside their borders ( http://www.usps.com/mailpro/2008/janfeb/janfeb.pdf )

Here are some of seemingly absurd restrictions that I found.:
Australia: Goods bearing the name “Anzac.”
Costa Rica: Blank invoices.
Ireland: Hay, straw, including articles made of straw.
Latvia: Live animals except bees and leeches.
Russia: Color copiers.
Switzerland: Mini-spies (miniature wireless transmitters).
Tunisia: Playing cards.
Countries generally disallow arms, ammunitions, explosives and hazardous substances that are identified by United Nations. But what’s wrong with Anzac? And why is Hay is restricted by Ireland? Funnily, Latvia restricts live animals with exception of bees and leeches and Russia doesn’t want color printers to be sent to them. Perhaps, they are happy with monocolor printing.

Infosys Predictability

2008-02-15T22:22:00.003-06:00

Last week I came across Infosys Ad on CNBC, with same themes which are on show in this video. We used to wonder why Infosys never comes out with Ads on TV as part of brand building exercise as had been the case with likes of Accenture. We used to get answers that we don’t need to spend money on such campaigns. Keeping this point aside this video is truly motivational, inpiring and nostalgic. The bonds and attachments that you create with fellow infoscions is truly understood when you are 8000 miles away from the heart of company, representing it and upholding the values every single day.

I believe among all other top IT companies, the one true differentiator is strong value system. Every single day, strong values are ingrained and embedded in you and in my opinion; this is the best asset that you build when you work for Infosys.

The story in video is about adventure of 7 guys who thought of playing gamble and risking their successful careers leading to a company that becomes brand identity of nation after 25 years. This achievement is truly remarkable. But, this is half the journey completed. If Infosys wants to survive another 25 years, then it would need immense imagination and strategy.

Million Dollar Story

2008-01-26T17:15:00.000-06:00

I just realised that it has been three months since I have scribbled.Some how I was stuck in other things and couldn't devote time to write.However,I was constantly reminded by some Friends of my full stop on writing...

I recently completed four years in the company.It has been fast ride with lots of ups and downs with varied experiences. On 4th anniversary, I mailed to my training mates in company who joined in the same batch.More than 60% mails bounced providing the proof of mass exodus, which has become norm for Indian IT companies.

This mass mail bouncing reminded me of comments by Subroto Bagchi,Founder of Mindtree Consulting, in one of his article in which he referred oldies in an organisation to be of two types dead trees or evergreen trees.I am not sure which category I fall into. A month back,I read an interview of senior employee in Pitney Bowes where in he made a point to jump organisations early in the career.

There are lot of counter arguments to these opinions but they give you enough food for thought.

I will switch topic and talk about http://milliondollarstory.blogspot.com/
which prompted me to scribble today. Ankur Shanker,DCE graduate is writing stories everyday on his blog and bringing readers on his site to earn money from Advertisements.He is doing this to fund his education at prestigious London School of Economics.

I was amazed to see his unique idea and media coverage that he has garnered.
He hopes to raise 100,000 USD but he is sceptic of meeting the target but hopeful of getting some monetary help in form of scholarships from corporates.
This story is yet another proof of love for education among young Indians and it also attracts our attention on huge demand and supply gap in Indian education system.

I recently got chance to visit one of the Government schools here in US.The infrastructure was mind boggling.We hardly have such good infrastructure in schools and colleges in India.On side of planet we have insatiable demand for education with poor supply and on the other side, we have such good schools struggling with drop out rates as high as 30 percent.

I hope Ankur can join LSE this July and dreams of millions of Indians for good education get realised one day...