India Vision 2010: What driveth IT?

bhavITva 2007 offers a discussion forum that will bring together corporates , partners, industry analysts and young minds on a common platform to discuss "India Vision 2010: What driveth IT?" Four key areas have been identified as possible drivers that could lead the Indian IT and ITeS industry into the next level:

Engineering Services

The offshore engineering services segment is set to be the next big thing for Indian IT firms. According to a study done by the NASSCOM and management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, the Indian IT firms can account for nearly $40 billion from offshoring of engineering services by 2020. The report also indicates that the market is highly fragmented by industry with automotive at 19 per cent, aerospace at 8 per cent and utilities at 3 per cent in 2004. High-Tech and telecom is the dominant and fastest growing sector, with 30 per cent of the market, and the traditional engineering powerhouses - USA, Germany and Japan have a lead in engineering spend. India enjoys a relatively strong position in the automotive and high-tech/telecom engineering services market with a $25-billion opportunity by 2020.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing

NASSCOM estimates, the KPO industry is expected to grow by 45 per cent by 2010. Out of the $16 billion, which the KPO industry is estimated to earn, around $12 billion would be outsourced to India. Also, KPO will yield more revenue than BPO when it amounts to value per unit. It is estimated that India will have more than 2.5 lakh KPO professionals by 2010. At present, the figures stand at 25,000. KPO is expected to contribute 57% to India's GDP by 2010 and KPO will contribute 1.8% to the Indian service sector by 2010 as against 0.24% in 2003. Investment banking research, sales and marketing research, IP/patent research, R&D, legal research and case writing ,animation design - the plethora of opportunities available in the KPO domain seem limitless.

Product Development

McKinsey-NASSCOM analysis forecasts that the product and technology services revenues of Indian companies could reach $8 billion-11 billion by 2008. Over 23,300 software companies in the US, with combined revenues of over $103 billion, spend 18-25 per cent of their revenues on product development. That adds up to a $19 billion-26 billion annual spend on product development. Margins in the products business are much better than in IT services. Billing rates per engineer per month can be as high as $7,500, compared to the $2,000-$4,500 that services firms make.

Remote Infrastructure Management

Research analysts Gartner estimate that the size of global Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) market is estimated to lie between $86 billion to $150 billion. It is estimated that 40-60% of the overall IMS pie can be efficiently delivered through a global delivery model. This translates to a market potential of $ 55 billion for Indian vendors. India is currently delivering business worth $0.3 billion in this space. Gartner predicts that it will do business worth $ 2 billion in next 5 years. Infrastructure management projects are very attractive for the reason that the deal sizes are quite large compared to deal sizes of normal application maintenance projects. An appealing statistic is that 54% of the deals bagged by global players come under this category. Also close to 90% of the deals signed in the IT vertical are in infrastructure management services.

10 Principles of Strategy in business,war and ....

1. Commit fully to a definite objective
2. Seize the initiative and keep it
3. Economize resources
4. Use Strategic postitioning
5. Do the unexpected
6. Keep things simple
7. Prepare multiple,simulaneous alternatives
8. Take the indirect route to your objective
9. Practice timing and sequencing
10. Exploit you success

these 10 sutras are taken straight from the book ,"The Art of the Strategist"
it's probably one of the 1000 odd books on the strategy ,i dont know if its highly recommended or not
as far as i know it was just another one lying in the shelf,hoping to be picked up :)

half way through the book i realise the 10 principles are supposed to be applied in business
now,am no mgmt. guru here and don't plan to act like one ,but i wonder if its really useful in business !
i just get a feeling ,the principles are more apt for war and .... love
(not that am an expert in the next two,but,just a thought)
now go back to the 10 principles and read them once more,one last time

do you agree ?
maybe the title of the post should have been
10 Principles of Strategy in business , war and ... love :)

How about Open Source 'Tangible' Products !

We are all too familiar with open source software products,especially the success of Apache,Linux and Firefox

I came across this article which talks about couple of open source projects underway around the world ,involving tangible products.Could be a car or prosthetics or ...

LOCK, STOCK & TRADE 2006

What is Lock, Stock & Trade?

Lock, Stock & Trade (LST) is a mock IPO event where the investors (student audience) invest in the real life companies profiled by MBA students from SP Jain Institute of Management

This year, the event has been scheduled to be held on January 4th, 2007 at The Leela, Mumbai

At this one-day event, the SPJIMR student teams representing the entrepreneurs and investment bankers present carefully selected real life private company profiles to the audience. These companies are open for evaluation and trading by the audience who acting as investors, mock 'invest' in shares of their choice. The stocks are allotted through bidding and the ultimate stock prices are determined by the market forces. At the end of the day the winning 'investors' are those with highest value portfolios and the winning 'company' is that which has the highest market capitalization. The game provides opportunity for many a player to bid, trade and build their portfolio, and experience…the Dalal Street excitement!

LST had an immensely successful debut in 2004 with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw as the keynote speaker, and a hugely successful event in 2005 too.

Some of the highlights of the LST 2005 were:

• Key note address by Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder and COO, MindTree Consulting
  
• Panel on "From Idea to IPO: The Entrepreneur's Progress" discussed by eminent entrepreneurs and financiers including:
  - Shravan Shroff, MD, Shringar Cinemas Ltd.,
  - Pravin Gandhi, Partner, Infinity Ventures
  - Devendra Saharia, Co-founder & President Ajuba International (health care BPO)
  - Vijay Chandok, Country Head, Small Enterprise Group, ICICI Bank
  
• Company presentations by 18 real life companies
  
• 500 excited people including students, entrepreneurs, faculty and professionals attended the event, played the IPO game and networked.

....
....

How can you participate?

You need to participate in the "Business Idea competition" to be a part of LST. You are expected to conceive an idea for new business and explain in not more than 200 words about why you think it can be turned in to a sustainable business venture.
Please note that a detailed business model for e.g. the financial, operational or marketing aspects of the idea are not expected to be a part of the abstract.

The entries will be evaluated by an expert team of SPJIMR faculty and entrepreneurs. The selected participants will be extended an invitation to participate in LST, 06.

In case you are interested

Entries Invited for SP Jain Marketing Impact Awards 2007

MasterPlan goes rural - GramVihaar gets cracking !

Some fabulous news from Nomad
nomad and gang ( of 6 ) have won MasterPlan - The Corporate Business Plan event of IIMA Confluence. 385 entries (incl 15 overseas) , and three rounds ,boiled down to one winner , team 'GramVihaar' from SP Jain.We proposed a network of rural toruism resorts across India.
Team members : rohit jalan,vasav varshney,ananth chilukuri,kunal jain,lagnajit patnaik,aditya vadaganadam
Chck out the coverage on Economic Times

Now, we get to present the plan to Mr Mukesh Ambani,chairman Reliance Industries ltd.
That means a lot more work pending to fine tune the bplan ,fill in the gaps ...

Firefox gains

Mozilla's Firefox is gaining on Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the browser share battle says Businessweek,from a survey that i took recently.not really a scientific poll but still interesting to know that majority of 3400+ survey takers voted for Mozilla.

One interesting personalobservation,icici bank's online account has password limitations in IE such as number of characters,surprisingly that doeanst apply if you use mozilla to access the site.
One more interesting observation is that icicidirect works better with IE, i have trouble accessing idirect's features using mozilla.

Borat & the Buzz ( Marketing )

Buzz marketing exists in fantasy tales and the odd passing mention in marketing classes
Guess it's still seen as an art form and not science

Here's a fabulous case on buzz marketing - what else but , Borat the movie
the way the movie borat has gone about creating a buzz around the movie
is pure buzz and online marketing
some people are even calling Borat the biggest small film ever

whats the fuss all about
Borat's a low-budget movie ,could have been made using a handycam or two
now combine this with the TV show , myspaces links , youtube videos,kazakh govt's anger and u get the buzzzzz
Nomad expected that Borat will do well ,but this is just out of world results

Net result : Box Office Top over the weekend of 26 million $ only in US
that too with just 800 plus releases in US

Borat very Nice say America

Borat's the surprise hit of the weekend in US
I've been tracking the movie and the show for a long time
and it's nice to know that it's a huge hit

chk this out
Borat had a venue average of $31,517, an average that puts Borat in the same ballpark as something like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

way to go borat
its just too bad the Indian release is set for Mar 2007

SPJIMR Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2006

Check Out
...
SPJIMR announces the "SPJIMR Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2006"- to recognize and celebrate the significant contributions made and successes achieved in SCM practices by leading companies.

......

SPJIMR Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2006" will be held on the 3rd of December, 2006 at S.P.J.I.M.R, Mumbai and comprise of:

• A Panel Discussion on the topic "To create a vision for developing logistic solutions for India in the new millennium" by eminent personalities from academia and corporates

• A Paper presentation Contest for corporates. The winning entry will be awarded a cash prize of Rs. 1,00,000/-; the team coming second will be awarded a cash prize of Rs. 75,000/-

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

thats a long name for a movie and quite a weirdly funny movie too
before i blog abt the movie,i must say the usual disclaimers - the movie is quite
controversial and could hurt lots of people / groups /countries / communities ....

so who is borat? Ali G's show describes him as
"Borat Sagdiyev is Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man. A leading journalist from the State run TV network, Borat has been sent to the United States to report on all aspects of American life. From baseball to Broadway, Borat asks the questions no westerner would dream of in his tireless quest for knowledge, telling dating agencies he will 'crush' women who are unfaithful,...., urinating on trees with new age gurus in Sedona. Borat on his first ever trip abroad presents a picture of America that only Charles Manson would recognize. "

the movie is a mockumentary on the travels of a fictitious kazakh journalist in US of AHe is sent by his govt to learn from the greatest (arguably ) nation in the world - USA

Some of the controversail/funny/... scenes are like:

• In America he watches an episode of Baywatch and falls in love with Pamela Anderson
• At the wine tasting, he asks if the black waiter is a slave
• Borat just wanders into a gun store, asking for the best weapon to kill a Jew
• At the toronto film festival stunt ,the character Borat and his donkey arrived at the
  premiere in a carriage drawn by six peasant women; he explained that there had been two more
  but they had escaped in Bulgaria."
• "Please, you come see my movie. If it not success, I will be execute." - in the yahoo trailer

No one's spared in the movie and a new cult is born. chk out his myspaces site http://www.myspace/com/borat ,atleast 200,000 direct links. Check out some really cool videos at www.boratvideos.com , many of the videos can be found on youtube as well youtube,myspaces,yahoo messenger trailers - looks like this is the first movie ever to fully leverage Web 2.0. The film was also featured as part of the Myspace Black Carpet premier promotion

Gram Vihaar - How about some Rural Tourism

We are exploring a business plan involving setting up a network of rural tourism resorts across India
We are looking at locations ranging from Kerala,konkan coast,punjab etc

The idea is : Provide simple ,clean but elegant cottages in the villagesCombine this with boat trips ,nearby beaches,massage service, some old temples or historic locations etc. We are looking at Urban cookies who can do this over a weekend / extended weekend.

You like the idea ! , please spend a few minutes to answer a few simple Qns for our survey

http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225T9HURJLY

Segmenting financial consumers

"The subdividing of a market into distinct subsets of customers, where any subset may conceivably be selected as a target market to be reached with a distinct marketing mix”
- Philip Kotler

Bschoolers are all too familiar with the dozens of consumer segmentations done
as part of countless class room sessions,guest lectures, projects ,group works etc etc
One complaint you can often hear among students is that marketing classes
tend to focus rather too much on FMCG products.
This can be irritating for many of us who are interested in services.
Services Managment or Services marketing as an elective could help i guess.

Anyway the point is ,here's an interesting segmentation of financial consumers done by Forrester.
Two snapshots are below, you may want to check out Forrester's website for complete PPT

KHOJ 2007 : "India's only inter business school equity research competition"

About KHOJ
Welcome to Khoj, India's only inter business school equity research competition, which rewards you handsomely for your analytical skills in the equity markets. Since its inception, Khoj has been attracting extensive participation from business schools as well as acclaim from the industry. This event brings together the brightest minds from academia and the biggest names from the industry. Khoj also facilitates interaction between industry professionals, academicians and students in the area of Equity Research. This platform provides an opportunity for MBA students interested in equity research and security markets as a career option to display their potential to eminent professionals of the industry and gain new insights and ideas for further learning. Equity Research is a highly regarded profession in the developed financial markets and is fast gaining acceptance among aspiring MBAs as an excellent career choice. With the equity markets on a roll and with the interest of retail investors in the equity markets increasing all the time, the demand for professional research analysts and fund managers is increasing. This makes equity research an exciting career opportunity for Management graduates. Khoj recognizes these new emerging opportunities and provides an incentive to you to step into the arena of financial research. Hence, the presentations and the discussions would help you to learn the intricacies of valuations and thus provide you with a fine learning opportunity.

The Purpose
Khoj invites the top minds across Business Schools in India to submit an equity research report giving a long term outlook with a Buy / Sell recommendation on the stock. So you can prepare a report not only on a stock, on which you are bullish and see value, but also a stock which you feel bearish about and would recommend a sell.

The Process
The participants would be required to register for Khoj, after which a sector of their choice shall be allocated to them. The participants would then select a company within the criteria defined and prepare the research report. The papers received then would be sent to our judges for evaluation and the top scoring teams (along with a waitlist of teams) would be selected to move into the finals. These finalists would be required to make a presentation before a panel of judges as a part of the final round. The judges would be eminent personalities from the Investment Banking field, Mutual Fund industry, Equity Research firms, Business media and top Business schools.

Prizes
The winning teams would be awarded cash prizes as follows:
First prize : Rs.40000
Second prize : Rs.30000

USB Missile Launcher - The ultimate fun weapon in cubicles / class rooms ?

and i wonder how about using the missile launcher in the class room especially to prevent some really annoying DCP (aka desperate class participation in B-schools)
The only downside is the range of 2.5 m could be less when we have a combined class in bigger rooms.
Apparently , there's a video of the thing in action:
here

Dear Alumni ( SPJIMR Alumni Meet on 27th and 28th Oct 2006 - Hyderabad Chennai Bangalore & Delhi )

Dear Alumni,

Following are the details of the meets that are going to be held:

Hyderabad 28th October 2006 Best Western Hotel Amrutha Castle
5-9-16, Opp. Secretariat,
Saifabad,
Hyderabad - 500063.

Bangalore 27th October 2006 St. Mark's Hotel
4/1, St Marks Road,
Bangalore - 560001.

Delhi 27th October 2006 India International
Centre, 40 , Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003.

Chennai 28th October 2006 GRT Grand Days,
Convention Centre, T-Nagar,
Chennai - 600 017.

The meets will begin at 6:30 p.m
Thank You,
ALCOM

There's a Nomad in all of us (so where all have you been ? )

Some interesting website i found where you can make customized map of places you've been
( create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide )
This is obviously for the nomads out there
Ii look back at my 18 months of MBA journey - loads of learning ,unlearning , new friends ... ,I must admit one thing i definitely miss is my travels
Its been very difficult ,not just getting back to academics but staying away from travels. guess it hurts more if you are a footloose nomad like me
How i wish i could cut loose and get back to my travels ,atleast a traveling job
Am seriously planning a month or two of backpacking or bike trip post my MBA
before i get back to job ( and that too , hopefully, a job with loads of travel)

I do realise one thing , i haven't really explored India
North-east , Kerala,Andamans ,Uttranchal , Lakshwadeep and ladakh ...
the list is long and all i have is, but one lifetime
Somebody rightly said that it takes a lifetime to truly experience India (forget the entire world)
i think one day i will paint all the continents red

Hyderabadiyon Ke Naam Pe

Continuing with the Hyderabadi postings, here’s some interesting lines I came across in one of the Orkut communities (look for the community Hyderabadi Lingo in Orkut)

Woh Charminar Ke Minaaraan,
Aur Woh Niagara Ki Biryani. (paradise no more )

Woh Madina Hotel Ke Chaiyaan,
Aur Woh Azizia ki Qubani.

Woh Pista House Ki Haleem, (trivia1: used to be exported to mid-east, donno now )
Aur Woh Famous Ki Ice Cream.

Woh Santosh Sapna mein Picture Dekhnaa,
Aur Phir Softy Den mein jaa Ke khaana. (trivia2: vanilla cone @ softy 3 rs ,ragda samosa in school canteen - 3.50 rs )

Woh Swapnalok ke baar baar chakkar kaatna, ( export tee shirts ,so they claimed )
Aur Nave Nave Kapde Leke, Pottiyon Ku Patana. ( NASR ,St Anns and Rosary girls high schools.. ring a bell !! )

Woh Perfumaan, Ghadiyaan khareednaa Singapore Market se,
Aur Phir Doston ku bolna, bhai laayaa bahar se.

Woh Jagne Ki Raaton mein, doston se saath ghoomnaa,
Aur aadhi raat mein, roadon pe ke lightaan phodnaa.

Woh dostoon se saath milke Numaish Ki sair,
Aur woh bade bade baataan, jaise ser pe sava ser.

Woh doston ke saath milke ladnaa jhagadnaa,
Aur Woh potti ke liye lade bolke ek bahana.

Woh Baar baar apna purane dina yaad karnaa,
Aur phir khud hi bolnaa, parsooon hi to karne naa woh sab Kaamaaaa.

Aisaich Hai Yaaroon Hum
Haan Bhai, Aisaich Hai Yaarooon Hum.

The Angrez / The English

'The Angrez' Disclaimer: The movie / just like this posting may not make sense to you if you haven't lived in Hyderabad or you don't appreciate the hyderabadi lingo.


you still with me !!!, go ahead ,chill out
I actually watched loads of interesting movies over the long dasara weekend and one movie i strongly recommend is "The Angrez" , literally means "The English" Not to worry , it's not another movie against the british empire. This one is a low budget movie ( 7 million Rs budget i was told) , set in hyderabad
The movie shows the clash between the two worlds - NRI and Old City
NRIs (referred to as angrez ) and a small time gang from old city form the main two groups and then there is another group of kidnappers to add to the fun ...
the movie is absolute yummy , esp if you love the taste of hyderabadi hindi,life,food etc

Hyderabadi hindi ??? - A fantastic mix of Hindi, Urdu and Telugu spoken, of course, in and around Hyderabad Hyderabadi lifestyle??? - a chill out life as I call it , one of the character in the movies puts it perfectly "in Hyderabad 10 minutes means 40 minutes"
the movie even got a rap solo called Hyderabad biryani , by a Nigerian singer ,on Hyderabad
pretty interesting lyrics like:
“Check out a Telugu movie to see the heroine,
figure out a pub where I can zero in,
DJ cold rocks the joint and everybody's hearty...
but cops already at the door and wanna stop the party... "

Nikkil the director says he had spent two full years doing the rounds of the old city gallies in search of the Hyderabadi humour. "Film's dialogues took shape during these trips — in an Irani hotel, at the bus station, in the sabzi mandi. Even those who acted in the film are true blue Hyderabadis and never forayed into films before." http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/07/stories/2005120718480200.htm

I was desperately searching for 'angrez' VCDs in mumbai last month and could'nt get them there.
now that internship brings me to Hyd,i could get the CD finally
Many of you must have seen "Hyderabad Blues" , and Angrez is another chota-budget movie on the same theme ,what else , Hyderabad ,but a lot better and closer to the hyderabadi dhadkan.
While Blues takes an NRI view of Hyderabad , Angrez takes a Hyderabadi view of NRIs and i must admit i just loved "Angrez"
The movie is basically about clash of two worlds - the old hyderabad or the old city as we know and the new Hyderabad (call centres ,discos , NRIs ... etc ) The old-city gang of salim ,ismail etc steal the show with their slang,attitude to life ,..
To me, it reminded me of my school days (All Saints High School ) at abids, ( arguably ) the heart of hyderabad as we used to believe, some may claim its charminar !
and the dialogoues feature best of hyderabadi hindi
others in bollywood like mehmood and govinda did try a bit of hyderabadi hindi in their movies ,but it never felt authentic - and any hyderabadi will tell you that
just watch this movie for a glimpse into the lives of hyderabadis

Gentlemen and Ladies , a true blue Hyderabadi movie !!

Large company Smaller Profile vs Small company Larger Profile

A friend of mine , a freshly minted MBA ,mailed this to me last week, "What strikes me about #xyz inc# is that one can actually feel the size of the organization in everything that happens there. Security guards at every door, people don't take interest in others, crowd too large for that, long queues everywhere from cafeteria to SodexHo coupon counters. People work for a decade and are still new faces to so many in the organization...."

If you are about to finish your MBA and you are at that cross road ,called the placement season, you should ask yourself - "Large company Smaller Profile or Small company Larger Profile ?"

Off late, this one question worries me more than anything else
In fact, to the extent that i envy all those batchmates who are pretty clear (apparently! )
that they want to get into big companies - MNC or Indian or Hybrid(that would be CTS etc )
Ok, to simplify,let us consider the davids to goliaths of IT world alone
On one hand , we have the Wipros,IBMs and Cognizant's ...
and then the medium sized firms like ,say,Kanbay,Mindtree,Tech Mahindra etc
so whom do you pick ?

Am kind of at that cross road right now and the way i see it

Large company Smaller Profile gives you
Learrrning - mentors to learn from ,excellent past projects and experiences,functional experts - the real gurus of domains ...
Established process ( Assumption # 1 )
Brand name to sell to clients,potential employees (and potential employers ! )
What if its a large but a growing company - more clients and more projects and hopefully better profile 4 u

David and the Goliath - All the discussions on the imminent consolidation of Indian IT space and how a handful of big 4 to 5 may survive !

Lost in the crowd !

Job security - probably applies to some Indian companies

Small company Larger Profile gives you

No learning curve / Deep Sea diving from Day 1

Process - what's that ?

Lose out on Brand name ( generally yes )

Riches in Niches - there will always be niches for medium companies to grow

Career growth - the greatest attraction , do well and hope that the company also does well

Risk - Definitely on the higher side

Lesser job security

Visbility - You are not lost in the crowd

Visibility of success/failure is huge in a small firm

Risk premium - premium on pay for accepting the offer

The eternal question remains - small-big ? or big-small ? :(((

If i can trust my Inbox

• I win a lottery every other day ,usually EuroLottery
• Some Nigerian prince offers equity in oil blocks almost every other week
• Cameroon diaz sends mails every other fortnight
• Discounts on Encyclopedia and CDs (while am happy with wiki and google )
• and then there are the SPAM mails on preventing SPAM !!
• Promises from plastic surgeons .. xxxxxxxxx

that's just a sample of mails in my inbox

and loads of mails , censored stuff, i just cant blog about here
I must say yahoo mail does a tidy job of redirecting junk mail to junk box , where it rightfully belongs
while gmail has a long way to catch up and rediffmail is totally hopeless

( you must have noticed the bullet points ,now that's a peculiar habit commonly found among bschoolers like me )

Autumns '06 - SPJIMR strikes the winning goal yet again!!!

Here's the official word on Autumns/Project placements for 2006.Although ,i must say, am a bit surprised that some big names (In My Humble Opinion) who were there for autumns ,are missing from the official announcement. Here's part of the text published on our website. Hope , some of you find the info useful.


................. the Italian spirit found its challenger in SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, India's premier B-school, as the Institute struck the winning goal yet again and concluded its Autumns Process for the Class of 2007 with overwhelming success.

The anxiety and euphoria during the autumn's process was palpable but the outcome spelt celebrations and cheers galore. History was created yet again by the Institute as 326 offers were made to a batch of 140 students within hours of commencement of the process. If you thought that was a stupendous goal, think again for the cherry on the cake had yet to come. With more than 80% of the students bagging 2 offers or more almost every student had the luxury of choosing the project they wished to undertake. The wish-list of SPJIMR students was not limited to projects in the country alone and they managed to bag foreign offers from Singapore and Egypt as well.

The two days of the autumns process, witnessed all the big names from the Industry, be it HLL, P&G, Cadbury from FMCG, Citibank, HSBC, ICICI from BFSI and Microsoft, CTS, I-Flex from IT , TAS, KPMG to name a few. SPJIMR played host to 69 companies on campus and in the spirit of rewriting history; a record 22 companies participated in the autumn's process for the first time. Information management specialization shared the biggest piece of the offer pie with whopping 106 offers, Finance and Marketing were close at 79 and 74 respectively and operations not too far behind at 67 offers. Big Brands, multiple offers, dream companies,...................
SPJIMR, the torchbearer of innovative pedagogy believes that learning experience must result in the enhancement of the practical capabilitities of the Individual. The autumn's process is a spark of this innovative pedagogy of the institute. When most B-School students jostle for their summer projects, students at SPJIMR learn social responsibility through DOCC projects. DOCC is another innovative pedagogy in SPJIMR wherein the students are encouraged to take up social projects with NGO's ........

The Autumn Project is undertaken at SPJIMR in the second year of the PGDBM program ..............This is very well received by the Industry as the organization can derive the benefit of a student rich in maturity and experience gained from exposure to challenging, undermanaged and unstructured working environments during his/her DOCC project in summer, over and above the conceptual input............
.............................
.................

After a l........ong break

Never took such a long break away from blogging.
Guess it was the project placments and loads of work combined with a touch of laziness

Well, we had some fabulous autumns / project placments
Fin guys ,esp,considering the ibanks and pvt equity firms that were on prowl
Marketing guys had the usual suspects
Ops guys again had some good Ops consulting companies and the regular joes
(as u guys can see ,am writing the most generic blog possible without mentioning any company name ,becoz the official report from institute is yet to be released )
Info Mgmt guys again had some newer IT firms in campus, in addtion to regulars,some preferred user companies,some went to boutique / niche consulting firms ,some Indian,some MNCs ,some large ,some small,some very small ....

As the telugu quote goes - "jihva ko ruchi purre ko budhi"
And the translation goes - "each tongue has it's own taste,and each brain , it's own idea"

As for me , i picked Virtusa for internship ,a medium sized firm that has offshore units in Hyderabd,Chennai,Colombo,and clients primarily in US & UK. Gives me a chance to work in a mid-sized firm. It was a tough tough decision to opt for a mid-sized firm,so let's see how the internship goes. fingers crossed ... :))

Open Source Business Intelligence

While BI sessions by Dr Sunil Ladkawala is in full swing , I came across an open-source BI tool
DecisionStudio Professional, a desktop BI platform
Thats quite a shocker , you can practically run( ruin ! ) your business with opensource.
In fact , am planning to make an application portfolio for an imaginary organisation ,comprising only of open-source softwares
Lets see !


http://decisionstudio.com/product describes the open source software as
" an advanced and comprehensive data mining, reporting, modeling, and analysis environment that is empowering individuals and organization to actualize their highest potential through data-mining, Analytics, and Business Intelligence."

Nisheet a BI Consultant and Director at DecisionStudio has a fantastic blog on Open Source Analytics at
http://opensourceanalytics.com/category/modeling/

He blogs

"On Friday we released DecisionStudio Professional - a comprehensive and free desktop BI Platform that gives you all the tools needed for analytics under a single package licensed under GNU Public License (GPL).

DecisionStudio Professional (DSP) is an advanced graphical data mining, reporting, modeling, and analysis environment built on top of the best-of-breed open source projects. Some of these include:
— Optimized MySQL database as data warehouse platform
— SQL Workbench (MySQL Query Browser and DBDesigner) for Data Analysts
— R environment for statistical analysis and modeling
— iReport Reporting GUI and JasperReport reporting library
— Python with Boa Constructor IDE for application and GUI development

DecisionStudio Professional is the only end-to-end open source analytics platform ..
......................................."

Mumbai is falling short of blood

Those of us who think can be of some use to citizens of mumbai at this time of need, can donate blood by contacting 32566602 or we can go to Cooper hospital or even the brahmakumaris blood donation camp near andheri station.

Let's come together and try our bit to bring back the city to normalcy!

Those of us who think can be of some use to citizens of mumbai at this time of need, can donate blood by contacting 32566602 or we can go to Cooper hospital or even the brahmakumaris blood donation camp near andheri station.

Let's come together and try our bit to bring back the city to normalcy!

Death and Taxes !!!

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes"
Whoever said that, was spot on. ( Was it Benjamin franklin or another line from 'Meet Joe Black' ! )

death: too early to talk about
taxes: i am forced to blog on
Why,because every tuesday is the 'taxing' day at spjain ,we have an exam on some freakin tax : CST,VAT,CENVAT,Service tax etc and a marathon session by one of our industry faculty, again on taxes.
I sincerely hope that one day India will have just single value added taxe system - VAT, and the plight of students is eased.That would be a great news for corporates and even greater news for future MBA students with just one exam.But i guess till then , its our burden to carry on the counter attacks tuesday after tuesday after tuesday ...

There is always another option ,just do your MBA from SP Jain,Dubai campus ,hola !,Welcome to mid-east ,no taxes :)))

Bunch of 1 liners

Some one-liners i've been collecting:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
--Mahatma Gandhi

"Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety." - Plato

Keynes didn't say that.

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."
-M.K. Gandhi

The government was set to protect man from criminals and the Constitution was
written to protect man from government." Ayn Rand
Chelsea Coach Jose Mourinho on semi final champions league vs Liverpool for european
soccer fans) : "I have never lost a semi final" = result Chelsea lost tonight! bravo
Liverpool

When citizens fear the government we have a dictatorship; when the government fears the
people we have liberty." Thomas Jefferson

"In a democracy, the majority of the people are able to enforce the most cruel
repression against the minority." Edmund Burke

"A communist is a socialist who is in a hurry." G.W. Gouch

"Our primary purpose in life is to help other people. Or at least not hurt them." - the Dalai Lama

War against time : How do the dabbahwalahs do it ?

Individual Dabbahwalhs Workload

Collect tiffins from home

Belief : Work is worship
Tiffin Basket's weight : 55- 60 kg

Dabbawlahs us the good compartment of train
Our lifeline is the local train network
0% fuel
0% investment
0% tech
100 % cust satisfaction
0% disputes
99.999999 % performance


CODING SYSTEM
Say, VLP 9 EX12 E3 Dsouza on the box

VLP: Vile Parle ,a Suburh name in Mumbai
9EX12: Destination Code
EX : Express towers - building name
12: floor no
E: Code for dabbahwalah at residnetial station
3: code for destiantion station
Dsouza: Name of customer

Each grp is given a color code

Dabbawalahs on Campus : Logistics innovation for enhancing supply chain effectiveness

"I got call saying that 'Prince of London' wants to meet you,we told the phone caller with respect, if he can meet us at the churchgate railways station at 11:30 AM ,for us our customer is the prince ,we can meet him if he comes there..."

That was the president of Dabbah walah speaking

Am sure we all know of the famed Dabbahwalahs of Mumbai.Here am blogging from a guest lecture by Mr.Raghunath Medge , President of Dubbawaala Association.
The topic "Logistics innovation for enhancing supply chain effectiveness "
The lecture is must-attend for Operations majors ,but looks like i see more of Info Mgmt and Marketing majors around.

Their claim to fame
Name in Guiness books of world records
Best time mgmt with Six Sigma rating
Regd with " Ripley's believe it or not"
Prince Charles visit to Dabbahwallas of Mumbai
Richard branson travelled in the luggage compartment
Dozens of documentaries made by : BBC ,UTV, MTV, ZEE TV, AAJ TAK, TV TODAY, SAHARA SAMAY, STAR TV, CNBC TV 18, CNN, SONY TV, TV TOKYO, NDTV
Case studies by: ICFAI Press Hyderabad & Banglore,Richard Ivey School of Business - Canada

Some qwik infobits translated:
Name: Mumbai Jeevan Dabbe Bahatruk Mandal / Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Aassociation
History: Started in 1890
Trust: regd in 1956
Avg literacy rate: 8th grade schooling
Total Area covered: Upto 70 Sqkm lengthwise
Nof Of Tiffin boxes delivered: 2,00,000 tiffin boxes
i.e 4,00,000 transactions every day
No of employees: 5000
Time taken for entire operation : 3hrs per day


Mr Megde enters the room and everyone welcomes him in a thumping welcome.The last time i heard such an applause was for Kiran Bedi.He speaks in hindi.


In his own words
"
The employees are mostly illiterate ,forget ven english.
The only way we can make the system ticking is through coordination and unity
The trouble with educated people is they waste time on "what is this" & "what is that"
Each employee carries 40 boxes ,so total 5000 x 40 = 2,00,000
The pickup is as important as delivery,the empty box should come back home
Each employee is given identity card

Org Structure - every org should have it
President
VP
Gen Sec
Treasurer
Director(s)
MUKADAM(Supervisors)
Members ( 5000 employees)


Error Rate: 1 in 16 million transactions
Six Sigma Performance ( 99.999999 % )

Technology Backup : Nil
Cost of service : Rs 300/month
Std price for all ( weight,dist,space)
Rs 36,0,00,000 per annum = 6000x12x5000
"No strike" record as each one a shareholder
Earnings / employee : Rs 5000 - 6000 p.m.
Diwali(festival) Bonus: 1 month's from Customer

It all started with some people visited me in 2001,they mentioned am from Delhi from CK Prahlad
I asked them i dont know him ,who is he ?
They replied ,he is a guru.
I said "oh!"

We've come to do research on your operations
Each one of the research students were allowed to accompany an employee ,morning from 8:30 AM til the end of day,for four days

Couple of days later ,Times Of India carried anews item showing Indian president and CK Prahlad mentioned the uniqueness of the service

The students came back and took us to Delhi and we were given a certificate saying that we got six-sigma
Now what is six-sigma we asked ourselves

I asked them who else got this 6-sigma.They replied "motorola","wipro" etc

We haven't used any technology ,some corporate gave us two PC's ,they are lying in a corner

We verify if the tiffin box is enough for a person i.e. is it too heavy

My principle is ,never beg from anyone,just live happily with whatever you can earn

Discipline is important : if you are educated or uneducated like us

80 % of us are vegetaians ,most of us don't drink
A fine of 100o Rs if employee drinks ,3 times and he is removed from service
One person spoils the entire group
Not a single police case on any of our members
Rs 25 fine for not sticking to dress code

Additional serivce we offer : we distribute pamphlets along with the "Dabba"


Jai Hind! Jai Maharashtra !
"
what can i say : humble,honest,frank

Sensex blues hits campus

We have a medium sized investor gang in campus (including myself) and the mood swings of this group is usually linked to the sensex movement. One day sensex hits high and everyone's happy,sharing tips ,comparing profits,buying penny stocks and the next day there is a plunge ,and the group is in a daze with a touch of disbelief on faces.Its funny that all those sessions on Eff. market hypothesis don't matter once the bombay stock exchange bell rings.Its all down to trading,churning and burning fingers :)

It probably started off with a very small group who were investing before they came to bschool ,while they were still working in previous companies.After one year the tribe has increased ,the complexity of the transactions too with guys jumping into futures and options trading.

donkeys dont eat mangoes !!!

Its been a season of mangoes for me ,right from choice of summer project to 'solar dried mango bar ' business plan for livelihood program in my summer project and the quantities of ratnagiri alphonsos i devour every day in bombay.

Lets say the driving reasons to do my summers at byrraju foundation were : the unique rural transformation strategy of the foundation ,stay@home,happening highderabad and chance to eat some of the best mangoes.My last four summers were spent outside hyderabad and here was my chance to cover up .

One of my summer projects was a business plan on making mango bars in an energy-efficient way using forced circulation solar dryer technology.

Am back in bombay after my summer project ,but looks like the mango madness continues ,i just re-discovered the ratngiri alphonso ,considered the best variety among mangoes.

and yes i owe you guys some explanation on the title ;well, the story goes like this:
One of Mirza Ghalib’s friends Hakim Razi did not share mirza's fondness for the mango. One day Razi ud-Din was sitting in the verandah of mirza’s house when razi passed by in the lane driving a donkey. There were some mango skins lying in the road, but the donkey just sniffed at them and passed on. “u see” said Razi “even donkeys dont eat mangoes”. “Of course” replied Ghalib “donkeys dont eat them!”

Trendz 2010

Our prof for enterprise system arch, shared some of the findings from Gartner's business trends 2010

By 2010 the number of IT staff in the profession will drop by 15 percent

IT pros need expertise in multiple domains

Versataiity, cultural issues, regulatory env are some of the issues IS pros will grapple with

6/10 people affiliated with the IS organisation will assume business-facing roles.

IS professionals and leaders will have to choose between careers as technologists, technical managers and business professionals.

Choice of three potential routes before IS leaders / CIOs

Business Change Agent

IT Services Broker

IT Utility

Four domains for IT Pros

1. Tech
2. Info
3. Process
4. Relationship

The future IT landscape comprises of

• Consumer IT
• Biz Process Reconfig
• Automation
• Global Sourcing

Man Eaters of Nakuru

Just finished reading Man Eaters of Kumaon
I just love the book , i read it a long time back and this was my second reading.While the first time i was very young and enjoyed how Corbett tracked down and shot down man-eaters conveniently ignoring other details ,this time the details of life in the remote villages and corbett's narration was even appealing.

The man-eaters reminded me of my own experiences of a different kind of man-eaters ( no, not my boss),lions of nakuru. Besides flamingoes,nakuru in kenya is famous for it's leopards. In fact the leopard was the main reason that drove me to nakuru. I had seen all the big 5 except the leopard in masai mara I was dying to see the leopard,but sadly, i never spotted the leopard even in nakuru Leopards are supposed to be exteremely shy animals and avoid humans as far as possible.
Nakuru also has couple of lions.Most recently one or two lions turned into man eaters and had killed a ranger the previous week.That news was enough for us to close windows when we passed by that place where the lion encounter happened. Man eating lions are bad news for tourists,not just a danger,but as rangers look out for them and eliminate them if possible.So the lions try to avoid the jeeps and cruisers as much as possible.

But then our timing was also terrible rather stupid ,we reached nakuru town at 10:30 and then had break fast and then entered the national park around 11:30 and left at around 5 in the evening. Thats as stupid as the timing can be,sadly no one was willing to sacrifice their jolly break fast at the hilton and their early morning sleep,and by 10:30 everyone was hungry adding to the delayed brunch at nakuru town.

We tried Nyoma Choma out there at nakuru ,roasted goat is called nyoma chyoma ,its almost a staple diet in kenya Probably, next time i will consider the option of staying at the nakuru lodge and try for early morning or late night game drives (all by myself and alone). One the way to nakuru there is another lake called lake naivasha,and we thought this was lake nakuru,as lake naivasha also has lots of flamingos ,but then no lake can beat the bird spectacle of nakuru.

On return from nakuru we stopped briefly at the view point on the rift valley. The breathtaking view, as you approach Nairobi, Kenya is unforgettable. The huge expanse of the great rift, stretches for thousands of miles in either direction, stretching from the Middle East, down through Africa to Mozambique.


The painful part of kenya game drives is the huge park fees collected from non residents It costed some 2500 ksh per person for the entire trip to nakuru and the park fees itself costed another 2400 shillings (1 usd = 73 shillings).Well, I have no complaints as long as the fees is utilized properly for the maintenance of the park and does'nt go into some corrupt ranger's pockets.
Asante (thank you) and kwaheri, (goodbye) Kenya!

Every day i spend in the villages , in the godavari district (Coastal Andhra , India) ,talking to people representing various sections and communities, one thing that stood out was the desperate need for alternative livelihoods. More importantly something that was non-migratory and non-agri based in nature. That in my view is probably the toughest assignment ,especially in these regions, where people have been dependent on agriculture for generations , probably the most fertile lands in India. The biggest handicap is the fact that there is no other local livelihood to speak of ,no artisans, be it pottery or weaving or any major cottage industry to speak of , unlike rest of Andhra.

We ,at Byrraju Foundation, are now exploring the option of setting up community based tourism projects in the rural areas. The villages here , in the Godavari districts, Andhra Pradesh,India (especially in and around Konaseema ) are known for their beauty ; canals crisscrossing ,green paddy fields,coconut trees,aqua farms ...
Imagine Kerala , replace the backwaters with freshwater canals and you get Konaseema.
In fact , a friend of mine,a keralite himself , once remarked - Konaseema is like Kerala without Keralites :)

The idea is : Provide simple ,clean cottages (and clean food) in the village, (say min 6 cottages for critical mass for some common services), each one or two cottages run by a family , basically relaxation tours. Combine this with luxury boat trips (already operational by AP Tourism ) ,nearby beaches ,tents in forest islands and guided tours, massage ,yoga, some 11th century Chalukya temples etc.

Target: We are looking at Indian families in Hyderabad / Vizag who can do this over a weekend / extended weekend. The places are reachable by train/bus overnight from Hyderabad / Visakhapatnam The cost is expected to be at budget prices.

Any ideas are welcome ?

A few more pics of ... Konaseema , Godavari Delta