Renee and Tim win! LOTR, well I am yet to see it on the big screen. I wish I get to see it soon.

Im watching Lost in Translation now, between classes. We had our second beer bath yesterday. More fun than the first one. I really wish I cud get the pictures out on the net somewhere.

Talking about movies... I was going through this blog by Sidharth, after he left a comment for my previous post. Somehow his predictions for the oscars matched mine perfectly...

Quoting from his post...
Best Film : The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King

Best Direction : Peter Jackson(The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King)

Best Actor : Bill Murray(Lost in Translation) I really hope he wins :) Sean Penn in Mystic River did an excellent job but I think Bill Murray fit in so well in the movie!!

Best Actress : Should be very close between Charlize Theron(Monster) and Naomi Watts(21 Grams) but I think Charlize Theron will win

Best Supporting Actor : Though I would give it to Ken Watanabe for the 'Last Samurai' I think Tim Robbins will win this one for Mystic River.But,should be a very close fight

Best Supporting Actress : Hands down winner will be Renee Zellweger for Cold Mountain.I really dont see the Academy giving it to anyone else.

I have been a fan of tim robbins ever since shawshank redemption. Same with Renee since Bridget Jones diary and more so after chicago. I sure do hope these two win.

Its been a pretty relaxed weekend on campus. Biswajit was asking about AP first. Well, their recruitment process is not over yet. They have had a pretty long process this time around... maybe because of the impending elections too... Otherwise, half the campus is in vizag this weekend. holidaying. Thursday and friday were busy for all the weekend work had to be completed before the vacation. For the few lazy bums like me, its been an enjoyable lazy weekend, of course, intersperced with assignments :(

I completed seeing the gladiator for the umpteenth time today... I somehow don't get tired watching this movie... and everytime I see the scene where Russell crowe remove his helmet in the middle of the colosseum and says,

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the armies of
the North, general of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the
true emperor Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband
to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance in this life or
the next. "

somehow my admiration for this movie doesn't diminish... I remember, the first time I read a review of this movie, it was called "Crapus Maximus"... Hmmm...

Check out the anniversary issue of "The Smart Manager" if you are in India. The issue is about 25 top managers and the framework and research was done by a team of students at ISB. Gita Piramal's smart manager team and the ISB team did this work as an ELP project.

Well done guys.

Today I skipped a class... A crime at one point in time in my life...

looking back the past one year, if I were to be absolutely blunt with my views about classes, fellow classmates and the education I have received, I should say, things could have been better and I could have done better... Though I don't regret anything...

Looking back, I realize that the major difference between a one year program at ISB and the traditional two year program is the amount of work one has to put in. If that sounds cliched, read carefully. If one has to gain the same level of depth of knowledge and the same level of comfort and understanding that a two year program will provide, I think the average student has to put in more than twice the effort. Just to give you an example, my fellow classmates on exchange at Kellogg and lbs say they are finding the schedule there simply too relaxed for comfort. Guys at Kellogg have one class of a particular course a week, that too for an hour and 10 minutes. We have two classes per week for each course and each class if two hours. While the guys at Kellogg say they have that much more time, anyone at ISB has to work really hard if he has to keep pace with all the reading and case analysis for each class. That requires effort and self discipline. At Kellogg, these guys say, there is more than ample time to sleep and enjoy life. Of course these guys may be biased after having gone through 6 terms at ISB, but the fact still remains. No one will prosecute you if you did not do the readings. You will probably look like a dumb dodo in the class, especially if the prof calls on you out of the blue. But at the end of the day, what separates the guys who go out of ISB will the same level of preparation as the ones from a two year program is sincerity and dedication to the coursework throughout the year. That requires some serious hard work and time management.

the profs I have been under have been generally excellent. There happen to be exceptions here and there. We provide out feedback in such cases. For the profs, its a different experience teaching at ISB. They teach probably one class a week back home in the US or Europe. They probably teach only one of the semesters. At ISP, they have atleast 2-4 two hour classes every week.

my fellow students, I know many of them read this blog, have been generally amazing to be with. I had my expectations in terms of intellectual ability and maturity from which I cud gain when I came here. While there may be exceptions at times (I am sure some of them think I am an exception ;), in general, I have learnt more by observing my classmates, listening to them and getting inspired by them, than in the class room. There are people who have managed to cope up very well with the workload from the beginning. Others adapted as the year went by. Others still haven't managed and have made tradeoffs to survive. There have been classes with brilliant discussions and others as drab as it gets. There have been classes where the whole class reveled with wonderful arguments and counter arguments and others where majority did not bother to read and come. Though class experiences have fluctuated at times, most of the time, I have enjoyed the learning to the hilt.

throughout the year, I thought I had seen the best course and the best prof until I saw another one in the next term beating all records. I had been pretty satisfied with all the strategy courses I had done until the last term, but none had really excited me, also because strategy is not my favorite area. But the course last term by Prof.Phanish Puranam (LBS), on managing strategic partnerships, was so enjoyable that there were classes when I did not look at my watch even once, for I did not realize time passing by. He was unbelievable with the concepts, the way he handled cases and the way directed our discussion. Stupendous in one word.

its been a wonderful experience. I am going to miss the learning experience once I leave this place. Sometimes I wish I cud stay on for another year and relive the whole experience, with a wiser brain... If only...

A group of friends from bangalore and chennai are planning a trek to this place called nataraja gurukula, somewhere near bangalore, coming weekend. I am sooooo tempted to go, just that I dont know if all these assignments and what not are going to let me... the dumb me has picked out those courses that seem to have maximum work to do (but somehow everyone else is saying the same too ;)

Having read and read and read cases after cases after cases, I have kinda become over confident reading cases. So much so that I have a class in another one hour and i have afforded myself just 1/2 hr to read a case... Atrocious but blogging appears more interesting...

today I filled out a personal profile form for the year book... one of the questions was, "the year at ISB was..."
I wrote:
Too quick like traveling in Schumi's Ferrari. Just that this wasnt a race against each other. It is the start of super fast rally we all have undertaken together towards success.

Was pretty spontaneous... reading it later, it is indeed so true..

I got this file, karz-theme.mp3 from somewhere lying in my music folder. Listened to it today. Soft instrumental and mind boggling. Doesn't sound like the theme music from some old hindi movie called "karz"... i have to find out where i got this one from...

Btw, Kashyap, fellow student at ISB, sent this spam mail yesterday...

Subject: SPAM : Strictly for H2G2 fans only

Type this into Google and see what you get



10*answer to life the universe and everything +5



Cool or what.

I am blogging today for distraction from things bothering me... Today we had a beer bath, a first of its kind bash in SV3 (Student Village 3). We filled up one of the three mirror pools with water (ankle deep), ordered beer and went bonkers. Jumping into the water, dragging people around and of course sipping beer with pink floyd, GNR and the gang for company... I am trying to find a place where I can upload them and then link them to this place...

Just came back, in no mood to complete my assignment. Listening to a mix of music from Pukaar, Dil Chahta Hai, Hay Ram, KHNH, Nirvana Lounge, Buddha Bar, Matrix Soundtrack, Virumaandi, Chicago and GNR... :) its fun going from one genre to another as I play them in random order...

I am seriously trying my hand at poetry... I used to write poems at one point in time during my engineering days... have simply drifted away from it since then... Since this is the last month for us here at ISB, we are trying to get a year book published... I plan to write about my friends and thought a poem will be a nice way to express my feelings...

As the comment by one of the alums mentions, the course this term about Organization Design by Prof.Anand Narasimhan has been fun. He is such a chilled out and cool person that a potentially dry course like this one is made very interesting in class by his delivery style and sense of humor. When I say potentially dry course, I guess its because one can just delve into the theory of OD and bore the senses out. But this course has been very interesting thanks to the case discussions and the class structure. I have been able to relate so well to the Org structure in the companies I have worked in, more so because I worked in a small company with a simple geography based BU structure and another MNC that had a full fledged matrix structure.

Interesting comment to my tuesday post...

i once asked an iim grad- whose kids go to american schools- so why dont you even talk about them going to iit/iim- he said they just wouldn't be able to compete with the indians. wonder if that is true- indian kids raised in the U.S.A cant cut it competing against the indians from india???????

Well, I would agree with that in terms of cracking the entrance tests for IITs and IIMs. The average kid educated in India tends to be better prepared to handle the stress and the level of preparation required to clear the IIT JEE or the IIM CAT. The JEE is pretty advanced by high school standards in the USA. The CAT is extremely analytical and time sensitive. It requires a lot of prep and quick quant skills.

Having said that, I think these are primarily because of the differences in the educational systems and the culture in the two countries. Its got nothing to do with IQ. The educational system in India ensures that one learns a lot of math, science or commerce while still in high school compared to the US. Culturally too, Indians have biases towards science, engineering, medicine and CA. Undergrad options in arts and humanities are not as popular in India compared to the US, primarily because careers in such areas are not lucrative for the average Indian. Besides, Americans tend to start working while still in school but for Indians, the first job is something that comes only after atleast your undergrad degree because of which there is that much pressure to undergo an undergrad degree that can fetch you a job.

there have been quite a few questions to me abt verizon and my role there. three of us are going to verizon. they were actually interested in nine of us but six others were out of the placements process by the time the offers came. all of us will be doing program management. the role involves product + project management. the products are either internal software products that verizon uses or those that it offers as part of its solutions to its clients. I am still talking to them about the team with which I will be working. I hope to get in touch with them soon and build a rapport before I land in chennai.

the placement scene so far has been better than what we expected. there are around 20 odd students left in the process. CAS is looking out specifically for them and these people should get placed anytime soon.

There were a couple of updates on Fin and IT placements in the isb-pgp-04 yahoogroup. For those who havent seen them:

Fin:
Companies: Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Novartis, Kotak, Stern Stewart, GE, Edelweiss Capital, ICICI Bank, TCG, IDBI, HLL, TSMG, ICRA, Crisil, Shoppers Stop, GECIS, Reliance Energy, Irevna, Astra Zeneca, Avendus, Ambit Corporate Finance, Refco, ICICI One Source and more ( a few of these are in the process and there are some waiting to come)

Work Profile: Banking (Corporate/ Consumer), IBanking, Equity Research, Treasury, Private Equity, Commercial, Consulting, Derivatives, Investment Management, Portfolio Analysis etc.

Quite a few engineers with no finance background have managed to make a career shift. However, most of them had done enough work during the year by way of Independent Studies and ELPs to demonstrate their interest and ability in this area. Therefore the ELPs have helped quite a lot both in terms of learning and interfacing with companies. Also most of the companies have considered the previous work experience and have offered
lateral positions.

IT:
Companies (Includes IT/Telecom companies as well as other companies that offered such roles):
Andale, I-Flex, Infotech Enterprises, Hexaware Technologies, Hutch, KPIT Cummins, Virtusa, Symphony Services, Accenture, Philips, PCS, Caritor, Adobe, Wipro, Agilent, Reliance Infocomm, Nortel, Bharti, Kale, Satyam, Helios & Matheson, Verizon, TCS, Ramco, Novartis, Bose, Infosys, Motorola, IBM, HCL, Sun Microsystems, CTS, Wipro, Hill & Associates, PeopleSoft, NIIT, i2, Sapient, Microsoft, ITC Infotech, Techspan (Headstrong), Dell, Redhat, CSC, Kanbay

Work profile: Business Development, Client relationship management, account management, project management, product management, program management, business analyst, associate, (senior) consultant, sales/marketing, strategy(telecom), Functional consultants (domain specialists)… (that’s all I can remember)

salaries (caveat: from what I have heard, not official)
average: around 7-8
highest: around 14-15

Many lateral positions, in all the roles that I have mentioned. Non-IT background students were recruited as domain specialists in Fin, Energy, Manufacturing, Operations etc. The significant difference this year has been the increased number of offers that each company has made, consistent with the upward trend in IT hiring.

Back in hyd, this is the last term... one and a half months to go... Courses in Organizational Design, Mergers and Acquisitions, Brand Management, Knowledge Management, International Trade, Marketing implementation, Digital SCM... Tough pick for me again... Its still hard to believe that the year is almost over!

India's southwest

Im blogging from chennai. I flew AirDeccan for the first time yesterday. I had to come to chennai on short notice and the only airline that could get me a ticket in a matter of 3 hours was this one.

Southwest airlines in the US is a pioneer in cheap airlines. It is such a popular case among the profs teaching us that we all are tired of hearing a few companies that tend to get repeated sometimes. Dell, Cisco, Southwest...

Air deccan is modelled like southwest. The basic funda being they strip off all the frills and bring the cost down. At the same time, by bringing the frills down, they dont have to make their planes wait on the ground but keep them as much as possible flying, which is where the planes make maximum money for the airline. In all this, they are able to charge you a price that even the apex fares of the other airlines cant match.

I was supposed to fly by the 5:15 flight, which was scheduled to arrive in chennai at 6:45. The whole setup semed to make me feel a bit inferior at first, because I was flying a cheap airline. Having flown Jet and IA before, I was wondering how the experience is going to be.

The first indication that this was different: there is no ticket!!! I booked my ticket over the net and the printout I had was the ticket! It is all I needed to walk into the airport, straight to the check in counter. They asked me for photo identification to determine I was the guy who booked it... And then gave me the boarding pass...

Next hit: No seat numbers. I was almost tempted to say the usual, "Seat by the window please" when I remembered there these guys follow free seating... There was a Jet airways flight to bombay at the same time and somehow, there was a distinct hurry among the Jet and airport staff to help those passengers to move faster through the security check... There was just one guy representing Deccan who was very cool, even though the time was 5:10... Deccan was checking in passengers even at 5...

I was very politely asked to take a seat in the lounge along with the other passengers while the Jet patrons hurried and their plane took off just a few minutes late... We kept biding our time, the Deccan staff very cool, smiling and experiencing no hurry... This went on for 20 minutes and when I almost lost my patience, the deccan mini bus came and all of us were taken to the plane...

The plane is an ATR... It was one of those kinds that I had heard of before, the small 50 seater ones but never had the chance to fly in... Jet flies some of them in the chennai-hyd route but I had consciously avoided these until this day... So here was my chance...

the interiors were like an airbus but of course the plane itself is very small... The next interesting factoid: There was only one air hostess to manage the entire show... Actually it made sense... for such a small aircraft, it made no sense to have more than one.. This one was very good... Smart, good looking and professional... She had an artificial accent but not that it could not be tolerated... She handled the plane and the passengers very well and was in command all through...

The plane started with the usual demo by the hostess about the safety features... one thing i found very disconcerting was the fact that my window seat was just next to the wing and in an ATR, the wings are above the body... So, you can see the engine and the fan blades of the engine rotating... my paranoid thoughts kicked in to tell me that I would be the first one to see something go wrong with the engine... anyways, seat belts on and ready for take off and then i realized something even more disconcerting... the noise of the engines... I cannot listen to loud noise continously and this one wasnt easy... the ATR is positvely louder than the airbus and boeing... As the aircraft took off, the feeling was all nice, except the noise...

these planes fly at an altitude of 15-20 K feet... if i remember right, the boeings fly at around double that height... but beyond a point, i guess it really doesnt matter... but the ATR does ascend slower... that gave me a wonderful view of secunderabad...

Once at the cruising speed and altitude, the pilot talked to us and welcomed us aboard... His distinct russian like accent made me think that he may be one of those pilots from the CIS countries on hire... The noise had gone down a it but still nowhere near comfortable for the super sensitive ears of mine... I looked around to see whether the flight was full... not one extra seat!

The inflight mag, "Simplyfly" (thats their punchline too), was ok... Noticed an article about Shvetha Jaishankar and her stint at ISB... Interesting reading... There were other usual stuff, newspapers, though many randome pages were missing... the cleanup crew had not taken care of that... not that i expected it... I had an interesting book with me as a precaution... "Biography of a germ" by Arno Karlen... In case you catch hold of this book, jump straight to the 4th chapter and enjoy... I am not much of a biology fan but this one will make interesting reading for anyone fascinated by nature...

Southwest does not serve inflight meals... So I wasnt expecting any here too. The air hostess did come with a trolley and I was wondering what this one was for... Deccan actually sells food on board. At normal rates. You get plain cakes, water, juice, sandwich, brownies and cashews. None more than 10-15 bucks. That left me wondering. Why sell these at all. They might as well charge me 20 bucks more and give me a light snack. I as a passenger anyway pay 2-3 grand and an extra 20-30 bucks wudnt hurt. At least the hostess doesnt have to sell, I dont have to pay and buy. The in flight experience remains as close to a normal airline! Selling stuff for 10-20 bucks did not make sense to me at all.

The flight was uneventful otherwise. The weather outside was clear and there was no turbulence. We landed 15 minutes late. A mini bus took us from the tarmac to the departure lounge. After the usual haggling with the auto guy, I was home. It was comforting to know that I was home for dinner and comfortable sleep in my room. Contrast that with no dinner and sleep in the train. I had spent a couple of grand more (as a student, it does matter) but once in a while, it is seriously worth it. Except for the headache thanks to the constant noise, it was worth the experience. I would give Deccan a 3.5 out of 5. I will probably fly with them again.

I was taking a break to read this article on rediff: http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/09pak.htm

"I faced a dilemma pardoning Khan: Musharraf"

Could not help but laugh.

Was wondering how the world was looking at the farce of an inquiry and pardon being played out. The US and UK knew all along that Pak was doing it. They present proof, Armitage flies down to Islamabad just for that and then, all these guys get together to decide how the drama will be played out... crazy... Wonder what would have happened in India if we end up accusing Abdul Kalam. Thank heavens we are a democracy and have had relatively sensible leaders.

I finally took a call and decided to go to Verizon. Thanks to all the wishes and offers for help. It was a tough choice. I liked Sapient and the way they conducted themselves in the campus a lot. I will be going back home to chennai. I was planning to stay back for the orientation for the next class but if my joining date is in April, I guess I will have to give that a pass...

The sapient process deserves a mention. While many companies came in for one round of interview before selecting people, Sapient was sincere in going through their three round process, in which they evaluate a candidate in three different areas. They took 2 and a half days, did a case study, did three interviews and then sat with every one of us they liked to explain the offer, compensation and when we indicated that we wanted to consider the offer, immediately printed out the letter and handed it to us. Now, thats the best in terms of prompt response, professionalism and flexibility in process I have seen. Neat, no nonsense and extremely professional. Just for that one reason, Sapient was simply too tough to ignore. I have seen other companies do interviews. I have seen many disinterested faces, people in a hurry, interviewers treating students as commodities (especially the large IT companies)... This was a company that really cared about its interview process.

I went out of the placement process today, with my third offer arriving by e-mail... this whole placement process started on the 6th of Jan... since then there have been action packed weekends, hours and hours of interviews, offers, rejections, salary negotiations spanning days and days, role negotiations that broke deals, multiple offers, elated and dejected souls and what not... its been a myriad of emotions for us all to go through this... there are only 40 odd of us left without an offer... but getting an offer should never be a problem...

I have offers from HCL, Sapient and Verizon... All three are very good in terms of the role I have been offered... All of them are considering my work experience and giving me something relevant to do but at the same time, the scope to use my MBA gyaan is also high... Guess the only way I can decide will be based on location, compensation and the vibes I will get when I talk to employees in these companies... I am planning to visit Verizon sometime just to get to know the place, people and work culture before deciding... As of now, I am inclined towards Verizon, for besides everything else, their compensation crosses the 7 figure mark... (if u want to know how big the offer is, thats a big enuf hint)... Sapient is in Gurgaon, a place I always wanted to visit... I have been considering moving to the north to live there for sometime and this sounds like a very good option, besides the role being offered... The telecom vertical is growing very fast in Sapient... HCL has given me a mind blowing role in Chennai and just the promise of doing the work they have given me is making this choice difficult... All the companies have been generous enough to give me a two week time frame plus contacts into the company to talk to, to help me make an informed choice.... I have never had such liberty, time and resources at my disposal to choose between job offers... besides the booming economy, I guess I have thank my stars... touchwood...

I am in the middle of the most interesting course I have taken here in ISB... Negotiation Analysis... by Prof. Madan Pilutla from London Business School... By the way, this has been the most popular course in ISB for all the past three years... in fact, this is the only elective for which we had to have competitive bidding and some students were not allowed to take this elective as they did not get selected!!! More about the course later as I have to go to a meeting with a video tape of a negotiation we did with another team... we have to watch the video together and then write a group report about how the negotiations went...