In the very first week itself am feeling that Term3 is very hectic. Except Enterpreneurship, other 3 subjects look similar to me. Somehow landing up in calculating present values and net present values. Totally lost in the other 3 subjects. I need to figure this out in this week itself to avoid later repercussions :-D. Before we come out of term2 trauma, so many assignments lined up in term3. Thats life at ISB.
Finally marketing results of term1 are out. I didn't score well in marketing, but thats okey. I am pretty sure that I am not taking marketing as my major. I really can't see myself doing some conjoint analysis down the lane in my career. yet to finalise about electives. I should catch hold of some alumns regarding this. Let me see.
PS:I lost my mobile two days back. That was my brother's gift. So sort of feeling senti about that. Anyways no point in thinking about that right now. I could retain my same old number. Thanks to Airtel. :-)
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Term3
From tomorrow term3 is going to start. This time we have morning classes . I am habituated to sleep late and get up late from past 7 years. I used to bunk my breakfast just to sleep for some more time in my engineering days. Even my previous company timings were very odd (1 PM to 10 PM). I got used sleeping at 3 or 4 Am in the morning and getting up by 9 or 10 in the morning. I can't blame anyone for this. Its all my mind set. I just have to make my mind to think that I am a early riser. Let me see if I can succeed. But for sure I am gonna miss atleast 1 or 2 classes this term.
In this term we have
1. Enterpreneurship
2. Managerial Accounting and Decision making
3. Operations management and
4. Corporate finance.
I need to decide about my major(s) also. I am not very keen in taking IT&Tech as my major. Being a techie and taking IT major doesn't make any sense.But yet to decide. Thinking about finance and enterpreneurship as of now. Also this is the right time to start preparing resumes and analysing industries. Most of our alumns suggested to do this right from Day 1. Anyways its never too late:-). Okey more later. Adios:-D
In this term we have
1. Enterpreneurship
2. Managerial Accounting and Decision making
3. Operations management and
4. Corporate finance.
I need to decide about my major(s) also. I am not very keen in taking IT&Tech as my major. Being a techie and taking IT major doesn't make any sense.But yet to decide. Thinking about finance and enterpreneurship as of now. Also this is the right time to start preparing resumes and analysing industries. Most of our alumns suggested to do this right from Day 1. Anyways its never too late:-). Okey more later. Adios:-D
Monday, July 17, 2006
Likhthe Jao...Likhthe jao
Today our competitive strategy paper was in this way. I didn’t like the way the paper was set for this exam. As part of the competitive strategy course we studied 10 cases (Cola wars, Nucor Steel, Intel, Jollibee foods, Eli Lilly, Cisco, Dell, Walmart stores, Mckinsey and Johnson & Johnson). It is an open book exam. Basically this exam tested our written skills rather than the strategy concepts I guess. At the same time this is the first open book exam which most of us (or rather everyone) used books extensively.
Instead the paper should have been something like a case followed by few questions about case like key takeaways from the case or something of that sort. Anyways I am just glad that paper got over.
Two more to go for this term2 to get over. ;-)
Instead the paper should have been something like a case followed by few questions about case like key takeaways from the case or something of that sort. Anyways I am just glad that paper got over.
Two more to go for this term2 to get over. ;-)
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Economics
Economics is one subject which really fascinated me from term-1. Even the professors for Eco were damn good. Prof. Rakesh Vohra from Kellogg and Prof. Krishna Kumar from Duke are simply superb. They both have their own styles of teaching. As part of the course we have seen the commanding heights documentary. This is the best documentary I have ever seen.
Starting from Micro economics which took us from demand and supply relationship at firm level, industry level ended with Macro Economics which took us till speculative attacks in the economy. Previously I used to read some articles about economy. But apart from the article I read I couldn’t sense more than that like the theory behind that. Now these frameworks helped me a lot in understanding so many concepts. Global economics covered lot of topics like fiscal policy, monetary policy, foreign exchange, PPP, reserves, credibility regime, inflation , deflation, exchange fluctuations, budget deficits and surpluses, reasons for slow down in the economy, productivity shocks, currency appreciations, depreciations etc .
Here is an interesting video talk by prestowitz (president of economic strategy institute) about the impact of the return of India and china.
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/358/
US may have to face some tough times if the growth in India and china continues in the same pace. According to few research papers US is heading towards bankruptcy. But Bush administration still says its budget deficit is just 2.3pc of GDP which is smaller than UK. And another threat to US is baby boomer generation is going to retire and the expenditure on health care goes up. They may have to balance the budget by increasing the taxes.
Here is another video (funny) which is done by columbia MBA students for their skit party. The person singing in the video is pretending to be Glenn Hubbard who was one of the leading candidates to be the Chair of the Federal Reserve, but the job was instead given to Ben Bernanke.
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/everybreath/
PS: Entire 6 hour documentary of commanding heights can be viewed in the below link.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/hi/story/index.html
QuickTime needs to be installed for this. All Episodes (full 6 hour video) is available online to be watched for free.
Starting from Micro economics which took us from demand and supply relationship at firm level, industry level ended with Macro Economics which took us till speculative attacks in the economy. Previously I used to read some articles about economy. But apart from the article I read I couldn’t sense more than that like the theory behind that. Now these frameworks helped me a lot in understanding so many concepts. Global economics covered lot of topics like fiscal policy, monetary policy, foreign exchange, PPP, reserves, credibility regime, inflation , deflation, exchange fluctuations, budget deficits and surpluses, reasons for slow down in the economy, productivity shocks, currency appreciations, depreciations etc .
Here is an interesting video talk by prestowitz (president of economic strategy institute) about the impact of the return of India and china.
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/358/
US may have to face some tough times if the growth in India and china continues in the same pace. According to few research papers US is heading towards bankruptcy. But Bush administration still says its budget deficit is just 2.3pc of GDP which is smaller than UK. And another threat to US is baby boomer generation is going to retire and the expenditure on health care goes up. They may have to balance the budget by increasing the taxes.
Here is another video (funny) which is done by columbia MBA students for their skit party. The person singing in the video is pretending to be Glenn Hubbard who was one of the leading candidates to be the Chair of the Federal Reserve, but the job was instead given to Ben Bernanke.
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/everybreath/
PS: Entire 6 hour documentary of commanding heights can be viewed in the below link.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/hi/story/index.html
QuickTime needs to be installed for this. All Episodes (full 6 hour video) is available online to be watched for free.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Its my turn to get tagged
I have been tagged by my friend Kishore . Now I need to finish these fill up the blanks and tag few people. Here I go:-
I am thinking who the hell has started this. I am thinking the upside of writing this is giving some time to introspect about self
I said Excellence is not a destination, it’s a journey
I want to gift a house to my parents and I want to see them well settled
I wish all my friends get settle in their lives.
I miss all my friends and my doggie.
I hear to my mind and heart
I wonder why some people make silly things into very big issues
I regret few things in life
I am a simple girl
I dance when I am alone and when i have absolutely nothing to do
I sing when am in a peak state of happiness (but make sure no one is around me :-D)
I cry when I feel low to just forget about things and to come to normal state. But I hardly cry. Even if I cry, I cry alone
I am not perfectionist.
I write anything that comes into my mind
I hate cheating someone or getting cheated by someone
I confuse always between left and right
I need a good job after my MBA at ISB
I should work hard to achieve my goals
I finish this post with this line.
I tag
rujuta
Vinay
Prathima
Nikhil
Chaitanya
I am thinking who the hell has started this. I am thinking the upside of writing this is giving some time to introspect about self
I said Excellence is not a destination, it’s a journey
I want to gift a house to my parents and I want to see them well settled
I wish all my friends get settle in their lives.
I miss all my friends and my doggie.
I hear to my mind and heart
I wonder why some people make silly things into very big issues
I regret few things in life
I am a simple girl
I dance when I am alone and when i have absolutely nothing to do
I sing when am in a peak state of happiness (but make sure no one is around me :-D)
I cry when I feel low to just forget about things and to come to normal state. But I hardly cry. Even if I cry, I cry alone
I am not perfectionist.
I write anything that comes into my mind
I hate cheating someone or getting cheated by someone
I confuse always between left and right
I need a good job after my MBA at ISB
I should work hard to achieve my goals
I finish this post with this line.
I tag
rujuta
Vinay
Prathima
Nikhil
Chaitanya
Saturday, July 08, 2006
MBA Jargons
I was just talking to one of my friends, who is working in Chicago. She was saying that she could see lot of change in my language in terms of using jargon. She says MBA is nothing but seeing the simple life in a complex view and making things unnecessarily complex. We had a healthy debate on this for almost 45 minutes. She might be true in saying that MBA’s use jargons a lot but yes, they don’t see simple things in a complex manner. In fact they make your life simple. I just said forget how people are seeing it. Ultimately we need the solution at the end of the day for any problem. Whatever may be the approach, at the end of the day we need an optimal solution. He/she who succeeds in this is the actual winner.
Few jargons:-
Incentive: - This is the most important thing for anyone for doing anything under the sky. Life just moves on with incentives. People may argue that there are many things in the world that just moves without incentive. But if you look at them carefully there will be some incentive. I know by now you might have started thinking about Non-profit organizations. They may not work for profit but yes, there is an incentive for them to work for fame or an incentive of self-satisfaction.
Trade-off:- Everyone might have done some trade-off before choosing anything. May be they might not have used the word trade-off but they might have did this in their day to day life. When we have two choices in our hand how do you think we choose one finally. We may do lot of trade-off between them, try to find out which gives us more incentive to go ahead, do some calculations if any, weigh the pros and cons of both and see the long run profitability and then we finally choose one.
Few more jargons like marginal, strategy, Core competencies, Competitive advantage, Optimize
The list goes on and on. I may come up with few more interesting jargons as I move further in my MBA.
Few jargons:-
Incentive: - This is the most important thing for anyone for doing anything under the sky. Life just moves on with incentives. People may argue that there are many things in the world that just moves without incentive. But if you look at them carefully there will be some incentive. I know by now you might have started thinking about Non-profit organizations. They may not work for profit but yes, there is an incentive for them to work for fame or an incentive of self-satisfaction.
Trade-off:- Everyone might have done some trade-off before choosing anything. May be they might not have used the word trade-off but they might have did this in their day to day life. When we have two choices in our hand how do you think we choose one finally. We may do lot of trade-off between them, try to find out which gives us more incentive to go ahead, do some calculations if any, weigh the pros and cons of both and see the long run profitability and then we finally choose one.
Few more jargons like marginal, strategy, Core competencies, Competitive advantage, Optimize
The list goes on and on. I may come up with few more interesting jargons as I move further in my MBA.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Gone are the Days
Got up at 10:30 Am in the morning. Had a nice Aalu paratha. Then went to a movie. After that lunch in a restaurant with friends. Came back to home. Slept for another two hours. Then again went outside with friends. Had pani puri and chat. Still so much of time left in the day. Nothing much to work. Suddenly one of my friends called me up just to say “Good Morning Anu”. Got up from bed just to realize all that was a DREAM.
Sometimes Dreams will be good only if they remain as dreams. Do you guys think I can enjoy my life if that dream comes true? No way! I will just get bored with that life. May be for 2 days I may enjoy. But definitely not even if it is for one week.
I miss my childhood days. I miss my Engineering days. I miss those days I worked in my previous company. I am sure after one year I will say I miss those days at ISB.
Wondering what happened to me? Guess what!!!!! Today is my birthday. As per the tradition I got dunked last night. I really don't have any idea where I will be celebrating my next birthday. Yup ofcourse time will tell.
Those who wanted to apply to ISB can visit the below link to know more about the schedule and other details:
http://isb.edu/pgp/visit/admissions_important_schedule.asp
There was an interesting article ( "B-School: How different is ISB?" ) about ISB in Rediff. Check out the below link if u guys wanna read.
http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/jul/03isb.htm
Another article in rediff, which is an interview with the admission director of ISB:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/jul/04inter.htm
PS: Today is my Mom’s birthday too
Sometimes Dreams will be good only if they remain as dreams. Do you guys think I can enjoy my life if that dream comes true? No way! I will just get bored with that life. May be for 2 days I may enjoy. But definitely not even if it is for one week.
I miss my childhood days. I miss my Engineering days. I miss those days I worked in my previous company. I am sure after one year I will say I miss those days at ISB.
Wondering what happened to me? Guess what!!!!! Today is my birthday. As per the tradition I got dunked last night. I really don't have any idea where I will be celebrating my next birthday. Yup ofcourse time will tell.
Those who wanted to apply to ISB can visit the below link to know more about the schedule and other details:
http://isb.edu/pgp/visit/admissions_important_schedule.asp
There was an interesting article ( "B-School: How different is ISB?" ) about ISB in Rediff. Check out the below link if u guys wanna read.
http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/jul/03isb.htm
Another article in rediff, which is an interview with the admission director of ISB:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/jul/04inter.htm
PS: Today is my Mom’s birthday too
Friday, June 30, 2006
Editor's Round Table at ISB
The students of the Indian School of Business, are organising a Mega event - the “Editors’ Round Table” being held on Saturday, July 1, 2006 at the ISB. The event will be held from 2:15 pm to 4:45 pm at the Khemka Auditorium.
The topic of discussion for the Round Table is:
Is the lack of political involvement amongst the youth a threat to economic growth?
We have invited interesting speakers for the Round Table and they are:
Alam Srinivas – Editor, Outlook Group
Kaveree Bamzai – Executive Editor, India Today
CRL Narasimhan - Associate Editor, The Hindu
Kumar Ketkar - Chief Editor, Indian Express Group
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha – Deputy Editor, Businessworld
In a world where professional preferences take precedence over political opinion, and political involvement is restricted to sporadic and half-hearted expressions of solidarity over individual issues - like the recent increase in reservation - the health of the Indian polity is seriously under threat. When political opinion can change the course of countries, it is disheartening to see the world's largest democracy lounge in political decadence; with the youth not doing much to change it. We hope to generate a healthy debate on this subject and sensitise the Indian youth to issues that have the power to influence our future. It will be a pleasure to have you participate in the interactive session during the Round Table.
If anyone interested in participating you can register at
www.isb.edu/RoundTable2006/register.html
The topic of discussion for the Round Table is:
Is the lack of political involvement amongst the youth a threat to economic growth?
We have invited interesting speakers for the Round Table and they are:
Alam Srinivas – Editor, Outlook Group
Kaveree Bamzai – Executive Editor, India Today
CRL Narasimhan - Associate Editor, The Hindu
Kumar Ketkar - Chief Editor, Indian Express Group
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha – Deputy Editor, Businessworld
In a world where professional preferences take precedence over political opinion, and political involvement is restricted to sporadic and half-hearted expressions of solidarity over individual issues - like the recent increase in reservation - the health of the Indian polity is seriously under threat. When political opinion can change the course of countries, it is disheartening to see the world's largest democracy lounge in political decadence; with the youth not doing much to change it. We hope to generate a healthy debate on this subject and sensitise the Indian youth to issues that have the power to influence our future. It will be a pleasure to have you participate in the interactive session during the Round Table.
If anyone interested in participating you can register at
www.isb.edu/RoundTable2006/register.html
Monday, June 26, 2006
Mumbai Dabbawalahs
Just two days back we had an interactive session with Mumbai Dabbawala association. They spoke about their clock-wise efficiency, low-cost operations. They are really experts at supply chain management. These people are really famous for their clockwise precision in supplying meals and were recently accorded a six sigma performance rating. They have only one error in 6 million deliveries.
What is that really so interesting about them?
Out of 5000 work-force very few understand English. They don't even understand the terms logistics, supply chain management etc. Delivering almost 2 lakh lunch boxes everyday using cycles and local trains and with perfect accuracy of time without using any technology is not the easy thing. Everyone is a share holder in the entire supply chain irrespective of the potential they have or the position they are in.
The few funny comments made by Raghunath Medge (Association President) and Gangaram Talekar in the presentation are
"We didn't even know the six sigma certification given to us. When we were told about it, we wondered what metal sigma was, gold or silver,"
"When we got a call from London that Prince Charles would like to meet us during his visit in Mumbai, we said he could meet us at Churchgate station at 11.10 am as we could not disrupt our regular operations,"
"I don't understand terms like logistics, supply chain or time accuracy...I just know my work is to deliver lunch boxes on time,"
The presentation was very humorous and inspiring. There is lot to learn from these guys. A long way to go. Hats off to Dabbawalahs for their dedicated work.
Here are the few newspaper clippings which covered about Mumbai Dabbawalah's presentation:

Now slowly these dabbawalah's are also becoming tech savvy. They recently launched an SMS service to expnd its customer base.
What is that really so interesting about them?
Out of 5000 work-force very few understand English. They don't even understand the terms logistics, supply chain management etc. Delivering almost 2 lakh lunch boxes everyday using cycles and local trains and with perfect accuracy of time without using any technology is not the easy thing. Everyone is a share holder in the entire supply chain irrespective of the potential they have or the position they are in.
The few funny comments made by Raghunath Medge (Association President) and Gangaram Talekar in the presentation are
"We didn't even know the six sigma certification given to us. When we were told about it, we wondered what metal sigma was, gold or silver,"
"When we got a call from London that Prince Charles would like to meet us during his visit in Mumbai, we said he could meet us at Churchgate station at 11.10 am as we could not disrupt our regular operations,"
"I don't understand terms like logistics, supply chain or time accuracy...I just know my work is to deliver lunch boxes on time,"
The presentation was very humorous and inspiring. There is lot to learn from these guys. A long way to go. Hats off to Dabbawalahs for their dedicated work.
Here are the few newspaper clippings which covered about Mumbai Dabbawalah's presentation:


Now slowly these dabbawalah's are also becoming tech savvy. They recently launched an SMS service to expnd its customer base.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
que pasa?
Buenos dias (Gud Morning) . Wondering what is this. Some of you might have figured out by now. Yes, I am learning the spanish language. Basically I love learning languages.(That doesn't mean that i know many languages). I know telugu, English, Bit of Hindi, Bit of tamil, Lil Bit of malayalam. In my previous company there are people from different regions like West bengal, orissa. From them I used to learn few words and reiterate those words. I used to have lot of fun talking to them with the very few words I know, in their respective languages. Of course I miss all that now. Anyways am learning spanish to compensate that. I guess I took a good decision to learn the spanish language. Many of my friends asked me where the hell I get time to learn languages. 4 hrs in the weekend is ofcourse a big chunk of time. But I felt, out of the hectic schedule and the trauma we face, this kind of course gives us some pleasure and fun. Trust me guys! Its really fun. But yes even this course has mid-term and end-term:-D
This term is quite hectic than term1. Markstrat is taking almost half of the term2's time. We are supposed to take 7 decisions for markstrat. Till now we finished only first decision. BTW our firm is performing pretty good in the markstrat world and we stand 3rd in the entire markstrat world of 90 firms (As of now). Hope we continue the same for the coming periods too.
Till term1 we used to have assignment deadlines by morning 8 or 8:45. So most of us used to finish the assignments by 2 or 3 in the morning and submit them at that odd hours. But yesterday we have got the DMOP assignment deadline at 12AM. I have seen many people catching their assignments and running at 11:59PM. LRC was totally crowded with the people waiting for their prints at the LRC printer. Check the snap of the log of the LRC printer. This is just the sample.
Loads of work to do. :-(
Adios. Hasta luego (Bye. See you later)
PS: Que pasa? means Wassup?
Markstrat decisions is nothing like fixing some key values to your product attributes, allocating some R&D Budget, allocating the sales force, distribution channels, targeting the proper segments, fixing the price, deciding on production of number of units for each brand etc etc.
This term is quite hectic than term1. Markstrat is taking almost half of the term2's time. We are supposed to take 7 decisions for markstrat. Till now we finished only first decision. BTW our firm is performing pretty good in the markstrat world and we stand 3rd in the entire markstrat world of 90 firms (As of now). Hope we continue the same for the coming periods too.
Till term1 we used to have assignment deadlines by morning 8 or 8:45. So most of us used to finish the assignments by 2 or 3 in the morning and submit them at that odd hours. But yesterday we have got the DMOP assignment deadline at 12AM. I have seen many people catching their assignments and running at 11:59PM. LRC was totally crowded with the people waiting for their prints at the LRC printer. Check the snap of the log of the LRC printer. This is just the sample.

Loads of work to do. :-(
Adios. Hasta luego (Bye. See you later)
PS: Que pasa? means Wassup?
Markstrat decisions is nothing like fixing some key values to your product attributes, allocating some R&D Budget, allocating the sales force, distribution channels, targeting the proper segments, fixing the price, deciding on production of number of units for each brand etc etc.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Markstrat & Lemonade
Markstrat is the simulation of the real business phenomenon particularly the strategic marketing phenomenon. We were divided into groups and each group represents a firm. E ach firm faces a competitive environment in which four other firms operate similarly. We have to make strategic decisions like brand portfolio, product design, distribution, pricing, advertising, salesforce, Segmentation& positioning strategy, R&D etc under uncertainity. We were given certain budget and we have to allocate the budget intelligently or rather i should say strategically. In the process of this simulation, we have to make 7 decisions about our product characteristics, budget allocation etc stuff.
I am sure this will be pretty interesting as this is just the simulation of real market. Every group will be eager to see the firm's results at the end of the period (after every decision) and the profits/losses they make. But this is gonna take most of the term2's time.
I remember playing Lemonade game few months back which is also just a simulation of real market. But there are no competitors in that game. Its just a monopoly. My highest profit was some $143. If you guys wanna play that game follow the link:
http://schools.nycenet.edu/d75/his/shack/games/
lemonade/lemonade.html
You will have complete control of the inventory, supplies, pricing, quality etc. Based on the weather, price you charge and the quality of your product your product gets sold. Believe me this is really an interesting game. When i played the game for the first time I could just make some $35 I think. See whether there is a budding enterpreneur in you. Report back your profits if possible:-)
I am sure this will be pretty interesting as this is just the simulation of real market. Every group will be eager to see the firm's results at the end of the period (after every decision) and the profits/losses they make. But this is gonna take most of the term2's time.
I remember playing Lemonade game few months back which is also just a simulation of real market. But there are no competitors in that game. Its just a monopoly. My highest profit was some $143. If you guys wanna play that game follow the link:
http://schools.nycenet.edu/d75/his/shack/games/
lemonade/lemonade.html
You will have complete control of the inventory, supplies, pricing, quality etc. Based on the weather, price you charge and the quality of your product your product gets sold. Believe me this is really an interesting game. When i played the game for the first time I could just make some $35 I think. See whether there is a budding enterpreneur in you. Report back your profits if possible:-)
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Term2
From tomorrow our term2 starts. Good thing about term2 is our classes will be in the afternoon. I am sure most of our section guys crib about this term's class timings as the classes immediately start after the lunch. May be with two cups of tea in the two breaks I can overcome sleep.
Four subjects in this term are:-
1. Competitive strategy (CSTR)
2. Marketing Decision making(MKDM)
3. Decision models and optimization (DMOP)
4.Global Economics.(GLEC)
I am sure I enjoy the subject Global Economics. From the size of the coursepack of competitive strategy, i can say that we are gonna learn many things about strategy, competitive advantage, strategic moves etc. We need to do 10 cases for this subject. One thing which really pricks me is all the 10 cases are american cases. They could have added few Indian cases in the study. Anyways no one is stopping me to read the extra case right! (But where the hell i get time to read. Newazzz for sure i will manage myself to read. Lemme see).
And in the Marketing decision making, I think the markstrat will be interesting. This will be as interesting as the marketing management of term1. And the last subject for the term- Decision models and optimization. Looks this is Quant oriented subject with some statistics involved. Till now i didn't even look at the index of this subject. Getting scared by seeing the size of the coursepack itself.
Just few hours back I came to the campus. Need to read one case and few pages from the course pack for CSTR. Feeling sleepy, but..... can't help. Will try to finish the case atleast for now.
Four subjects in this term are:-
1. Competitive strategy (CSTR)
2. Marketing Decision making(MKDM)
3. Decision models and optimization (DMOP)
4.Global Economics.(GLEC)
I am sure I enjoy the subject Global Economics. From the size of the coursepack of competitive strategy, i can say that we are gonna learn many things about strategy, competitive advantage, strategic moves etc. We need to do 10 cases for this subject. One thing which really pricks me is all the 10 cases are american cases. They could have added few Indian cases in the study. Anyways no one is stopping me to read the extra case right! (But where the hell i get time to read. Newazzz for sure i will manage myself to read. Lemme see).
And in the Marketing decision making, I think the markstrat will be interesting. This will be as interesting as the marketing management of term1. And the last subject for the term- Decision models and optimization. Looks this is Quant oriented subject with some statistics involved. Till now i didn't even look at the index of this subject. Getting scared by seeing the size of the coursepack itself.
Just few hours back I came to the campus. Need to read one case and few pages from the course pack for CSTR. Feeling sleepy, but..... can't help. Will try to finish the case atleast for now.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
End of the Beginning
Today is the last day for term1 and we have our term1 exams on coming monday and tuesday. Yes! 2 subjects per day. We learnt a lot in this short period. All the 4 subjects are helpful and we can use this knowledge in real time scenarios. I will try to give the gist of all the 4 subjects.
Marketing:- All we learnt in this subject is, how to market your product, which customers to target, what is the right time to launch your product, how you will be able to differentiate your product, At what price you should sell your product. what is the customer life time value, What is the economic value for your prodcut etc etc. In short marketing is all about serving the consumer needs in a mutual beneficial manner. We did 4 cases in marketing which covered all the main topics of marketing. Ofcourse still there is lot more to learn in marketing.
Small example which we noticed while we are doing our assignment in a group room. There were different markers in the room. On one marker it is written as "Please replace the cap after use". On other marker it is written something like "It can sustain for more than 24 hours without cap". This is nothing but product differentiation right :-)
Micro Economics:- This subject is very interesting. Ofcourse lot of calculus involved in the first half. The main topics we discussed here is Opportunity cost, Marginal costs, Consumer and producer surplus, Monopoly, Oligopoly, Game theory. Generally when we have two options, we choose the option which gives more profit. But while calculating the cost, we never consider the cost we are foregoing by not choosing the other option. That is nothing but opportunity cost.
For Eg: Cost of our education at ISB is 13+1.5+1+miscellaneous = 16 lakhs. What is the cost of not coming to ISB. Our usual salary. On average 5 lakhs(p.a). So the total cost of MBA at ISB is around 21 lakhs. My God!!!!
I cannot explain you all the concepts here. But believe me this subject is really interesting particularly the last concept Game theory.
Financial Accounting:- This subject covered all the basic concepts of accounting, like the 3 financila statements, depreciations, amortizations, depletions, Stocks, Inventory, Bonds,Leases etc stuff. I don't need to tell the importance of accounting in the real life. Without accounting its tough to survive.
Still am not confident in this subject. I guess i need to work hard in this.
Statistics:- Though this subject initially was very confusing (atleast to me) now am able to understand this subject well. It is all about sampling, regressions etc stuff. Statistics helps a lot when we need to estimate or predict, or how to pick up the samples, how to do regression analysis on the samples, how to analyse the results etc.
But don't you think we are bombarded with too much stuff. As I said before, if we are able to finish everything on time, including pre-reads, post reads etc then there is no need to worry at all. Or atleast if one can listen well and concentrate in the class lectures then its fine.
Apart from academics what all we learnt in this short duration:
1. Getting ready in 5-7 minutes. I mean to say getting up from bed at 8:35 and being there in the class by 8:45.
2. Finishing the work perfectly (bug free code i mean) in the11th hour.
3. Taking the photograph of the notes rather than writing it.
4. Giving good excuses if we fail in any work.
5. Sleeping in the class by keeping laptops open or by keeping cap (As Mr. G do in the class usually).
...
....
Lot more to write.
For now I will end it here, as i need to do lot in accounting.
Marketing:- All we learnt in this subject is, how to market your product, which customers to target, what is the right time to launch your product, how you will be able to differentiate your product, At what price you should sell your product. what is the customer life time value, What is the economic value for your prodcut etc etc. In short marketing is all about serving the consumer needs in a mutual beneficial manner. We did 4 cases in marketing which covered all the main topics of marketing. Ofcourse still there is lot more to learn in marketing.
Small example which we noticed while we are doing our assignment in a group room. There were different markers in the room. On one marker it is written as "Please replace the cap after use". On other marker it is written something like "It can sustain for more than 24 hours without cap". This is nothing but product differentiation right :-)
Micro Economics:- This subject is very interesting. Ofcourse lot of calculus involved in the first half. The main topics we discussed here is Opportunity cost, Marginal costs, Consumer and producer surplus, Monopoly, Oligopoly, Game theory. Generally when we have two options, we choose the option which gives more profit. But while calculating the cost, we never consider the cost we are foregoing by not choosing the other option. That is nothing but opportunity cost.
For Eg: Cost of our education at ISB is 13+1.5+1+miscellaneous = 16 lakhs. What is the cost of not coming to ISB. Our usual salary. On average 5 lakhs(p.a). So the total cost of MBA at ISB is around 21 lakhs. My God!!!!
I cannot explain you all the concepts here. But believe me this subject is really interesting particularly the last concept Game theory.
Financial Accounting:- This subject covered all the basic concepts of accounting, like the 3 financila statements, depreciations, amortizations, depletions, Stocks, Inventory, Bonds,Leases etc stuff. I don't need to tell the importance of accounting in the real life. Without accounting its tough to survive.
Still am not confident in this subject. I guess i need to work hard in this.
Statistics:- Though this subject initially was very confusing (atleast to me) now am able to understand this subject well. It is all about sampling, regressions etc stuff. Statistics helps a lot when we need to estimate or predict, or how to pick up the samples, how to do regression analysis on the samples, how to analyse the results etc.
But don't you think we are bombarded with too much stuff. As I said before, if we are able to finish everything on time, including pre-reads, post reads etc then there is no need to worry at all. Or atleast if one can listen well and concentrate in the class lectures then its fine.
Apart from academics what all we learnt in this short duration:
1. Getting ready in 5-7 minutes. I mean to say getting up from bed at 8:35 and being there in the class by 8:45.
2. Finishing the work perfectly (bug free code i mean) in the11th hour.
3. Taking the photograph of the notes rather than writing it.
4. Giving good excuses if we fail in any work.
5. Sleeping in the class by keeping laptops open or by keeping cap (As Mr. G do in the class usually).
...
....
Lot more to write.
For now I will end it here, as i need to do lot in accounting.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Only two lists
Today we got the Eco midterm marks. So many surprises, disappointments etc etc in the campus. Everyone started sharing their marks and comparing with others. Highest mark is 45 and lowest is 8. Mean is 24.2715 (yes 4 decimal accuracy) and median is 24. Even the standard deviation is given. It is 7.38484 (5 decimal accuracy).
People who got above 35 are 12% of the class. Might be the dean listers. What about the rest of the batch. Black listers!!! So if someone is not in the dean list(<35) then there is no difference between a guy who got 34 and who got 20. Is it so??? For now, I can't agree with this. May be not much difference between 34 and 30. But certainly there is a huge difference between 34 and 12 right??? Ofcourse MBA is not just getting a good CGPA. It is all about how well you are able to equip with the tools and frameworks and how well you can apply them in the real scenarios.
I don't want to reveal my marks to my parents and make them scared. I just pray god that they should not enquire my marks. Let me see if I can do better in my end term. Chalo anu padaaii karo.
People who got above 35 are 12% of the class. Might be the dean listers. What about the rest of the batch. Black listers!!! So if someone is not in the dean list(<35) then there is no difference between a guy who got 34 and who got 20. Is it so??? For now, I can't agree with this. May be not much difference between 34 and 30. But certainly there is a huge difference between 34 and 12 right??? Ofcourse MBA is not just getting a good CGPA. It is all about how well you are able to equip with the tools and frameworks and how well you can apply them in the real scenarios.
I don't want to reveal my marks to my parents and make them scared. I just pray god that they should not enquire my marks. Let me see if I can do better in my end term. Chalo anu padaaii karo.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Split Personality!!!!
After giving the mid term exams, don't know what really happened to me. One of my friend is saying that i had split personality. When the mid term exams got over, everyone (excluding the muggu club members) is glad just because they are over and all started partying, enjoying,cribbing about Eco paper etc etc. I really don't know what happened to me. I just came back to room and seriously opened the accounting book and started reading. No No I am not a maggu club member. Might be the mid term repercussion. :-? And all of a sudden I started giving gyan to my friend it seems.
I will be more glad if the same split personality stay with me till this term get over. Hardly 13 days for term exams. I don't want to screw my end term exams. But anyways great lesson learnt from the mid term. Lot of assignments to be done this week, which are due by wednesday 8:45 Am. Ok chalo then back to work:-)
PS: BTW I changed my blog lil bit. I added some music also. I know this music is lil boring. But not getting time to collect some pleasant music. Once I get that I will update my blog. Now don't ask me where the heck you are getting time to update the blog :-D
I will be more glad if the same split personality stay with me till this term get over. Hardly 13 days for term exams. I don't want to screw my end term exams. But anyways great lesson learnt from the mid term. Lot of assignments to be done this week, which are due by wednesday 8:45 Am. Ok chalo then back to work:-)
PS: BTW I changed my blog lil bit. I added some music also. I know this music is lil boring. But not getting time to collect some pleasant music. Once I get that I will update my blog. Now don't ask me where the heck you are getting time to update the blog :-D
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Mid-Term Fever
Before everyone of us started thinking about the term1 start and its subjects, half of the term already got over. Coming friday we have the mid term exams. Fortunately/unfortunately we have mid term exams for only 2 subjects (Eco and stats). Now all the 422 students joined the maggu club and the membership holds good until this friday evening. Now we started thinking the impact of assignments. Yes,Assignments do help us.
Statistics looks confusing or may be i am feeling so. People who don't know anything about statistics looks relaxed. People who know everything about stats also looks relaxed. People (like me) who knows certain concepts are in deeper trouble trying to figure out how to calculate p-value, what is the use of t-statistic and z-statistic. We are trying to figure out what to write the cheat sheet even :-D
Economics is too much of quantitative stuff mainly calculus. But the concepts are interesting. It is an open book exam. But just think, given just 90 minutes time, where the hell you get time to open the book and search for a problem. Here again the problem is, the more examples we work out the more confident we feel. But how to define "more examples". How many problems one need to work out. We statisticians deals only with numbers. :-D
Exams are very common here at ISB. Just imagine one's life with full of pre-reads, post-reads, assignments, club meetings, group meetings, backlogs, mid-term exams, end-term exams, parties, hangovers and last but not the least ..filling the excel sheets:-D. And all this just within a year (Huh!).I am pretty sure that everyone of us enjoys every moment at ISB.
After learning too much of statistics, I just feel like defining the null hypothesis about myself. Yeah! U heard right! It's about me.
H0: Anu doesn't know statistics -Null ypothesis
Ha: Anu knows statistics well. -Alternate hypothesis
Will let you guys know whether to accept/reject the null hypothesis after the mid term exam.
PS: Cheat sheet is the A4 size paper which will be allowed to take with us in the exam. You can write anything under the sky in that paper.
Statistics looks confusing or may be i am feeling so. People who don't know anything about statistics looks relaxed. People who know everything about stats also looks relaxed. People (like me) who knows certain concepts are in deeper trouble trying to figure out how to calculate p-value, what is the use of t-statistic and z-statistic. We are trying to figure out what to write the cheat sheet even :-D
Economics is too much of quantitative stuff mainly calculus. But the concepts are interesting. It is an open book exam. But just think, given just 90 minutes time, where the hell you get time to open the book and search for a problem. Here again the problem is, the more examples we work out the more confident we feel. But how to define "more examples". How many problems one need to work out. We statisticians deals only with numbers. :-D
Exams are very common here at ISB. Just imagine one's life with full of pre-reads, post-reads, assignments, club meetings, group meetings, backlogs, mid-term exams, end-term exams, parties, hangovers and last but not the least ..filling the excel sheets:-D. And all this just within a year (Huh!).I am pretty sure that everyone of us enjoys every moment at ISB.
After learning too much of statistics, I just feel like defining the null hypothesis about myself. Yeah! U heard right! It's about me.
H0: Anu doesn't know statistics -Null ypothesis
Ha: Anu knows statistics well. -Alternate hypothesis
Will let you guys know whether to accept/reject the null hypothesis after the mid term exam.
PS: Cheat sheet is the A4 size paper which will be allowed to take with us in the exam. You can write anything under the sky in that paper.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
GSB elections & SPAM
I am not sure who will win in our GSB elections, but we poor souls are ending with so much of SPAM in the mail boxes.
The funny thing is someone sending a spam mail saying that please don't send spam :-) . Even after so much of spam I can show you atleast 20 people who even doesn't know the nominees. This tells how the guys are campaigning. Or to put in other words, those 20 ppl category doesn't care what is going on in the campus apart from the acads :-D. Might be muggu club members.
But the surprising thing is, so many people are making things complicated and unnecessary issues. I guess all this problems will be solved if the nominess themselves take care and start their effective campaigning.
The basic qualities what everyone expects from a GSB president is, he/she should be someone who is easily approachable. Since he/she will be representing the ISB student body, he/she should have the knack of getting things done, good conflict resolution skills, decision making skills etc etc. Just to say in a simpler words he/she should be a perfect leader. But in the short duration, how can we judge whether a particular person is so and so. Thats where we voters should develop good judgement skills. :-D. Hope this GSB elections will go smoothly without any conflicts (unlike the real time elections).
Coming to the academic front, as I said in my previous post, we have submitted the ECO assignment, just an hour back. In accounting Quiz most of us scored 83 out of 83. Cool!
The funny thing is someone sending a spam mail saying that please don't send spam :-) . Even after so much of spam I can show you atleast 20 people who even doesn't know the nominees. This tells how the guys are campaigning. Or to put in other words, those 20 ppl category doesn't care what is going on in the campus apart from the acads :-D. Might be muggu club members.
But the surprising thing is, so many people are making things complicated and unnecessary issues. I guess all this problems will be solved if the nominess themselves take care and start their effective campaigning.
The basic qualities what everyone expects from a GSB president is, he/she should be someone who is easily approachable. Since he/she will be representing the ISB student body, he/she should have the knack of getting things done, good conflict resolution skills, decision making skills etc etc. Just to say in a simpler words he/she should be a perfect leader. But in the short duration, how can we judge whether a particular person is so and so. Thats where we voters should develop good judgement skills. :-D. Hope this GSB elections will go smoothly without any conflicts (unlike the real time elections).
Coming to the academic front, as I said in my previous post, we have submitted the ECO assignment, just an hour back. In accounting Quiz most of us scored 83 out of 83. Cool!
Friday, May 12, 2006
So far So good
Two weeks already passed away in term1. Mid term exams are around and GSB elections are also around. By end of next week we might be giving farewell to some of our faculty who has come from wharton and columbia universities. This week fortunately we have only one assignment and one quiz. But the Eco assignment is tough compared to the previous one (atleast to me). I really get frightened by listening that some guys already finished their eco assignment. How the hell they could do so fast. Why am i not able to be in the same pace.
Typically most of our assignments start like this.
1. Download the PDF document from the blackboard on thursday night.
2. Have a glance at it.
3. Call up friends and enquire if they have started.
4. Chitchat with them in the intercom.
5. Gossip about all stupid stuff in the world
6. Check emails
7. Log on to Yahoo messenger to see if ne friends are online
8. As it is just thursday attending some party going on in one of the student village or ending up watching a DVD
9. Again call up friends and enquire how the assignment is (tough/easy)
10. Refresh the mailbox (If at all mailbox gets life, it will kick u for refreshing it that many times)
11. Turning the newspaper in and out.
12. Going to sleep early on thursday thinking of doing assignment on friday
13. Finally starting the assignment on friday evening/night
14. Asking about the assignment status to whomsoever you meet.
15. Attending the group meeting on saturday to finish the assignment.
16. Finally submitting the assignment on sunday night.
But there are really smart people whose smart way of doing the assignment is :
1. Download the PDF immediately after the class.
2. Start the assignment and end it by thursday night.
3. Attending the party in the Student village and cursing themselves for wasting time.
4. Heading towards LRC to work out more problems.
In out first Eco assignment, our group scored full marks. As the weightage of Eco assignment is taken as 100% (Best of the two) + 50% (other assignment), its a kind of relief to our group. But the pool over here is best of the best. So to be in line with them, we too need to struggle. ok chalo then let me finish the eco assignment by the end of the day atleast.
PS: GSB- Graduate Student Board. The student reps of this team will meet with the heads of the PGP team after every term and any issues will be taken to the PGP unit thru GSB.
Important info for prospective students:-Looks ISB is not considering GRE scores from this year.
Typically most of our assignments start like this.
1. Download the PDF document from the blackboard on thursday night.
2. Have a glance at it.
3. Call up friends and enquire if they have started.
4. Chitchat with them in the intercom.
5. Gossip about all stupid stuff in the world
6. Check emails
7. Log on to Yahoo messenger to see if ne friends are online
8. As it is just thursday attending some party going on in one of the student village or ending up watching a DVD
9. Again call up friends and enquire how the assignment is (tough/easy)
10. Refresh the mailbox (If at all mailbox gets life, it will kick u for refreshing it that many times)
11. Turning the newspaper in and out.
12. Going to sleep early on thursday thinking of doing assignment on friday
13. Finally starting the assignment on friday evening/night
14. Asking about the assignment status to whomsoever you meet.
15. Attending the group meeting on saturday to finish the assignment.
16. Finally submitting the assignment on sunday night.
But there are really smart people whose smart way of doing the assignment is :
1. Download the PDF immediately after the class.
2. Start the assignment and end it by thursday night.
3. Attending the party in the Student village and cursing themselves for wasting time.
4. Heading towards LRC to work out more problems.
In out first Eco assignment, our group scored full marks. As the weightage of Eco assignment is taken as 100% (Best of the two) + 50% (other assignment), its a kind of relief to our group. But the pool over here is best of the best. So to be in line with them, we too need to struggle. ok chalo then let me finish the eco assignment by the end of the day atleast.
PS: GSB- Graduate Student Board. The student reps of this team will meet with the heads of the PGP team after every term and any issues will be taken to the PGP unit thru GSB.
Important info for prospective students:-Looks ISB is not considering GRE scores from this year.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Assignments

Everyone looks very relaxed in the campus after submitting the marketing assignment on Jones Blair case. Here is just a snap which we took while we are submitting the hard copy of the assignment. Some groups finished this assignment much before. Might be they are too smart. I really can find four types of people here.
Type-1.. Hard working guys and will always lock themselves in the library or either in their rooms. Am sure these people wanted to get into the dean's list and wanted to crack the consulting jobs. God bless them.
Type-2... Smart enough, but keeps on boasting that they studied that, this and starts frightening others. These guys are really over confident and feels that as if they can crack nething under the sky. Who knows, these people may shift slowly to type-1 or type-2. They might be committing false positive or false negative error. They can only find out this if they are perfect in statistics.
Type-3.. These guys don't know what is happening around. confused types and will understand their potential only after term-1 results. Struggle hard to manage their time and think of doing everything, but ends with doing nothing. They just wait for weekend to come, so that they can finish all the backlogs. But weekend comes and goes increasing the qty of backlogs.
Type-4. Just trying to figure out themselves in whic type they can fit in. Thats me :-D
I think i should atleast learn from others. Chalo time to open Eco book.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Dunking!!!!
We had a party fund left over in the last hyd meet. We celebrated the birthday of K today with that fund. Poor fellow, got birthday bumps. Funny thing is he started shouting before getting the bumps. And he is more eager to get dunked. It seems he didn't even take the bath as he very well know that he will get dunked. :-D. After the cake cutting and all, we took him to the pool and dunked him. Even i got dunked today for the first time. Slowly we started dunking everyone nearby at the pool.
This dunking is one of the many things, which is carried away as a tradition from our alumns. Birthday guy/girl has to get dunked in the pool. And most of the times other poor souls like me also get dunked. But believe me guys, its really fun :-). Big party going on in our village. I was there for half an hour or so. I was soooo amazed by one of the guy's dance. He is standing in the same place, just moving his feet and dancing so good. I was really agaped.Damn! Now am feeling hungry. Hmmm. Managed to get some bread pieces roasted in butter. Hope it satiates my hunger. Newazzz am gonna get up late tomorrow. Lemme read the marketing case and then sleep. Economics assignment is almost done except the final decorations. Accounting tho hogaya and most of us got 60 out of 60. Yet to do the marketing assignment. I just read the first para. Will try to analyse it now. Oops its already 1:50. Never mind. Its never too late. Gudnite!
This dunking is one of the many things, which is carried away as a tradition from our alumns. Birthday guy/girl has to get dunked in the pool. And most of the times other poor souls like me also get dunked. But believe me guys, its really fun :-). Big party going on in our village. I was there for half an hour or so. I was soooo amazed by one of the guy's dance. He is standing in the same place, just moving his feet and dancing so good. I was really agaped.Damn! Now am feeling hungry. Hmmm. Managed to get some bread pieces roasted in butter. Hope it satiates my hunger. Newazzz am gonna get up late tomorrow. Lemme read the marketing case and then sleep. Economics assignment is almost done except the final decorations. Accounting tho hogaya and most of us got 60 out of 60. Yet to do the marketing assignment. I just read the first para. Will try to analyse it now. Oops its already 1:50. Never mind. Its never too late. Gudnite!
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