79th Week@XIMB

79th Week@XIMB - 9th December to 15th December, 2012

9th December - There was an interesting collaboration that XIMB has had with the University of Minnesota this trimester. We had (almost) simultaneous courses running on "Social entrepreneurship" (XIMB) and UMN-Acara's "Design for Sustainable Development" (syllabus ). Nine students of SE paired with four teams of UMN and after initial facilitation from both sides the students have been working on joint problems with regular discussions over skype. The teams had their live presentations on Dec 7th which was conducted on an open platform with students here able to add and listen to their counterparts.

This low (no) cost experiment has happened with good learning on both sides. While positioning some of the advantages of XIMB, the noteworthy was the ability of RM students to be more awake when Americans are! The manner in which successive batches of RM students have participated and created a conducive environment for the nine students who opted to work with the UMN students is praiseworthy. The RMAX coordinator(s) and all the participants of last years contests have been good brand ambassadors and we need to thank them for that. XIMB students have not fought shy of constant engagement and hard work that this collaboration has entailed.

In an era of T20 B plan contests I feel happy to see XIMB students showing the ability to have the patience and persistence for Test match kind of engagements. I sincerely hope that the Indian cricket team learns a bit from them at Nagpur!


9th December - CBRM & SCM presentation.

10th December - Mckinsey Newsletter had a amazing article - From oxcart to Wal-Mart: Four keys to reaching emerging-market consumer.

11th December - People belonging to Hindi heartland must read Munshi Premchand to have basic understanding of the rural India. It may be idealistic version but must read

12th December - BASF live project final presentation was over today. Finding the need to innovate is difficult rather than already existing products. This was key learning. I heard first time about Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) in the presentation.

BoP is like a holy grail chased by every company these days in the name of sustainable business. Economy, Ecology, Society defines Sustainable Business. Since BASF is a company working in B2B, it is difficult to have B2C transition. Transitions that happen by default, clearly lack the foresight and hence the planning. Trade Fairs is a better way of B2B Marketing as you know your customer. Lower period of pyramid need different modes of selling. Hence we need to solve the both puzzles of product innovation and business model.

Distance from highway is a good criteria to select villages and people. But we need more information on income group and spending/ borrowing habits of the people.
Co-relation National Highway, Block and Village with Average Income will be interesting thing to note for BoP market. There is already need of reliable and Valid data in both Qualitative and Quantitative analysis.

13th December - Management@Grassroots programme is another academic initiative of XIMB which aims at providing community relevant course contents and pedagogy with active participation from the target audience of these courses. Kudos XIMB !!!

14th December - CBRM and SCM end term.

15th December - No exams, hence a day of rest.

78th Week@XIMB

78th Week@XIMB - 2nd December to 8th December, 2012

2nd December - I was back in Bhubaneswar from Raipur. I was rejected in Manipal Process after playing simulation game round.

People don't remember why they even join this course.

3rd December - Its Institute day i.e. Holiday. Fr. Paul Fernandes, S.J., Ph.D is appointed as the Director of XIMB by its Board of Governors with effect from December 4, 2012.

4th December - I wasted another precious day of my life.

5th December - In a closed and localized market, increased productivity only resulted in surplus goods and falling prices. That may happen to Amul and directly affect to the prices paid to producers. Indian government must start exporting milk and milk products to avoid such condition. And we are also self sufficient in milk production.

6th December - I qualified for the written test but rejected again in interview. I observed that beyond a solid knowledge of subject, it is temperament in stressful situation that matters most for winning candidate. Talent alone looks attractive but hard-work is effective in a long run.

7th December - I was alone and deep in gargantuan trouble of hopelessness. What happens when big ego meets official rejection news again and again ? To lose one job interview may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness. And as to losing three, well its a streak of nonperformance in my own eyes.

7th December - I am feeling numb and energy-less. Currently, I am in shambles with the state resembling to Indian cricket team. There is nowhere to hide for Indian team that has been exposed as a mediocre team. India has fallen from where they rose and the circle is complete. The time has come for me to move on in the life.

77th Week@XIMB

77th Week@XIMB - 25th November to 1st December, 2012

25th November - I was busy in preparing CV for off campus. I attended last three lectures of CRM.

26th November - IRP meeting is going on. I need to acknowledge their past errors in order to avoid them in the future. I will be more regular in updating my seniors.

I Couldn't attend a talk on PDS due to excessive drinking at night. This the lowest point of the college life. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt. There are amazing speakers who have worked and achieved fame across various sectors give talks every other day at XIMB. I could have attended if I wanted to. When it becomes a daily occurrence, one start to take it for granted. Don’t. If one want to be great, one has got to learn what’s made great people great. That was their sheer consistency to learn with limited opportunities.

27th November - KM quiz was over today. I loved and hate the feeling of being pushed to the wall. Without that one never appreciated easy times. I felt the high standard of academic pressure will be there at XIMB. But alas, the academic rigour has been diluted leading to the creation of mediocre but arrogant managers. Do MBA graduates actually possess the level of logical and reasoning skills employers are looking for ?

It may be with a little chance that its not about uninterested youngsters sleeping in classroom ? Are colleges pushing down a whole lot of uninteresting stuff down the throats of students ? What for? To receive the education that would fetch employment
but kill the spirit of entrepreneurship. B school rarely occupy us with life tools to analyze and reason about complicated social situations.

28th November - Harsha trust was celebrating its 10th anniversary reflecting on its decade long journey in the development sector (livelihoods) in Odisha and have for this event Mr.Deep Joshi as a chief guest. In the world of development sector that is fragmented with aesthetics, political and ideological divisions. Only great few persons like Deep Joshi are admired and respected by almost all, across all divisions.

I was reading on public health in India. Side-effects of poor public health was a nice article written by Professor Biswa Swarup Misra. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), on average a person needs 3 litres of water for drinking, 4 litres for cooking, 20 litres for bathing, 40 litres for sanitation, 25 litres to wash vessels and 23 litres for gardening. I am not sure that our notion of development is fulfilling any of these criteria. As Dr Nata Menabde, World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative to India has said : “A good society is one that takes care of its vulnerable, its aged, its poor and its sick.” Access to credit, insurance and savings are critical in coping with shocks. I think our design of welfare state has failed us.

29th November - I finished pending works and delegated assignments to others before signing off to Raipur for two days.

30th November - Holiday :)

1st December - Holiday :)

76th Week@XIMB -

76th Week@XIMB - 18th November to 24th November, 2012

18th November - Immersion course of Agri Branding was in full flow. We covered -
4. Steps in brand decision process
5. Types of decision processes
6. Modifying the brand decision process to create Brand

"A product can be quickly outdated, but a successful brand is timeless." - Stephen King

19th November - Played Beer Game. I have successfully completed online course of Principles of E-Government issued by 'United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN)'. E-Government Index of India is 0.383 in comparison to average score of 0.497.

20th November - Strategic quiz.

21st November - We learned about competitive advantage of nations over other.

Mr.R.S.Sodhi, MD, GCMMF (AMUL) delivered a talk on Synchronizing Management Theories with Business Practices

I visited to warehouse of CWC office for SCM presentation.

22nd November - The poor attendance in CEO talks in-spite of the multitude of mails requesting you for active participation. Student Placecom ensuring attendance indicates the interest of the students for the particular organization and high rate of absenteeism jeopardizes our chances of converting them for final placements. There were few people debarred from applying for the respective company for which they did not attend the talk and also from the immediate next company for which application would be floated. The decision was taken after consulting with Faculty placement committee.
There is nothing more sorry scene than to waste an opputunity through reckless attitude.

23rd November - Last visit of BASF is completed today. I sat in boring immersion course of CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

24th November - Congratulations to Sreevidya N Gowda for getting placed in Mlinda Foundation as the Operations Manager! From a placecom's perspective: each person having job by off campus is one less to place.

I was reading a report on Entrepreneurship in India by National Knowledge Commission published in 2008. One line that struck me : 70% of the entrepreneurs interviewed do not have an MBA qualification. This may suggest that an MBA degree is not a sine qua non to become an entrepreneur, though perceptions may be changing. So why should one person go for MBA degree : The 10 Most Under-Rated Reasons Why You Should Get An MBA

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - GB Shaw

75th Week@XIMB

75th Week@XIMB - 11th November to 17th November, 2012

11th November - I recalled a good session on role, commonalities and differences between Entrepreneur and Manager given by EDI Director Dinesh Awasthi. One is the creator of the organization while managers join the organization. Entrepreneur is looking for future plans and involved in creative destruction while Manager looks for past achievement and maintaining status quo. In the end, its the basic difference between puppet and puppeteer between them.

It's not the critic who counts, nor the observer who watches from a safe distance. Wealth is created only by doers in the arena who are marred with dirt, dust, blood, and sweat. These are producers who strike out on their own, who know high highs and low lows, great devotions, an who overextend themselves for worthwhile causes. Without exception, they fail more than they succeed and appreciate this reality even before venturing out on their own. But when these producers of wealth fail, they at least fail with style and grace, and their gut soon recognizes that failure is only a resting place, not a place in which to spend a lifetime. Their places will never be with those nameless souls who know neither victory nor defeat, who receive weekly paychecks regard­less of their week's performance, who are hired hands in the labor in someone else's garden. These doers are producers and no matter what their lot is at any given moment, they 'II never take a place beside the takers, for theirs is a unique place, alone, under the sun. They are entrepreneurs! - Joseph R. Mancuso

11th November -

13th November - Happy Diwali. I will produce talk on entrepreneurship by Inir Pinheiro.

Whenever you endeavor, the structures are not there. You have to make your own path. Need conducive environment in the college for people to venture differently. It matters from which community one comes from. Lack of opportunity creates violence. That shows clearly in the relationship of a B-School batch around placement week where everyone wants to go for glorified desk-job. There are two types of journey: The journey without and The journey within. Then, he asked us to watch a TED talk by Dan Pink

Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation



Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think.

14th November - There were several complaints about the speed of the internet connectivity off late. The speed has been affected because college is upgrading its internet connection. Initially, we had 70Mbps Airtel + 20 Mbps Ortel and we are currently upgrading the airtel connection to 110Mbps.

Funny things B-school students say and what they actually mean



15th November - There was a case discussion on : Diffusion of Innovative Teaching Method: Case of The Heritage School (A) and (B)

Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is propagated through certain channels over time among the units of a system. Innovation: From the point of view of a customer, a solution is considered innovation when it is new or perceived as new by the individual or the unit of adoption.

16th November - There was an evaluation and feedback session for the volunteers for NSORM today. Our work was well applauded by Kajri Madam.

Batch-meet was organized by RM Placement committee tonight and the future job scenario was looking bleak. It again reconfirmed my predictions that XIMB RM had not have market sense in the expansion of batch size from 50 to 100 for 2011-2013 batch without backing up for job opportunities in bad times. This institute had indeed dimmed diamonds in a sense of peer learning.

Deep and meaningful professional development comes from setting high expectations, from challenging oneself, and from supporting them. With hard times coming, I must demonstrate greater wisdom and confidence. If one is not enjoying what he/she is doing, then probably one will neither be doing justice to yourself nor your dependents.Hence, one should choose job carefully.

Gore Vidal once made a very fine statement: At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice. This was shown after the completion of the batch meet when rumors and gossips were running high.

17th November -There were first three classes of Product and Brand Management for Agri-input Products (PBMAP) by Prof. P. Venugopal of XLRI. We learnt about Market Structure - Conduct -Performance in Agri-inputs, Farmer Buying Behaviour and Store loyalty v/s brand loyalty.