Diary of a Rural Manager!

68th Week@XIMB - 23rd September to 29th September, 2012 23rd September - There was an alumnus visiting the campus who was working with Dow Agro Sciences (Dow Chemicals). I decided first not to attend his lecture because he may be endorsing and promoting Dow Chemicals. Its not the fault of individual but one has to take ethical stand on the corporate misdeeds. The viewpoint of my college differ from me but that is a sort of independence and freedom of speech one is looking for in the college. Then, I reconsidered my decision and attended the lecture to understand his point of view. It is difficult to resist the winds of change and lucrative job offers; nevertheless conviction is all that one needs to withstand the same. Industry Talk of Mr. Amiya Kumar Bartia , National Market Development Leader, Dow Agro Sciences (Dow Chemicals) Career Planning : There is strong need for 4-5 years of investment in field to understand the ground level working of industry. There are five stages...

67th Week@XIMB - 16th September to 22nd September, 2012 16th September - A nice and warm Sunday. Key Learning - आचार्यात् पादमादते पादं शिष्यः स्वमेधया । पादं सब्रह्मचारिभ्यः पादं कालक्रमेण च ॥ (A student learns a quarter from teacher, a quarter from own intelligence, a quarter from fellow students, and the rest in course of time.) 17th September - SCM : Demolishing of fiscal barriers with WTO protocol helped in integrating and increasing efficiency of supply chain in the globalized world. We were suggested to read ' Quality Is Free ' by Philip Crosby. My argument about core competence was demolished by Professor. Prof argued back that core competency can be acquired but it depends of economies of scale. 18th September - Get introduced to the name of Akio Morita in the first lecture of STM. We discussed in the details for the reason of ITC to venture in hotel industry from tobacco business. CBRM- In the first CBRM Lecture, the whole introduction was based on key ...

Sparsh: Development in a Trimester of rural management - 4... : An IRMA Prof. Arunathan always ask a very profound question on poor and rural managers : “Why we are here and why they are there? ” There ...

66th Week@XIMB - 09th September to 15th September, 2012 09th September - Nothing of importance happened today in my life. Yet, I was sad. There was the demise of a great figure among the community of rural managers. The father of White Revolution, Verghese Kurien, is no more with us. 10th September - There is a great article paying tribute to Dr Verghese Kurien - Inspiration to a Rural Manager . Dr. Kurien is being limited by the media as a man who has created Amul, the Brand of India. His contribution is much more than forming the brand Amul. He created a legacy in successfully running a cooperative and never succumbing to political pressure. This becomes more pronounced in the context of the failure of the cooperative movement in India. I was reading QRM in detail for the exam. There was ga reat revelation because I had not taken an interest in the elective course from the start. I got a few facts right from a research paper by Fekede Tuli . 1- The quantitative purists artic...

65th Week@XIMB - 2nd September to 8th September 2012 2nd September - I submitted a team project report on Asian Paints in SDM. The whole process of data mining, compilation, editing, and printing with the team was good learning. There was a scheduled industry talk of SREI Sahaj CEO on Sunday afternoon. The topic of the Talk was 'challenges in the service delivery channel and route to market strategies in rural India'. It began late on time but went quite fantastic overall. The Key learning - ' Positive dissatisfaction ' is a good start for a young professional like us. There are more standard operating procedures and compliance in a big company, hence it is not a good option for fresher to start their work there. Guest : Mr. Sanjay Panigrahi , CEO of SREI Sahaj No rural people will pay for information on weather and government schemes. So business for information directly to the end consumer is not a viable option currently. Delivery and Management should be the...

64th Week@XIMB - 26th August to 1st September, 2012 26th August Past performance are not an accurate predictor of future outcomes. Yet they can give a reference line about the academic career of the person. So much can be said in reference to the academics grades. Are we the student more than the CV and grades? There was also a lot of thinking gone over the news item - Placement reportage: How the DMS, IIT Delhi 2012 placement report is designed to mislead you? . This shoddy practices of fudging placement report without having a real-world experience of running a values-driven company possess a serious ethical challenge. It is actually a less known but well performed malpractice in most of the B-School! While army officers go beyond the call of duty sacrificing life for the country, investment bankers do exactly opposite. I can understand root cause of such problems in our education system only that never punishes plagiarism and other such activities. This makes me deeply cr...

63rd Week@XIMB - 19th August to 25th August, 2012 20th August - Since 1997 Dr Debal Deb has been conserving 700 varieties of native rice that seed companies are trying to drive out. He works for biodiversity conservation, knowledge transfer and non-commercial seed exchange within and beyond India's indigenous communities. Folk Rice Dr Debal Deb 21st August -  Today is my birthday. I will only quote Benjamin Franklin on life : "Content to live, content to die unknown, Lord of myself, accountable to none." 21st August I participated in Kurukshetra and Spardha Launch. There was a good Harvard Business review article uploaded by SDM faculty : Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, Suj Krishnaswamy ( Complete Reading ) 22nd August -  There was presentation on OSCARD by our group in CM. We cam ro know about: Narasimham Committee on Banking Sector Reforms (1998) . There was discussion on MFI Andhra Crisis in MFM class. What...