Harry Potter and my SCP Hallow

Harry Potter began its final retail journey as the clock struck midnight with the excitement and rush to be the first to receive the final chapter of Harry Potter saga went skyrocketing. Live from the Cornmarket Street in Oxford, UK I saw kids, teens, adults all standing outside the book stores to buy the much awaited book. I cannot express in words the vibe and excitement of all those successful people coming out of the stores with Harry Potter book in an orange paper bag in their hands. Kids crying, embracing their friends, shouting loud in praise of Harry and what not... And it will continue throughout the night as there were more than 2000 people on that street. I am expecting my copy to be delivered by Monday morning and then hope to read it on my way to Portland, USA.

I sincerely apologize for being dormant for almost a month. Well, these past 4 weeks have been one of the most hectic of my life and I will try to summarize them all in one single post.


Week - 9: The preparation week went into a little bit of procrastination before I began my final battle towards the two formal assignments submission and one written exam of Restructuring & Implementation. As in earlier weeks I had written about the assignment of Branding & Communication, so most of the week went by in putting up this paper. A quick brief, we had to develop a branding plan to uplift a brand that was losing its identity in the market or was a new brand launched. This need to be done from the understanding of cultural myth and the populist world about which most of the incoming SBS students will study in their Trinity term, given they take the B&C elective, which to me proved to be a very interesting subject though the assignment was laborious. Three to Four interviews were done and then a whole report of more than 9000 word was written including appendix to pen down my understandings of the brand chosen and how it can return to the market with a bang. Other than that the festivities had begun as many students who were done with all their papers planned to leave for home or on fun trip to return only at the end of August month for electives and course completion.


Week - 10: I had only one exam in 'Restructuring & Implementation' on Wednesday and had to prepare all night long to be in shape for the paper as the B&C paper continued to kill me, though figuratively only. The paper went well and after that we all headed to the 'drain yourself in drinks after last exam pub' at Turf Tavern at almost around noon. Well, it was the final written assessment for me in the Exam school and I sincerely pray that I never ever have to return back there in my subfusc. Remaining of the week, I was tied up with the Retailing paper in which I had to write a business plan of setting up a retail store anywhere in the world with the place ranging from New York, London, New Delhi to Timbuktu and stores from Swarovski Crystals to Lingerie wears to I don't remember what else. In the end almost around midnight on Sunday, July 1 I was very satisfied with what I had written and hope to get decent to good marks in it.


Week - 11/Week - 0 (Summers): Summer is here though it doesn't feel like with temperatures still not crossing 65 F. We can call it week 11 for Trinity or Week 0 for the summers while my SCP team continued its struggle for the US visas amidst welcoming our esteemed Intel manager Shauna from Portland, OR in the USA. The first day went into getting to know each other and giving Shauna a guided tour of Oxford as she tried to catch up on her jet lag. The next day was an intense discussion about the project scope, its objectives, the background of the need for this project and many other related things. I apologize but due to a non-disclosure agreement, I cannot discuss the details of the project though I can say that it is way too different from the default image of Intel of being a chip and microprocessor manufacturer. And yes, we moved a step closer towards getting our US visa problems sorted out.


Week - 1 (Summers): The SCP research began with a bang as the papers were sorted and filed to be in place for the US visa appointment and finally on July 12th, we all did successfully get our respective visa. A relief to the biggest y with respect to being able to physically present while making final presentation to the executive committee of Intel. As the SCP went on, I took some time out and went with Puneet, Anubhav and his wife Tulika to a nearby city called Bath Spa. Interesting name and it has the "Roman Baths", where Romans indeed went in for a bath. The city is beautiful in its own style with Roman architecture and fashion museum covering the British fashion from 18th century onwards. A tiring but an interesting trips walking the pavements that Romans did walk centuries ago.


Week - 2: This week went into watching movies, which primarily began with "Harry Potters and the Order of the Phoenix", continued to "Die Hard - 4.0" and ended with "Ocean's Thirteen". Potter was the usual dose of witchcraft and wizardry in Hogwart, whereas Die Hard became more high tech and Ocean's army returned to take revenge for their mate Reuben Tishkoff. For me, the order of liking remained the same as above. Sampath and I also visited Intel office here in UK to get enrolled into their system and get our travel plans sorted out for our Intel, USA office travel. We also celebrated the birthday of our friend Deb at the Rewley Abbey Court housing facility as I mark the end of the day with a visit to the Cornmarket Street to experience Potter Mania.


Recently have been in touch with few incoming students, who are trying to get the pieces in place with respect to their admissions, fee and travel arrangements. I would say here that please do not hesitate in coming back to me with your queries with regards to SBS & Oxford and I will try to be of as much help as I can.


My next post will be most probably US as I will fly to Portland on Wednesday sometime thought I am still waiting for my tickets but they will definitely be for Wednesday. Wish me luck guys...!!!


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 8: Trinity goes into history

This was the final week of my formal classes. It was only nine months ago when I was looking forward to an exciting MBA course up ahead of me and now here I am with all the three formal course term getting over. And yes, I enjoyed every minute of it. This week we had three parties/get-together and an equal number of assignments.

The week began with the restructuring and implementation class talking about the turnaround strategies that company adopt and the post-acquisition management done by the companies and associated outcomes. Branding class along with the MPP class was devoted to a brief revision of all what we did during past seven weeks.

How a subject like Retailing can be kept devoid of the implementation of advanced IT solutions into the Retailers solutions. German group Metro in collaboration with IBM and other IT giants is developing future stores. A small video about the same can be found on “Future Stores”. We had a hearty laugh about some of them, got worried about the security of personal information and at the same time some of the concepts appeared to be of extreme benefit to the consumer as well as the retailer. Do let me know what you guys think about the Fridge, Checkout, Mirror and other things by means of your comments.

Corporate Valuation class was about discussing the assignment and educating us about the latest top 5 trends in the global economy as presented by McKinsey to the European countries financial heads. Strategic Decision Making class on Friday discussed the Mann Gulch, Storm King Mountain and Mount Everest tragedies and the wrong decision making, ineffective leadership and group thinking that caused those disasters. Saturday was the simulation linked with the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster and the Mission Management Team meeting on Flight Day 8 from the perspective of six different managers involved and the engineers associated with the NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.

Our first assignment for the week was from the Corporate Valuation class where we had to discuss about the rights issue offering strategy of British Aerospace and Time Warner. On one hand, it was interesting to know and understand the logic that BAe used behind coming up with the rights offering at the time when they were experiencing huge losses in the first half-yearly results in 1991. On the other hand, Time Warner came up with an entirely innovative concept of variable price rights offering leaving the stockholders utterly confused as to what price will they be paying in the end for the number of shares that my get allotted. This variable program was out rightly rejected by the market and Time Warner had to resort back to the fixed price issue offering.

MPP had the second assignment in line where we had to talk about the benefits that an organization can have by making use of different kind of metrics when they implement the project portfolio management in their organization. Last time also the knowledge of IT project management was very useful in completing the assignment for this subject and this time also it came real handy, though writing 2000 words just about the benefits seem to be quite a mammoth task.

The final assignment for the week was from SDMDE where in we had to reflect our understanding about the failures in the Storm King, Mann Gulch fire accident and Mount Everest tragedy from the perspective of various decisions taken by the leaders of the group under the life and death situations. It is apparent that even experienced personnel sometime take decisions that may be totally adverse to the situation causing disaster or a good decision taken if not communicated well can leave the group in complete dilemma of what to do and where to go.

The fun part of the week began on Wednesday when around 30 of us went to the Trinity College for a formal dinner, thanks to Diptendu. I have been to quite a number of formal dinners but I must admit that barring Kellogg College, the food in Trinity was the best. Since most of us were done with the assignments for the week and were ready for their submissions so we had a dinner and after-dinner fun without any pressure on our mind about anything in particular.

The same night Brian and I went to one of the pubs (Angels) in Oxford, where we had a small get together to celebrate Brian’s birthday at mid night. Even we had class next day morning but we could not resist staying back talking about things from computers to life in Denver, USA and India.

Over the last two terms we were having sessions every Friday evening to understand the demographics and business environment in different countries across continents. This week it was Kenya and Nigeria and I must say that I never ever got so much information about various countries in such a fashion. The real party was the African drumming that was supposed to be held in the open air amphitheater but seems like God was having no mercy on us so it rained like anything and we had to do it indoor. It was awesome fun and every single person present enjoyed to the fullest. A video of the same can be found at YOUTUBE. After all the fun at school, venue shifted to another party area where we had a Bollywood Dance night organized by the Oxford Indian Society that went on till don’t know when.

Saturday night was the best of all the events we had as the student social community create a red carpet welcome to all MBA students to the Sylvester Awards night. SBS stars came down to the stage and there were awards given for some of the most outstanding performances in different categories. More details on the main page of the awards as we mark the end of the year with music, fun, dance and laughter as we moved from awards night to a dance party at Bar-Risa, which went on till 3 am next day. An amazing evening to always cherish came to an end and so did our formal classes of the MBA course.

I will miss every single moment of all that we enjoyed in Oxford, be it academics or be it the parties we had. My struggle for visa continued and eventually we have got a new proposal to work on with where we may be heading to altogether a different country for research. Let’s see how it all goes. Till later…

Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 7: The Week in Silence...

This week was probably the quietest amongst all in the Trinity. Not much happening on study front and neither there was much on the parties side. The classes were the usual ones and nothing much interesting happened. Though we did get invited to the dinner meal at the Christ Church College where we had the pleasure of eating in the same dining hall where Professor Dumbledore, faculty and Harry Potter & his friends' had their meal in the Harry Potter movies. It was fun, and we really enjoyed the ambience of the place. Other people attended Real Estate Summit and Media Strategy Lecturers organized in the school.

I will keep this week short and let it pass by as quietly as it can.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 6: More parties than assignments

This week had more number of activities planned that were beyond the boundaries of class and the business school. After the flurry of assignments we had last week, this week was bit relaxing with just two assignments in line to be submitted.

Week began with the Restructuring class where we discussed about the companies in bankruptcy, status of financial & economic distress. Eurofood and United Airlines were the two extreme cases discussed with respect to the Chapter 11 filing.


Branding class had discussion mainly concentrated around the branding myths associated with Harley and how the mass culture interpretations of the outlaw biker world built Harley’s identity value. The second part of the class discussed about the "FUSE" music channel and its brand promotion by mocking MTV’s bourgeois tastes and making use of provocative point-of-view commenting on contemporary American Society. Fuses Beach House campaign and the Fuse Uncensored got the ball rolling for the channel with increase in viewer ratings and more and more national advertisers pooling in. Towards the end came in the shocker in terms of the assignment that we had to submit today. In a country, within a category pick 3 brands. For those 3 brands, pick two commercials of each that reflect brand building and not promotion, and then do a critique analysis contrasting against what we have learned in last three classes. Ten pages to be written for ten percent of the grades.


Project Portfolio class had less of my interest that day especially because we discussed a case about a technology company based on our last weeks understanding about categorizing projects under different segments and prioritizing them.


The best for the day was saved till the end with the movie show planned for the night with 4 of my friends. The number grew to 15 by the time we reached the theater for the "Pirates of the Caribbean". In a nutshell I enjoyed the break from studies but the movie did not live up to the expectations I had from it. Ok, lets' put it in simple words, it was horrible.


Tuesday, my Corporate Valuation group sat down to finish the assignment on Royal Mail due Thursday. Puneet, Vijoy, Chad and I dig deeper to find what all could be deducted from their enterprise value of £10 billion to get their equity value. Saptarshi later joined us in finding the market beta for Royal Mail. It was a tough assignment and required due dilligence rather than calculations to justify our answers.


Wednesday, was the day for Supply Chain and Store management in Retailing class. Ben Gordon, the CEO of "Mothercare" talked about the operational aspects and the problems he had to take care of when he joined Mothercare. Thereafter, it was a dinner at the "Hertford College" where along with some 20 other guests I was invited to by Andrew, Simon and Swapan. It was a fun filled night starting at Kings Arms, moving on to Hertford for dinner and then the Hertford Bar to the Turf Tavern before ending at the Merton Bar late night.


Thursday wass a quite day with me procrastinating most of the day and finding the two commercials for my B&C assignment. Later that night we celebrated Andrew Bergbaum's birthday.


Friday was the day for the Great Gatsby Ball at Templeton College. Most of the MBA guys joined the summer party organized at Templeton to which I paid my first visit ever. After the initial drinks and dinner, focus shifted to the after-party for loads of dancing and more drinking that lasted probably till early in the morning. All the photos from the event are here.


Saturday, I finally found a couple of interesting ads for Cadillac to write about in the paper. The two ads I used were for Cadillac CTS 2008 and Cadillac V-series.


Sunday went into updating my resume, doing research for some jobs and talking to old buddies over phone. A partial rest day watching some TV-shows online and enjoying the warm sunny afternoon in Oxford.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 5: Assignments, Assignments and....

Did I say assignments...??? Yes, this week was devoted to the assignments for different subjects we are reading in Trinity. Here I am providing a very brief about the various assignments I completed.


1) Managing Project Portfolio (Individual - Due on Mon) - In 2000 words, write a set of 20 questions that can help an organization decide on whether it would be beneficial for them to implement the project portfolio management process. Also provide reasoning as to how each question can contribute towards making that decision.

2) SDMDE (Group - Due on Thu) - In 2500 words, evaluate the Nucor's decision making and negotiation propositions in an HBS case. Run to Examination schools to submit the same as a formal coursework.


3) SDMDE (Individual - Due on Thu) - In 1000 words, critically evaluate the decision making process of Medtronic in an HBS case.


4) Retailing (Group - Due on Fri) - In 3000 words, explain the strategical context of multi-channel retailing and the effects the online retailing can have on the other channels for that particular retailer. Out of ASDA, HMV and Woolworth, our group chose HMV to understand better about the dynamics behind the not so successful online store of HMV and their digital music download store. We also had to prepare a 10 minute class presentation for the class scheduled for Wednesday.


5) Branding & Communication (Group - Due on Sun) - Toughest of all... No word limit. For an outdoor adventure sports company Patagonia, two long interviews were provided. We had to detail the key identity of the person interviewed using information provided, giving details of informant's conception of Patagonia and point out how Patagonia serves as symbolic function for informant's identity. Size of each interview - 32 pages, so you can imagine the task at hand.


Even though the task was mammoth and we worked pretty much day and night to get these assignments polished the best way we can, every second of it was worth it. For the MPP assignment, we got the far better understanding of the need and adaptability needed for the portfolio management process to be implemented. Retailing, by far gave the maximum insight into customer behavior, store design and other aspects of retailing that can either sky-rocket your sales or sink the sales to rock-bottom. SDMDE was an extension of our previous assignments refining further our thought processing and implementing our MPP learnings' as well. B&C interviews tell us about how a person's identity can be sketched without exactly asking him/her directly about the particular brand he/she is being interviewed for. Our final B&C project involves doing three such interviews, which I am still doing analysis for as to how to go about.


We had no time for any other activities but still were able to enjoy the happy hours on a rarely seen bright sunny evening in Oxford. The photo above is of a "SHISHA" ("Hookah" as called in India) bought by Saheel in Morocco. I don't smoke but still took a picture as it looked so cool, though may not be cool for the lungs.


Other than the assignments and a nice Friday evening, I did some work related to some job hunt that still goes on and tried to resolve the visa related issues for our two month summer consulting project at Intel in the USA. We have already sent our query to the US Consulate and are waiting for the response, which is likely by Friday or so.


I sincerely wish to go and work in the hub where we get all the micro-processors for our laptops and desktops developed, even though my project is a diversified one in a different field about which I cannot disclose yet due to non-disclosure agreements. Next week seems to be a relaxed one as got only two assignments due, however the preparation for the big ones towards the term-end will begin soon.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 4: I passed my Hilary Term

The week as I mentioned in my early post was supposed to be really tough and hectic one for me. It indeed started the very same way. A couple of interviews with different companies were lined up. They did go fine but still the luck did not favor me and the DTC project was awarded to other team.

But the biggest event of this week for me came from Hilary term. I got through in all my subjects in high spirits. That was quite a relief as most of us were not sure what will happen based on the way our papers were framed.


Wednesday, in the retailing class it was fun to know more about the customer insights from Mike Sherwood, the CEO of Zara. We had no further class after Wednesday because of the MBAT sports festival in HEC, Paris over the long weekend for European business school.


On Friday, a few of us MBA guys went to London to meet Sri Sri Ravi Shankar from the Art of Living. It was an honor and pleasure to meet such a personality who is preaching the world to be happy and live life given to us as a precious gift from God. Well, I am not trying to be philosophical but yeah doing some mediation always revitalize a guy. :).


And yes, I got a Summer Consulting Project with Intel. I was really really interested in that project but due to non-availability of sufficient number of people couldn't form a team. The team that was eventually selected had one guy move out of the team due to some personal reasons and I filled in his place. I have a long way now to go in order to get my visa in place before I can fly to the USA...


Our sports warrior returned on Sunday from MBAT and they did make Oxford proud by winning a number of events, especially Rowing. Table Tennis and Ultimate Frisbie. Second in team sports, winner in recreational sports and overall fourth, even though the contingent of 90 odd was very small compared to LBS having around 300. Great job done fellow MBA's...


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 3: SCP presentations and Mr. Stelios Haji Ioannou

This week was bit relaxed in terms of classes but still we had two formal coursework to be submitted at the examination school alongwith attending number of SCP presentations by various companies, some of which were quite interesting.

The assignment due this week included one for Airbus as to whether Airbus should proceed with its investment in building the A3XX jumbo to cater more number of passengers in long haul flight. As we were doing the calculations for this case, an A380 was landing for the first time at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, India, courtesy of Mr. Vijay Mallya, the Chairman of United Breweries and Kingfisher Airline in India. I must say that except for strategic benefits, most of us calculated the NPV of A3XX project to be negative in discounted terms and suggested that A3XX should not be built. Another assignment was to reflect our understanding about the different negotiation exercises that we went through in Module-1 of SDMDE class in week-1. This was another interesting assignment where we had to discuss with our classmates who played the role of opposite party during the negotiations.


In Retailing class, we had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Ian Cheshire, CEO, B&Q UK and Ireland about how the geography and location of any particular retail store can affect the profitability of the store.


Also we had Mr. Stelios Haji Ioannou, founder of Easy Group, deliver a short speech before taking on questions from the attendees of the session. I was amazed to listen to the story of a man who set up a low-budget no-frill airline at the age of 28, giving due credit for his success to his father's belief in him.


On Thursday evening, I received a desperate call from Sampath, one of my friend to join his team for the pitch to win the SCP project from Dell. One of his team member had to leave for an internship and hence the team of 4 was left one short. I was quite interested in the project earlier on but due to the non-commitment of other people withdrew myself. However, when I got the offer again I did not hesitate a minute in plunging for it even though I had Diamond Trading Company (DTC) and Macquarie project pitches lined up for the next week. The interview and presentation in Bracknell office went well and we were satisfied with our performance, however later we found out that the project was rewarded to the other team. May be the company director was not happy with the reshuffling of resources and decided to go with the first team. Nobody knows the real reason though...


Saturday was all about the Restructuring assignment where we had to evaluate the friendly bid made by CSX to acquire CONRAIL against the hostile bid of Norfolk Railway company. An interesting case dealing with the synergies involved that went beyond increasing the benefits of shareholders.

MBAT is for the weekend of week-4 and I wish my fellow students good luck for an awesome performance in all sports in HEC, Paris. This week also has a couple of interviews lined up for different SCP's and job related so need to prepare for them. Wish me luck...


I always use to boast amongst our friends here about my rich neighborhood and probably a Ferrari standing right next to my house can be a small token of proof to all those who didn't believe it. The pictures in this post were all taken from a mobile phone camera, so apologies for not so good quality.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 2: May Day and Malhaar

For the Monday, it was the usual except the Branding & Communication class that really had my interest in it. The case discussed was about Snapple, where we discussed about the comparisons between conventional models of branding and cultural branding. Further the discussion went into the fundamental weaknesses of conventional models, which motivate the demand for a new approach to branding.

May Day - I had to wake up at 430 am on May 1st, which is celebrated here in Oxford as the May Day when the choir of the Magdalen College perform for 6-7 minutes from the Magdalen Tower. It was indeed a different experience for me and for all those other standing in perfect silence listening to the choir. The follow up festivities included a college breakfast and few performances along the streets of Oxford. Since had three classes, the day before and woke up way too early in the morning so decided to procrastinate for a while before getting on with the daily work. Of course, the weather in Oxford was way too nice considering how it has been acting on us during April month.

Thursday, I went to the Examination School to attend a lecture by Indian Commerce minister Mr. Kamal Nath about the Global Trade Governance project. It was quite an interesting lecture talking about how the globalised world is perceived by India and how India is confronting the challenges of the new economic architecture.

One thing I am not sure of as to whether the way I take pictures is good or the software I use to give some special effects to it that gives me that credibility... I guess its the first one, considering the pictures that I came out from other people's camera. I am not trying to brag about myself but anyways, I was invited at the annual cultural festival Malhaar-2007, organized by the Oxford Indian Society to cover the event as a photographer and seems they came out fine as per other's feedback. Here is a video clip of some of the pictures. Please note that since it was an Indian cultural nite so I did stick to a sufi song played on shehnai and flute.

On Saturday, along with Anubhav I was busy with my Branding assignment, trying to understand and pen down our thoughts about the rise of Starbucks during the late 80's and early 90's though these days they are fighting hard to keep their brand image up in the global world because of losing its touch of providing a "third place" for professionals and family people to sit back and relax. Instead it has now become more commercialized trying to maximize the profit rather than giving a cozy, quiet comfort ambience to its customer while they enjoy their cup o' joe.

Sunday was fun filled attending Aman's birthday and watching Spiderman-3. Archit, Naser, Abhishek, Swapan, and Arash went for Spiderman and were not at all enthralled by the storyline of the movie though the special effect were awesome but it was more a comedy movie rather than a superhero's movie. I wish the movie good luck.

During the week, we had presentations for our Summer Consulting Projects by different firms that included Macquarie and De Beers, which did attract me the most. I have already been selected for both the firms to form a team of 4 before we can proceed with our 'pitch' (as is called by our BPO office) to bid for the project along with 2 other teams for De Beers and 6 for Macquarie.

That was it from Week 2 and I hope I am catching up a bit on my posts and hope to be with the week-3 pretty soon.

Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 1: Oxford - Cambridge Varsity Day and other events

Week one is when our classes officially begin though this term a couple of classes were held last week to adjust for the classes that will not take place during the MBAT weekend. MBAT is the sports tournament organized by HEC Paris business school for the students from international business schools.

I have three classes scheduled every Monday from morning 9 AM till evening 8 PM. But the subjects are interesting so they don't really make me complain about the busy day. Amongst Restructuring & Implementation (RI), Branding & Communication (B&C) and Managing Project Portfolio (MPP), I like the subject of Branding the most. The first class was setting up the basic concepts building on what we learnt in Marketing course during the last term. It was quite fascinating to take a plunge into understanding as to what can happen to the image of a brand in consumers mind, with a slight change in the branding strategy. Restructuring & Implementation talked about the problems associated with Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A's) whereas during MPP class, discussion was based on managing a project using the cass study of "Mission to Mars".


Tuesday was fairly relaxed with no classes to attend though the day went by in catching up what was taught the day before. Along with Puneet, I attended dinner at my college where I got the chance to meet the Chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Chris Patten. Incidentally I knew about him before coming to Oxford just because of the fact that his daughter Alice Patten played lead actress role in a Hindi movie "Rang De Basanti". Alas, she did not turn up for the dinner...


Just before going for the dinner, our Corporate Valuation group comprising of Chad, Janis, Puneet, Saptarshi, Vijoy and myself met to discuss about giving the finishing touches to the first assignment of Corporate Valuation.


Wednesday was all about "Retailing" and the "Walmart effect on society". With the increasing FDI in India, and big retailers trying to step into the budding retail market of India, this particular subject was of a primary interest to me. Also had to work on my other assignment about "A prior negotiation experience of mine". Sometimes these topics are easier said than done and it took me a while before I could gel my personal thoughts about negotiation with the theories provided in the book.


Thursday class of Corporate Valuation was spent discussing the contract of A-Rod with Texas Rangers, who paid a whopping USD 252 million to him though further transferred the contract to New York Yankees only after the Rangers agreed to pay $67 million of the $179 million left on Rodriguez's contract. In the evening began the class of my final subject of "Strategic Decision Making in Dynamic Environment (SDMDE)", which indeed is a very long name for any subject. Anyways, our first three classes for week 1, 2 and 3 took place in week 1 only, discussing how to successfully negotiate the deals with the party sitting on the other side of the table. The exercises conducted were fun to attend but occasionally we all felt if there was a need to take up this course instead of taking an elective on "Negotiation Skills".


So my Friday afternoon and Saturday morning went into attending the SDMDE class performing roleplays involving different kinds of negotiation situations.


Saturday, we had an Oxford Cambridge Varsity day and students from the Judge Business School of Cambridge University came all the way to Oxford to attend a day of sports and other fun-filled activities. Our guys did put up an excellent show and thrashed the Cambridge team in all but one event of Rowing. In cricket, Murtaza played an inning that reminded me of Adam Gilchrist and Sanath Jayasuriya. evening saw the dodge ball event in the courtyard of SBS followed by a late night party. The pictures from the event are posted in my photo album on Picasa, the link to which is available in side navigation bar. And yes, Australia continued to perform like a champion to lift the ICC World Cup Cricket Trophy for third time in succession.


I declared Sunday as a complete holiday to myself and did nothing except procrastinating all day long, though had to do some reading later at night for the busy Monday that accounts for three classes. Will get back with week two pretty soon...


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 0: Trinity Term begins...

Week Zero marked the beginning of the final term of our MBA course before we get going with our Summer Consulting Project in July. Well, during the initial two days of this week I was traveling in India and reached Oxford only on Wednesday night just to attend the only class of "Corporate Valuation" for week zero. It is quite an interesting class where we get to learn more about value creation & valuation, enhance skills to identify value drivers, defining problems in real life situation.

This term I have focused mainly on Marketing and Retailing subjects because of my interest in understanding the strategic decision making behind the brand image creation, of large organizations,in the mind of consumer.


As we came out of the class, we had our first group assignment due to be completed in next four days - Valuation of the contract offer made by Texas Rangers to Alex Rodriguez in December 2000. Knowledge from "Decision Science" class in Michaelmas Term came very handy while doing regression for this assignment.


As mentioned above, in July we go for a two-month Summer Consulting Project (SCP) with companies from varied sector working on their strategic issues and providing them with practical solutions to tackle the subject matter at hand. Our Business Project Office had compiled a listing of various companies offering SCP's, so did some research on various companies and projects offered, before showing my interest in any of those, so as to better align my aspirations and interests with the project goals.


So that was pretty much it from the week zero, with nothing exciting except the start of final term and an inspired attempt to finish the Corporate Valuation assignment by Tuesday of Week - 1. Other than this, I also made a video of some of the best pictures from the hundreds of those taken during the last term. Hope you will enjoy the moments.




Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Easter Break...

Back from the hiatus... Many apologies for being away from my blog for more than a month and not keeping it updated. The easter break was amazing and it is always great being back at home. I cannot put in words the joy of my parents (especially mom) on seeing me home after a long time. A 18 day break at home was not so much of vacation to relax because had a lot of catching up to do with my friends, relatives. Met some of them after almost four years or so. Attended my friends' wedding, met my best friend's Hiresh and Vikas from school time after almost two years. But it was not only fun and relaxation time. Did some preparation and research related to job hunt and for my EP project that was submitted on time by Archit on April 17, 2007.

It is always tough to get away from home and feels like being brought back to reality from a wonderful dream. So was the feeling when I travelled back from Kanpur to Oxford. But there is no escape from it and have to face the Trinity term in which already one week is over. In next few days you will see bit more of action here considering I have two weeks of Trinity to catch up, with loads of things happening during this time.

So long...

Take-off to India...

Yes... The time has come when I am all set to leave for my motherland. Parents waiting anxiously for my arrival while I write this post from the Terminal-3 of Heathrow International Airport in London, UK. Well, I hope to have an amazing term break in India and wish you all the very best in whatever you guys are busy in.

Ciao...

Week 10: Exams, Exams, and Exams....

Finally the exams are over...!!! Dressed in our batman outfit (Sorry, I meant Subfusc) we went to University of Oxford - Examination Schools for our Hilary term papers. Four days (with a break for some of us) and six exams almost made some people reach the verge of nervous breakdown. Quite contrary to the trends setup from last term (Michaelmas) and the way our mock exams were held, these final term papers were really hard, especially the Financial Management. Oh boy, I still remember those shocked faces coming out of the Examination Schools. Sadly enough, I did not have my camera and time to capture those images. The image across is one taken of the Examination Schools entrance as we are not allowed camera inside.

In short, if I recap my performance then FM is a paper where I did not perform per my expectations. IBGG and Marketing were standard ones and OM was with one or two curve balls our way. We were worried most about Finance-II but that seemed to be the one where I did the best. DEO was the usual with applying frameworks to the case in a single three hour sitting. I sincerely pray for all of us that we get through all the exams without much of difficulty. As of now, we have one assignment each due for Operations Management (On Monday by 12 noon sharp) and Financial Management (On Friday by 12 noon sharp). The picture to the left was taken minutes after our final exam of DEO and we have (From your left) Barry in red bow-tie, Renee, Julie, Anoop, Anubhav, Alex, Myself, Andre, Kate, Emma, Russell, Kevin, Maria and Mike. Look at their smiling faces, as if they have just won the biggest war of their life and to say the least, it was nothing less than a battle.

On one hand we were trying our best to perform our best in the exams and on the other hand, Indian cricket team was losing matches, not realizing that they were carrying the hopes of a billion people to win the ICC World Cup 2007. This world cup has had too many tragic moments with the death of Pakistani Cricket team coach Bob Woolmer being the most shocking one. For a game of cricket, how can a person be sacrificed and that too just because the team he coached was not able to deliver. It's a shame on the cricket community and other big names associated with cricket. Well, to appease my gloominess, I went to the after exam party at the Maxwell's that was amazing. We had a whole load of great time there and people were really going crazy.

Yesterday we celebrated birthday of one of our friend Anubhav who is getting married on fourth of next month in Lucknow, India. I have received his marriage card in hard copy format (We said no one will come if you send the soft copy version and he obliged us with what we asked for) and will be attending his marriage.

About the two assignments, we have completed the Operations Management assignment today in a single sitting stretching for almost nine hours but every single minute we put in was worth it. The assignment has come up really well and I have the responsibility of handing it over at the Examination Schools by 12 noon on March 26, 2007.

At Saïd Business School, The 2007 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship is organized by the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship from 27-29 March 2007. It is another big event SBS looks forward to. More details will follow in time to come.

Well barring two assignments due in five days time, the Hilary term is now getting its apt place in my memory book with the honor of being the toughest term of all. Next term my electives are such that I have formal exam for only one subject whereas all the other have practical and formal work assessments. I like this form of assessment better because it gives me a much better understanding of the subject rather than cramming the subject for two days to dump over on my answer sheet during the two hour exam.

And yes, another four days remain before I live for my motherland to be with my beloved parents for a three week long vacation. I am looking forward to it with excitement and vigor. Hopefully will be able to continue with my blog during the vacation and have some different news (Other than books, study, assignment etc) from India.

Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 9: Revise the subjects over and again

That is right... This week was devoted completely to revision of the six subjects and the EP presentation.

After a number of reshuffles, we finally managed to change the EP presentation time for our group from Thursday to Wednesday because one of our group member was flying to India for the Oxford-India Business Forum held in Mumbai on March 15, 2007. The presentation of our group went really well and were being applauded by Mr. Marcos Battisti (Senior Investment Manager at Intel Capital), David R G Cottam (Partner of Park Square Capital) and Mr. Stephen Chambers (MBA Course Director at Saïd Business School). During the question hour after the presentation, we sas a team were able to defend our cause and respond back to their question with a well-drafted answer that was taken by them in very high spirits.

Other than that, on Saturday night along with my school time friend (We met in Oxford after 13 years) and a couple of more friends went to see the much talked about event of Luminox on the Broad Street in Oxford. With all the electric lights turned off, the entire street just had fire display lit up providing enough lights for onlookers to move around. I forgot to carry my camera and I was a bit upset about that but somehow got a picture from a friend for your reference. More details about the same can be found at "LUMINOX". Thereafter we went to the "TURF TAVERN" for a pint of beer, before being again bogged down in our study notes. Indeed it was a short but nice break from studies.

Talking about revision, we have six subjects so tried to give one day each for all of them but the Operations Management proved all my calculations and theories wrong, eating up almost two days of my revision time, but atleast I am better off now with it. Just to let you know, we have following exam schedule for my six subjects (Different people have taken different electives so different schedules):

19 March 09:30 Financial Management (1.5 hrs)
19 March 14:30 International Business & Global Governance (2 hrs)

20 March 09:30 Marketing (3 hrs)

21 March 09:30 Operations Management (2 hrs)
21 March 14:30 Finance - II (1.5 hrs)

23 March 09:30 Designing Effective Organizations (3 hrs)


As of now, I am all set for the exams with appropriate armors to defend the questions shot at us in exam paper. Well by the time, you guys will be reading this post I will be all set for the first exam on Monday morning, so wish me luck guys... When I will be putting up my next post, I will be through with these exams and will be just six days from my travel to India.

Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 8: Hilary Lectures got over...

It is over... Yes, the final lecture week of Hilary term just got over. This term went by so fast and we are now into the preparation week towards our exams. You can already see that the exam pressure is building up with this post being a day late.


Last week was more of a wrap up one for different subjects with final few tips towards the impending exams and the most important of all was - "ANSWER THE QUESTIONs". I had no assignments due for this week so was pretty relaxed though still not done with them. Two formal assignments viz. Financial Management and Operations Management are due in the week after exams. By formal assignment, I mean we have to take the printout of the documents instead of submitting them online, and then submit three copies of the same at the Examination Schools.


During this revision week, we will also be pitching our EP ideas to the venture capitalists for their feedback about the viability of our projects and provide us with their feedback so that we can further improve upon our business plan before we submit it at the Examination Schools during the week zero of the next term.


We had no recruitment presentation, guest speakers coming in this week and hence were able to devote our time to give shape to our EP presentations and documenting the business plan, leaving it open for incorporating feedback from VC's.


Friday evening we had a party at the business school to mark the end of term (Well, atleast from lectures point). The theme of the party was - "Saïd goes to Bollywood". Chad was in true Indian outfit and faced a tough challenge from Patty to win the coveted prize for the evening. It went on till late though I could not stay till the end because had to go out the next day for data collection for our Operations Management (OM) assignment.


In short, OM assignment is about a business process analysis of a customer-facing process in Oxford. We chose STARBUCKS coffee shop for the purpose and collected data for the queuing process at the shop. Since it being a Saturday, we got a better understanding of any problems associated with the performance of the process and can give recommendations with far improved reasonings.


Sunday, began the revision for the exams and I am expecting to get over with them by the end of this week so that I have Sunday to relax a bit more before the exam week begins.


For now, it is the time to dig into my books, notes and whatever study material I can lay my hands on to prepare for the final battle of this term.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

Week 7: Less than 3 weeks to the Hilary D-Day

Yes, the time is fast approaching for our Hilary term exams. This was the penultimate week of lectures in this term and each subject has reached a stage from where the next week classes will be more of the revision classes along with a few final concepts. This week had nothing much going on except working on EP project for which the schedule of presentations due in the 9^th week of Hilary was announced.

Last Monday we discussed about the need for a firm to "Go Public" & make additional equity offerings. We also talked about why the firm would ever take the recourse back to being a “Private” company.


In Tuesday’s Marketing class, the discussion was around moving from a value proposition to the Brand. Indeed companies face tough time in devising appropriate brand strategies that can provide company with a better customer acquisition and at later time with effective “Customer Relationship Management (CRM)” practice can have better customer retention rate.


Wednesday, the discussion was concentrated around the concept of “Applying Process Thinking”. Key objectives of the session were to discuss the feasibility of ideas about process thinking in different settings. We also attended a talk on “Managing a firm in Crisis” by Mr. Anjan Lahiri, Executive VP of Mindtree Consulting. Mr. Lahiri’s passion and commitment about the company and the work he does was clearly reflected in his dynamic approach to the topic. He indeed is a kind of man I would love to work with.


On Thursday we focused on the issue of “Power and Politics” in different kinds of organizations. When I look back at history, I can correlate the topics discussed with my experiences in Infosys. Don’t take me wrong because it is always the people who bring in the aspect of P&P in the organization.


We also attended the much awaited and worked upon event of the term, “The Saïd Business School Venture Fund” (SBS’s version of Dragon’s Den). The fund was born last year at one of the forums in Saïd, where Sir Philip Green (UK Retail King) proposed that he is ready to put forward $500K towards a venture fund, if Mr. David Bonderman (Founding partner of Texas Pacific Group) agrees to do the same. Four finalists, selected out of 83 initial contestants, presented their business plan to the panel of Sir Philip Green, Mr. David Bonderman and Sir Victor Blank (Chairman of Lloyds TSB Group) for an investment from the venture fund. In the end, two of the four got the funding for their business as Mr. Bonderman and Sir Green kept audience entertained with their witty remarks. The other dignitaries present were Mr. Wafic Saïd (Benefactor and founding Trustee of Saïd Business School), Dr. John Hood (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford), and Professor Collin Mayer (Peter Moores Dean of the Saïd Business School).


On Friday, we shifted our focus to the ‘Role of the corporation in the Global Economy’, primarily from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perspective. In recent years, in the wake of the globalization impact on the developing world, companies are carefully addressing their debatable social responsibilities, be out of moral obligations or under government pressure. Moving away from the level of “a hands-off approach towards CSR”, companies are taking every step to ensure being “a role model CSR company for other businesses". General Motors has sponsored a film about AIDS in the world (A CLOSER WALK).


Saturday was one of the occasional sunny day in Oxford and an Indonesian Cultural Nite organized by the Indonesian Students Committee. I couldn’t attend the same considering had a lot to finish for my EP with presentations and documents all going through number of revisions before the baseline version can shape up. The Lunar Eclipse was witnessed by millions around the globe. Few images of the same captured at different places around the world are available at LUNAR ECLIPSE.


Sunday was back to normal rainy day in Oxford and I decided not to step out of my house, enjoying the day sitting inside. 'HOLI', the festival of color was celebrated in India today with loads of vigor and enthusiasm. People throw colored powder and water on each other. Feasts and celebrations continue till later in the evening. I miss the true nature of this festival and the delicious sweets prepared on the occasion. Well instead of playing colors in India, here I was without any regret finishing my last practical work assignment and reading for the formal works due by end of this month. I apologize that I have not been able to write more about the “Value Pricing Thermometer” but surely will discuss this in next couple of days.


And yes, the biggest event of this week for me on personal front was that I decided to go home (India) during the term break. But still the travel date is four weeks from now and I cannot wait till then but before that have got exams to deal with.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!