Week 6: Less Assignment, More Applications

As I write this post, across the Pacific Ocean at the Kodak Theater in the city of Los Angeles, California. The latest I have read is that Alan Arkin hit the jackpot for best actor in a supporting role for "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Pan's Labyrinth" got the award for best art direction and best makeup. The make up indeed was bit different than usual (<---Decide for yourself).

This week we had not that many frenzied activities with respect to assignments, thus got a breather to work on our Entrepreneurial Projects (Means more research sitting in library), job applications and enjoy other activities in a not so tensed status.


Over the last weekend, world progressed into the New Chinese Year (The "Year of Pig"). The information goes like this that if a person is born in 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983 or 1995, he/she is born in pig years and tends to have excellent manners, make and keep friends, work very hard, and appreciate luxury. The famous pig year personalities included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alfrod Hitchcock, Hillary Clinton and Ernest Hemingway and if you are born in one of these years then you can boast to be one among the celebrities.


Monday we discussed different ways to forecast a companies finances and then discount the cashflows using multiples of Earnings, Sales or EBITDA. Further discussion was carried on with respect to our assignments and firm evaluation to generate value for its financiers. The class was a bit fast paced though the message was delivered emphatically by our Professor who has won in recent past, the "Best Lecturer of Core-Elective" award.


Tuesday we learnt pricing model in marketing and the way Virgin Mobile entered the US mobile market working as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) and targeting the teen's segment without any contract committments. I will talk about the Value-Pricing "Thermometer" in another post. Oh and by the way it was Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday as well and I really missed the festivities of New Orleans and St. Louis.


Wednesday we had a guest speaker from BT, Dr. Patrick O'Connell who heads the NHS Computer System programme explained about the intricacies of running such a programme and elaborated on some of the notable failures in areas of similar programmes.


On Thursday we played the game of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", well not exactly though. It was during our Operations Management class that we had a trial run of ask-the-audience kit to answer questions while discussing the case about Operative, an online company that acts as a "Trafficker" to channel appropriate advertisement on a particular web-page. The mother of all consulting companies, McKinsey & Company visited Saïd Business School (SBS). A well drafted and effectively delivered presentation by a partner, who is also an alumni of SBS, left us fairly impressed.


Friday we had the case about my previous company Infosys. Long discussions went into the recruitement policies, competitive advantage, and future plans of Infosys. People were fairly impressed by the sprwaling campus at Bangalore with all facilities that are expected to be provided in a world class resort in Caribbean Islands. In the evening, we were invited to the sumptuous party organized by the 22% club of our batch. The dishes were all scrumptious and everyone had a great time. Well 22% club is the group of female in our course and dinner party was a thank you note to the roses that we delivered to them on the Valentines' Day (A tradition amongst the male MBA's at SBS). Later in another party I learnt some steps of Scottish dance as well. The day got over when I submitted my application to another big consulting company and sent in my CV to an IT company.


Saturday and Sunday had nothing more in line except the EP research and writing the report for it and hence both days were pretty long and exciting (You can call it boring as well if such research are not your cup of tea). To our encouragement got a mail from the board member of a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Fund that is being setup by Ex Vice-President of the USA, Hon. Al Gore, expressing interest in our project (VC's are you listening). On a different note, this week we also celebrated birthdays of Shree, Arash and Pamela.


While writing the closing lines, I read that Forest Whitaker has won the Academy award for the performance in a leading role for "The Last King of Scotland". The movie is based on the events during the regime of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, with Whitaker portraying the role of Idi Amin.


The photo across is of the Grand Sheldonian Theater in Oxford where our Matriculation Ceremony took place. As the next week brings in a whole load of new assignments and so do begin the preparations for the final battle of the Hilary Term - Exams, week 6 becomes a chapter in the memory book of my MBA at Oxford.


Good Night and Good Luck!!!

India Calling...

This week the Telecom Industry in India saw one of the biggest deals taking place with Vodafone set to acquire 67% in the Hutch-Essar company. Probably this will fuel the already going on price-war in cellular service market in India. In words of Arun Sarin (CEO Vodafone), "We will drive prices down,". Mobile customers in India be ready to enjoy more goodies from the cellular operators on top of the recent price cut announced under pressure from TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India - http://www.trai.gov.in/).

Another big story from the IT sector of India was the successful attempt of Economic Times to get Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy (Chairman of Infosys) and Mr. Ajeem Premji (Chairman of Wipro) together for a chat over a cup of coffee. How often it happens but as of date it is a reality. Rest I will leave up to you guys to read on.... (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1614824.cms).

Hope you will enjoy the conversation of the two titans of Indian Information & Technology industry who led it to the success it enjoys today.

So long...

Week 5: Hell-ary

Yes... Hell-ary, that is how we call our second term amongst us. In reality, it is Hilary term. Many people question as to how your terms are named. Well, here is a short version I picked up from Wiki. The term is one of four into which the legal year is divided by the Courts of England and Wales, with Michaelmas being the first, followed by Hilary, Easter and Trinity. From Hilary, we straightway jump onto Trinity (Somehow the name has a grandiose feeling attached to it), skipping Easter for our third term name.

This week was quite an exciting one for a number of reasons such as (a) Marks for various assignments were declared, (b) Recruitment fair & related events and (c) Brazillian Carnival nite. Let's address them one at a time.

To begin with, marks for Finance-II were declared and as expected the majority was in the 60-65 pool but quite shocking was that 5% of class couldn't do fair. Seems like the debt-equity and future cashflow projects are still not flowing well through our heads. May be time will make us better and better like wine as it ages.

For DEO (Developing Effective Organization), we had London Symphony Orchestra case to take care of. With Star Wars, Harry Potter soundtrack and Deep Purple in Concert with LSO, we made an amazing presentation that was praised by whole lot of students. Some of the highlights were - Handouts in form of repertoires, ushers guiding the audience to their seats and a principal & conductor taking control of the show. We did fairly well and got away with the best marks till date though not enough to reach 70 (Actual marks - 68.75). I hate being in floating points but can't help it as it is not in my hand.

Next in line were the Marketing marks. People spent days and nights to come up with a full-proof analysis of amazing Aqualisa Shower (http://www.aqualisa.com/). But the Harvard Professor gave marks in true Oxford spirit with a proper distribution of 10% distinctions and 10% not making through. The effect of the same was quite shocking as the attendance in the marketing class went down to almost half of the class strength. Looks like Aqualisa shower did not leave a lasting impression on many of us though I wish some day I have that shower with digital touch screen and other accessories in my bath (Cost of Shower - Mere GBP 1400 approximately).

Done with the marks so lets move on to the events that took place last week. First one on cards was Tech Mahindra Ltd (TML) presentation. One of our class mates is an ex-employee of TML so on his behest many of us went for the presentation. On the tunes of "I have got the power by Snap" , the presentation started with full bass and treble in play. But when the time came for an open house, it just bit the dust. The response to the questions by students was horrible and one of the senior person of TML talked about himself rather than about TML. And to add salts to the wound, they had salary figures posted on their presentation, which was fairly low. As a standard, a company never never never tells the salary on offer upfront and is discussed only during negotiations once the placement offer is made. Looking at this, TML still seem to have to go a long way before they can put up a presentation for an international B-school.

Then we had the much hyped Oxbridge fair at the Judge Management Institute in Cambridge. After a 2.5 hrs of bus travel we reached there to meet a whole bunch of companies that requested us politely to apply through their websites and that is what we are currently in process of. The ones that appealed to me the most were Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and Amazon (Yes... Amazon I rated above Johnson & Johnson). Anyways after an hour of talking to the prospective recruiters, we were off to a tour of Cambridge that lasted till late in the evening. A social event was organized by Judge students in our honor at "The Anchor" pub but we couldn't enjoy much out their. So Brian (My flatemate) and I moved out to a far better one, "The Eagles" telling others to inform us when they leave for Oxford. But to our amusement, the whole crowd later followed us and thereafter everybody had a great time at "The Eagles". The fun got over only when we reached Oxford while Brian played "Super Mario" on his laptop till the batteries died out.

Something off the track... My NBD (New Business Development) project, where we have to develop a full fletched business plan for starting up a new business (If not practically then theoratically...) is in full swing with research in progress. Subject of our project is "An investment fund whose primary goal seeks to invest in socially responsible companies and products." I am looking after Marketing and Sales portion of the project and currently in touch base with few of the leading SRI firms for further insights into the industry and prevailing trends of it.

Before signing off for the day, I must tell you that I managed to calculate the stock price of Alcon (A Medical Supplies company, Per Damodaran) in all the possible ways asked by our Professor as part of our next Finance assignment. I decided not to spend more than four hours on it but eventually I ended up spending almost 1.5 times of that in the hope that I will get some good marks ensuring that I do not flunk this core elective on the whole. In the end, hats off to Professor Damodaran and his website (http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/) with the help of which, along with many others who referenced it, I got the assignment finished in time.

I apologize for not mentioning about the blast we had at the Brazillian Carnival party organized by Latin American friends of ours in University. It was all fun and frolic with dancing to the tune of Samba and other Latin tunes. In short, a great way to begin my weekend that ended up wrapping Finance assignment.

Can't resist adding this photo of mine that came out better than usual (Generally my pictures don't come well mostly beacuse of person not being able to take it properly ;) ) in one of the colleges at Cambridge.


So to speak, an eventful week came to an end without any major hiccups.

Good Night, and Good Luck!!!

Events for the remaining week 5...

This is really fast... An hours into the starting of my blog and already two posts. May be I am not able to sleep at this odd hour of the night listening to the Tower clock striking one or as you might have rightly guessed it to be the enthusiasm of a beginner.

It's the middle of the fifth week in Hillary term and already we are through with 55% of our regular classes during this term. Not taking much of your time, I will list down some of the events most likely to take place during this week. I am saying most likely because many a times the events do get deferred/cancelled at short notice due to some urgency or .... whatever you might think of... :D Deloittes' recruitment presentation is one example of such a case with reasoning for cancellation being that they will give a presentation at the "Oxbridge Careers Fair".

So the first event is Tech Mahindra Ltd. (TML) recruitment presentation scheduled for the V-day. Isn't it crazy to have such an event on the V-day when people tried their level best to get the evening class of "Developing Effective Organisation" prepone to Tuesday so as to attend dinners with their beloved ones... Alas to the misery of those poor souls, the DEO class is on V-day and so is the Tech Mahindra presentation. In short the TML will give a presentation alluring the MBA's to be the future leaders of the company. This will be followed by a lunch reception to be attended by FORTUNE Four people chosen from amongst 60 odd people eyeing for a seat next to the big shot from TML (Not to say I was one of the contender voted out...).

The second event is the much talked about and extremely hyped event of the year "The Oxbridge Careers Fair" scheduled for Thursday at Judge Business School, Cambridge University. It's a joint venture of the business schools at Oxford and Cambridge University. All the hue and cry is about a number of companies (Guess 16 or so... Will tell the exact number upon returning from fair) coming to the fair for their recruitment presentation. Careers people expect many of the current MBA students to be recruited or at least called for the next round of interview where as students are more in a mood of a fun filled day at the Cambridge. Ofcourse there will be some serious candidates but my guess is most will be out there going around Cambridge University. My plan is to finish my IBGG (International Business & Global Governance) assignment on my way to Cambridge to hedge my risks associated with the next weeks course study and case based interview preparations. Well, details of the fair will follow soon enough hopefully...

Friday brings in a night of "Valentine Dinner" at the Templeton College and "Carnival Nite" organized by the Latin American and Brazillian Society of Oxford University. I weighed my options as to which event to call for and which one to put in because I am more than confident of not making it to both of them. After a careful thought processing, verdicts are in and the winner is "Carnival Nite".

So these are some of the awaited events of the week and I hope I will enjoy most of them and if some miracle (God helps me and I help myself) happens then may be get selected for an interview as well.

Good Night, and Good Luck!!!

So it begins...

I know very well that I am a laggard in joining the ever growing world commu- nity of bloggers but may be I was too much procrastinating or may be not...

Once I thought of starting my blog in the year 2004 but then realised may be still it is not the time for me to let the world know what's happening. Then I thought of it with my MBA career shaping up in Oxford but the 'Back to school' thing didn't allow me to begin. Finally, I decided that it has been enough and I need to start one day or I will never be able to...

So in the early hours of the Valentine's day alongside sending my wishes to my Valentine (It's a mystery...!!!) I am here and so it begins....

I will try my best to post atleast once a week to keep this blog alive and kicking...!!!

Ciao...