Life in a B-school

Life has been super busy lately but I feel purposeful and happy. The negative part of it is that I am so wrapped up in the routines of daily life. Days roll into weeks and time just flies by. I’ve been consistently productive for quite some time now, yet the amount of work just continues to pile. It's been more than 4 months that I've joined XLRI and only about 6 months or so remain before I'm outta here. Today I'd like to share with you some observations made during these few months.

1> Students are very competitive, very grade-conscious and work too hard.
2> Majority are focussed towards securing grades rather than towards assimilating knowledge.
3> A lot of students are in a state of flux and have no idea why they are here and/or where they would want to be post-mba.
4> A 1-year mba is extremely intensive & quite stressful and you always keep wondering why there are only 24 hours in a day!
5> Peers evaluate you in terms of your scores/grades.
6> Friendship & camaraderie are passe.
7> Finance & Consultancy rule!
8> Quite a few students would make excellent secretaries (to bosses) since they are able to start taking notes even before the Prof. has uttered a single word.
9> Finally, if MBA is a religion then Profs are God...period!

These are observations based upon my personal experience and you have every right to agree/disagree.

GMP - Admission

Dear Readers,
As many of you may be aware that applications are being invited for admission into 1 year GMP @ XLRI. If anyone has any questions regarding the admission process, course, pedagogy, placements or anything else for that matter then I'll be more than happy to take your queries. I have also been responding to prospective applicant's queries at pagaalguy. So do let me know if you have any queries/doubts.

XLRI ahead of all private B-schools

XLRI has made it to the top slot for the best B-school in the country. In a recent survey by Clore, a market research organization and a business magazine, XLRI, Jamshedpur, was ranked 1st in the private B-schools category. SP Jain & NMIMS are at 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. The IIMs have retained their position on the list of top government B-schools in the country.
"It is indeed a matter of pride for all at XLRI to be ranked at the top. Prior to this, XLRI was only next to the IIMs but the bifurcation between private and government sectors has surely helped us scale new heights," said E.M. Rao, former dean of XLRI.
XLRI has also made it to the number one position as far as the faculty salaries among all B-schools go - the highest being Rs 27 lakh per annum and the minimum Rs 4.2 lakh annually. IIMs are the lowest, at number 17, with the maximum salaries being only Rs 6 lakh per annum.

Competence / Incompetence

There are 4 possible levels professional aptitude/know-how which could be used to categorize anyone working in an organization. They are as follows:
Unconscious Incompetence - I know not that I know not
Conscious Incompetence - I know that I know not
Conscious Competence - I know that I know
Unconscious Competence - I know not that I know
It is not necessary that a particular individual has to go through all the above phases. However, it is desirable for a competent manager to try and attain the level of Conscious Competence. I was told that Unconscious Competence is probably the hardest to achieve. The problem is that if one is aware of one's capabilities then complacency sets in which restricts one from achieving the highest level of competence.

2nd Term starts

I reached Jamshedpur late last night. I was glad that we had only 3 classes today since I didn't get enough sleep. The POM faculty handed over 2 cases and pre-reads for tomorrow's class.
This term we have the following 7 subjects:
Financial Management (FM)
Human Resource Management (HRM)
MIS : Technical and Social Perspectives (MISTSP)
Production and Operations Management (POM)
Strategic Management
Optimization Models for Managerial Decisions (OMMD)
Legal Environment of Business (LEB)

Free Riders!

Today I will talk about a special breed of MBA grads (in the making) whom I've encountered during these 2.5 months at XLRI - the free riders!
How does one define free riders? Non contributing members of a project who are a liability on the remaining team members are affectionately called free riders. They are really a sad breed among MBAs. They fail to understand the responsibilities which they are expected to shoulder. These are people who believe in the theory of symbiotic living but only partially. They will stick on with you, contribute nothing, reap the benefit and move ahead. Their focus is solely on how not to come in limelight and how to hide their incompetency. They do not show any sense of self consciousness or shame in blatantly copying other people's work. True believers of social theory of justice. The worst part is that some of these people even go to the extent of calling themselves smart workers.
There are many competent people who free-ride. These people can be of 2 types - those who are plain lazy and do not give a damn and those who will do all their individual assignments arduously but will slack off when it comes to group work as they know that someone else will surely do the job.
So, how to stop this menace? I have a simple solution. In general, each member of the group receives the same grade on the project/assignment. However, there may be times when one or more members of a group will free ride on the work of other members. The grades of such free riders should be substantially reduced (up to 25% from the total grade) if consistent evidence of free riding is found. To discover free riding, each member of a group may submit an individual Group Peer-Evaluation Form around the time when the group’s project/assignment is submitted. If someone does not submit a Group Self-Evaluation Form, the Professor will assume that, from this student’s perspective, at least, no free riding problems existed.

25% MBA complete

End terms are over :-)
I haven't done too badly but there are a few areas for improvement...the most important being time management. If you ask me what is the single most important skill that you need to master in order to survive in a B-school then I'd say it's time management - more so in a 1-year MBA.
It's been 2.5 months and it seems like y'day...time really flies in a B-school with all the assignments / quizzes(announced & surprised) / mid-terms / end-terms / projects (individual & group) et al.
2nd term is gonna be more hectic so I'll recharge my batteries & be back on the 5th of next month.

P.S. Loads of stuff to share with you guys so don't go anywhere...I'll be blogging daily during the term breaks to compensate for not blogging enough during the 1st term

End terms are here !

End terms exams have started. Today we had the BECC paper. Tomorrow we have 2 exams - Mktg & Mgr Comm. followed by Mgr Eco on tuesday, QT on wednesday and finally MANAC & OB on thursday. I will be leaving for Kolkata on thursday night. All exams other than MGE & OB will be open notes. Looking fwd to another 4 sleepless nights :-(

Two Xlers in News

Sharat Dhall (93BMD) joins Expedia as India Head
Sharath Dhall (93BMD) has been appointed online travel portal Expedia.com as its head of India operations.
...Prior to joining Times Internet Ltd (TIL) as its Director (e-Commerce) about a year-and-a-half ago, Dhall was working for HLL (now, HUL) as business head of its rural venture, Project Shakti. He has 14 years of experience and has also worked with Asian Paints.
Expedia created buzz in October 2006 when it said it was looking for a person to head its imminent operations in India. The company now has an office in Gurgaon, but has not announced any other plans. Expedia offers the ‘Expedia Best Price Guarantee’ which guarantees customers the best rates for all types of travel -- it offers vacation packages, flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and in-destination activities. Since Expedia is very strong globally on hotel bookings, the company is expected to follow the same route when it officially launches in India.



Madhukar Kamath (76BMD) is AAAI President
The Hindu (July 31): Mr Madhukar Kamath (76BMD), Managing Director & CEO of the Mudra Group, has been unanimously elected as the new President of Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) for the year 2007-2008.
The AAAI is the apex body of advertising agencies in the country and comprises 84 members who account for approximately 80 per cent of all the advertising business in the country.
Commenting on his appointment as the President of AAAI, Mr Kamath said, “The Indian advertising industry is undergoing tremendous change. I believe marketing communications play a valuable role in the economy. The task at hand is to improve the image of the industry and to promote the interests of the advertising agencies so that they continue to make an essential and ever-increasing contribution to the nation.”

The Goal

As part of our OB (MHB) course we have to complete a book review. I just finished the book assigned to me which is "The Goal" written by Eliyahu Goldratt. Plainly speaking The Goal is a book on Theory of Constraints. However along with the message, another important side to this book is the method the author has adopted to deliver the message.
Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager who is continually fighting to meet the output requirements of his business. There are ongoing conflicts between marketing, accounting and production in the organization. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days - Jonah - to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. Through some suggestions from Jonah, Rogo learns to identify and manage the problem areas in the operation. Specifically, Rogo identifies production bottlenecks that are the critical points determining the rate of production of the operation. Then he develops strategies for overcoming or living with the bottlenecks.
Eliyahu Goldratt uses the approach of Socratic inductive reasoning to teach his Theory of Constraints. He does this by presenting ideas in the form of a fascinating novel about people dealing with the problems managers face at home and at work every day. Goldratt's ideas are surprisingly applicable in manufacturing and service environments. By studying and applying these ideas, one could improve the organizational effectiveness and productivity, free up capital tied up in excess inventory, reduce customer frustration and reduce organizational anxiety. The Goal should be on the "must read" list for most managers.

XL - Pics

XLRI Learning Centre



Campus at Night



Way to Class



MDP Residence



MDP Dining Hall

M&A: Human Capital Challenge

Last month SAPPHIRE invited Mr Sunit Sinha to talk about M&A: Human Capital Challenge. Mr Sinha is a M&A Consulting Business Leader at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, India. Incidentally, he happens to be an XLRI alumni.
M&A transactions continue to boom, driven by increasing globalisation, healthy financial results and an increase in available financing. Yet many deals fail to meet the strategic, operational and financial objectives underlying the deal rationale. Why?
The most common reason for this failure is lack of attention paid to the human capital aspects of due diligence and integration.

Ek Ruka Hua Faisla

We had Prof. D. P. Ghosh of ICFAI visiting us over the weekend. He took 3 sessions in 'Integrated Marketing Communications' & 'Pricing'. There were a lot of takeaways from his Marketing class. He is an alumni of XLRI (73 batch).
We were also shown a movie on saturday as part of the MHB course. The name of the movie is "Ek Ruka Hua Faisla". The story goes like this -> 12 male members of a jury gather together in an enclosed room to deliberate their decision on a charge of murder against a young man who has been accused of killing his father. All of the jury, save for one, are convinced of this young man's guilt, and they would like to convince their colleague also to come to the same unanimous decision. However this dissenting juror slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court. It's an adaptation of the English movie "12 Angry Men". Go & check it out (I mean the English version).

Adventure Trip

Hi guys, I'm back after a long hiatus. Some of you have mailed me. I'll try to write more regularly henceforth. We (GMP students) recently went on a three-day adventure trip co-ordinated by Tata Adventure Sports Foundation (TASF), Jamshedpur. This is a regular annual event to be taken up by all students.
This program aims to inculcate management lessons among the students the natural way. TASF, a professional body under dynamic leadership of Ms. Bachendri Pal, is engaged in organizing such adventure programs for corporates and institutions all over the country.
The three days trip involved students admiring the hardships of nature as well as actually enjoying the same by means of several exciting management games which brought out their mental and physical prowess to the fore. The events included rock-climbing, caving, trenching, abseiling at a place near Jamshedpur and water rafting at Dimna Lake.
Ms. Bachendri Pal, the first Indian women to climb Mt. Everest, gave a pep talk to the students on leadership skills. She was all praise for the enthusiasm and high degree of involvement shown by the students. The trip ended with the event of water rafting at Dimna Lake and the names of the overall group members were announced by a senior TASF official. The trip ended on a sweet note with recapitulations of learning spread over three days. GMP students were upbeat with the rigor and relevance of this program. Some of the learning's from the program include leadership skills, working in teams, building strategies, making optimal use of available resources, overcoming the fears of unknown, leadership, and introspection skills.

1st Term Begins

Academic year starts from tomorrow... Here's wishing everyone in our batch all the very best ! In the meanwhile we are trying to come up with a collaborative GMP blog. I'm sure that there are a good number of bloggers/creative writers in our batch so that there will be no dearth of contributors. Keep watching this space for more info. regarding the collaborative blog.
P.S. We have also elected the 2 CRs of our class this week. A lot of work ahead of them :-)

1st Week @ XLRI

I'm trying to settle down here. We are having a preparatory programme during the 1st week. Prof. Madhukar Shukla took us through the history of Indian Business starting from the post independence era till the late nineties. We were introduced to Case Methodology with the case of "Ross Abermathy and the Frontier National Bank". For anyone interested this case has been taken from Peter Drucher's 'Management Cases'. Since I have an engineering background I was quite skeptical about Accounting & Finance. However, after attending a couple of sessions of Prof. Sabyasachi Sengupta all my demons have vanished. In fact, I have started to believe that I will probably enjoy the subject. The way he introduced the concepts is simply amazing. Kudos to him.. Registration is tomorrow...

Reached XLRI

I reached XLRI on 19th evening. It's been raining here lately. Unfortunately some of us could not be accomodated in the MDP Residence so we are temporarily put up in St.Thomas Men's Residence. Hopefully we would be able to shift to the MDP Residence by month end. In fact a new residential facility is coming up in the campus where all the GMP participants would be housed. This facility is expected to be operational by 1st week of September. So, a lot of packing/shifting ahead of us :-(

Here I come !

The countdown has begun...I shall be leaving for XLRI on 19th June. I'll be travelling with 3 other friends, Shailendra, Suman & Nikhilesh. Santosh was also supposed to travel with us but unfortunately he couldn't make it due to prior professional commitments.
Hopefully the weather at Jamshedpur would be better this time around with the Monsoon setting in. Anyway, that's not my prime concern since from what I heard the Classrooms and the MDP Residence are all centrally airconditioned.
The academic calendar is as follows:
1. Welcome & Preparatory Programme : June 20 - 24, 2007
2. Registration & Briefing for GMP Programme : June 24, 2007 (3 PM)
3. Term 1 Begins - June 25, 2007

XLRI Campus Pics

While browsing through some MBA student blogs I stumbled upon these excellent pics of the XLRI campus. Kudos to the photographer for capturing some really breathtaking snaps. Please see for yourself here !

Educational Loan

I was in Jamshedpur last week to arrange the education loan. I could have paid the entire course fee from my personal funds but decided against the same after some contemplation. My decision to go for the education loan is not based upon financial reasons but to avail the tax advantage associated with the repayment of the loan. Section 80-E of the Income Tax Act contains a provision for availing deduction on the total income on account of educational loans for the purpose of computing taxable income, provided the loan is in the name of the assessee.
For anyone interested the details are as follows:
GMP Course Fee - Rs 6,26,000
Disbursing Bank - State Bank of India
Loan Sanctioned - Rs 5,94,000 (approx 95 %)
Rate of Interest (Floating) - 11.25 % per annum
Repayment - 84 EMI of Rs 10,249
Security/Third Party Guarantee - Waived