It could not get any better. Take my words for it... it was the best ever match one could imagine. It was an India vs. Pakistan in world cup final. The first 20-20 world cup. I am not only a cricket lover, but also have played a lot of circket. Had reached upto the gates of Ranji selection, but had to select my studies over it. Still my interest keeps me a part of some cricket team, wherever I am. Currently I play for my company's team.
After a heart-breaking 50 over world cup early this year, I had become apathic towards watching Indian cricket team playing. I dont know which series they played after the world cup. But, the pace and enery, added with short duration of 20-20 attracted me a lot and I watched many games. Watching Yuvraj hitting 6 sixes in an over was a real experience and it had definately increased my blood to an extent that I really got back to cricket in my fullest. The SA and AUS matches were enough to give a lot of confidence not only to me, but also to the entire nation that India can win the world cup this time (after 24 years).
I, along with few of my friends, planned to watch this match in my house. We ensured that everyone reaches on time... I left my office at 4:00, the match was at 5:30.. (thanks to bangalore traffic and all the enthu india supporters leaving early.. I was just one of them). I bought some cold-drinks and other snacks on the way to home, enough for the 3 hour game.. All others reached just before the start of the game. And the game started....
It is a real fun to watch a match in a group... you have a lot of commets, reactions....etc...etc.. India won the toss and elected to bat..Watching Yusuf Pathan to start his international career as an opnener in Ind-Pak world cup final was strange.. We all just started on indian team and management.. but Pathan started off in style.. guess what.. YES.. with a six.. and we all agreed with the indian team immidiately.. the guys was real good and his short innings presented a summary of his capabilities. Rest of the Indian batting was ok.... we kept shouting on every 4 and 6.. kept critizing for running slow... "Cummon. you can run 2 here" !
Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma were the real discovery of this tournament. And I suddenly realized that the cold-drink and snacks were all over in the first innings only.. so much excitement....:)
Second innings was Pakistan batting to chase a moderate 157.. We were all tensed about it... we could not bat to score a score that we had expected.. We cursed Yuvraj for his attitude in this game.... We got many comments saying that he was not happy about Dhoni being the captain and so he wants India to loose today.. his fathers comments following his 6 sixes etc.. Our cook joined us and he prepared some quite good "pakodas" in the break.
Pak innings started with these thing going on.... Good bowling by RP singh and bad by Srisanth was the hot discussion in the first few overs... overall, the game went fine for us till 15 overs.. Pak were 99/6 and the target was to get 59 runs in 5 overs.... around 12 per over. We almost started celebrating.. 16th over only 5 runs, nice work by Pathan.. Some of the fireworks had already started by that time.. We did not change our places while watching the final overs as we thought that may change something..;).. yes, we believed that at that moment !
And then started the Master.. Misbah.. he went for 3 sixes in 17th over.. Bhajji could not control him... We started getting concerned now.... and little did we know that it was just the starting.. Sohail went for two more in the next over by Irfan Pathan. We could take it any more.... Last two overs left.. 20 to make with 2 wickets left. The chances were definately 50-50 now... it all changed with those big sixes. PR singh put the 19th over of 7 runs and the target changed to 13 runs in 6 balls. Not impossible. And guess what..? We did not have a good baller left. Yoginder sharma was not that impressive a baller to us, but he had done it against Australia. Habhajan had gone for 19 in an over... and the strike batsman was Misbah.. We all were quite when Sharma went for his first ball.. and a wide !!! To hell with you.. dont you know the conditions out there... He anyway compensated with a dot next ball... 12 from 5.. but was not impossible.. not at all for the Almighty Misbah.. The second ball was a six.. a big six.. this was end of our hope.. We cursed everyone in the Indian team.. Then Misbah went for a paddle shot to finish the game, the ball went up in the air.. all we could see was the ball in air in our two-dimentional television sets. Thought it is a 4.. And Suddenly a magical moment. We saw Srisanth there under the ball... he got it. The ball could not travel to the distance as Sharma had put it slow this time. We started shouting like mad... the whole area was full of joy.. lots of crackers and fireworks all around. We shouted even louder "Bharat Mata Ki ... Jai !!!" and "Jai Hind !!!"..... One of my friends later said jokingly " Misbah thought, there is no one in that area and hit the shot. He forgot that Malayali's are there in every part of the world !"....
This was a life time experience to have. Proud to be Indian..
Jai Hind !
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Threats to Zara
1. What are the threats to Zara's success?
Following are the threats to Zara's success:
1. Zara's Vertically integrated model is a threat to Zara's success in long run. The model will not work once Zara scales its operation. Currently, Zara's desiging, production, distribution and retails stores are tightly coupled together and operate very closely. Expanding operations in different regions (America, Asia, Europe etc.), requires addressing different fashion trends at a time. Also, given different sizes/ trends in different regions, it would not be easy to pull a new fashion cloth or apperal from one region and put it in other region.
2. Also, scaling its operation may require joint-ventures and acquiring some smaller chains also. In a 50:50 joint venture, it is very difficult for Zara to impose its business model to the other partner. In this case, we have already seen Zara's joint ventures dissolving on a couple of occasions.
3. While zara may find it difficult to manage the vertically integrated model for its large scales of operation, local retailers may follow Zara's formula to success and can emerge as big threat to its success.
4. It is not easy to beat the local retailers in their home market. For example, the Local appreal market in Italy is still owned 61% by the independent stores, 45% in Spain (Note that this is Zara's local market too) and 15-30% in other three major European markets. Specially, in a country with very cheap labour (mostly in Asia), it will be very difficult for Zara to keep up its production in Spain.
5. Zara's business model is based on ever changing fashion. For countries like US, where people are less fashion forward, it may be a challenge for Zara to sustain its presence.
6. With changing time, Advertisement is becoming an important part of the business and it reflects directly to the sales. Zara's in-store advertisement model may not work going forward.
2. Which of these threats are most serious?
1. Most serious threat to Zara is to sustain its success.
2. Another most serious threat to Zara is its growth. The company could not aquire large market shares in the domestic market. Even in Europe, the company does not has a reasonable presence. American and Asian markets have different types of challenges, that zara may be facing in future. American market is less fashion forward, which questions zara's basic business model itself. Asia, on the other hand, is known for its cheap labour. Competing with these challenges at a time in different markets, while keeping its vertically integrated business model intact is the most serious challenge for Zara.
3. What should Zara do to address these threats?
Zara cannot address different requirements and challenges working from its home location only. It can have multiple vertically integrated production for each region. For Asia, having cheap labour will definately add a lot to the operating cost (For example, refer to Exhibit-2 where value added per dollar for Indian labour is 5, where that for Spanish labour is 1.6). While its engineering team can continue giving fast reponse to new designs.
4. How should Zara go about its internationalisation in future?
1. See if setting up a production unit makes sense with respect to the operating expenses.
2. Zara can use Frachises for high risk and conservative countries.
3. Aquiring small chains may not be a good idea for Zara given its business model.
4. Spend more on Information Technology to remain in close touch with store and customers.
5. May need to spend more on advertisement.
Following are the threats to Zara's success:
1. Zara's Vertically integrated model is a threat to Zara's success in long run. The model will not work once Zara scales its operation. Currently, Zara's desiging, production, distribution and retails stores are tightly coupled together and operate very closely. Expanding operations in different regions (America, Asia, Europe etc.), requires addressing different fashion trends at a time. Also, given different sizes/ trends in different regions, it would not be easy to pull a new fashion cloth or apperal from one region and put it in other region.
2. Also, scaling its operation may require joint-ventures and acquiring some smaller chains also. In a 50:50 joint venture, it is very difficult for Zara to impose its business model to the other partner. In this case, we have already seen Zara's joint ventures dissolving on a couple of occasions.
3. While zara may find it difficult to manage the vertically integrated model for its large scales of operation, local retailers may follow Zara's formula to success and can emerge as big threat to its success.
4. It is not easy to beat the local retailers in their home market. For example, the Local appreal market in Italy is still owned 61% by the independent stores, 45% in Spain (Note that this is Zara's local market too) and 15-30% in other three major European markets. Specially, in a country with very cheap labour (mostly in Asia), it will be very difficult for Zara to keep up its production in Spain.
5. Zara's business model is based on ever changing fashion. For countries like US, where people are less fashion forward, it may be a challenge for Zara to sustain its presence.
6. With changing time, Advertisement is becoming an important part of the business and it reflects directly to the sales. Zara's in-store advertisement model may not work going forward.
2. Which of these threats are most serious?
1. Most serious threat to Zara is to sustain its success.
2. Another most serious threat to Zara is its growth. The company could not aquire large market shares in the domestic market. Even in Europe, the company does not has a reasonable presence. American and Asian markets have different types of challenges, that zara may be facing in future. American market is less fashion forward, which questions zara's basic business model itself. Asia, on the other hand, is known for its cheap labour. Competing with these challenges at a time in different markets, while keeping its vertically integrated business model intact is the most serious challenge for Zara.
3. What should Zara do to address these threats?
Zara cannot address different requirements and challenges working from its home location only. It can have multiple vertically integrated production for each region. For Asia, having cheap labour will definately add a lot to the operating cost (For example, refer to Exhibit-2 where value added per dollar for Indian labour is 5, where that for Spanish labour is 1.6). While its engineering team can continue giving fast reponse to new designs.
4. How should Zara go about its internationalisation in future?
1. See if setting up a production unit makes sense with respect to the operating expenses.
2. Zara can use Frachises for high risk and conservative countries.
3. Aquiring small chains may not be a good idea for Zara given its business model.
4. Spend more on Information Technology to remain in close touch with store and customers.
5. May need to spend more on advertisement.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
HMT vs Titan
After going through a case study of Titan company (which discussed the data upto 1994-95), I tried to find out what happened to HMT after that. I expected that HMT must have been trying hard to get its lost market share back from Titan. But, the real story was something else. I am posting my findings as below:
3. Some of the decisions made by HMT were unreasonable given the production ability of the company itself. To meet requirements of the quartz market, company outsourced the production of various visual parts (dial, cases etc.) [Outsourced from Tennmax India Ltd.]. It got large these parts in large volume from this organization, while its own production capacity of dials and cases remained underutilized at 34% and 47% respectively.
Conclusion-4: This clearly shows that there was large scope for optimization of the production facility. HMT could have used its existing production capabilities to meet the market requirements. As it was lagging behind in the production initially, producing of its own could have resulted in efficient production. This would have reduced the operating expenses also. It does not make sense to underutilize own production capabilities and go for outsourcing of the same parts.
6. During 2000-01, around 15 million watches were sold at the lowest end of the market and of this only about seven million were branded. Bijou Kurien, vice-president, sales and marketing, Titan said:
“We found out that customers in this segment badly wanted a brand with which they could be associated with.”
Conclusion-7: There was a big opportunity in the lower segment in 2001-2002. HMT could have utilized this opportunity by putting more effort on advertisement and distribution of watches for this segment.
7. When Titan planned to play the volume game, it launched SONATA (1998) in the range of Rs. 300-1000. This was a major success for Titan in terms of sales. But, it was only after few years; Titan realized that, by entering into the lower segment, it has actually paid a price of its brand image in the luxury segment. It then decided to separate SONATA from Titan in 2002, as Mr Bijou Kurien, vice-president, sales and marketing said:
‘‘It’s a double-edged sword and we have constantly debated whether we should separate the two or not.’’
NOTE: Please relate this to “why Titan came-up with Timex for lower end and not with its own brand. This is what happened when they finally launched Titan brand in lower segment.”
Titan pushed SONATA into rural market also.
The decisions made by Titan, shows the aggressiveness of the company towards the market and its changing dynamics. Titan was quite pro-active in their strategy. HMT, on the other hand, was reactive most of the times. It never had an innovative approach towards the market.
Conclusion-8: When you are competing against an aggressive competitor, you have to be innovative. HMT needed to take the feedback from the market and make their strategy based on the data collected, and should not make moves just to counter the moves made by Titan.
Study of performance of HMT during recent 5-7 years and analysis of what it did wrong and what it could have done better
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Though HMT finally responded to the competition put by Titan, there were many other factors to the company’s failure to gain the overall market share. As the case discusses the data upto 1994-95 only, we need to analyze the data after this period, to get information about the changes in the market. We will concentrate on the statistics of the market and performance of the organization in this period to understand “why HMT failed to capitalize on positive moves later. Following analysis shows the problems that HMT faced and “what it could have done better”.
1. HMT had the overall market share of 26% during 1997-98 and it dropped to 14% during 2001-02. Out of this, HMT still had 70% market share of Mechanical watches during 1997-98, which increased to 94% during 2001-02. Company performed poor in Quartz market, it had market share of 8% for five year during 1998-2002. This shows how the sale of mechanical watches dropped drastically. The value curve for Mechanical watches kept falling and there was no driving force from HMT to oppose this.
1. HMT had the overall market share of 26% during 1997-98 and it dropped to 14% during 2001-02. Out of this, HMT still had 70% market share of Mechanical watches during 1997-98, which increased to 94% during 2001-02. Company performed poor in Quartz market, it had market share of 8% for five year during 1998-2002. This shows how the sale of mechanical watches dropped drastically. The value curve for Mechanical watches kept falling and there was no driving force from HMT to oppose this.
Mechanical Vs Quartz: HMT observed the demand for mechanical watches go down, largely because it focused more on competition from Quartz, instead of their own strength i.e. Mechanical watches. In the world market, still Mechanical watches hold a good position. A recent study shows that the Swiss watch industry exports of mechanical watches accounts for two-third of their total export value. While the Swiss watch industry did not accepted Quartz technology, they were able to make a point with mechanical watches in the watch industry. Exhibit-1 shows the growth of Swiss mechanical watch export in recent years.
Conclusion-1: HMT could have emphasized on Mechanical watches only and could have provided a greater competition to Titan by selling over the strength of Mechanical watches. Some of them could have been as follows:
a. Quartz watches are as reliable as mechanical, but the battery is a slip. You can not predict the life of the battery.
b. The parts to replace are easily available for mechanical watches, but for age-old quartz watches, the battery would have been obsolete.
c. Mechanical watches last longer (provided serviced on time), while quartz watches have lesser life because of the limited life-span of the electronic circuitry. Mechanical watches have good resale value.
So, HMT could have made it a point that, if you want quality, class, precision and historical value, go for Mechanical watches.
Conclusion-1: HMT could have emphasized on Mechanical watches only and could have provided a greater competition to Titan by selling over the strength of Mechanical watches. Some of them could have been as follows:
a. Quartz watches are as reliable as mechanical, but the battery is a slip. You can not predict the life of the battery.
b. The parts to replace are easily available for mechanical watches, but for age-old quartz watches, the battery would have been obsolete.
c. Mechanical watches last longer (provided serviced on time), while quartz watches have lesser life because of the limited life-span of the electronic circuitry. Mechanical watches have good resale value.
So, HMT could have made it a point that, if you want quality, class, precision and historical value, go for Mechanical watches.
2. HMT remained into losses for last 5 years. Exibit-2 shows the sales revenue of the company for last few years. Though it launched many watches to gain the market share into the quartz market, it could not capitalize on the success of these watches due to many reasons. Some of these reasons are as follows:
Advertisement: Exhibit-2 shows the 5 year data for expenses made towards advertisement by HMT. In year 2006, the expenditure was around Rs. 0.1 Cr. as against Rs. 4.5 Cr. in 2001. This puts a big question mark on the awareness level of the customers about HMT watches caused by lack of advertisement. This analysis becomes more critical, when compared with expenditure made by its competitor Titan. Exhibit-3 shows that Titan tripled its expenditure from Rs. 40 Cr. in 2001 to Rs. 133 Cr. in 2007. While titan engaged major celebrities like Amir Khan, Kapil Dev etc. for its advertisement, HMT advertisements went almost missing from print & electronic media.
Conclusion – 2: HMT could have made more advertisements to let its customer know about what they are producing. Underestimating the power of advertisement was one of the key factors for HMT to loose its market share. Also, HMT could have done some research on various new ways of advertisement.
Retailer Stores: HMT hardly looked into their stores or took any big steps towards renovation of their stores. While Titan kept investing into renovation of its stores, similar efforts were missing from HMT.
Conclusion-3: HMT could have spent more on consolidating and renovating the retail stores. Given the large distribution network the company had, it could have done it in phases. Exclusive HMT stores were hardly seen and this was also one of the major reasons for further decrease in sales.
Advertisement: Exhibit-2 shows the 5 year data for expenses made towards advertisement by HMT. In year 2006, the expenditure was around Rs. 0.1 Cr. as against Rs. 4.5 Cr. in 2001. This puts a big question mark on the awareness level of the customers about HMT watches caused by lack of advertisement. This analysis becomes more critical, when compared with expenditure made by its competitor Titan. Exhibit-3 shows that Titan tripled its expenditure from Rs. 40 Cr. in 2001 to Rs. 133 Cr. in 2007. While titan engaged major celebrities like Amir Khan, Kapil Dev etc. for its advertisement, HMT advertisements went almost missing from print & electronic media.
Conclusion – 2: HMT could have made more advertisements to let its customer know about what they are producing. Underestimating the power of advertisement was one of the key factors for HMT to loose its market share. Also, HMT could have done some research on various new ways of advertisement.
Retailer Stores: HMT hardly looked into their stores or took any big steps towards renovation of their stores. While Titan kept investing into renovation of its stores, similar efforts were missing from HMT.
Conclusion-3: HMT could have spent more on consolidating and renovating the retail stores. Given the large distribution network the company had, it could have done it in phases. Exclusive HMT stores were hardly seen and this was also one of the major reasons for further decrease in sales.
3. Some of the decisions made by HMT were unreasonable given the production ability of the company itself. To meet requirements of the quartz market, company outsourced the production of various visual parts (dial, cases etc.) [Outsourced from Tennmax India Ltd.]. It got large these parts in large volume from this organization, while its own production capacity of dials and cases remained underutilized at 34% and 47% respectively.
Conclusion-4: This clearly shows that there was large scope for optimization of the production facility. HMT could have used its existing production capabilities to meet the market requirements. As it was lagging behind in the production initially, producing of its own could have resulted in efficient production. This would have reduced the operating expenses also. It does not make sense to underutilize own production capabilities and go for outsourcing of the same parts.
4. HMT started outsourcing the watch manufacturing to other firms. Suspensions of services from these firms lead the problem of stopping them to use the HMT logo in their production. HMT also started to employ vendors with quite less experience and less technical expertise. Outsourcing led spurious watches in the market. HMT failed to act immediately and took 15 months to take follow-up action in July 2002.
Conclusion-5: HMT needed to be more mature towards decision made for outsourcing of various parts, outsourcing of the watches manufacturing and they way they selected the vendors. It could have handled the suspension of services more authentically to stop the spurious HMT watches in the market.
Conclusion-5: HMT needed to be more mature towards decision made for outsourcing of various parts, outsourcing of the watches manufacturing and they way they selected the vendors. It could have handled the suspension of services more authentically to stop the spurious HMT watches in the market.
5. During recent years, HMT suffered from the high operating expenses and higher debts. It did a cut-off of staff in 2003 and sold some land it had in Bangalore to get near-term financial stability.
Conclusion-6: Given the financial conditions of the company, it could have restructured its complete organization (HMT watch Ltd.). As the company was in losses for many years, company should revisit the vision of the company and evaluate itself in current market environment.
Conclusion-6: Given the financial conditions of the company, it could have restructured its complete organization (HMT watch Ltd.). As the company was in losses for many years, company should revisit the vision of the company and evaluate itself in current market environment.
6. During 2000-01, around 15 million watches were sold at the lowest end of the market and of this only about seven million were branded. Bijou Kurien, vice-president, sales and marketing, Titan said:
“We found out that customers in this segment badly wanted a brand with which they could be associated with.”
Conclusion-7: There was a big opportunity in the lower segment in 2001-2002. HMT could have utilized this opportunity by putting more effort on advertisement and distribution of watches for this segment.
7. When Titan planned to play the volume game, it launched SONATA (1998) in the range of Rs. 300-1000. This was a major success for Titan in terms of sales. But, it was only after few years; Titan realized that, by entering into the lower segment, it has actually paid a price of its brand image in the luxury segment. It then decided to separate SONATA from Titan in 2002, as Mr Bijou Kurien, vice-president, sales and marketing said:
‘‘It’s a double-edged sword and we have constantly debated whether we should separate the two or not.’’
NOTE: Please relate this to “why Titan came-up with Timex for lower end and not with its own brand. This is what happened when they finally launched Titan brand in lower segment.”
Titan pushed SONATA into rural market also.
The decisions made by Titan, shows the aggressiveness of the company towards the market and its changing dynamics. Titan was quite pro-active in their strategy. HMT, on the other hand, was reactive most of the times. It never had an innovative approach towards the market.
Conclusion-8: When you are competing against an aggressive competitor, you have to be innovative. HMT needed to take the feedback from the market and make their strategy based on the data collected, and should not make moves just to counter the moves made by Titan.
Following are few more things that HMT could have done:
1. Spin off a subsidiary for Quartz segment. While HMT’s mechanical watches could have target the quality, class and elegance customers. Quartz subsidiary could have targeted the lower end market.
2. Innovation was the most important missing factor from HMT’s culture and strategy all through years. It could have innovated various ways of advertisement (celebrities, discounts, sponsoring events etc.), marketing (renovating stores, making distribution channel more efficient etc.), getting customer feedback, adopt the changing market conditions etc. Attracting the young generation through media was completely missing.
3. HMT could have invested into R&D or hired some good designers to design new models of the watches. With customer looking for new varieties of watches after 2000, this could have boosted their market share.
4. HMT could have promoted different watches for different moods (e.g. formal, casual etc.). This would have resulted into sales of more than one watch to the same customer.
5. HMT could have collaborated with some of the good retailers of different brands (with big distribution network and good retails showrooms) to display and sell some newly launched models. An example can be television show rooms, which is present in almost all the cities.HMT could have been collaborated with some jeweler to launch the jewel watches.
2. Innovation was the most important missing factor from HMT’s culture and strategy all through years. It could have innovated various ways of advertisement (celebrities, discounts, sponsoring events etc.), marketing (renovating stores, making distribution channel more efficient etc.), getting customer feedback, adopt the changing market conditions etc. Attracting the young generation through media was completely missing.
3. HMT could have invested into R&D or hired some good designers to design new models of the watches. With customer looking for new varieties of watches after 2000, this could have boosted their market share.
4. HMT could have promoted different watches for different moods (e.g. formal, casual etc.). This would have resulted into sales of more than one watch to the same customer.
5. HMT could have collaborated with some of the good retailers of different brands (with big distribution network and good retails showrooms) to display and sell some newly launched models. An example can be television show rooms, which is present in almost all the cities.HMT could have been collaborated with some jeweler to launch the jewel watches.
End Note: The study of GUCCI case provides the details of how the company turned around after it went to the extent of getting sold. This case also provides a lot of insight about various ways the production can be made efficient and marketing can be boosted. HMT badly needs marketing efforts to make its sales revenue go up and to get its old brand image back. At the same time, lots of efforts are required to make the production process more efficient.
Interesting info: During 2002-2003 Titan wanted to buy 50% stake of HMT and restructure the Organization.
EXHIBIT – 1
Mechanical watches export from Swiss Industry
Mechanical watches export from Swiss Industry
CHF: Confederazione Helvetica (Swiss) Franc, currency
Ref: http://www.fhs.ch/statistics/watchmaking_2006.pdf.
Ref: http://www.fhs.ch/statistics/watchmaking_2006.pdf.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
आँखें
जैसे रेगिस्तान में मृग-तृष्णा को देख कर दृष्टि-भ्रम होता है,
मेरे बुलाने पर उस बच्चे कि आंखों में कुछ ऐसी ही चमक थी।
मैंने उसे पास बुलाया,
बोला :
क्यों माँगते हो, क्यों नहीं पढने तुम जाते हो ?
क्या तुम्हें अच्छा लगता है, भीख-माँगना !
वोही आंखें, इस बार फिर उठीं,
पर घृणा और द्वेष से,
बोला साब, क्या पदायेंगे मुझे आप,
इस गरीब को दो वक़्त का भोजन दे पायेंगे आप,
भाषण दे दो, अपना क्या जाता है ?
उस भाषण को यथार्थ बनाने में दिल क्यों घबराता है !
सारे समर्थों का प्रतिनिधि मैं
शर्म से आंखें भी नहीं झुकीं,
शर्म से आंखें भी नहीं झुकीं,
वोही आंखें थी अब भी मुझ पर रुकीं,
मैंने जेब से एक सिक्का निकाला...... दिया,
और उस बच्चे कि आंखें एक नयी रौशनी को
ढूंढने को मुड़ गयी !
ढूंढने को मुड़ गयी !
-आशुतोष
Monday, May 14, 2007
IIM-B SOP !
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Harold R. McAlindon. My career goal is to own a technology driven firm down the line ten to fifteen years. This can be achieved only by having a good understanding of business fundamentals and its execution.
I have been living away from my home for higher education, with my friends, right after completing my matriculation, and it has helped me to develop the sense of teamwork and recognition of others. Being a part of NCC in school, cricket and musical teams (I play Tabla) of my school, college and my organization has helped me understand and appreciate the concept of people working together towards the same goal. I am now working for more than 5.5 years in IT industry. Currently I am working in an organization, which believes and works with global teams. It has given me the skill of being flexible and better communication and good coordination. All these, along with a good academic record and technical expertise give me an upper hand to think of getting into software enterprise management course.
As Cisco Systems India team is expanding very fast now, I am slowly getting involved more into managerial activities of coordinating with global teams, resource management, working with “product line management” on defining requirements and understanding customer needs. I see this as the first step towards my ultimate goal of owning a technology firm. Hence, I would like to formalize my training and to learn necessary management skills. I believe that a management course will help me transition myself from “managing small technical team” to a business leader with a sound understanding of business goals and market dynamics.
I have been living away from my home for higher education, with my friends, right after completing my matriculation, and it has helped me to develop the sense of teamwork and recognition of others. Being a part of NCC in school, cricket and musical teams (I play Tabla) of my school, college and my organization has helped me understand and appreciate the concept of people working together towards the same goal. I am now working for more than 5.5 years in IT industry. Currently I am working in an organization, which believes and works with global teams. It has given me the skill of being flexible and better communication and good coordination. All these, along with a good academic record and technical expertise give me an upper hand to think of getting into software enterprise management course.
As Cisco Systems India team is expanding very fast now, I am slowly getting involved more into managerial activities of coordinating with global teams, resource management, working with “product line management” on defining requirements and understanding customer needs. I see this as the first step towards my ultimate goal of owning a technology firm. Hence, I would like to formalize my training and to learn necessary management skills. I believe that a management course will help me transition myself from “managing small technical team” to a business leader with a sound understanding of business goals and market dynamics.
Monday, April 30, 2007
भारतीय युवा पीढ़ी !
आज का युवा
कालेज में आने के बाद, दिल में उठी ये आवाज़,
बेटा यहाँ से पढ़ के जाना है सारी दुनिया को कुछ कर दिखाना है,
इसी उधेड़बुन में पहुंचे हम क्लास में,
क्लास मई पढ़ाई कि बात जो कि शुरू, मिल गया हमें हमारा गुरू,
उसने हमें बुलाया, अपने पास बिठाया,
बोला: अभी नया नया आया लगता है,
तभी पढ़ाई कि बात करता है, क्या ज़िन्दगी से इतना डरता है,
मेरी शरण में आ जा तो कुछ बन जाएगा,
और एक क्लास में अगर दो-चार साल भी ना रहा,
तो कोर्स क्या ख़ाक समझ पायेगा,
सामने से आ रही थी एक सुन्दर कन्या,
उसने उसे बुलाया, मेरे पास बिठाया, और बोला:
इन्हें देख रहे हो ? ये हामारी मिस कालेज हैं,
और वो दूर जो दीवानों के हाथ में हो दीख रह है न
वो इनका ही लगेज है,
पूछो इनसे, की उनमें से किसके साथ इनकी लाइफ फीट हैं,
वो बोली, तू तो बड़ा स्तुपिद है,
अरे ! ये सब तो कालेज आने का एक बहाना है,
बन के दुल्हन एक दिन हमें, इनके घर थोड़े ही जाना है
सुन कर मैं हुआ हैरान,
कितना बदसूरत था सौंदर्य का यह ऐलान,
कालेज में आने के बाद, दिल में उठी ये आवाज़,
बेटा यहाँ से पढ़ के जाना है सारी दुनिया को कुछ कर दिखाना है,
इसी उधेड़बुन में पहुंचे हम क्लास में,
क्लास मई पढ़ाई कि बात जो कि शुरू, मिल गया हमें हमारा गुरू,
उसने हमें बुलाया, अपने पास बिठाया,
बोला: अभी नया नया आया लगता है,
तभी पढ़ाई कि बात करता है, क्या ज़िन्दगी से इतना डरता है,
मेरी शरण में आ जा तो कुछ बन जाएगा,
और एक क्लास में अगर दो-चार साल भी ना रहा,
तो कोर्स क्या ख़ाक समझ पायेगा,
सामने से आ रही थी एक सुन्दर कन्या,
उसने उसे बुलाया, मेरे पास बिठाया, और बोला:
इन्हें देख रहे हो ? ये हामारी मिस कालेज हैं,
और वो दूर जो दीवानों के हाथ में हो दीख रह है न
वो इनका ही लगेज है,
पूछो इनसे, की उनमें से किसके साथ इनकी लाइफ फीट हैं,
वो बोली, तू तो बड़ा स्तुपिद है,
अरे ! ये सब तो कालेज आने का एक बहाना है,
बन के दुल्हन एक दिन हमें, इनके घर थोड़े ही जाना है
सुन कर मैं हुआ हैरान,
कितना बदसूरत था सौंदर्य का यह ऐलान,
आज का युवा यह क्या सीख रहा हैं, उसे रूह का सौंदर्य क्यों नही दीख रहा है,
क्यों बिछा रहे हैं ये जज्बातों कि लाश, क्या हर रिश्ता ही हैं इनके लिए टाई म - पास,
तभी एक रोशनी ने आकर मुझे जगाया, मई ख्वाब से हक़ीकत में आया,
तब पता चला की ये सब एक सपना था, पर ना जाने क्यों आज भी ये लगता है,
की वो समाज जो मैंने सपने में देखा था, वो समाज मेरा अपना था,
मेरा अपना था,
मेरा अपना था
धर्म की राजनीति
आदमी
कभी राम के नाम पे जीता था आदमी, आज राम के नाम पे मरता है आदमी,
ये ख़ून कि नदियाँ जो बह रही हैं हर तरफ, उसमे राम नाम की नैया को खेता है आदमी।
एय इंसा तेरी इंसानियत को ये क्या है हो गया,
मासूमों को मार के तू करेगा मंदिर खड़ा,
नदानों के लाश पे डालेगा इसकी नीव,
अब्लाओं के ख़ून से जलायेगा इसके दीप,
मासूमों की चीत्कार से बजेंगी इसकी घंटियाँ,
हवान्कुंद में गिरेंगी सुहागनो कि बिंदियाँ,
उन बंदियों कि राख से करेगा जब तू तिलक,
इन्सान तो क्या उस राम की भी जायेंगी आंखें छलक,
तो क्यों उस राम कि आँखें छाल्काता है आदमी,
क्यों आदमी पे कहर बर्पता है आदमी,
और जब रहता है राम हर इन्सान में, हर दिल में,
तो ना जाने क्यों मंदिर बनवाता है आदमी,
ना जाने क्यों मंदिर बनवाता है आदमी,
ना जाने क्यों मंदिर बनवाता है आदमी !!!
- आशुतोष
Thursday, April 26, 2007
PGSEM 2007 interview !
I had never planned to go for a mangement course during my initial student life. After working in the IT industry for around 6 years, I felt a need of doing management course and the obvious choice was IIM-Bangalore's part time PGSEM course, as I work in Bangalore. With a not-so-good CAT percentil of 90.42, I got a call for interview. I think this was mostly because of my experience, the company I am working for and a good acedemic record. My interview was scheduled on 14 April 2007, at 2:00 pm. I was one hour before my interview time to IIM-B. Two guys went for the interview before me and they were not happy with the interivew. The second one lasted only for 5 mins. I guessed that I am going to have a good (??) time. I was called next.....
There were two professors. One of them kept quite for a long time during the interview, while observing me and the other kept asking questions...
Prof 1: Sit down.
Me : Thankyou sir !
Prof 1: Tell us something about yourself.
Me : I started with my primary education, secondary education, graduation, masters and then about my campus interview etc. I did not only told them about the education I had, but also mentioned about the achievements I had during these phases (thanks to the pagalguy article about how to handle this questions smartly).
Prof 1: Tell me about HFCL (this is the first company I worked for).
Me : I started telling about the company, its various divisions etc.
Prof 1: No, I was asking about your branch.
Me : I worked for Research and Development division, which was a start-up. I described about the product I was working on. and that the start-up was no more there.
Prof 1: So, your product must be in the market by now ?
Me : No sir, we did the field testing of the product in Jalandhar local exchange. The product worked quite well with the defined requirements at that time. But, it was not on-time in the market. Hence it was not successful. The market requirements changed by the time we completed it.
Prof 1: What did you do and how the requirements changed ?
Me : We developed optical access network (OPTAN), which interfaced with the local exchange as the last mile solution and will be used by telecom service providers. We worked on voice only. By the time we went into the market, the requirements changed to voice, video and data. Added to that were many top-up services that were missing in our product. Also, by the time we were ready for the market, there were already many big players in this field.
Prof 1: How do you see the difference between HFCL and Cisco systems ?
Me : HFCL was a start-up company, so we had a lot of product ownership. The requirements used to be defined by the marketing team (that was formed late in the process), else we use to define the requirements. In Cisco systems, we are working on a product that is launched successfully in the market with around 80,000 nodes already deployed in the market. We get requirements from the customers and evaluate our competitors, which is quite exciting and is quite different from the start-up work. Also, Cisco has a lot of process involved and we need to work globally with other counterparts.
Prof 1: Cisco was in loss few years back, when you joined.
Me : This is not right sir. Cisco was not in loss for last few years (I gave some data for last 2-3 years). This year Cisco had revenue of $28.4 bn. Though, optical business unit was in loss for couple of years, but it doing better now.
Prof 1: What about Huawei?
Me : They are good and very cheap. They are taking up big part of the market. But, their market segment is mostly small customers. They are ready for whatever price the customer is quoting. Cisco does not deal with small customers, but it has solution for them. Big enterprises are mostly the target of Cisco. Still, Cisco is keeping an eye on what Huawei is doing. Also, Huawei was in news for the *theft* of Cisco’s IOS operation system. The matter was settled later, but had a effect on Huawei's goodwill in the market.
Prof 1: What do you mean by "settled"?
Me : Cisco believes in working globally and sharing its technologies. This should be in consent with Cisco. The same happened with Apple, when they used the name iPhone, which was later settled.
Prof 1: What do you think about the companies like Wipro/Infosys?
Me : They are good, yesterday only Infosys got its Q4 result and they have $3 bn revenue now.
Prof 1: What is the employee strength of Infosys?
Me : They are around 72,000.
Prof 1: What is the employee strength of Cisco systems?
Me : As of 2006, it is 38,000.
Prof 1: As you said, revenue of Cisco is about $30 bn and that of Infosys is $3 bn, though the employee strength of Infosys is almost double of that of Cisco. Why is it like this?
Me : This is all about the business model. Infosys is a services company, while Cisco is a product company. you don’t get much margin in services company, while in a product company, you get much better margin. Also, services company need to hire more employees due to their services to the client. I feel proud of these Indian companies, they are representing India in the world market and have become global companies.
Prof 1: Which business magazine do you read ?
Me : I mostly read business page of the news paper I also read business world.
Prof 1: You read business world.....
Me : I am subscribed to that, but I don’t read it regularly. Whenever I have time, I read few selected articles.
Till this time "Prof 2" was a silent observer to all this discussions. I too was looking to Prof 1 only as only he was talking. Prof-1 asked to prof2 : Do you want to ask something ?
Prof 2: So, you play Tabla ?
Me : Yes sir, I had a formal training in this while I was studying in class-6. I have not done any professional education. Generally people do I.A., B.A, etc. I am good at playing it, but don’t have these degrees with me.
Prof 2: Where do you play it?
Me : I generally play it on various cultural functions. I have played in my school, college, last company and now I am part of Cisco's music team called "Omnifuse".
Prof 2: When did you perform in Cisco ?
Me : I performed last in Cisco's annual function, we performed for a crowd of around 5000. Generally Cisco calls some of India's best singers for the performance e.g. Udit Narayan, Alka yagnik. Last time we had called Hariharan. Generally, we get one hour time before their performance.
Prof 2: Have you ever played with these singers?
Me : No sir, but I would definitely love to play for them. They have their own music team and they are very specific about it. There is no way they can have a new person doing it for them. You can understand the importance just by the fact that the musician setup their instruments and tune it two hours before the actual performance starts.
Prof 2: Yes, I understand.
Prof 2: Have you heard of a new instrument (he told some name, I don’t remember), that produces many sounds and has replaces "Tanpura" almost completely. (Now looked at prof 1) It is a nice instrument, I think it can replace Tabla too. (Now looked at me).
Me : (I got it all wrong, I thought he is talking about replacing the Tabla and Tabla player..) It is difficult to do that. If you talk about the light music, it is easy. But, classic raga's need intelligence of the Tabla player. I gave examples of some of the "Taal" etc.
Prof 2: I am not talking about he Tabla player, replacing Tabla?
Me : Oh, sorry, I got it wrong. Well, as I have not seen the device I cannot comment more on this.
Prof 2: You need to leave playing Tabla for doing this course. You need to study at least 300 pages per week, i.e. at least 20 hours per week of study.
Me : Not necessarily sir. I play Tabla for around 30 mins every alternate day, or after every couple of days. Generally I do it when I am exhausted. Playing Tabla refreshes me. I believe it will be helpful during my studies and I can use it again if I am tired of too much homework..
(Professors smile)
Prof 2: You play cricket too. When was your last match?
Me : Yes sir, I am a regular member of Cisco cricket team. Currently we are playing in a tournament and our team is in quarter finals.
Prof 2: Which is the team you have to take on in quarters?
Me : It is IFLEX. (I was not too sure..)
Prof 2: Which is the best team?
Me : Oracle plays well, they are definitely the best team.
Prof 2: Who is the next team?
Me : Of course, Cisco systems.
Prof 1: Do you want to ask anything to us?
Me : Yes sir. Actually I already talk many things to the seniors during seminars and my personal meetings and...
Prof 1: (Interrupts)... Which students you talked to?
Me : I talked to many of the seniors during the interaction sessions in IIM-B. Talked to professor DVR. Apart from that, I talked to Nitin (from CCPU), Abninav Modi and Raj Iyer (both from Cisco systems).
Prof 1: What do they have to say about the course?
Me : They say the course is very nice and suitable for us. Please don’t do it for the sake of doing it, be very much clear about why do you want to do it. You need to study for at least 10-12 hours per week.
Prof 1: Thank you.
Me : Thank you sir.
That was it. The interview was over in around 25 mins. I believe that it was a good interview and I should get a call, as I got out of the interview room. And now when I am writing this blog, I already have the offer letter from IIM-B with me. It was a nice experience with the interview team of IIM-B.
There were two professors. One of them kept quite for a long time during the interview, while observing me and the other kept asking questions...
Prof 1: Sit down.
Me : Thankyou sir !
Prof 1: Tell us something about yourself.
Me : I started with my primary education, secondary education, graduation, masters and then about my campus interview etc. I did not only told them about the education I had, but also mentioned about the achievements I had during these phases (thanks to the pagalguy article about how to handle this questions smartly).
Prof 1: Tell me about HFCL (this is the first company I worked for).
Me : I started telling about the company, its various divisions etc.
Prof 1: No, I was asking about your branch.
Me : I worked for Research and Development division, which was a start-up. I described about the product I was working on. and that the start-up was no more there.
Prof 1: So, your product must be in the market by now ?
Me : No sir, we did the field testing of the product in Jalandhar local exchange. The product worked quite well with the defined requirements at that time. But, it was not on-time in the market. Hence it was not successful. The market requirements changed by the time we completed it.
Prof 1: What did you do and how the requirements changed ?
Me : We developed optical access network (OPTAN), which interfaced with the local exchange as the last mile solution and will be used by telecom service providers. We worked on voice only. By the time we went into the market, the requirements changed to voice, video and data. Added to that were many top-up services that were missing in our product. Also, by the time we were ready for the market, there were already many big players in this field.
Prof 1: How do you see the difference between HFCL and Cisco systems ?
Me : HFCL was a start-up company, so we had a lot of product ownership. The requirements used to be defined by the marketing team (that was formed late in the process), else we use to define the requirements. In Cisco systems, we are working on a product that is launched successfully in the market with around 80,000 nodes already deployed in the market. We get requirements from the customers and evaluate our competitors, which is quite exciting and is quite different from the start-up work. Also, Cisco has a lot of process involved and we need to work globally with other counterparts.
Prof 1: Cisco was in loss few years back, when you joined.
Me : This is not right sir. Cisco was not in loss for last few years (I gave some data for last 2-3 years). This year Cisco had revenue of $28.4 bn. Though, optical business unit was in loss for couple of years, but it doing better now.
Prof 1: What about Huawei?
Me : They are good and very cheap. They are taking up big part of the market. But, their market segment is mostly small customers. They are ready for whatever price the customer is quoting. Cisco does not deal with small customers, but it has solution for them. Big enterprises are mostly the target of Cisco. Still, Cisco is keeping an eye on what Huawei is doing. Also, Huawei was in news for the *theft* of Cisco’s IOS operation system. The matter was settled later, but had a effect on Huawei's goodwill in the market.
Prof 1: What do you mean by "settled"?
Me : Cisco believes in working globally and sharing its technologies. This should be in consent with Cisco. The same happened with Apple, when they used the name iPhone, which was later settled.
Prof 1: What do you think about the companies like Wipro/Infosys?
Me : They are good, yesterday only Infosys got its Q4 result and they have $3 bn revenue now.
Prof 1: What is the employee strength of Infosys?
Me : They are around 72,000.
Prof 1: What is the employee strength of Cisco systems?
Me : As of 2006, it is 38,000.
Prof 1: As you said, revenue of Cisco is about $30 bn and that of Infosys is $3 bn, though the employee strength of Infosys is almost double of that of Cisco. Why is it like this?
Me : This is all about the business model. Infosys is a services company, while Cisco is a product company. you don’t get much margin in services company, while in a product company, you get much better margin. Also, services company need to hire more employees due to their services to the client. I feel proud of these Indian companies, they are representing India in the world market and have become global companies.
Prof 1: Which business magazine do you read ?
Me : I mostly read business page of the news paper I also read business world.
Prof 1: You read business world.....
Me : I am subscribed to that, but I don’t read it regularly. Whenever I have time, I read few selected articles.
Till this time "Prof 2" was a silent observer to all this discussions. I too was looking to Prof 1 only as only he was talking. Prof-1 asked to prof2 : Do you want to ask something ?
Prof 2: So, you play Tabla ?
Me : Yes sir, I had a formal training in this while I was studying in class-6. I have not done any professional education. Generally people do I.A., B.A, etc. I am good at playing it, but don’t have these degrees with me.
Prof 2: Where do you play it?
Me : I generally play it on various cultural functions. I have played in my school, college, last company and now I am part of Cisco's music team called "Omnifuse".
Prof 2: When did you perform in Cisco ?
Me : I performed last in Cisco's annual function, we performed for a crowd of around 5000. Generally Cisco calls some of India's best singers for the performance e.g. Udit Narayan, Alka yagnik. Last time we had called Hariharan. Generally, we get one hour time before their performance.
Prof 2: Have you ever played with these singers?
Me : No sir, but I would definitely love to play for them. They have their own music team and they are very specific about it. There is no way they can have a new person doing it for them. You can understand the importance just by the fact that the musician setup their instruments and tune it two hours before the actual performance starts.
Prof 2: Yes, I understand.
Prof 2: Have you heard of a new instrument (he told some name, I don’t remember), that produces many sounds and has replaces "Tanpura" almost completely. (Now looked at prof 1) It is a nice instrument, I think it can replace Tabla too. (Now looked at me).
Me : (I got it all wrong, I thought he is talking about replacing the Tabla and Tabla player..) It is difficult to do that. If you talk about the light music, it is easy. But, classic raga's need intelligence of the Tabla player. I gave examples of some of the "Taal" etc.
Prof 2: I am not talking about he Tabla player, replacing Tabla?
Me : Oh, sorry, I got it wrong. Well, as I have not seen the device I cannot comment more on this.
Prof 2: You need to leave playing Tabla for doing this course. You need to study at least 300 pages per week, i.e. at least 20 hours per week of study.
Me : Not necessarily sir. I play Tabla for around 30 mins every alternate day, or after every couple of days. Generally I do it when I am exhausted. Playing Tabla refreshes me. I believe it will be helpful during my studies and I can use it again if I am tired of too much homework..
(Professors smile)
Prof 2: You play cricket too. When was your last match?
Me : Yes sir, I am a regular member of Cisco cricket team. Currently we are playing in a tournament and our team is in quarter finals.
Prof 2: Which is the team you have to take on in quarters?
Me : It is IFLEX. (I was not too sure..)
Prof 2: Which is the best team?
Me : Oracle plays well, they are definitely the best team.
Prof 2: Who is the next team?
Me : Of course, Cisco systems.
Prof 1: Do you want to ask anything to us?
Me : Yes sir. Actually I already talk many things to the seniors during seminars and my personal meetings and...
Prof 1: (Interrupts)... Which students you talked to?
Me : I talked to many of the seniors during the interaction sessions in IIM-B. Talked to professor DVR. Apart from that, I talked to Nitin (from CCPU), Abninav Modi and Raj Iyer (both from Cisco systems).
Prof 1: What do they have to say about the course?
Me : They say the course is very nice and suitable for us. Please don’t do it for the sake of doing it, be very much clear about why do you want to do it. You need to study for at least 10-12 hours per week.
Prof 1: Thank you.
Me : Thank you sir.
That was it. The interview was over in around 25 mins. I believe that it was a good interview and I should get a call, as I got out of the interview room. And now when I am writing this blog, I already have the offer letter from IIM-B with me. It was a nice experience with the interview team of IIM-B.
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