“Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life,
for which the first was made” – Robert Browning.

In a way, ISB reminded me of this quote. We joined as the 8^th batch so that we could eventually graduate into MBAs. And graduating we are. And like every passing out, this one too raises a myriad images and memories that have gathered in the mind over the past 51 intense boiler-room weeks, housed with a set of ambitious, foresighted and diligent people who wanted to be complete professionals while keeping all odds at bay.

And the day has come when we will be pronounced as such. In another 26 hours, managing gowns, sprightly confident steps, gleaming flashbulbs, motivating wisdom, proud parents (or spouses), hat tosses and rejoicing friends later we will have graduated and successfully added a layer of history to the institution and a confident knock on the door of the alumni. A new relationship will evolve, a new dynamics of being an alumni and looking at the School. A lot of complaints may look illogical, a lot of stress justifiable, and a lot of policies quite obvious. Its natural, it’s called perspective. It also bestows upon us responsibilities as ambassadors of the institution and calls for us to truly convert challenges into opportunities to buttress the expectation. For in real life, it’s mostly about challenges and tough challenges.

As I look back, the past year has been a timeline of events and realizations … it started with lofty dreams, converted into pre-term classes and orientation week fun in the scorching sun. Soon after it was the first day of class, and to most of us, we were seeing the insides of a state-of-the-art classroom after half a decade. Fantastic professors (almost gods) followed with tough assignments to be submitted every yesterday. Every day before yesterday would be tests, pop quizzes or the spine chilling cold calls (one of the major revenue drivers of the caffeine industry). Case studies became oxygen, we didn’t just live them, we breathed them, and I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that I have had nightmares as well (truly). The HBS logo became our bull’s eye and the word “exhibits” invoked fear. This was all before we realized that presentations, write-ups, reports, projects, financials, analyses, take home exams, open book exams, seminars, special classes, speaker sessions, tutorials also formed a part of this great family.

Club activities were a vital connection to the corporate world and lent the glamour feeling as well. You could see most people you read about in Businessworld walking across the aisle or picking up a coffee before the seminar. You felt the moment. This is what the dream was all about. You always dreamt to be them and a brief solemnity sets in, broken by the sudden shout of your friend asking you to join for football.

But as the sun went down, life took a different hue. Games, quizzes, cultural activities, myriad contests and competitions, theater, arts, pottery, photography, nature walk, social drives like blood donations and helping the underprivileged and section competitions on the field kept the batch busy. Strategies were planned, promotions designed and actively shared amongst the batch. You could see the club presidents and volunteers all around the campus opining and gesticulating wildly to win converts to their cause. Dunking and parties alone added a few more dimensions to the ISB life. The innovative themes and parties and mere excuses for throwing a classmate to the pool united the batch like no other.

That was then. Now is the disorientation week and the whole batch is “de-stressing on priority”. I graduate tomorrow and the day after I pass the portals of the school with a heavy heart of nostalgia and all the good times of the year. I have enjoyed every moment in the sylvan campus, the stress being a part of the ritual, and have made simply wonderful friends to look forward to. Every face is about to become a memory and every name a rainy evenings’ tale. Many of these future leaders will be known by their pen names, many by their deeds when they were high on spirits. Many will be known by their funny comments in classes and many by their impromptu interview replies. Many more will be known by the way they slept through lectures and yet excelled when it was called for.

But the bugle has blown and the powder is dry as the sheer fantastic Class of 2009 currently irons up for the grand finale. If history is the biography of successful people, this batch will script it like no other. It has been my proud privilege to be a part of this institution and the values and ethos it stands for and to belong to a class consisting of such remarkable batch mates who could make this the best year so far.

I lay down my pen, on the eve prior to the big day, with the mere hope that I could showcase some aspect of what ISB stands for through this blog, covering issues that span the mindscape of most incumbent students as well as the current ones. As Nirad C says, “to sit by the rivers of Babylon is not necessarily to weep in Hebraic sorrow”. I have gradually realized the richness of my experience and the benefits of the yearlong backbreaking rigor, which makes me more resilient and confident as I move on to the world outside. But as I move on, I realize a part of my life is forever ISB. It’s just the search for Ithaca that we move on. Here’s wishing all of my fellow friends a fantastic journey, for it’s the journey that matters.

Expectation Management has assumed sudden significance post the subprime. It has become the favorite word for recruiters to keep hungry employees at bay and in due course has indeed become a jargon if aptly employed can help you manage an irate anything. But with my one year at ISB coming to a close, expectations have resurfaced as valid data points which amongst other tenable benefits, help quantify nostalgia. But resurface they do, on all fronts, academics, life, future plans, money… you name it and there’s a past reference of commitment to be bettered or modified. But mostly, you think of where you came from and whether it matters to where you go … and my mind occasionally goes back to engineering, which was where my professional learning began and it continues till date.

I am an engineer by profession and my past experience at work consisted of advanced applications of what I learnt way back in college, until one day I decided to move off to study business management. The decision was the determinant of a matrix of numerous rows and columns, some easily quantifiable and the others not so, with a healthy distribution of probability spread across them. But eventually I came to the program, I studied, I enjoyed (one of the best years of my life) and now during the final week at the School, I look back upon the decision much like an outward sailor glancing at the receding beacon. And a thought does cross my mind on which I will speak in detail (I did write a blog on this once earlier but it was of a general nature)

What can an experienced engineer expect of a 1 year MBA at the ISB? I speak for the electrical sciences and computers, but for most of the branches I guess the degree of transition is the same. We spent our time all along in the hard world of circuits and voltages. Sparks flying didn’t sound as interesting as it does reading Page 3. “Burnt your hands” wasn’t considered credible experience for someone to soak in satisfaction. And “exploded on my face” is unthinkable even to the eternal optimist. Essentially we spent our time looking inward.

In return, from an MBA, what I learnt was the customer, the market, the needs, the outer world. Human beings and not technology became first priority, consciously. I learnt to analyze them, preempt them and to interpret the analysis in the light of business economics and mutual benefits of both the customer and the enterprise. As an engineer, new product management taught the essential tools to estimate market size, brand preference, the value perceived by the customer on each aspect of his product, and the future anticipated sales. These models are generic but lend itself to easy treatment for complex markets and products. For an engineer starting to conceive a new product, these inputs are not just essential, they are literally oxygen.

Personally, for me industrial marketing (B2B marketing) was enthralling. The course contained cases that talked of high-tech products, longer sales cycles, complex pricing decisions (even for the same product), branding tactics and even its dependence on the entire supply chain.

Talking of supply chain, it can be an amazing eye opener, as to how important and contributing supply chain efficiency can be to the entire product development process. It has a direct impact on demand satisfaction, inventory costs, supplier risk management etc. Each of these noticeably has an impact on product price and that’s as defined is the “willingness to pay”.

From the finance side, corporate finance (specifically project finance) dealt with various avenues for arranging capital to execute any project, the risks involved and the concomitant cost premium to be borne by the borrower. The cost of financing, understandably, remains an important factor for price, as well as the success of the project. Managerial accounting too plays its part in identifying the cost distribution in all activities related to engineering development. While the strategy courses promise to teach you about competition and how not to tackle them.

Hence in a nutshell, for an engineer completing an MBA (with the assumption that he wishes to continue in the same domain still), he learns to go behind the scenes to derive why a product is developed in the first place, for whom it is targeted, its potential and sales (= profit) expected. Once the product is being developed, the promotion blitz and branding etc. takes over.

In a way, he learns the economics of the business, needs of the market and understands how to sell his product. That’s what product development essentially is for, in the first place, i.e. to serve the needs of the customer and gain some profit out of the service.

Hi Guys,

What an year it has been. first the exhiliration, then stress, then tension, then worry and finally lots of relief. Class of 2009 has seen it and experienced it all. The consulting club initiated loads of activities and was clearly the most active club on campus. 

Now its up to the next batch to carry on the legacy and improve upon it. Over to Class of 2010.

Maybe it’s a tradition or maybe it all began during the days when we couldn’t fix the toy car, yet our parents looked dotingly as we showed glimpses of “genius”, even with five thumbs. We still tried to fix, create and provide a solution to the audience of our imagination. Since then, innocent enterprises became a gateway to a life of freedom and choices. As we became more worldly wise, our thoughts got labeled and detailed logic became known simply as framework.

One such label is Entrepreneurship, one of the most mystical of words across campuses worldwide. Year on year, people enter the gates to start something, with a sense of courage and purpose one can partly claim to originate from the valley and partly to the Hugo inspired minister. In engineering schools, the desire was to come up with the next big product, the most complex circuit which would resemble a Noah’s Ark of chips and batteries, and would also prove a point. Years later, in B-Schools, the desire metamorphosed (not exactly the word, but yes, you get the point) to conceive something more strategic, and of course, that’s the basic idea.

But the charm of entrepreneurship lies also in the value added during the process. It enables real income generation even multiple rungs down the activity chain. And that is the most commendable part of the enterprise, in creating, raising and maintaining an economic independence of people who are even indirectly associated with the process. And primary to this is the vision of the entrepreneur, his courage, conviction and undying commitment in the face of all odds. I plan to profile a few of our students and alumni on their journey through ideation, risks and self discovery on what they perceive their future to be.

 A new venture, which is owned by the husband wife duo of Abhishek-Chandrani (ISB, Class of 2009) and not yet a full fledged venture, is a healthy foods outlet hosted from the campus cafeteria. I have watched the execution quite closely as A-C went about planning their work till they finally decided to work their plan. The plan which started on paper during the Planning an Entrepreneurship Venture (PaEV) curriculum culminated to a big bang launch during the annual Alumni meet, Solstice 2008. PaEV is an innovative exercise @ the ISB where students can actually go the whole nine yards from ideating to creating a business venture, as a part of a credit curriculum. The plan needs to be defended on all strategic and operational aspects in front of bankers, VCs and other successful entrepreneurs.

A-C have identified the healthy foods connection, clinically separated it from “health foods”, connected with the officials at School for logistics and permissions, convinced the cafeteria authorities for space to host the outlet, managed the equipment, decided on the menu, employed a paid staff, managed suppliers and the inventory, priced products, designed the promotions, and just recently executed a masterstroke in consumer behavior by introducing an offering called Mind Booster in the placement season. All of it while they toiled the backbreaking ISB schedule. This exercise was primarily meant to assess market reactions and also to pilot execution capability. A-C have been B-School fundamentalists in motion since the owners applied in the afternoon concepts they learnt in the morning and with real investments at stake. For the owners, to identify the connection from concepts to customers will be a vital aspect of the study.

On the other end of the spectrum lies Adib Ibrahim’s Invention Labs (IL) incorporated from Chennai. A unique company which primarily does product development, its succinctly stated desire is to be “India’s inventors”. A lofty desire indeed and that makes it so much more fascinating. But unlike many new ventures that we come across from B-School alumni, IL perhaps addresses an area oft neglected in the Indian context, product design and development. It’s an area where engineering, management, creativity and consumers coalesce and who have experienced it will tell you, it is an unambiguously a tough proposition. To run your own enterprise out of that is tougher still.

And the uniqueness is there as well. In India most startups concentrate on a service which is quite different from product development. The initial stages are common across enterprises where the market research is to be established. However for product development there are myriads of other factors to be considered. Engineering factors coupled with user centric design at the high level, filtering them to low level requirement specs for the developer, modularity aspects, and complex decisions in make or buy of allied technology, all come together. The hardware design, the software algorithms, for embedded systems the accompanying board support, finally the hardware software integration followed by months of acceptance testing. Added to that, constant interaction with vendors for sourcing of components, outsourcing certain mechanical or electro-mechanical tasks to other SMEs and in between all these, preparing several reams of documentation as the product goes for an industry specific standards compliance and certification. This is the minimum that has to be done. Each of these waterfall steps are visited multiple times in an iterative fashion as the product goes for multiple reviews and defect proofing. Discrete teams and oft-changing requirements create an integration nightmare where the architecture has to be constantly smoothed and occasionally revamped.

Those who have been involved in product development would tell you, its backbreaking work and can be deeply frustrating at times. A simple one line defect can put off the schedule for weeks. The entire process takes months of intense labor with actually burning the midnight oil. Market pressure for the product release adds its bit to the process. But on the judgment day, when after months (sometimes years, depending on the industry) the machine works, it’s a feeling unparalleled in sensibility, to a level that it raises a sense of nostalgia.

Here’s wishing A-C and Invention Labs (http://inventionlabs.in/about.html) a successful road ahead.

Its summer again. I write this post under the monotone of the airconditioning and as a large watermelon cools in Aashu’s flat below. Life comes a full circle. Exactly a year ago this was how the journey began. 434 random people thrown together, bound only by a singular thought. The thought was fairly simple then - get in, study, party, study some more, get a job, party some more, get out. But the year was everything except being so well laid out. But, we survived it. Slightly battered by the job market and ever-so-slightly scarred by the best laid plans going awry but hey we survived it, didn’t we?  

I write this post because I submitted my last assignment today. Officially, ISB draws to a close. On the last day of classes i.e. Thursday we had multiple pizzas and coke sponsored by the professors, multiple photo sessions and much-too-much senti talk. Wiggling into every conversation and making its presence felt was relief and yet lots of weariness.

I want to add something super profound here about how I will miss this place for the learning and the interactions, the lectures and the furious-pace of life, the parties and the nick-of-the-time assignment deadlines I met; but I think I will miss my friends the most. I am not sure if we will stay in touch with each other for life, I am not even sure if we will remember each other’s birthdays three years from now, but what I am sure of is that every time each of us speaks of ISB we will definitely think of the gang and smile.

This post is dedicated to you guys, my lifeline on campus and for being what ISB will forever stand for in my mind. Cheers to a brilliantly completed end and the new beginnings.

K-scores going out to the professors in term 8 for being so understanding and so much fun. Also, for the wonderful Mahabharata story-telling sessions I received in addition to the brilliant LLWL workshop. A mega decibel K-score shout also going out to the Yearbook team volunteers for embracing the project as their own (seriously, I got yelled at more number of times than doing the yelling) and delivering it to such perfection. You rock, guys. I will be privileged to work with you all again and when I start my own venture, you are all board members for sure.

The K-squat scores go out to the gang not being able to do the last trip we had planned to. And, for the grueling schedule of managing 4 strategy courses, 8 AM classes on all days and the yearbook project in one term. I think I need a break and yet we are not doing the trip. Sigh L