MBA Takeaways - Part 2

Formula for success = 10% What you know + 40% Who you know + 50% Luck

Some people call it being at the right place at the right time. Some call it luck. But I realized it plays a big role in success. What you know or how capable you are are not the biggest factors. Who you know is another way to say how well you can network. I just can't emphasize the importance of that. But then, in the end, did you network with the right guy at the right time? Or in other words, were you lucky? I don't know the answer yet.

Bottomline is that my notion that a superman will be successful always was totally transformed. There are several factors that go into the equation, and other intangible factors sometimes dominate. I would end by quoting what Jim Whitehurst told a group of MBA students (including me) - A CEO who says that he was successful only because of his capability is either lying or is too insecure. Luck plays a critical role!

MBA Takeaways - Part 1

I am not in a very bad mood today, for a change. So I thought it might be a good time for me to start this MBA Takeaways series on a positive note. Here is what I learnt from a technical standpoint -

Marketing
Everything revolves around 4Ps, 3Cs, and STP. If you know this (which by the way was Mod 1) you are a good marketer.

Finance
Even simpler. Discounted Cash Flows. Period.
Everything else flows as a result - NPV, Valuations, IRRs whatever. Everything is a manifestation of DCF. Yeah, I did learn a few theories like CAPM but then who cares. Just look-up the #$%^@ beta.

Operations
I thought I might eventually start getting a great ROI on my investment due to my learning in operations until I realized that I was learning about linear programming and regressions, which I sort of covered in my engineering days. But to give the due credit - Newsvendor problem was a sexy sounding concept I did pick up.

Consulting
Wow! This was the best ROI as far as my learning for MBA jargon which I think would be most handy for me going forward. Bucket everything into 3 things. Bottom-line on top. Throw in a few numbers, a few sexy sources like Gartner, Forrester, and you are done!

Etc.
Sustainability, yeah I do recycle! Thank you.

It is almost time to graduate. Yes, the countdown has begun and it would be soon that I will be ready to enter the cruel world again. Wait, did I just say that the MBA world is not cruel? I am not sure about that. With that thought, I have decided to blog my key takeaways and learning from the last 18 months. I am sure there would be several, and I would break them up in separate posts. So happy reading.

Its already May and I have just two posts this year. This is not acceptable. What am I up to? I don't know.

There have been so much going on that it might take a fortune of words to write. But a quick summary of whatever I remember since I last wrote -

* Interviews for internships - Unsuccessful at many, success at a couple. Eventually, something did work out and I am hoping it would be a great experience

* Finishing first year of MBA - Projects, assignments, study groups, and the regular stuff. The good thing was that I got a chance to work with so many different people in the past few months.

* Trips to Princeton, Atlantic City, Niagara Falls, Philadelphia - This was definitely one of the highlights and does warrant a separate post. I really enjoyed visiting these places of course with Tanu. In the process, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary and my birthday.

* Farewell, Parties at school - This is a regular feature thought not the farewell (it only comes once). It was fun. Desi party and dance and drinks makes an awesome deal.

There were definitely more memories, more events, and more happenings during last few months but these were the main ones that immediately come to my mind.

1:38 PM EST, West Windsor, NJ

Sitting in a Starbucks cafe in a upscale but still developing mall. Spending a couple of hours in the cafe, the next couple at Barnes and Noble. Then sometime on window shopping. And yes, finishing my To-Do must reads, catching up with the lost sleep and so on. I am trying to make the most of my break before I start with my internship next week.

The last few months were tough, and I mean really tough. With the economy in its worst phase since the Great Depression, it taught me a good lesson or rather I should say it clearly showed what it means to be looking for a job in this turmoil. Not just for me, but for my friends, colleagues, and everyone in the school - it was a difficult time. But hope doesn't die. And even when there would be many who would be graduating without jobs, hope is something which would keep everyone including myself (Yes - I still have a Full-Time job to look for next year) alive and kicking.

I am definitely looking forward to working next week. I believe it would be a very different environment for me. From a company with 100,000+ people to a company with around 200 people. It would definitely be a different world. In fact, I had once worked in a project with peak team size of 120 - I am guessing it would be a similar experience. Just that instead of project in a huge company, I would be working with the entire company itself.

Will hopefully post some posts regarding my internship experiences.

IIMs and Financial Times MBA Rankings

I recently had an interesting conversation regarding why supposedly the best business schools of India - IIMs do not figure anywhere in the global Top-100 MBA rankings. I said - IIMs would perhaps not figure in global rankings unless they change the system. Here are the reasons I think it might be difficult for IIMs to crack the global rankings -

- The admission process itself is messed up to some extent with reservations, and there is no doubt that admission process is an important factor in the rankings
- IIMs do not accept GMAT, which means that the students can not be benchmarked against students from other global schools
- Also, the average work experience in IIMs is 1-2 years (as compared to 4-5 years in other global schools)
- This also leads to lower salaries post MBA which brings IIM down in rankings (although while calculating the rankings they usually just take the % difference in before and after salaries, but I think a more inexperienced class of IIMs will have an impact on final rankings)

Personally, I believe that IIM students have excellent analytical horsepower and intelligence in. However, they can work more on enhancing their soft skills, and IIMs can definitely steer the students in the right direction. I believe that to be a successful in the corporate world, at the end of the day, soft skills matter more than hard skills. - maybe a 60% to 40% distribution.

By the way, FT rankings are also skewed for some parameters, like salary differences pre and post MBA etc. and some institutes do stand to benefit from it. I personally take all the rankings with a pich of salt - "Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital."

After spending 5 years in the market, going back to school is a “different” experience. I have carefully chosen the word different as it can take any meaning. Within just a week of classes, I could figure out the single most biggest challenge which B-Schoolers face – Choosing the right things at the right time. There would be so much activity going on and each and every activity would be so good that you would not like to miss. But, unfortunately you just have 24 hours in a day – a time too scarce to really do everything!

So, as everyone says, the sooner you decide what you want to do the better it is. Then, you can spend more time on things which interest you and the more focused you will remain throughout the next 2 years. That being said, I personally don’t think it is entirely a good idea to completely shut everything. I have joined a B-School to get a 360 view of everything – different industries and functions. So, I hope to maintain a generalist approach, attend as many events as I can manage and concentrate on things I “really” want to do.

My last blog started with the sentence - "This happens to be my first post from India..." Around 5 months later, I ironically start this blog with -

This happens to be my first post from the US (of course, I mean after returning back to US). Between those 5 months there were events which are life defining for me. Yes, the events that happened are only ONCE IN LIFETIME events. So important, that I can perhaps write a billion blogs around them. To cut the long story short - I got married, I resigned from my job and I started my MBA in the US.

So many changes in a short span of a few days. Things were definitely a roller coaster ride but I somehow prevailed and I am happy about it. Now that I have broken my jinx of not posting for so long....I hope I would be more regular.