Show Me a Deal Will Ya?

I happened to come across this shopping site called Singdeals, a few days back. What I like about the site is the fact that it seems to be providing an unbiased shoping experience of what are the deals available. The problem with other major e-retailers is that they seem to showcase only that part of the inventory where they have major deals. Indiaplaza seems to have a great site, but if they fail somewhere its in the fact that they dont seem to have user reviews for most of their products, and this is where Singdeals aims to plug in the gap by being a mouthshut meets Indiaplaza.

Comparison shopping is also a major service they provide, and the most interesting part is that they are not selling, but providing links to sellers with discounts, and that would have a lot of win-win from the retailers who would want to sell their products.In a way, there seems to be some hedging done, by not being an end retail player like Indiaplaza, but they sure have one happy customer, who's writing this blog. I have noticed a couple of unsung heroes on the web segment, which are gaining promonence slowly, and I will write about them in the coming week.

Right now do let me know what you think of this site, which I feel is gaining a lot of prominence.Its pretty neat and nifty and the whole model of "Only Comparison" shopping really looks cool

First Impression is not the Best Impression

The din of the classroom and the B school as such sometimes makes you out of sync with the real world, as it can get really sapping doing multitasking and then discovering that the draft you worked 3 nights was a piece of crap. B school education gives you enough oppurtunities to discover from dissapointments and failures. Failures and non performance are things my life has learnt to tolerate as an unwelcome visitor.Its when the visior stays a little longer that frustration rebels inside you.It is this frustration that shows the "real mature you".

It is how you react when the world is against you is what builds your character shows how deep your skills to counter failure are. Since I have been there and done that a hajaar times, I rarely make a particular failure affect me,but seeing people around me react badly to failure is where I observe that some people are just not made for management. The first impression is far removed from the most recent impression.

Whoever said, the first impression was the best impression, probably did not have management education in mind, as the amount of transformation one undergoes over a period of time, gives different impressions whose sum total is almost always different from the faked first impression.

Some food for thought? Would love to hear your views on this?

Sports Show-9

Here is the 9th episode of my Sports Show

Sleep Deprived Soul

That's what the MBA has made me into. I sleep in bursts now. I generally work till 3 or 4 in the morning and get up at 6 30 to get started with whatever remaining work, including a quick breakfast, and a cursory glance of the case study to be done. There are times I do feel tired during the day, I just manage to catch a few winks... say 5 minute power siesta sessions, but I seem to realise how tired I am when I go back home and lie on my bed. My body seems attracted to the bed like an iron filing to a magnet. Life is interesting ....but its also tough!

The Last 2 Episodes of My Sports Show

It's All About the New Media, Honey!

Susan King at Great Lakes Institute of Management

Susan King of the Carnegie foundation was here last week. She spoke to us on the importance of corporate communication. She was stressing on the fact that if one doesn’t tell his story, somebody else will in this era where the better communicator wins. She was giving examples of how George Bush Senior beat Ronald Reagan in the US elections, thanks to a better branding campaign that was carefully built around a communication that made Bush more aggressive and Reagan more wimpy. She also touched upon the changing paradigms of competition in the new economy, and how communication has started to be more than just the print and TV media ,by extending across social media on the web like Blogs,discussion forums and social networking forums like Myspace. She also spoke on her role in the Carnegie foundation for doling out cash for organizations and causes. Susan was accompanied by her daughter and Rathna Mukherjee(Cultural Affairs, US Consulate)

Here’s a heads up of Susan King’s profile.

Susan Robinson King is vice president, external affairs, director of Journalism Initiative, Special initiatives and Strategy. She is responsible for the Corporation's relations with outside groups and devising strategies to ensure the Corporation's work has an impact on society. She oversees the Corporation's communications including its publications, web site and media and dissemination grant program. She leads the Corporation's Journalism Initiative, begun in 2005, which focuses on university based journalism education, its role in America's research universities, in preparing the next generation of media leaders and its commitment to strengthening journalism's seminal position in a democratic society. She spent twenty years as a journalist covering national and international issues and before joining the foundation served as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Labor.

During her years as a journalist, King was both anchor in Washington television and a political analyst known for cover story reports on politics, diplomacy and major issues of the day. She worked for ABC News and served as a White House correspondent during the Reagan administration. She has reported for CNN and served as host for CNBC's Equal Time, NPR's Talk of the Nation and WAMU's Diane Rehm Show. She began her career working for Walter Cronkite and became an on air reporter in Buffalo, New York.

Under Skirt Adventure

How's that for some adventure? I just happened to hear news about 2 dutch Bloggers who have been filming women below the skirts....wait wait wait!! It's a far more interesting reason than plain pornotude.

Apparently in Netherlands, they have staircases that are transparent and so when women with low skirts happen to walk on the stairway, I guess the menfolk have enough reasons to ogle at them.( Is Reliance hearing? They could place a shop there..and sell a few things there :-) )

Now what 2 bloggers have done is to have been angry at such blatant ogling by men, and so to bring that to public notice, they have filmed women on the staircase, and the women community in Netherlands seem to have more reasons to frown than smile. Its the case of I will clean the gutter, by getting dirty, but getting dirty is a disqualification for cleaning the gutter.

Moral of the Story: Long live the gutter...

News Link : Courtesy CNN IBN

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Dr Nirmal Gupta at Great Lakes

Dr Nirmal Gupta at Great Lakes


Prof Sriram, Uncle Bala and Prof Nirmal Gupta

Nirmal Gupta's knowledge on the Indian marketing scene just bowls you over. He is a prof who can very unassumingly engage you in a class discussion when he goes about substantiating his arguments with data about the Indian advertising and Marketing scene. We at Great Lakes, were just listening in rapt silence when the man taught as Marketing Management II. If you want a session with clear takeaways and a feeling of enlightenment in the Indian Marketing scene, Prof Nirmal Gupta is the prof to have. There was so much of insight in the numbers thathe was throwing at us and his course was all about suggesting to us to always play the game at your strengths and not the opponents strength.

The course was over in a breeze and the amount of marketing insight we have gained out of this interaction was really something which makes your mind delve deeper and ask a lot of questions. It was no wonder that Nirmal Gupta was voted thrice the best faculty at ISB. Dr Nirmal Gupta's profile can be read here.

Back to the Railway Times

What made last year memorable was the train journeys that I had travelled, during the course of the year. Two train journeys that stand out, were the trips made with office, when I was at Sulekha.com. The whole office, or most of whom I knew, travelled for an official trip once and a marriage the next. These 2 trips helped me socialise and get to know persons very well. Given that most of the people were in the 20-28 bracket, it was asy to relate to the crowd. The travelling folks were in one sense simple, that they had not seen much of the outside world, and viewing their world and being a part of their conversations brought together some fond memories.

We visited Ooty in April for a company trip (about 60-70 folks), and a small 1 day trip to a village near Trichy for an employees wedding, and oh....I forgot to include another wedding for which we didnt take leave but still travelled together on the train. This was to Tirutani, when we took the evening 16 30 passenger train to Tirupati. Those memories were great, and I get another chance to re live them partially.( as most of the employees who came on the earlier trips are now joining me in the ex-sulekha gang going to the next wedding trip)

This is happening on the 26th of August, and I have booked myself a journey to Namakkal with four of my friends at Sulekha(now all of us are ex-suleka nevertherless), and look forward to one of those lovely all-night-shout-talk-bitch-2nd class rail journey. Thats one big respite I will have from the course at Great Lakes, which is getting hectic by the term.

One of the best matches at Eden Gardens

I came across this video on Youtube, and was reminded of my days in class 6 at School. I was having a LOGO test the next day, a Thursday, and I chose to ignore it, as I was glued on to this match, and witnessed one of the best matches at Eden gardens. You couldnt get a game closer than this and when India wins at Eden Gardens, a volcanic eruption happens.
Check the match below, has around 9 minutes of video time.

Bring on the Women!

Ladies first (News from Cricinfo)

The television crew covering the Scotland-India ODI at Glasgow on August 16 may well end up focusing on the stands more than the cricket. Lloyds TSB Scotland, sponsors of Scottish cricket, announced plans to draw in cricket widows by inviting male supporters to bring their (female) partners along for free (the first 50 at least). The brains behind this marketing strategy hope to spread the gospel of cricket among the ladies. If Henry Blofeld is around, he might just want to take to earring-spotting again.

Mr Pawar, In case Test cricket/Ranji Cricket needs to get a lease of life, I suggest you to take a leaf out of Scotland cricket :-). I guess something even funkier can be made for twenty twenty...have a couple's nite... (basically to help the singles...mingle)

Compensatory Off?

Thats one term you would never hear in a B school, even in your wildest dreams. One keeps working close to 18 hours in a day, sometimes even 20, but you dont get to sleep those extra few hours the next day or take an extended weekend. At B School, we seem to live every day as if it were last day, and never seem to complain, except for the odd shrug, when you get a few minutes of free time belching over lunch. There is madness and mayhem in the volume and the quality of work given, and you need to multitask activities to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

Oh ya! between all this, you still have profs who dont tolerate dozing in the class to make up for lost sleep, and it can be quite a challenge in such classes to survive the class without the prof noticing your frame droop like a dead body. Some times life is crazy and complex and if you thought I work hard and am doing great at B School, I shudder to say that I have a lot of things pending still and I keep running with a damocles sword over my neck.

This has become my default schedule

Reach college at 9 15 am
Read News Papers for 30 mins
Check out pre reading material and close it before I start pre reading
Classes till 6 pm with a few breaks of 15-20 mins
6-6 45 Dosa Tiffen at a nearby hotel
7 - 9 - Work on research project
9 30- 12 - work on current market researcg project
12 15 - 2 15 am, lie down and sleep on the bench.
2 30 am to 5 am- See the case study/problems for home work to conclude at 5 am, that this has gone above my head.
5 am- Start the bike and head home.
5 30- Have my bath in Hot water to sleep well...
7 45 am Get up in a frenzy and quickly get ready...now with a Cold water bath, to shake off all signs of laziness.
8 15 breakfast with THE HINDU.
8 35 Start from home to college

The 2 Terms at Great Lakes so far

Updates from Term-3 at B- School

One of the things B school education prepares you is for handling Murphy’s law at any point of time. I’ve experienced it twice at B school and sometimes going for a certain class seems like Timbuktoo playing Australia and playing to survive and extend the game. There are so many activities apart from class room education like assignments, pre reading sessions, class participation, committee work, personal development and ....a plethora of things. Now the trick and challenge is to spare your energy for the best, but how can other activities be regarded inferior? There is also the possibility of laying it too thin and seeming mediocre across the activities. Its like wearing the war paint and ready to strike on all occaissons, which seems easy on a blog to type, but so far has seemed difficult to follow. Amidst all this work , some favourite hobbies tend to be sacrificed and all off a sudden there is no back up to cushion on that stress that seems to gaining day by day. B school life is never about pick and choose your best. Its about a defining experience in knowing how well you fare across all the things and then picking and honing your best, even as you digest the fact that you are not cut out for certain things or certain types of behaviour.

One slack activity in a session and people start to judge you and evaluate you, and a certain recognition sticks on after a term or 2 for the better or worse. To help you further Murphy’s law conspires against you to project you in a light that you just didn’t want to see yourself in. Now when you are all at sea with the activities, you obviously seek respite, and I mean immediate respite to start feeling good. What do you to feel good, when the group around you is making hay while you bask in the search of feeling good? The group is feverishly working on the next assignment, while you still are seeking for that one activity that would help you get into an inflated state of enjoyment. You seem to have done something , that you haven’t done in years like, call a friend or read a funny novel or see back to back movies, only to come back and realise that you spent too much time over relaxing while the world at B school has progressed by pages and concepts. You stare at your face in the mirror, wondering what’s hit you....and why do you have so much of a backlog...and as you wonder you realise that you have been wondering for 6 hours as its now 5 30 am, and the first thing you notice is that the guys who were studying at a feverish pace last night, have just finished studying and retiring to bed , even as you hazily watch them.

Since competition is fierce in various spheres, no love is lost between folks and this only seems to bring out a certain cut throatedness in handling situations or shows insouciance in its various forms. B school education will bring out a burning fire in your inner gut, when you see that if you put 100% commitment and the other guy puts 20% commitment, sometimes your work tends to get overshadowed by the other and in some situations, because of the other insouciant partner, you tend to get penalised.

B school life is about a 100 threads connecting various persons with different levels of dependency and when each one pulls the rope without a synergetic team focus, chaos reigns and each person would want that much of the rope that would save his day. Competition becomes intense and it translates to a battle in the mind to win the required component. This is where one sees secretive alliances and survival strategies in its own small way that builds the faculty of the B schooler preparing him for the onerous challenges in the corporate environment.
B school life is all about 2 things, namely accepting the fact that failures will come, and secondly to think on your feet, to be mentally agile and active in all periods. It doesn’t matter if you have been knocked down, but you need to realise that even worse knocks are in store and proceed to get up and run to knock the next person. Losing, if you are used to it, can be the most refreshing experience at B school life, as one needs to see the flip side of life to accommodate it in one’s value system. Another thing that comes to mind along these lines is the need to try out various things at B school, so that you know for sure what are your strengths and weaknesses.

I have so far made many mistakes and been knocked out several times, but when I reflect back, I realise that the knocks were taken because I was adamant about not protecting myself against an impending onslaught. After the knocks, I was too scared to get up and was slowly pushing myself against the ground aimlessly, but given that the traffic is high, one risks the ignominy of getting run over and the whole objective of coming here was to run the race and complete it rather than vying for the 1st or 2nd position. Each race runner has a special skill and will find his band of admirers from the corporate world. Its all about being positive and starting to run with a smile all over again, and invest in hope, as this is the only thing that can give Murphy’s law and bad luck a run for its money.

I have started running.... More updates as I keep running over the course of 8 terms.

A Day in the Life of a "Great Laker"

It was amazing fun designing the concept of this video and of course technical inputs from an enthusiastic group at college. This video is about my MBA life, the moods of people across a time line

Here goes the Video- Would Love to hear your feedback.

"Meet the Dean Sessions" at Great Lakes

Dr. Bala V. Balachandran, Our Honorary Dean will meet the prospective students as per the schedule mentioned below.

Chennai 27-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Great Lakes Institute of Management,

24 South Mada Street Srinagar Colony, Saidapet Chennai - 600 015

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Bangalore

29-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Ramana Shree BruntonBrunton Road, Off M.G. RoadBangalore - 560 001

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Mumbai

31-July-2007 7 to 8:30 pm

Golden Swan ClubPlot No. 110, Service Road,Off Hanuman Road, Vile Parle (East)Mumbai - 400 057

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Delhi

04-August-20077 to 8:30 pm

INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 40 Max Muller Marg Near Lodhi RoadNew Delhi - 110 003

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Hyderabad

25-August-20077 to 8:30 pm

The Walden ClubC/o Whisper Valley Near Padma Nair StudioRaidurg (Darga), Jubilee HillsHyderabad - 500 008

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Take a moment to submit the form below with your correct email address, phone number and your City preference at http://www.glakes.org/meetthedean.htm

At the IAMAI Summit in Chennai-Online Retail in India

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Familiar Faces : Thats Param Parameshwaran and K.Vaitheeshwaran, whom I have grown to seeing them at meetings within Sulekha. Param was the first investor in Sulekha, who now heads a VC firm called the Indigo Monsoon Group. He holds an MBA from Wharton. To his right in the suit is K.Vaitheeswaran, the COO of IndiaPlaza which is a sister company of Sulkeha. It was a great day to network with old acquaintances. Also happened to meet Satya Prabhakar, the CEO of Sulekha and a few ex-Sulekha employees

The chandeliers above represent a lovely yellowish brown haze as the sessions are on. The first session on Online retail, whether it has a future. People from Subhiksha,Bharat Matrimony and Sify have so far spoken on the offline- online model and the possible synergies.

This is happening at Park Sheraton, in Chennai. This goes on till 6 in the evening. The first session was decent, but not the sessions that would let a 1000 thoughts spark. I guess conforming to the time allocated sometimes robs the discussion of the variety of experience.The IAMAI summit in Mumbai last month was an excellent summit. This photo has 3 of my batch mates from Great Lakes(Dr Nesamani,Rajesh and Your's Truly)

Deals Fixed over a cup of tea and a Glass of Water?

Listening in rapt attention to the session on Technology. Thats Pawan and Shruti, from my B School.

Click to Bore : Some were busy checking on official mails while others were answering calls from work. There were a few mobiles that rang during the summit. I am suprised that even after so much prompting to keep the phones on silent mode, some of the particpants still swore to showcase their ludicrous ringtones. It does feel sad, when people lack the basic discipline to respect the sanctity

This part of the updates : Thanks to my data card

I came, I saw ,I plugged

I have taken a corner seat, primarily decided by the proximity of a power plug closeby. I think when IAMAI can take note of this as a feedback, as power plugs and wi-fi service whenever they book a venue for the conferences they schedule.

Orkut: The Lost Crush Locator

This morning, as I was thumbing through my Mangerial assignment, parallely an orkut ticker buzzed on my laptop that a certain girl had scrapped me. The name rang a bell immideately. She was my classmate in class 4, and my first crush in those wonder years at St Johns School, Mandaveli. She apparently tried googling her name and landed on a post that I had written about my 21 birthdays. She managed to "orkut" my name and landed on my Orkut profile with a " Do I know you" standard question. By the time I responded to the scrap, my mind managed to rummage through the wonder year of 1991/92, when I met her.

I remember those days, where after day 1 in school, my eyes fell on this cute little girl in a pink frock and just stay stuck. The only oppurtunity I used to get to know her was during our hindi language classes where we went to a different class other than our designated classroom. There used to thrust my bag on a seat where she would sit, making sure no competition would come in between. I had no expectations, but just liked to bask in the glory that I was sitting near her. In fact I was sandwiched between 2 girls and used to follow the universal rule of behaving slightly dumb to get the girls attention. I was too young to remember further incidents, but after shifting to Bala Vidya Mandir, St John's memories just faded away.

Looking back it looked so funny to have done those antics as an 8 year old, just exposed to the successes of Bollywood romances in flicks :-). I said, I would mail her what happened to my life in the 16 years after leaving school and she said she would return the favour, though she doesnt seem to remember me as well as her other friends(girls of course !!).

Something different in a week which has been full of sleepless nights mulling over Z scores, Liquidity ratios, Macro Economics and Managerial Accounting. The next 3 days too promise the same level of hectic activity, and the respite would be the odd interesting message that pops up like this.

Keep tuned in....lots of articles have been penned, will be soon put up this week.

"Hallelujah Its Raining Beer"

With deregulation on the cards and a number of foreign players waiting to tap into the Indian beer market, the froth is coming forth as India prepares to guzzle into the sunlight. The Beer sales has clocked 27% growth in 2006-07 making India in exalted company, second to China’s impressive 33% growth. In similar markets in Eurupe home to the best wines, the prescence of active substitutes for beer, like wine and spirit, has slightly dampened the sales of Beer. India has traditionally been a duopoly market for beer with only United Breweries and Sab Miller to contend with. Now with the big froth of companies( Carlsberg,Budweiser,Beck’s) knocking on India’s doors, there is an expectation that with the increase in beer demand, there will be a price stabilisation unlike the current duopolistic scenario. This is in stark contrast with the earlier governmental policies which did not encourage imported ingredients and inclusion of foreign players.



One of the big economic drivers of beer consumption in India is deregulation which seems to increase the beer consumption by as high as 70%, witnessed in the case of the state of Punjab in 2006.While deregulating beer is good for the trade and brings down prices, it does not yet allow consumers to buy their beer from the local grocery market, unlike China where Beer is treated in the same distribution network as bottled drinks like Coca Cola and Pepsi. As a result of which apart from the existing duopoly in India the prices of beer get dictated by the states, instead of a model where manufacturers decide the price based on the market forces. So for that to happen, Beer has t be de linked from spirit, interstate levies need to be removed and outlets would need to be on fixed fee longer term basis than the existing auction system.

SAB Miller (A Recruiter at Great Lakes)has 13 brands in India compared to Kingfsher’s 15 , and is adopting a multi brand strategy along with a lot of variety in wider offerings, experimenting across various price bands to increase sales. Kingfisher seems to adopt a different approach in terms of a high volume guzzling option with pricing based on kegs and cans that are economical for the larger volume.

The new market entrants like Budweiser and Anheuser Busch seem to bet heavily on new products and variants, where the speculation is rife on the premise that spend on product development by way of improved processes is marginal. The fact that these foreign players are stil interested shows that there is more data than what has so far met the eye, and that’s the fact that India’s per capita beer consumption is .8 litres compared to 22 litres with the global market leader China, which spells a big opportunity. So to conclude, I would want to re christen the Gerri Halliwell number to some thing like this “Halleluhaj! Its Raining Beer”, as India gears upto guzzling beer by the keg.

The Google MBA

Sometimes when I sit back and see an excellent presentation, I realise that the only difference between my group and the other group at college, is the fact that the other group has googled effectively. Nothing bad about Googling, I am just suprised at the amount of learning google provides in various links and readymade presentations. I have learnt quite a lot in the past week, which involved case analysis and presentations. But the fact remains, that in this mad fast paced MBA, one hardly has any time to do a complete and detailed review.The onus is on quick fast skimming of information, and immideate division of chunks of information to be converted to intelligible form to be put on the presentation in a few hours from now. Time seems the most critical element of the 1 year MBA, where if properly and efficiently used, in terms of working out from the texts and additional reading, it makes your knowledge base very strong. But hey..all theory and no practice makes jack a less than dull boy and this is where one needs to deploy all that theory from macro economics,operations and statistics in terms of preparing business plans and attending various conferences /management events. Right now, I am trying to balance both with a skew towards the latter.

This week's Sports show

If the above player doesnt work, click here to see the direct video

The US Current Account Deficit

Wow!! Peer learning about the money markets after the Great Depression ....seems to be a great topic to discuss, but errr.... its already morning...4 am. The Case study report is 0% complete, but a lot of knowledge gained by discussing this harvard case study. So time to read more on google and try to arrive at more knowledge points that needs to be consolidated and ready by 9 am. Life is alive and kicking at 4 am, Welcome to the financial world.

Coming up this week

Have been busy lately, so havent been able to update on the blog

Here are some things pending in my notepad

1) Why Snoozing in an MBA program helps you dream better and higher?
2) Life at Great Lakes- An Update from Term 2
3) Marriage of my cousin- A Photograhic review.
4) My thoughts on what makes an MBA and why they are required in the Industry

and of course my sports show this week....so keep tuned in..for updates late tonight.

Hooked on to this Kishore da Number