Core Term: My Learnings

Term I
a) Financial Accounting in Decision Making: Accounting Shenanigans
b) Statistical Methods for Management Decisions: 95% Confidence Interval doesn't always translate to 95% confidence
c) Managerial Economics:Me in your shoes, you in mine!
d) Marketing Management:Restaurant menu can be engineered

Term II
a) Global Economics: The group in minority is the most vocal
b) Decision Models and Optimisation:One can by-pass probability through expectation
c) Competitive Strategy: Strategy works best ex-post
d)Marketing Decision Making: Mark-Strat (sigh!)

Term III
a) Corporate Finance: Arbitrage is a myth
b)Operations Management: An hour saved at a non-bottleneck is a mirage
c) Managerial Accounting and Decision Making: Cost, cost and cost
d)Entrepreneurship: You can chose any profession but nothing beats the thrill of entrepreneurship

Term IV
a)Investment Analysis: It is very difficult to make money in the market
b)Strategic Analysis of Information Technology:Sleeping with eyes wide open
c)Government, Society and Business: Per capita income is not the best measure of human development
d)Management of Organisations: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time

The Dharma of Business

I was 9 at that time, very keen to start my own library. And so I did. I with two of my closest friend on the 1st Monday of May set up our very own library. Everyone was invited, all they needed to pay was an entrance fee of Rs 5/= if they didn’t rent a book, and Rs 2/= if they rented any book. As we started making money we got more and more creative. More money followed. The neighborhood guy Abhay, kept a close watch. Within a week, we were staring at his library, far fancy, and much superior. And then one day we lost everything. Just like that, our dreams shattered. The reason: Water from somewhere destroyed all our books. Five days later we came to know through some internal sources that, it was Abhay’s idea. We were heartbroken and seething with anger, we wanted justice but we had no proof. It was then that my teacher gave me the biggest lesson of my life: At the end of the day you have to do your duty, and if someone comes in between you and your duty, you deal with it through Chanakya’s four principles of Saam (Equality), Daam (Enticement), Dand (Punishment/ war), Bhed (sowing dissension). The dharma of our business was at that time to preserve its existence, in whatever way it could.
I look at a business as an end in itself. We all are cogs in that intricate machinery. Our purpose is to keep it running, because it in a big way defines who we are as owners. It gives us everything, food, clothes and a roof. If anything poses any risk to it, we should defend it. It’s a scary world we’re living in. A world where one can trust no one but oneself, the biggest dharma of our business is to keep itself running and protect itself from the world. In an ideal world everyone would play by the rule and there would be no need to play hard. But this is the real world where and I quote “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain”. The world at some point was fair and then somewhere something went wrong, terribly wrong. And then this ugliness spread until the root of corruption entangled everyone and everything. We are at a point of no return, the only way to fight is to fight hard and fight rough. So I believe it’s ok to undercut if the survival of the business is at stake. In the context of a business it’s nothing more than a creative intervention. There is always someone waiting for you to give them the first chance to destroy you. To fight them you have to think like them. That’s the only way, and that the only right ‘wrong’ way!

A marathon called life!

It was during my last few days at IIT, I was sitting atop OAT wall with two of my closest friends, Piyush and Bhan. We were fretting about how are lives were doomed to the point of no return and how there seemed no tomorrow. We had screwed CAT, the job prospects seemed bleak and our personal lives weren't going anywhere. It was then in a moment of truth Bhan mentioned "Yaar the life is a marathon where we'll live for at least 80 years. So what we've started slow. The track is too long and we can cover up". The argument seemed good but it didn't change my mood. I was still reeling in shock. My great dream was shattered and it didn't feel too good. Three years I struggled with my condition and finally now I understand what he meant. Life and its wondrous uncertainty is humbling and we can never know what it has in store for us. Luck is dynamic and it explains more variance in success that we in our moment of hubris attribute it to. I now appreciate every word of the the statement and am much more satisfied. Still a long way to go!