MSFT has taken the research in India further ahead. This is one of the ways by which knowledge-oriented firms are tightly integrating their supply chains. They are having partnerships with IISc and IITs.
Check this link regarding the work they are doing. I feel that optimization of water usage in agriculture is an essential resaerch for India. Why is discussed in later parts. However, I end this segment with the conclusion that either MSFT is being a really good partner and enhancing their image in India OR MSFT seems to have struck a deal with GoI about helping India in whichever way they can for getting the GoI contracts :) In either case, it works for benefit of India. I hope the researchers/students pick up these projects and get them to the levels where by they become practical and freely available. For instance, Virtual India - a la Google Maps for India by MSFT !
About agri development in India.
As India becomes wealthier, the price of non-tradeable services and wages will increase as the general price level goes up (Balassa Samuelson effect). However, revenues from agriculture will not go up as much (they will go up a bit on count of better practices). Therefore, agriculture as an occupation will become less viable. Therefore, on cost-side, economies of scope and scale will happen ==> we will see consolidation due to smaller farmers finding it infeasible to compete. Mechanized farming will come into the picture as this consolidation happens and the fixed costs requried for mechanized farming start getting justified for the larger farmers.
Now, what must the Govt of India (GoI) do?
One of my mentors suggested that GoI must use agricultural subsidy to redeploy agri labor force to some other work.
I feel that this is an extreme step. I think that the education budget can be increased to create vocational institutes which will help ppl choose re-training themselves. If GoI does not have a budget for making the vocational institutes then they must
give monetary incentives (say, tax incentives) to private sector companies who can make provide it for profits equal to the tax incentives. If none of this happens then a social entrepreneur can take this up as a non-profit business concept.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
what area of strategy to specialize in ?
Another common question by prospective management students:
What area of strategy to specialize in?
Answer:
What area depends on what you want to do and your skillsets.
Option 1:
If you have good project management skills then you might want to do implementation of strategy. This is important because it is often found that the implementation of a strategy fails to match with the original vision and goal of the project (I consider an entire business as one large project here)
Option 2:
If you do not have good project management skills but have good analytical skills w.r.t. market research, economics (both macro and micro), design skills, etc then you might consider designing the strategy as your option.
For best results, a firm is well-off giving the design work to someone who has these skills as well as possesses the experience mentioned in the earlier option. Experience is important in order to make the design "pragmatic". Often, the companies cannot procure such folks and do a trade-off on either experience or design skills due to shortage of time.
Bottomline: Get a better grip of fundamental concepts for the field before thinking of strategy area. It is a buffet dinner out there - you yourself need to figure out what suits your palate, appetite, and digestive system.
What area of strategy to specialize in?
Answer:
What area depends on what you want to do and your skillsets.
Option 1:
If you have good project management skills then you might want to do implementation of strategy. This is important because it is often found that the implementation of a strategy fails to match with the original vision and goal of the project (I consider an entire business as one large project here)
Option 2:
If you do not have good project management skills but have good analytical skills w.r.t. market research, economics (both macro and micro), design skills, etc then you might consider designing the strategy as your option.
For best results, a firm is well-off giving the design work to someone who has these skills as well as possesses the experience mentioned in the earlier option. Experience is important in order to make the design "pragmatic". Often, the companies cannot procure such folks and do a trade-off on either experience or design skills due to shortage of time.
Bottomline: Get a better grip of fundamental concepts for the field before thinking of strategy area. It is a buffet dinner out there - you yourself need to figure out what suits your palate, appetite, and digestive system.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
graduation
This is a follow-up post to an earlier post here. Comtemplating on my journey of MISM - naaaah, there's plenty of time for that later.
Graduation's in the air and there are celebrations all around. One full week of parties and catching up with friends, et al.
Last Sat night, we went clubbing to Firehouse to celebrate this one last party with colleagues before everyone disperses for their internships and full time positions.
Yday evening, there was a welcome event at Six Penn Kitchen for the newcomers (the event became slightly unpleasant because there was barely any food after 5.30pm and party was scheduled from 5pm to 7pm- I must say that the organizers did a dismal show in the party estimation! The choice of place was good though.
Tonight, some of the existing students have a dinner at Anisha's place - her parents have come down to visit her and her brother for 3 weeks. She's invited everyone for a dinner made by her mom :)
Tomorrow night, there's another party at Prof Steve Roehrig's house !
Friday night, I plan to go clubbing - but Pgh night life is not as active on Fri nights - unless there are $1 drinks - lol ! Letsee - I missed Diesel lounge last Friday night when Anisha visited it - I might go there this Fri night.
Thereafter, on Saturday evening, a graduation dinner with my Indo-American family (Bal, Val, Val's mom and some other guests) at LeMont ! This is right after MISM/MSIT ceremonies in the evening.
Catching up with friends over coffee, lunches, dinners is the routine for this week prior to the graduation. I have to make a list of who all are left to be met.
I've to get my gown and cap in the meanwhile. Also, packing for the move from Pgh to NYC is going on. That's the only painful part these days.
Graduation's in the air and there are celebrations all around. One full week of parties and catching up with friends, et al.
Last Sat night, we went clubbing to Firehouse to celebrate this one last party with colleagues before everyone disperses for their internships and full time positions.
Yday evening, there was a welcome event at Six Penn Kitchen for the newcomers (the event became slightly unpleasant because there was barely any food after 5.30pm and party was scheduled from 5pm to 7pm- I must say that the organizers did a dismal show in the party estimation! The choice of place was good though.
Tonight, some of the existing students have a dinner at Anisha's place - her parents have come down to visit her and her brother for 3 weeks. She's invited everyone for a dinner made by her mom :)
Tomorrow night, there's another party at Prof Steve Roehrig's house !
Friday night, I plan to go clubbing - but Pgh night life is not as active on Fri nights - unless there are $1 drinks - lol ! Letsee - I missed Diesel lounge last Friday night when Anisha visited it - I might go there this Fri night.
Thereafter, on Saturday evening, a graduation dinner with my Indo-American family (Bal, Val, Val's mom and some other guests) at LeMont ! This is right after MISM/MSIT ceremonies in the evening.
Catching up with friends over coffee, lunches, dinners is the routine for this week prior to the graduation. I have to make a list of who all are left to be met.
I've to get my gown and cap in the meanwhile. Also, packing for the move from Pgh to NYC is going on. That's the only painful part these days.
customer service
Yesterday, I interacted with a Geico agent for getting my plan changed and having a new quote. This official was amazing. I was trying to put a finger on what was making this consumer facing employee better than the other call center agents. Some of the points were:
1. Emotional Quotient (EQ):
The person seemed to be emotionally intelligent. High EQ helps the consumers as it becomes more of a social interaction rather than a routine call-center call.
On this front, I had a terrible experience with the IBM Thinkpad call center. With terrible, I dont mean that the SLA was violated or the person was nasty. The agent was simply too thrifty in the interactions and appeared socially inept, if you can say that.
McKinsey backs my empirical evidence with a more detailed study here.
This reminds me one of my Infy bosses (he was way up in the food chain but somehow I was reporting to him). This individual had good customer interaction due to higher EQ. What mattered was not only the action but also the reaction to certain events. His reactions were well-thought.
I think in sourcing management, companies must ensure this part in the vendor selection process - the EQ of the client-facing personnel.
2. Good knowledge of their domain:
The responses made by the agent while I was thinking out loud were critical to my decision making. Those inputs were well explained w.r.t. pros and cons.
3. Ethics:
"Only do things which if posted on front page of The Times will not make you feel ashamed." says Warren Buffett. There's so much truth in this.
One has to be consistently ethical in order to gain respect and save face. As the Oracle of Omaha says further "It takes 20 years to build the reputation and just 5 mins to ruin it" This is so true. It is reflected in Geico, which is his holding company. The frontline will be capable of selling more and more services with this attitude.
I conclude this post with the following:
Firms training customer facing employees must impart a foundation of base-values in EQ to all their customer facing employees. This is a knowledge-based era and the tacit interactions have outgrown the implicit ones and thus, the need of having a higher EQ.
1. Emotional Quotient (EQ):
The person seemed to be emotionally intelligent. High EQ helps the consumers as it becomes more of a social interaction rather than a routine call-center call.
On this front, I had a terrible experience with the IBM Thinkpad call center. With terrible, I dont mean that the SLA was violated or the person was nasty. The agent was simply too thrifty in the interactions and appeared socially inept, if you can say that.
McKinsey backs my empirical evidence with a more detailed study here.
This reminds me one of my Infy bosses (he was way up in the food chain but somehow I was reporting to him). This individual had good customer interaction due to higher EQ. What mattered was not only the action but also the reaction to certain events. His reactions were well-thought.
I think in sourcing management, companies must ensure this part in the vendor selection process - the EQ of the client-facing personnel.
2. Good knowledge of their domain:
The responses made by the agent while I was thinking out loud were critical to my decision making. Those inputs were well explained w.r.t. pros and cons.
3. Ethics:
"Only do things which if posted on front page of The Times will not make you feel ashamed." says Warren Buffett. There's so much truth in this.
One has to be consistently ethical in order to gain respect and save face. As the Oracle of Omaha says further "It takes 20 years to build the reputation and just 5 mins to ruin it" This is so true. It is reflected in Geico, which is his holding company. The frontline will be capable of selling more and more services with this attitude.
I conclude this post with the following:
Firms training customer facing employees must impart a foundation of base-values in EQ to all their customer facing employees. This is a knowledge-based era and the tacit interactions have outgrown the implicit ones and thus, the need of having a higher EQ.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
where do MISMs go?
Prospectives frequently ask this question to me in order to judge RoI of MISM program: "Where do MISMs go (after they graduate)?"
I decided to blog on this as it is really easy for them to check.
Professional social networking group such as linkedin are open and can be easily checked out by searching on keyword "MISM". They are everywhere - consulting firms such as Deloitte, McKinsey, Booz Allen Hamilton, etc....product firms such as Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc financial services firms such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays, UBS,etc , and on linked in there are atleast 156 users (while I am posting this ..) who are returned as a search result to MISM.
After knowing this and the avg base from career services page on MISM website, they can judge alum's sals from salary.com or something. Stop harassing existing students or alums about what salaries folks in their batches got - it is not only impolite (politically) but also indicates immaturity of the candidate to discuss salaries with an alum. Salaries vary widely. As a thumb rule, ppl with experience tend to get higher salaries than those without. However, along with experience, relevance is often important. If your earlier experience is not relevant to the job offer you are getting there is a high probability of having lesser salary. Besides, the progressions will be smoother.
I like to give an analogy of a buffet dinner to those who ask me such questions. It's a dinner table out there - you must pick or get prepared to pick what suits you. For instance, some ppl may not like consulting and hence, there's no point for them to go towards that. Some other set may like coding and they should go for that. Its a soul-searching process which one must undergo and not just get a job for a "paycheck".
There are ppl in the current and previous batches who have turned down higher paying offers (and I am talking large differences - to the order of US$35k) in order to choose the work which they want to do. This is a sign of maturity!
I often say that you dont have to be a MISM to get a huge sal - that you can get by doing coding on Wall St (lol !) . The reasons for joining the program must be right or else at the end you will be left unsatisfied.
Define what you want to do and search in that direction. The result may even indicate that MISM is not what you want. In that case, do not invest in it just for the sake of doing a Masters.
Frankly speaking, CMU's inter-disciplinary approach is awesome and based on one's readiness to slog, one can achieve their objectives if worked well. Of course, CMU is Computer U. and hence, one has to keep in mind that one should not crib about not making it for some trading position after MISM (though there are ppl in the past who have made it). For achieving that, there are different programs (may be different schools) which one must consider.
Bottomline: Do your research well, before asking questions to an alum or an existing student. Then, ask crisp, concise, and precise questions while presenting context as well.
I decided to blog on this as it is really easy for them to check.
Professional social networking group such as linkedin are open and can be easily checked out by searching on keyword "MISM". They are everywhere - consulting firms such as Deloitte, McKinsey, Booz Allen Hamilton, etc....product firms such as Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc financial services firms such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays, UBS,etc , and on linked in there are atleast 156 users (while I am posting this ..) who are returned as a search result to MISM.
After knowing this and the avg base from career services page on MISM website, they can judge alum's sals from salary.com or something. Stop harassing existing students or alums about what salaries folks in their batches got - it is not only impolite (politically) but also indicates immaturity of the candidate to discuss salaries with an alum. Salaries vary widely. As a thumb rule, ppl with experience tend to get higher salaries than those without. However, along with experience, relevance is often important. If your earlier experience is not relevant to the job offer you are getting there is a high probability of having lesser salary. Besides, the progressions will be smoother.
I like to give an analogy of a buffet dinner to those who ask me such questions. It's a dinner table out there - you must pick or get prepared to pick what suits you. For instance, some ppl may not like consulting and hence, there's no point for them to go towards that. Some other set may like coding and they should go for that. Its a soul-searching process which one must undergo and not just get a job for a "paycheck".
There are ppl in the current and previous batches who have turned down higher paying offers (and I am talking large differences - to the order of US$35k) in order to choose the work which they want to do. This is a sign of maturity!
I often say that you dont have to be a MISM to get a huge sal - that you can get by doing coding on Wall St (lol !) . The reasons for joining the program must be right or else at the end you will be left unsatisfied.
Define what you want to do and search in that direction. The result may even indicate that MISM is not what you want. In that case, do not invest in it just for the sake of doing a Masters.
Frankly speaking, CMU's inter-disciplinary approach is awesome and based on one's readiness to slog, one can achieve their objectives if worked well. Of course, CMU is Computer U. and hence, one has to keep in mind that one should not crib about not making it for some trading position after MISM (though there are ppl in the past who have made it). For achieving that, there are different programs (may be different schools) which one must consider.
Bottomline: Do your research well, before asking questions to an alum or an existing student. Then, ask crisp, concise, and precise questions while presenting context as well.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
MRO boom in India
In the current mini semester, I took a course called Marketing Applications of Data Mining (SAS was used as the mining tool) by Prof Alan Montgomery. The objective to take this course was learn analytical Marketing concepts and techniques (from an entrepreneurial and consulting perspective). That was achieved !
The course was fairly intense and demanding (with me having to provide atleast 10 hours a week). We had a presentation in which we had to present our marketing plan to the Sr. Management for a fictitious firm named Cell2Cell.
Recently, I read this article on India's possibility to become the market research hub of the world. Market Research Outsourcing or MRO is picking up pretty fast and one of the firms that's making headway is Markelytics.
I am unsure if this company wants to get bought by some other firm. However, I think, one of the Indian service providers must buy it before one of the MNCs or Google Analytics buys it. The reason to buy is that it can become one of the offerings for the consulting arms of these service provider firms and help them climb up the value-chain faster.
Besides, it can serve as an internal shared-services unit for other arms of the consulting firms. Consulting involves rigorous analytical research with hardcore data. Most of the consulting companies fail to do it and the consulting presentations are based on superficial research than an in-depth data-driven one (no matter how much they claim they dig, it ain't enough). As Dr. Montgomery says, "Data mining leads to amazing results and sometimes inexplicable ones !". However, data is data and hence, must be respected.
eSCM-SP best practices must be laid out by service providers such as Markelytics at an earlier stage to ensure that they can differentiate themselves and provide greater satisfaction than the regular vendors to the client. Clients will have to get ready with eSCM-CL as well.
The course was fairly intense and demanding (with me having to provide atleast 10 hours a week). We had a presentation in which we had to present our marketing plan to the Sr. Management for a fictitious firm named Cell2Cell.
Recently, I read this article on India's possibility to become the market research hub of the world. Market Research Outsourcing or MRO is picking up pretty fast and one of the firms that's making headway is Markelytics.
I am unsure if this company wants to get bought by some other firm. However, I think, one of the Indian service providers must buy it before one of the MNCs or Google Analytics buys it. The reason to buy is that it can become one of the offerings for the consulting arms of these service provider firms and help them climb up the value-chain faster.
Besides, it can serve as an internal shared-services unit for other arms of the consulting firms. Consulting involves rigorous analytical research with hardcore data. Most of the consulting companies fail to do it and the consulting presentations are based on superficial research than an in-depth data-driven one (no matter how much they claim they dig, it ain't enough). As Dr. Montgomery says, "Data mining leads to amazing results and sometimes inexplicable ones !". However, data is data and hence, must be respected.
eSCM-SP best practices must be laid out by service providers such as Markelytics at an earlier stage to ensure that they can differentiate themselves and provide greater satisfaction than the regular vendors to the client. Clients will have to get ready with eSCM-CL as well.
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