IIMK- GD/PI experience

9th Feb

please read this to get a perspective of whats happeing..

6:00 a.m. Alarm..Alarmm…. umm..click…grrr.. grr…

…………………(sleeping peacefully)…………..

7:00 a.m. Ring Ring …umm click …grr… grrr ……

7:01 a.m. Ring Ring .. huh..finally I woke/jumped up and was standing straight within a fraction of a second, as if there were springs in my bed, could not believe that I defied that alarm, and cut the call as well, Sangeeta was on the line.. just thanked her for waking me up, and felt bittersweet about this unplanned/unaccounted extra hour of sleep(I was supposed to wake up at 6’o clock), sweet because sleep is always sweet 😀 and anyway it is never expected that you will read till late in night even for an interview and at least for an IIM interview that do have the widest horizon for the questions to be asked from.

OK I will not provide you unnecessary information about what I did after this to get ready and what else I read ( haa haa.. I am stupid).. but I got late, really late! Left my flat at 8:25 (was expected to be at the venue by 8:45), and to add to my misery, I was yet to take Xerox of my mark sheets. Got that done in madiwala .. then back on my way for this unseen Monarch hotel, somewhere located near Brigade road.

I reached near M.G Road at around 9 ‘ o clock.. but was not sure about the route, so asked anyone and everyone on route.. nobody looked to be familiar with this Monarch Hotel.. Finally I decided to explore the brigade road, and here it was ..just opposite the REX (should not the address be given as Hotel Monarch, opposite REX cinemas, rather than this not so helpful address – Hotel Monarch ,54, Brigade road)

I looked at my watch, already it was 9:10, My dear innocent heart got intimidated and confused by all this and was pumping blood at a unnecessarily rapid rate, I could feel an increased heartbeat, this was not going to help me in any way, but dil to nadaani karega hee naa..movies mein itni baar pagal aise hee thode naa bola hai?

The GD:- Much to my relief, guys were still waiting there in a room(it looked like a room from outside) .. I entered in that 10-10 ft room filled with atleast 30 IIM aspirants(call getters to be more precise), the room was filled with too much tension(as most of us were having their first interview of the season), there was too much intellect in the air(guys were sharing last minute knowledge from topics as diverse as from types of crank shafts to increase in bank CRR rates, from AVL trees to forthcoming elections in states to IRAN-PAK-INDIA pipeline ).. I felt that there was no AC in that room or may be it was totally ineffective in this situation and the room’s slanted roof was hardly 6 feet high at one end. I glanced at all these immaculately dressed boys and girls, most of them were there for more than an hour and it showed on there faces.

In fact the gravity of the situation was there in the Air, As a general rule I can only say that no matter boss! U may go on to convert all your 6 calls and something even better, but for the first one, you will be tensed.

Within 5-10 minutes we were called in groups of about ten guys per panel. I was in panel 2. This Panel consisted of two profs, one rather old one and one middle aged one with a bit heavy structure(I sensed some trouble).

We were seated on chairs that were placed in a semicircular arc.

The case was distributed, got a 1 minute time to think and then start>>

It was not exactly a case scenario it was rather something like a 5-6 line article about struggles between employees and management and how they affect productivity.

To be frank it was a very dull GD, nobody had great points and everyone came up with more or less same points wrapped in different wordings.

The only guys who stood out (in some sense) were the ones who came out with examples(like in Japan they increase the work.. or shoe factory example)

I also beat around the bush, tried 5-6 times, was heard by the group for some 3-4 times.

Apart from regular rephrasing of the case, My points were like management has to listen and resolve the employees’ demands proactively, so that employees don’t get an impression that they will be heard only when they go on strike. And something about why models of Japan etc may not be successful in India because of lower literacy/awareness rates of workers. I also tried to come up with a point that this whole strike has its root in a sense of insecurity that employees have, maybe because they are not highly skilled labourer, having less market value, so they want to stick to the job that they are doing. That was harshly cut down by some gyaanee one saying that its not true(Indian labourers being unskilled when compared to their counterparts in developed countries), I preferred( I mean I had to .. 😀) t to remain on the backfoot, and anyway to get into a quarrel in an IIM GD is never a good hing and at that time I didn’t have anything in particular to support what I was saying.

Overall a very mediocre GD, and for me as well it was just average.

I would say that apart from 1-2 guys who performed a bit better and 1-2 guys who did not perform that well, all other were more or less on the same level. I should have got an average rating.

The Interview:- Now directly comes to the interview( I was the fourth one in my group):-

Lets call the profs as P1(middle aged one, HR types) and P2(Academics types)

P2:Tell me about your typical day in office?

5:00 –leave :D/ , but y shall I tell the actual one? I will give a pleasant one.. which goes completely about work and queues/timelines/delivery etc etc)

P2:What is a bug?(mentioned it somewhere in my answer)

I defined it well enough ..something like difference between expected and actual output on a given input.

P2:So how many bugs do you find in say 1 lakh lines of codes?

WTH? Depends ..blabbered smthing about like a faulty design will lead to too many bugs , different impact , bugs found at different stages of lifecycle etc etc..ended up with saying about post release bug possibilities n six sigma standards(6 bugs PMO).

P1:What are your hobbies?

P1:So you have directed some skits?

Blah blah..

P1:Sometimes we watch some movies that look more like a TV serial? Whats the problem?

Me: Sir I feel that the problem lies mainly with the director.. as insipid acting by the cast can be one of the major reason for this. He must convey the situation and the intensity to the actors and ask them to get into the skin of the characters rather than being conscious of or distracted by the fact that they are just acting.

P1:No.. No..from technical point of view?

Me:OKkk, there can be a fault in the screenplay itself, dialogs and situations are not lively or interesting.

P1:No ..No not all this stuff ..have you ever thought of making a movie yourself?

No Sir, I have never thought in that direction.

P1:You are missing something ..think from the director’s point of view?

OK you used that world screenplay, tell me whats the difference between a novel and a screenplay?

Me: Everything is described in screenplay..like what exact dialogs will be there, what will be the settings for every scene..infact it treats the story scene by scene.

P1:OK what is the difference between a movie and a stage play.

<hmm.. I started with something that I feared/(and faced :( ) the most>

Sir in play we are performing in front of live audience..there is no retake.. the reaction of audience is going to have an impact on actors..so we need a tighter screenplay. While a movie director has lots of liberties..like he can show instant flashbacks(pretty frequently), retakes, editing etc etc.. even if the film looses its grip for half an hour and picks up the pace after that, nobody is gonna complain. But in a play ppl will start hooting if there is a dull period of even 5 mins.(quite reasonable acc to me)

P1:No ..No ..something technical, you are close, think about it..

P1:Ok whats the difference between a stage play and a street play. (how did this come to picture.. I have never even seen a street play.. or do I look like a madaaree? 😐 )

Sir, in street show we will have even more impatient audience.. another thing is that we will not have some luxuries that we have in a stage show..like the background score or backstage area(whr faltoo actors can wait for their turn to glory/or fear for those 2 mins of shame), so all the characters will always be in view .. I mean every actor will always be the part of the play..so the role of everyone at every point of time needs to be decided.

P1:..No, you don’t know what you are saying..

Now the guru unleashes his knowledge on this poor soul:-

Look it’s a matter of camera angle, in movie you have multiple camera angles, in stage plays you have single camera angle(means the front side/audience)..and in a street play you have whole 360 degrees of camera angle.

Ohh! So this was the gyan that I was supposed to say..well good lines, will be used in next interviews 🙂 )

Now P1 decides that I have already wasted his enough time.. so looks at P2 and then never looked much interested in the interview(ye camera angles ne to meri watt laga dee)

Now P2 again takes up:-

Was going through my marksheets..i explained few of his related queries.

OK bhanu, so you had a subject called Numerical analysis Lab, what was the software that you used in that lab?

Sir as such no particular software was used. We just wrote simple C programs for various techniques to verify and use them.

P2 what all techniques did you study in that?

Sir basically it was about Interpolation, Extrapolation and equation solving through iterative methods like Newton-raphson and Bisection method.(I was very much sure about these iterative methods , so I put a little bit more stress on them)

P2: Ok tell me something about iterative method..

Explained.. Select two values of x such that inbetween them they contain a root(some funde about the range and all) .. now middle point..value(f(x)).. then compare the sign of f(x) with that of f(x1) and f(x2) ..then move in one direction..replace x1 or x2 (depending on the result of comparison) by xmid..etc etc..(pretty good explanation)

Ended with saying that I forgot to say that while choosing initial x1 and x2 signs of f(x1)and f(x2) should be different.

Now from here started all the problems. P2 said that this condition is not required.

I tried explaining him that in case of continuous functions different signs means that there will be atleast one root.

Some more discussion took place .. he asked me to draw the graph of x^2-20x+96 = 0(roots as 12 and 8).. I drew it to show him that if I take points like 4 and 14 then at both points the function is positive ..thus more than one root inbetween them..

He confronted by saying that OK there can be more than one root if we have f(x1) and f(x2) of same sign but it will still converge to one of the root.

I said that in program, how will I decide about in which direction to move if both are of same sign.

More arguments..

I quickly identified that maybe Prof knows that he is erring somewhere but don’t want to accept it ..(maybe)

I thought a bit and said that in that case we may extend this algorithm to actually accept any values of x1 and x2 and return all the roots lying in between them(By calling this elementary algorithm again and again for each of the roots with appropriate ranges.)

He seemed quite satisfied with this.

1-2 more general question and it was over.

Afterthoughts:- I feel that I had an avg GD and an avg PI( I don’t think that P1 is gonna mind those camera angles that much, given that my answers were also kinda right in their own perspective), given the profile of 2 years work ex and a good enough CAT score, I do feel that I have good enough chances in IIMK. Lets see ..

Anxiety and mismanagement of last hours! one day before the IIMK interview

8Th Feb (written on 10th)

I was always apprehensive of this day, the day: when I am less than 24 hours away from my first ever IIM interview.

I was too much involved in preparing for the Acads, that I did not get time to do anything else. I had plans to rehearse my answers to typical interview Qs, plans of recording them and then monitoring if there is something wrong in voice modulation or body language. But plans are just plans, in my case they are too idealistic and too perfect.

That’s why I hardly do what I plan to do, never up to my satisfaction.

In this case I was still satisfied that at least I was trying to do my best.

Time was less, I had set a deadline for going to bed by 1’o clock. It was crucial as I was not sure if I would be able to wake up on my own that early (I had my GD/PI at 9’0 clock). Went for dinner with Sangeeta, kinda relaxed my nerves a bit, then back to my room.. time was 10:30 pm. So I have around 3 hours(already stretching by half an hour), and I still have to –

Fill the Interview form(SOP)

Read some Current affairs articles from TIME’s GD/PI briefcase

Revise few of my notes.

Too many things still not covered from Acads(like a quick review of sorting n searching, OOPS, Database(after all I am working in Orac**, no matter that the only kind of database that I am even remotely related with is, hmm… maybe my Outlook archives), … and ..and ….just too many things to cover.

I started with some current affairs.. read it for about an hour, then started to go through some automata(donno y?)..time? already 12.

Then thought about SOP.. the rough draft took more than an hour, then writing/modifying that on the Interview form took another hour I guess. After that I was again back in front of my computer screen, went through some IIMK experiences on Pagalguy. Time? 2:30a.m.

Then I started to go through the latest online issue of business world and also dug out some articles from their archive. I tell you! they have some really great stuff over there.

Most of the articles were extremely interesting or full of gyaan(which in turn is extremely helpful in PIs when faced with opinion based questions.. you just need to read and appreciate one gyaan filled article from the vicinity of that field and you can make an attempt to show your recently acquired gyaan).. I just could not leave this site and finally realized that the time is already 3:30 a.m.

Got really stressed, had to wake up by 6 o’clock in the morning(revision of notes, newspaper, shaving, bathing and even Photostat of the required documents, ..everything was pending).. Finally I was lying on my bed. Years of experience, months of CAT preparation, post result celebrations, all those mock GD/PI classes, then again weeks of preparation for acads and current affairs, and now again i found myself in a bit of mess(thinking that just a couple of more hours and my prep could have been perfect), wondering if at all I will be able to sleep, more than once I reconfirmed the alarm status, what if I wake up at my usual time of 10-11’o clock in the morning?

What happened after this? .. that will be in the next post..

Settlement of issue in Office, and the wait for the D-Day

OK , So for a while i have been away from this page.(what else can you expect from an ultra lazy guy like me.. you can better understand this if i tell you that i have been late to all of my IIM interviews)
.. OK leave that all behind, though i have not posted my experiences here, but i have scribbled them here and there, and now when i have time i will post all of them ..one by one with the respective dates –

7th Feb:-

So after that brief talk with my manager he was able to convince me that I should pay full attention to my job and should work for my personal goals in the remaining time.

I felt a bit motivated but somewhere inside I knew that this whole motivation will be gone, once I am out of his cabin.

After that I tried and tried hard to get a hang of the things, but finally one brief conversation with my TL broke all my hopes –

I needed to test my code on Unix, but didn’t have any idea of how the whole thing can be build and run on Unix (I have been a hardcore Windows user, except for the labs during my college time, when once in 4th semester practical, I fared badly despite getting a problem whose solution was there in a well known directory, because I could not copy the solution from that directory to my directory.. poor me and my poorer command on UNIX).

For my TL it was very easy .. He tried telling me to just build it using FooFighter(ff), then replace the file and then make it your particular project, and use Portt* for such testing.

For me all this Jagron sounded as if I am being told about Laplace transformation as my introductory course in High School.

I was terrified by all these new terms, tried to explain my situation in plain words to my TL, like what is this, what is that how will i use this? it created a very bad impression and he said that BOSS ur fundas are not in place.

I accepted it because it had substance , at least in the locality of the problem being addressed.

After a while he said that he is asking for all this because my/his manager has asked him to continuously monitor my progress and he is responsible for my performance, I could understand his problem. He also told me to clarify all this to my manager as according to him I can not sit on the fence for all the time(meaning that doing nothing is not an option ), now I tried to clarify that everything(IIM intv funde) is clear to our manager and I don’t know what better can I do?

He left my desk in utter disappointment.

After this conversation/bashing I realized that no matter how much effort I put in to this in the next 1-2 days, I will not be able to complete my work(or achive anything), so it discouraged me even further and the thought of having my first IIM imterview in 3 days time prompted me to take a firm stand.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and headed straight towards my manager’s cabin.

Here is wat happened over there–

Me:- AAhh.. I feel that I have lost your confidence.. need to put whole-hearted efforts rather than bits and pieces.. which is not possible under the given circumstances for me .. I try to do work in office as u have suggested than to complete my preparation I have to study till late in night .. unable to cope.. bla ..blah..

My manager was not much engaged in this whole discussion and then suddenly he asked me very bluntly “I ma unable to get …Tell me what exactly did you have in your mind when you entered this room”

Whoa!.. now this was too much for me, I was just trying to put forward my point in the best possible way..no use of that over here, So I got slightly irritated and said that “ I just wanted to say that I will not be coming from tomorrow onwards”(and i am prepare to pay any price for this and to do ..whatever it takes!)

Now that was a beamer from my side, he discussed a bit with me if it can be avoided, and then he said that now this has gone out of his hands and it has to be shared with our Group head. As i was ready to face the worst possible outcome i said that i have no problem with that.

He Asked me to wait and went into the GH’s cabin.

I was preparing myself mentally, as this could have been my last working day out there.

He then came out and called me to his cabin.

I went there with a tornado of thoughts occupying my mind, He said that it will not be a problem and they will help me.. but asked me to give some kinda proof that I am actually taking these leaves for IIM intvs and not for any personal reason.(Shows the kind of impression I have over there J). I thought for a moment and then IIMB website came to my rescue, but not without one more twist in the tale.

He entered my Roll No incorrectly resulting in the site showing the “Sorry! you are not selected” message. My heart almost came to my mouth wondering how ill-omened his cabin has been for me. Self doubth seized me, what if I am actually not selected for Bangalore?? I though about asking him to check some other insti’s site, but I saw that he is already very frustrated. I looked at the screen to realize the mistake..corrected it and eureka! Here it shows(much to the dismay and astonishment of my manager) .. that IIMB is actually interested in me. ha haa.. May God help both of us!

So he said that they are doing this for me and they hope that I will repay for this .. I thanked him and said that I will not disappoint him.

So guys that’s it .. got a license to be on leave for next 7 days(till 15th when I have my IIML interview)

Time (and surely this blog) will tell, how well I use this opportunity?

Could not resist from writing these lines(though contains some un-intended arrogance from this otherwise humble guy)

chhod naadani, kyun rokta hai usse,
jisse iss ghar se chala jaana hai
naa manega woh, kam se kam koshish to karega,
usse paane ki jo usse paana hai
arre(Ghalib!) log to intezaar bhi nahi karte izazat kaa,
yakin mano! bada bura aajkal kaa ye zamana hai!!

irshad!!

Goof Up?

I just wanted to say that I haven’t devoted as much time to my studies as i wanted to, but other than acads and related preparation other things are looking nicely in place.
GD or PI in general are looking quite crackable but I needed to study a lot to generate some serious content at that time.
Sadly my job in ITPL(means 2+ hours in travelling) hasn’t helped at all(apart from my own unique ways of wasting time).
Add to it the fact that just recently I have been assigned some work(SAR) and I am expected to complete that as quickly as possible just to get another SAR and then so on and on….there is a lot of pressure as the queue has become quite heavy now and I am considered as the guy who is responsible to make that short as m not into any other major thing.
through all this period of last 4 months(prep, CAT, wait and anxiety about result then GD/PI prep) you can imagine the kind of image that I am having in my office.
I have already taken at least 8 SL n CLs so asking for more of them is also not possible.
Anyway now I am just one week away from my first IIM interview(9th feb) so I decided
to take some serious steps in that direction by telling my manager about this and then see what he says.
Now I had another option of simply taking a leave from next week , lying about some major illness like jaundice. BUT but and but… I felt that being a professional I can not lie like this specially to such a helpful manager like I am having.
I thought that there is no harm in making things clear. I anyway don’t care much about this job(fixing a bug in 15 days, that also hardly require changing one word or at max 1 line of code change ..after that 15 processes to follow, 25 passwords to be used, and 31 queues to remember, 38 bookmarks n not to forget dos n dont’s, gimme a break when will I code? )
anyway I still admit that I have to share the major part of the blame as my CAT plans have also created some problems from time to time.

OK coming back to today, finally I got carried away by this fit of Harishchandrapanti, and told my manager about my interviews, asking him if I can be on leave for the next week. Creating these many problems for me and him –
-He knows this , so shouldn’t he pass this information to his manager(which in turn may trigger my ouster from the company..)
-Now for me the option to go on a longer leave is closed.
-Big conflict of interest, and worst thing is that my manager knows about this.
-He has to start looking out for my replacement, irrespective of the fact whether I clear it or not or join it or not.. wat will it mean for me?

As expected he was quite clear that it is my problem and as far as he is concerned the business requirements are on his priority list rather than my IIM calls( fair enough )
But yes he can accommodate for the 6 leaves that I will require to attend the interviews. but on the issue of taking the next week off to prepare for the interview he was very stern(again fair enough)
I felt like a stupid kid asking for favours that nobody on such a responsible position can entertain. n then I asked myself like wat did I wanted to get out of this?

I could have avoided it by lying, m still trying to speculate the impact this may have on my plans.
maybe it was a big goof up on my part, but if it turns out to be so .. then I will surely pack all my truthfulness in a bag n immerse it somewhere deep in Indian ocean.
After all you make your moves to gain maximum out of life, where did this truthfulness come into picture? specially when it actually didn’t help anybody at all.

But on the contrary i feel that it was correct from my side to do so, Lying to somebody who trusts you is a big burden and better to face the consequences than hiding behind such lies(a bit too brave and a bit too foolish i guess?) and i still can do whatever i want to do, except for the fact that i must be ready to face the consequences, but anyway it will be fair enough to pay the price for dreams that are yours.

Its hard time for me n maybe its time to show some real character and turn the tide back.
First part of it was that I was quite serious about study this evening and though came late from office but still managed to study a bit. maybe I need to take it in my stride and work harder towards my goals. It is important to get motivated by everything that hits you, no matter if it is good or bad.. I am happy that i have this quality.

Winners never quit and those who quits never Win.

Creating Value through your dreams

One important thought that i came across recently and that convinced me thoroughly is that a good business idea must create some value. By value we mean that overall it must benefit the end user maybe through better quality, or speedy delivery, or maybe a wholly new product that the public is going to experience for the first time.
An entrepreneur must look into this aspect and must decide about how much value is going to be generated through its idea (for all the parties involved).
Yeah! parties, that’s important as the value of a business will be different when viewed from different perspectives.
OK lets take some example. Like Reliance entered the retail business. It will
– Add value for the consumers, as they will get better quality of product for maybe at cheaper price.
– Add value for the farmers/(sadly brokers as well) as they may get a better price and maybe by entering into long term contracts, they will get more or less even returns from their farms.

So by and large this is an idea that is seriously going to generate some value.

Now take a counter example,
Suppose some S/W engineer with entrepreneurial dreams, enthusiastically comes up with an idea of starting a portal on which you can order for your meal and it will be delivered at your doorstep within 1 hour. Now on the face of it he may say that his plan is also going to create some value as by tying up with some good hotel it will provide a good service to customers and for hotel as well it provide provide it a much wider and bigger customer base.
but in reality it is hardly going to create any value as –
– Such bookings through phone is already possible, So the quantum of value addition for customers is not that big.
– A lot will depend on the efficiency of execution.
Again i am not totally denying the idea, and will restate that a lot depends on the way of execution.
But theoretically this created value concept is very important, no doubt that this is a framework through which we can distinguish between an outstanding idea and a not so great idea.

Once an entrepreneur believe that his idea is going to generate a lot of value he need not look back, if his conviction is correct, he will never fail. You just see whatever till date has added value to the business(Like Microsoft, Google, Reliance or maybe your city’s most famous Sweet shop) has never failed, provided the initiator sustained for a time period that was long enough to yield result. And similiarly about the Dot Com burst in 2000, guys over-estimated the value they were going to generate, given the limited and apprehensive customer base of that time.

P.S. This apprehensive customer base part of the above sentense should be ignored as this factor is outside the concept of value generation, as it concentrates on the value generation through your business and ignores the current customer preference or inclination, believing that it will follow you if you are providing something that makes sense and provides additional value)

bhanu 2.0

Last few days have been very hectic, could not keep up my resolutions(that’s y i added the word guidelines)completely, but it wasn’t a complete disaster either. except my acads related preparation all other things are moving at a great pace.
After reading 6 hours+ daily about business and related stuff i am totally fascinated by this world. The world of board room meetings, world of real life challenges, devotion , failure , success, everything is there. Finally i am not feeling that awkward to imagine somebody asking me the questions like”What do you want to do with an MBA degree OR why IIM?”
all this has suddenly helped in waking up the entrepreneur(PRON- ahn-truh-pruh-nɶr) inside me, who want to do something out of this world, who want to surpass the names that have ever appeared on the business horizon, who want to help in changing the way the world has lived till date , the one who is willing to think the unthinkable.
Ahm Ahm! Now you will surely say that this normal kinda guy who till yesterday was more concerned about the fate of Saloni (on Zee TV, 9:30 pm) has suddenly gone mad n would surely attribute this to the excess reading without any previous habit of doing so. But i tell you after going through all those success/failure stories i can safely assess these things –

Business require courage:- brain and business are not related to each other and money has a great inclination to be with businessmen rather than being into pocket/accounts of a techno guy.
What i mean will be more clear by this example – “a .NET guru worked hard for last 15 years , finally he settles in Noida and from his hard earbed money, he buys a flat through an established Real State guy.. the deal is worth 2 crore. the real state guy made some 20 lakhs in a day just coz he was in this business.. after all he is a businessman” .
but business require courage. Anyone who is good enough in .NET will be having a secure career but there are so many real state guys on roads.

Business is more satisfying than Job:- Just imagine how will it feel when your own business attains a height that you once dreamt of, your business is like your own child, you will love the way it grow, you will be troubled when it doesn’t do well. Just like your children they will carry your name forward. in comparison a job is a bit monotonous and less rewarding. The max you get is a lunch/dinner party on completion of a project(for which you toiled hard fo months) and maybe some paltry monetary incentives. it is kinda comparison between being parent and being baby sitter. I hope you understand what i am trying to say.

Feel Fresh and feel intensely:- To be hit you need to come up with a brilliant idea. though their are philosophies that you can penetrate into established markets with better execution(higher customer orientation, better streamlining of efforts etc).. but isn’t it a better idea to create your own market altogether(examples like HOTmail by Sabeer bhatia, IPods by apple, MakeMyTrip or for that matter even burrp).. all these are based on relatively new an fresh ideas, hardly any market existed in this category before they came in. But they came and created a whole new market on their own.

Understand the market, competitors and partners:- Now all these three forms the backbone of your planning. if you find a good market that is still untapped then you have already won half of the battle but yeah its just half of the battle.
While getting into an untouched territory you should not forget that there will be competition once you make it click, Now let me discuss this point with the help of this simple example-

Suppose doing business is like having a loyal customer and engage him in listening to your music(hee hee that’s what big companies do.. making the customer dance to their tunes :)) , now market is like spotting such customer/listener alone and who is willing to listen to your music. If you can spot such a customer your half work is done.. reach out for this customer and charm him with your music(business idea).

point 1:- Finding an untapped business area is akin to finding a lone customer who is willing to listen to your music, entering into an saturated business is like trying to attract people who are already listening to music of your competitors. lot more difficult to execute.

point 2- as soon as you engage this customer with you your competitors will notice this .. now the strength of your idea and its execution plays a major role in preventing others from disrupting your show.


Find an untapped market/free listener, charm with your music, quality of your music and the extent of customer’s involvement will decide the level of barrier for your competitors to jump into this market.

point 3 –Finally if you are making profit than surely others will jump into your business an will try to snatch a share of the pie, either your customer is not at all bothered by their music and keep listening to you loyally, it means you need to have near perfect execution plans in place or maybe hold of the major market share so that you can simply dominate over your competitors, in this example either you have to have too good a music or otherwise good music which is very loud , so that you can shield your listener from others.

point 4 – other point is that suppose you were the first in market so you completely dominate it for the moment but you are not delivering the quality to the customer. Like you have a loud setup but the quality of music is very poor, the customer is listening to you coz their is hardly any other choice .. once someone else enters the market your customers will be more likely to give at least a try to the other guy.

point 5- now suppose you have a competitor who is loud and melodious enough to get some notice from your customer. now he is playing a different traffic so it affects your music(and in turn profit) if the market size is limited than you have two choices:-


Get Aggressive, increase your volume an see if that guy has the same capability or not, if has the same capability than get ready for a big and dirty fight.

The best option is to give preference to your brain waves over the adrenal rush, form a coalition, make an arrangement with this guy who is adamant about not leaving the ground, to play the same music as you are playing. This will effectively increase the sound level, will give a great effect(business synergy) and this partnership will work as a great deterrent to the jumping of other competitors into the same field

that’s all about this. Now you may like to comment on the hollowness of my brain, but i believe that most of the things in business revolve around these simple rules.

Now a big buzz world in business is customer orientation, you have to think about the user rather than thinking about the profit. the later will always follow if you take proper care of the former. But sometimes this word is taken quite wrongly as being synonyms to giving a lot to customer. I mean its not about quantity but about the quality of service. Now a firm X may have a call center that is always up and it may be very easy and fast to get an executive talking to you, but if they are not properly trained and take a long time to resolve your issues because of their incompetency then that hardly adds any value for the customer.
similar is the case with providing too many things/(features in case of websites) to the customer this will also lead to making things unnecessarily complicated and confusing the customer.
came across this graph that depicts the scenario quite accurately –

taken from Kathy’s post on headrush

It says that a happy user peak is attained by giving a good number of(and all necessary ones) features to the customer but if we over do this then we are simply making the user more and more confused.

i donno why this post got drifted in all direction, i donno whether i did it deliberately (or maybe unconsciously :P). maybe deliberately.. coz so many things are going in my mind these days.. i am relating everything to business. Result is here to be seen by you all.
something more on what happened in last few days-
-not able to reach office before 10am, compensated for that yesterday by working till 9pm yesterday. without having much work i am finding it very difficult to keep myself going, i usually end up opening the browser and get immersed in the world of news and views.

-Bought magazines worth around 200 Rs in one go last week, have read about 25% of that material, so i think i am going all fine there.

-Picked up a copy of ET in office, quite surprisingly it appeared to be quite engaging to me, great change in me over the year i feel.

others nothing special .. got across this wonderful website of CNN Money ‘s business 2.0 magazine. was quite impressed with this business 2.0 name, hence came the name of this painful post. don’t worry! Will keep them short and to the point in the future 🙂

I can become a manager..IF..

So the last post has these lines somewhere in it “I am feeling the drive to immerse myself in the preparation harder than i have ever done, to manage myself better than i have ever done, to again raise myself to the occasion, and suddenly those dreams about Dollars, that race, that challenge from others are not the biggest issues, the biggest issue here is to reinvent myself, issue is not to prove it to some one else in GD/PI that i am good enough, it is to convince myself that i am the one who deserves. “

So what am i gonna do for that?

First of all a manager has to manage himself in a better way, So from now on lets prioritize everything, at the moment preparation for GD/PI is of utmost importance , more important than those idle hours of issue less net surfing in office, more important than watching serials/movies/cricket on television , more important than my laziness..
It is not about whether i can do it or not, rather it is about putting my best foot forward, to do whatever best i can do at the moment. If the sword is not available for the soldier, he has to fight with the knife, but a true soldier has to fight(did i make any sense?)

Here is what i am planning to do..
Read TOI/HINDU and ET/BT for at least 2 hours a day

complement this with at least 1 hour read of magazines like India Today, Outlook, FrontLine, Business Today, CR and at least 15-20 such magazines.
Read specific web sites (like Forex, Management, HR etc) for about an hour during office time.

Complete 5-6 Computer Science subjects from Text books.
complete rest of the subjects from the guide for GATE.

Read about Wipro and Oracle in general from Internet and make reasonable notes about their business ideology.
Read about my project from a bit broader view.
watch English news/business news channels(late night debates) for some 2 hours.
Huff so that’s a BIG BIG task and it will require a good amount of consistency from my side.
So that’s a few resolutions/guidelines(as resolution is a very hard word and i am already doubtful about some of them)

OFFICE-
A deserving manager can’t have a bad reputation at his workplace, that i am currently having .. here are points to improve it in a weeks time –
-reach office early, at least by 9’o clock, and than shoot 1-2 mails to PL/ manager(much better than reaching t usual 11- 12)
-utilize some of office time in reading news papers/magazines in library and doing some purposeful net surfing .
-but simultaneously devoting around 4-5 hours for office work.
-meet my manager at least once in a day , updating him about the efforts(exaggerated ofcource) that i am putting to learn about the product and the problems that i am facing. Once he sees my seriousness for the task, he will surely get impressed.
-stay late on every other day .. work till 5:30(till 80% junta leaves) .. then take printouts of articles.. and maybe shoot a mail to manager/PL at 7o’clock and then leave.

HOME- Here are points to improve productivity of studies at home-
-Don’t waste time, either study or enjoy something.
-2 hours in morning and 4 hours in evening…. that will be enough i guess, VERY SIMPLE 🙂

off! .. things are getting messy ..its already 4:30 am when will i sleep ? when will wake up? how will i go to office on time .. and what about joining the GYM for muscle building? what about travel log? what about the proposed website on Logical problems? what about my engagement plans? it was supposed to be on 20th FEB.. but now i will be having my GD/PIs at that time 🙁 , when will i go home to see my newly born nephew? when to start solving programming problems on online judges? what about writing those stories/poems/shaayris?
Ohh my GOD .. help me! i am getting into too many boats.

–

Can I really become a manager?

OK, thats a big question.
Giving CAT is one thing, giving it and getting a good score and getting calls from the IIMs is another thing. I know that the previous sentence sounds a bit cliche(maybe stupid) , and I will make another foolish one by saying that i have done both of these things.

I tell you that for me CAT has been like a wall that is being venerated by one and all.. lakhs of people try to jump over it every year and hardly 1 out of 100 succeeds in doing that, now most of the guys who are in this race know what is their target and thus have a fair bit idea of what to do once you jump over this wall, but I represent a totally different case. I was allured by CAT for the sheer challenge that it presented, I was challenged by my failure by a whisker when I attempted it for the first time, I was helped by those loads of idle hours that I got in my office, I was convinced by seeing so many persons around me targeting this wall(CAT), I was attracted by reading about those exorbitant salaries received by IIM graduates. All of this drive was coming from outside, it was coming from the environment rather than from within myself(its another matter that I hardly get any thing from there except triggers for bunking from college/office to watching movies/cricket matches).

So I looked at this wall and thought that i must jump over it, I thought it will be a great triumph to do that, I planned to do so, devoted my last 2-3 months to do so, and than on 19th of November I was there, in the race with around 2 lakhs of other participants, I had my mind filled with doubts because of lack of preparation and because of my consistent dismal performance in MockCats.. but i knew one thing and that was that I was much relaxed and focused than others. despite doubts I had the belief of overcoming the hurdle this time as I knew that the height of the wall(complexity of exam) is not too much and I can do that.
Finally i jumped and to a great satisfaction I jumped over it .. ended up with these scores that were good enough to give me the complete BLACKI calls .
Over All – 99.51
QA – 98.83
DI – 98.61
VA – 95.33 (kinda Lucky draw, was unlucky to get only 25 numbers but simultaneously was lucky enough to get 25.. you have to be a CAT 2006 aspirant to understand what i mean by that)

And now when i am on the other side of the wall suddenly i find myself alone and a bit dazed because of unfamiliarity of the environment out here.
I am apparently a typical non deserving call getter, not only i know nothing beyond CAT about an MBA, but i also lack those essential skills. I have a self belief that it is not that i lack those skills(for example i am kinda introvert, had zero extra currics till college, don’t find myself at much ease with strangers, has terrible sense for time management and things like that).. i feel that i have the skills but they somewhere inside me in a dormant state.
I have seen myself managing things for a group, or leading a group unexpectedly, i have seen myself enacting in a play in front of thousands of people, i have delivered surprising speeches to a gathering, i have managed things to come out of difficult situations, i have sometimes utilized my resources to their optimum use, I have raised myself to the occasion maybe very occasionally.. he he. but i have done that and i have done that all.
but yes 99% of time and occasions you find me as being just one of the crowd, maybe it is because of my excessive lazy attitude that is shaken only by shear importance of the occasion(like CAT.. and hopefully now it will be so forGD/PIs).

Now once again i am recognizing the importance of this opportunity, its not everyday that you get 6 calls from IIMs, I am feeling the drive to immerse myself in the preparation harder than I have ever done, to manage myself better than I have ever done, to again raise myself to the occasion, and suddenly those dreams about Dollars, that race, that challenge from others are not the biggest issues, the biggest issue here is to reinvent myself, issue is not to prove it to some one else in GD/PI that I am good enough, it is to convince myself that I am the one who deserves. It is to make sure that it isn’t the wrong path that I had taken for a short time, it is to make sure that the path that I have taken is the way for me and my destiny waits at the end of it.

Why to start this?

So Finally I have also decided to start my personal blog. though i have posted my first blog in 2004 and then a travel log some 3-4 months back but a proper personal blog was missing.
So here i will be posting some special incidents/thoughts from my day to day accounts, or whatever i feel like posting at. as i haven’t blogged anything about my previous (and precious) 24
years of life so maybe i can post some interesting accounts of all that period whenevr i feel like writing about them(with the post title starting with Past memories ).
Purpose of this post is to analyse myself in a better way and i am opting for a blog rather than a diary because i feel that the blog will attract some positive influence(of keep posting/continuing with my plans) because of its public domain, and the opportunity to get some third party neutral feedback.
Lets give it a try!