Unconventional Wisdom

This is my first post after a long long time. Let me straightaway get down to business. I have decided to start blogging again. The dominant trend among MBA aspirants has been to blog before and during their MBA’s. Once they are back to the humdrum of regular life, blogging takes a backseat. I want my blog to break that trend. In my opinion all MBA aspirants need to know what happens after an MBA. What changes in you for the better and what changes in you for the worse. Does the grind and intellectual rigor of an MBA make you a better human being or does it only teach you to be an elitist and an opportunist.

I start with one simple story today. One of the greatest realizations in my life has been that never disregard the unconventional as silly or impractical. Disguised as unconventional is probably the next big idea. The unconventional also has this stickiness factor. Life is full of mediocrity. Conventional is the average while the unconventional is the outlier. Think about a shelf with neatly arranged books. Do you remember the books that keep formation or do you remember the one that sticks out. The unconventional is like the book that sticks out in the neatly arranged shelf of your mind.

I was reminiscing the presidency of the graduate student body at ISB. I distinctly remember the election manifestos of two candidates. One a major (RK) with the army and the other a Lt. Colonel (GR) with the army aviation core. Both soldiers and both experienced in leading men. A voter wouldn’t have discriminated one from the other based on their antecedents. I have therefore adjusted for their pre-ISB experience. The only way one seemed different from the other was through their manifestos. While RK’s manifesto was very presidential with focus on all the usual issues that term 1 MBA’s are worried about, GR’s manifesto was outrageous. He proclaimed that if he is elected president he will start a flying club at ISB. This didnt go down well with the electorate, who thought that this man is either silly or is so full of himself that he couldn’t care less for the REAL issues that students have to face. They voted RK to office with a thumping majority (figure of speech – ISB doesnt disclose vote count)

RK had an uneventful presidency even though the job market for fresh MBA’s went belly up. He was true to his word in that he conducted himself in the most presidential manner and stayed away from any major controversies. GR on the other hand managed to start a flying club at ISB. The dozen odd students who joined his flying club got simulator trained for free – courtesy GR and his army contacts – and for a very modest sum got to fly a Cessna under the watchful eyes of an instructor. Their first flight got a lot of media coverage. GR started another pet project – turning a part of the unused football ground into a mini driving range.

Now why am I writing about all this. When I look back at my ISB days what do you think I remember – not RK’s uneventful presidency but GR’s Flying Club and Golf Course. Probably I am insane but I value the flying club more than the whole of RK’s presidency. GR’s flying club was the book that stuck out. It was unconventional in conception and thorough in implementation.

I am in no way belittling RK’s presidency. He was a good president and saw us through a difficult year. But that is precisely my point. It is not enough being good. Good is average. Average doesnt stick. Good is the hygiene you need to fulfill a role. What people remember is the outrageous. I add here that it is not enough being outrageous. Outrageous ideas should be followed up with action to see the idea through. While some people are unconventional others are deliberately anti-conventional. I value the unconventional and not the anti-conventional.

A friend of mine – working at a large pharma concern- was telling me the other day how the new head of marketing was trying to apply marketing tactics used in the consumer goods industry to the pharma industry. She laughed at the thought and said that its never going to work. She was disregarding a unconventional idea and labeling it outrageous. Probably she is right. But what if she is wrong. What if this new guy shakes up the existing ways in which drugs are marketed? You cannot say for sure what will happen, but its important to give unconventional ideas the attention they deserve.

Piyush Pandey on Advertising

One of the good things about ISB is the caliber of the speakers who address the student body. A good friend of mine managed to get Piyush Pandey on campus to share his insights on advertising. Piyush is the Chairman of Ogilvy and Mather India and is the brains behind a lot of advertisements we saw growing up and the genre of ads which never cease to amaze me.

Some key takeaways from the Piyush session were:

Never lose trust in the magic of simplicity

Just because something is complicated doesnt mean that it has to be communicated in that manner. Piyush took as an example cellular phone providers. Cellular phone packages are probably one of the most complex purchases you will ever make. I am sure to understand the full implications of buying one single plan you have to have a advanced degree in finance. When Hutch (now Vodafone) approached Piyush to explain the idea of superior coverage to its customers Piyush came up with a series of ad’s that created magic. What a simple way to explain the concept of coverage.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=7zqO8mQXCO4

Think for your customer

Sometimes the customer doesnt know that times have changed and what was once taboo is a norm today. Piyush explained that at one time disagreeing with parents was taboo in India but now it is more acceptable. When Virgin Mobile turned to him for creating a series of ads for their MVNO service, Piyush came up with these set of iconoclastic ads.

Ten Singh Ad

Mahalingam Ad

Traffic Police

Show the way to the customer

Sometime one has to show the customer new way of using his product. Piyush explained this concept using Titan as an example. He demonstrated how watches evolved from being used for gifting to being used as a fashion accessory. Also notable here is the way in which the concept of gifting itself changed over time in India.

Titan – Proposal

Titan – Grandmother

Titan – Aamir Khan
There are no sacred cows

Another key takeaway was that just because something is done in a manner doesnt mean that you have to do it the same way. He talked about how he changed the Onida Devil ad much to the consternation of the proprietors.

Overall an enthralling session that brought back fond memories of growing up.

Breaking Linearity in IT Services

Without apologizing ad-nauseam, let me get straight to the point. ISB has a very active Business Technology Club. As part of the club proceedings we invite leaders and practitioners from the Technology industry to share insights with students. Ananth Krishnan, the Chief Technology Officer of TCS addressed club members on Wednesday. It was a very insightful talk that traced the course of the software services industry and discussed some of the fundamental growth problems that the service industry faces today.

Key takeaways were:

The IT services model was pioneered by Ross Perot the founder of EDS. He chose to base it on a pricing model widely used by the professional services industry (dentists, lawyers, consultants). Soon the model would become the pricing norm in the IT services industry. The model worked on the principle of leverage one gained from having more experienced and renowned professionals as supervisors. While the bulk of the day to day activities would be performed by relatively inexperienced professionals, the experienced professionals would be the ones who would get business for the firm. In this manner the whole (firm) would earn more than the aggregate of what the parts(employees) could earn individually. This worked well till the smalls were small in size. As the firms began to grow larger, revenues per employee started plateauing. The aggregate revenues of the firm over time became proportional to headcount.

This problem is described in management literature as the Linearity Problem.

As organizations become larger and larger linear growth becomes more and more difficult to sustain. Ananth went on to explain how TCS is addressing the problem of non-linear growth by exploring business lines which could generate non-linear growth.
I have been thinking about the traditional way we price IT service contracts. I have seen most mid-level managers use a cost-plus approach to pricing. You calculate how much the resources you use cost the firm. You add a fixed percentage margin and arrive at your ask price. This makes an organization fall into the widely known cost-plus trap. When demand for services is lower the firm increases prices to generate the same amount of profits as it did earlier. This is counterintuitive. When demand is lower one cuts prices to generate more demand and not the other way round.

A better strategy is a pricing structure based on differentiation. At the start of each project measure the economic value you add to the clients business. Base your pricing decision on a percentage of that economic value. This is a better way of pricing services. But it calls for a large change in the mindsets of people who make pricing decisions in firms. Cost plus is simple to apply while differentiation is more difficult to measure.

We had Piyush Pandey, Chairman Ogilvy and Mather India, with us today. But, more on that later …..

Clubbing

Clubs are an essential part of B-School life. All b-schools have clubs whose interests range from issues strictly professional to issues that are purely social. ISB has its share of clubs too. On the last count, there were about 13 professional clubs in various stages of maturity and about 9 social clubs. While the variety and the numbers of these clubs may seem daunting, a typical b-schooler may enroll with at least three professional clubs and 2 social clubs. The advantages of being part of these clubs are numerous.

For starters, people take up leadership positions in clubs of their choice. These positions look good on resumes and serve to display initiative and leadership to potential recruiters. But I would not limit the utility of the clubs to such banal a purpose. Clubs are excellent places to find like minded individuals who share the same professional aspirations and social interests. Clubs are also useful for people who want to change either their industry function or their industry itself to meet experienced people who can guide them through their transition. In my opinion clubs serve a very important purpose by allowing people to come together and participate in the club activities. This adds an entirely new dimension to the primarily scholastic b-school life.

A word of caution. People often mistake enrollment with participation. Believe me a potential recruiter can see through that charade. Enroll only if you have the passion to participate.

I personally am interested in the Marketing, Business Technology and the Healthcare club. I believe I can add value to these clubs by leveraging on my prior experience. The Consulting club seems inviting too, considering the enormous interest in ISB for a consulting career. Maybe I will learn a thing or two about consulting by being a part of this club.

Of the social clubs, the Quiz club is definitely at the top of my list. I am interested in starting a movie appreciation club aimed at learning business through the medium of movies.

A week into …

It has been a week since I moved into ISB. In this brief period I have realized a few important things about myself, people and the MBA program.

I am getting old. In all the outdoor activities that I participated since I moved into campus, I always felt out of breath and exhausted. There is no way I can compete with someone 4 years younger on pure energy levels. And thats a concern. Once the classes start, things are only going to get tougher. One needs the right energy levels to stay competitive.

I have also realized that age makes you more cynical. I have found that it takes something completely novel to excite me and keep me interested. I have found it very hard to follow the booing and the cheering rituals. Conversations that I had with people so far have been uninteresting.

While I appreciate the enthusiasm shown by a lot of people here, I cannot but wonder how much of that enthusiasm is heartfelt. There is a large section of the class here who believe that being an extrovert is the beaten path to a high profile consulting career. I am no expert on consulting but I know for sure that the way to a meaningful career is passion. Passion is a very elusive trait. It comes from the depths of your heart and the innards of your soul. And you cannot feel passionately about something in a week’s time. You need to do a lot of introspection to feel passionately about something. As individuals who will have leadership thrust upon them, MBA’s have to be passionate in their pursuits.

I have met some very interesting people on campus. I have met the former captain of the Indian hockey team who gave up his hockey stick for an MBA degree. I have met a doctor who topped the IPS exams and was the SP of two districts before he moved into ISB. My neighbor for that matter happens to be a Russian who aspires to start a helicopter business in India.

It has been a rollercoaster of a week.  Pre-terms begin coming Monday. I have enrolled for the financial accounting and statistics pre-terms. More on that later.

ISB Ahoy!

For someone who has been blogging since 2004, I have fallen off the grid lately. A lot has happened in my life since I last put down a blog post.

I took the GMAT in September 2007 after a 3 year hiatus. This time I was very serious about it. I put down two solid hours of study everyday over a 3 month period. My hard work paid off and I managed a score of 760 (the 99th percentile).

After 6 months of writing essays, gathering recommendations and interviewing, I landed three offers, 1 waitlist and 1 rejection. I have decided to enroll for the Indian School of Business’ (ISB) one year PGP program.

The program starts this saturday (April 12th).

Blogging has become a trend in ISB. I still recall the days when there were a very few ISB student blogs. Notable ones being Raja Bannerji, Sujayat and Bharani. I liked Bharani’s blog the best. He transformed his blog from being merely a journal to a platform for sharing his insights into what a business education means.

It is my intent to follow in his footsteps.

Hats Off Redux

I completed 5 years with TCS in Jan, 2007. TCS commends long serving employees annually during a ceremony called Hats Off!. This years’ Hats Off was organized in August at Novotel, Hyderabad.

Employees who have completed 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years in the organization on or before August, 2007 were felicitated during the ceremony. Some interesting figures:

1. 30 Years  – 1
2. 25 Years -3
3. 20 Years – 0
4. 15 Years – 5
5. 10 Years – ~40
6. 5 Years – ~30
7. 3 Years – ~200

I was interested more in the discrepancy between the 5 year and the 10 year figures. I had expected the 10 year batch size to be lower than the 5 year batch size. But then it made sense. Employees who had joined 5 years ago had done so between September 2001 and August 2002.  It is a well known fact that the particular time period was a bad one for Indian IT. Therefore recruitment was at an all time low. Hence the smaller number. Made me think about the time I spent 3 months in Bangalore looking for a job in vain. I also silently thanked TCS for bailing me out.

Some interesting take-homes from the Hats Off event.

Satya, a senior finance department associate, completed 30 years in TCS this year. As expected he was full of anecdotes and tales about the days of yore. Some things he said made an impression on me.

• He talked about the time when senior management at TCS were very humble and believed that the company’s interest always came first. He narrated an incident when F.C. Kohli (father of IT outsourcing in India) had chosen to take an auto-rickshaw and allow Satya to use the sole company car (the Amby) for an official chore.
• He talked about a time when employers were kind and not everyone cared about a larger pay packet. When he joined TCS he was offered a salary that was lesser than the salary he was receiving from an earlier job. When his manager discovered the truth he summoned Satya and scolded him for not pointing out the facts to him. Satya told the manager that it really didnt matter to him that he got a few rupees lesser. But the manager replied that it mattered to him.
• He talked about a time when people didnt follow processes just for the sake of following them. There was a process but then it was a person who drove a process.

Shamsher the company driver has been driving the company cars for the past 25 years. He was felicitated by the senior management in the presence of his entire family. When asked how he felt, he broke down and said that he was overwhelmed by the honor that was bestowed upon him. When asked what his most memorable moment in TCS was, he said that he would always remember the two hours when he drove JRD Tata around Hyderabad. I could see his family was very proud of him.

Simple stories but great lessons to be learned from them. Our jobs become such a large part of our lives. Made me wonder what I would say when I complete 30 years in an organization. Or is it unthinkable today to spend 30 years in the same organization? Times change ……

The classroom wars

Much has been reported about the war of words between OLPC and Intel. It all started with the OLPC project using AMD Geode processors. Intel responded to the AMD threat by launching the Classmate PC project. MIT Media Labs director Nicholas Negroponte openly declared that Intel had hurt the OLPC mission and that Intel should be ashamed of itself. But very soon a truce was called in with Intel expressing its willingness to join the OLPC consortium.

It is interesting to compare the approaches adopted by Intel and OLPC towards developing a low cost computing platform targeted at the developing world. Both projects aim to develop a educational solution, as opposed to a crass cheap laptop project. Both plan to use economies of scale to reduce manufacturing cost to sub $100 levels. Both projects offer a Linux based computing environment, a browser, a word processor and document viewers. Both designs claim to conform to the practicalities of the developing world in terms of ruggedness.

But the similarities aside both projects seem to have taken different approaches towards creating a one size fit all educational solution for “emerging” nations. While the Classmate PC has stuck more strictly to the notion of a “Laptop”, the OLPC XO has set out to design a completely new hardware and software environment targeted at kids. For instance, the XO offers a dual display solution comprising of a backlit color LED screen and a black and white sunlight readable screen. The sunlight readable screen is meant to be a substitute for a text book. Another feather in the cap for XO is its support for human powered devices. This makes good sense as most of the target market of the XO has intermittent power supply at best. Also of note is the XO software interface. It is not organized around the conventional model of “software as applications” but rather as “software as activities”. Each XO is scient in the sense that it detects other XO’s in its immediate environment and forms a mesh of interconnected XO’s which can collaborate with each other. Hence a bunch of XO’s in a classroom can collaborate with each other on some activity.

The Classmate on the other hand conforms more to the notion of a laptop. It can be installed with Linux or Windows XP. On both environments it comes pre-loaded with a set of common everyday applications like office suites. Intel also provides instructor and parental controls on the Classmate. Teachers can monitor student activity, lock student devices and also stream material to student devices. Parents can create blacklists, monitor student activity logs and enforce browsing schedules. The device also comes pre-loaded with an anti theft solution. The theft control solution requires an authentication server to be present at the time of powering on the device. In the event the authentication fails the device is rendered useless after a specified time.

Both approaches have their own merits and demerits. The XO approach with its focus on a radical learning platform, human powered supply and an intensely collaborative model is sure to deliver a punch. But the XO scores low on practical solutions in todays connected world like parental control of browsing habits of children. Also the absence of an effective theft control mechanism is of concern since $100 is a credible sum of money in the developing world. Also of concern is the departure from the traditional model of computing. Children educated on an XO will find it difficult to adapt to conventional computing systems due to the fact that conventional systems implement a radically different metaphor than users of the XO will be used to. The Classmate also has its fair share of foibles. It fails to address the problem of an intermittent power supply in much of the developing world. Also by providing a large set of controls built into the device it creates a computing environment that is very similar to corporate intranets.

It will be quite interesting to see how the battle for the classroom plays out. In all probability the Classmate will be adopted in urban classrooms while the XO will find greater acceptance in rural classrooms. Urban student, many of whom have some exposure to computing platforms in their homes, will find the Classmate more acceptable. Rural students on the other hand will find it easier to migrate to the very novel interface that the XO offers. The Classmate project has been on a pilot in a few urban schools in India, and HCL has started manufacturing the device at its Puducherry plant. The XO on the other hand has been rebutted in India as being pedagogically suspect for the moment.

The concept of an uber cheap and mass deployed computing device offers Indian IT a chance to make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged and bridge the much hyped digital divide that exists in emerging economies like India. TCS already has made noteworthy contributions in the field of child computer literacy. It has invested a lot of knowhow and effort in the field of Indian Language Computing. The $100 concept offers yet another opportunity for making computing pervasive and practical.

i(too can)Robot

I happened to stumble upon the Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK) project at CMU. The aim of the project is to spin off mass interest in robotics by making robotics affordable, accessible and fun. Perhaps the greatest contribution of this project is the Recipes section which takes the idea of educational robotics to a new dimension. Using recipes to assemble robots is akin to using installation manuals to set up commodity electronics. By letting an user assemble robots by following simple instructions the folks at CMU have added a mass flavor to an esoteric subject as robotics. Better still users can now build upon existing recipes to create new recipes that can be shared with the community.

The project makes use of the Qwerk controller. Qwerk is a controller that runs embedded Linux and offers a powerful set of IO features that are typically needed by mechatronic applications. Apart from offering 16 servo controllers and 16 programmable IO controllers, it also features USB ports that can be used to connect commodity IO devices to the board and a 10/100 ethernet port. The flavor of Linux installed on the board also has the Wi-fi capabilities and can be used with a USB based dongle to control the robot’s movement over a wireless LAN.

With the personal and service robotics market expected to boom in the near future, projects like TeRK can spin off startups that tap into this market. I for one am waiting to lay my hands on a Qwerk kit and start building my coffee fetching bot.

Here we go …

Anonymity finally!!!.