Financial Accounting

Disclaimer - I am writing this for my reference and this may or may not make any sense to you. Read further on your own risk.

I was thinking since quite some time to write a note on learning from classes and after a prolonged gap putting few of the key concepts. Here it goes -

While most of us have come across terminologies like Balance Sheet, P&L (Income) statement and Cash flow statement but we are unaware of the underlying concept.

Balance sheet can be defined as balancing what we own and what we owe. In accounting terminology, this can be written as

Asset = Liabilities + Share Holder Equity

Expanded version > 

Fixed Asset + Investments + Current Asset - Current Liability = Secured Loan + Unsecured Loan + Deferred Tax + Shareholders' Equity

P&L statement is just a readable version of the information hidden in BS and summarize the organization operations for specific period.

Considering there are opportunities to fudge the data and represent in favorable light there was a need of another report which entails the cash status for a company. That’s where cash flow statement comes into picture. This is difficult to fudge as it accounts only cash in-out (revenue/expenses) details and can provide overview of cash position of company.

While these were key principle associated with financial accounting, to learn about financial well-being of company one need to do financial analysis. Common size analysis, trend analysis and DuPont analysis offers great tool to analyze companies overall health of company in simplistic ways.

Return on Equity (ROE) = Profit/Equity 

                                        = Return on Sales (ROS) * Asset Turnover (ATO) * Equity Multiplier (EM or Financial Leverage) 

                                        =  Profit/Sales * Sales/Asset * Asset/Equity 

                                        = (Profit/EarningBeforeTax * EBT/EarningBeforeInterest&Tax * EBIT/Sales) * Sales/Asset * Asset/Equity

Where Profit refers to ProfitAfterTax(PAT)

Above statement can also be written in not so layman terminology as

ROE = (Tax Burden * Investment Burden * EBIT%) * Asset Turnover * Equity Multiplier

Management team typically looks at EBIT% and ATO. Remaining are Financial, Treasury and Tax team handles.

Detailed chart for covering each area of dupont analysis can be understood from the chart below –

In most of the cases it can be assumed that higher is better except when it comes to Current Asset TO and Inventory TO which should be evaluated in inverse thereby making them lower the better. On similar line Collection period should be lower the better.

Profit Margin refers to operating efficiency and can be elaborated/improved through cost ratio’s as shown in chart.

Asset turn over ratio simply means asset use efficiency which means generating more revenue for each added asset.

Ratio analysis YOE or with peer provide a level ground to analyze a company. This analysis holds good for most of the industry accept banking industries.

Common Size analysis also offers a good tool to analyze companies at basic level whereby BS, P&L and CF data are converted into percentage format and sub-component broken down as % of top component.

In trend analysis a base year is identified and then growth is calculated for each and every component in terms of base year.

Common size and Trend analysis are very basic methods and typically detailed analysis using DuPont should be performed. Comparison should be restricted within the industry as for each industry ratio and baselines will be different.

Last but not the least - how these can be used? Do the analysis of the company which are publicly listed and if there are any stock which are beaten by the market but strong on fundamentals there you have got your pick of the portfolio.

P.S. - While writing these I was thinking that I am diluting the branding of the blog page. But then at the same time I thought probably my old blog page viewers are long gone because of my post frequency. So better to put something and move-on rather then making this page dead.

99 NOT OUT

A long arduous journey of 2.5 year finally came to an end. Ideally it should have been titled PGSEM100%, End of Era and what not? But than nothing seemed more apt than calling it 99 not out as I never thought I will be able to last this long and that too without failing in any paper. "99" because I took 3 extra credit fortunately or unfortunately above the graduation requirement and "not out" because somehow against all odds I cleared all the paper with one 4/4 GPA(yeah had to flaunt it). Gold Medal!

What has changed - 

1) Since 1st week Dec'14 every Sunday looked like an extra leave as I almost forgot what 2 days weekend meant. Such feelings for sure not gonna last long though.

2) It took some time to adjust to the fact that day next to 1 day leave isn't Monday and it can be some other day as well. ;-)

3) I have become more confused about the career choices and movements. Have become jack of all trades and master of none. Moreover, as the bar for success definition has gone much higher, feeling of being no-one/being-miserable comes quite often.

4) Network has expanded.

More to come later (Hopefully).

As an yearly custom - wishing my blog readers a very happy and successful new year 2015

PGSEM Course List

Someone asked few days back what all marketing profs classes I have attended and I couldn't tell more than few names, so putting the complete list for future reference. Area order is decided based on the number of electives (Q5 onward) I have taken in that area .

Course	Quarter	Professor	Area
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Marketing Management	Q3	G Shainesh	Marketing
Consumer Behavior	Q5	Ramesh Kumar S	Marketing
Product Strategy and Management	Q5	Ramesh Venkateswaran	Marketing
Marketing Communications	Q6	Seema Gupta	Marketing
Competitive Marketing Strategy	Q8	NB Kanagal	Marketing
Brand Management	Q8	Preeti Krishnan Lyndem	Marketing
Pricing Strategy	Q8	Sreelata Jonnalagedda	Marketing
Marketing Management in the World of High Tech & Innovation	Q8	Prakash Bagri	Marketing
PGSEM Project - I	Q9	Mithileshwar Jha	Marketing
B2B Marketing Management	Q10	DVR Seshadri	Marketing
Research for Marketing Decisions	Q10	Patrali Chakrabarty	Marketing
PGSEM Project - II	Q10	Ramesh Venkateswaran	Marketing
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Operations Management	Q4	L S Murty	Production & Operations Management
Supply Chain Management	Q6	Jishnu Hazra	Production & Operations Management
Project & Portfolio Management	Q7	Sudhir Chaddha	Production & Operations Management
Operation Strategy	Q9	L S Murty	Production & Operations Management
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Managing Organisations	Q2	V Anand Ram	Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management
Managing People & Performance	Q4	C Manohar Reddy	Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management
Leading Change and Organizational Renewal	Q5	V Anand Ram	Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management
Reinventing through Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Leadership	Q7	DVR Seshadri	Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management
Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness	Q10	C Manohar Reddy	Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources Management
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Quantitative Methods - I	Q2	Shankar Venkatagiri	Quantitative Methods & Information Systems
Quantitative Methods- II	Q3	Arnab Basu	Quantitative Methods & Information Systems
Spreadsheet Models	Q7	Amar Sapra	Quantitative Methods & Information Systems
Business Data Mining & Decision Models	Q7	V. Nagadevara	Quantitative Methods & Information Systems
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Financial Accounting	Q1	M S Narasimhan	Finance & Control
Managerial Accounting	Q3	Lata Chakravarthy	Finance & Control
Corporate Finance	Q4	M.S Narasimhan	Finance & Control
Investments	Q9	M.S Narasimhan	Finance & Control
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Strategic Management	Q1	Deepak K Sinha	Corporate Strategy & Policy
Going Beyond Jugaad: Building a Systematic Innovation Capability	Q6	Rishikesha T Krishnan	Corporate Strategy & Policy
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Managerial Economics	Q1	A Damodaran	Economics & Social Sciences
Macroeconomics	Q2	Vandana Singhvi Patel	Economics & Social Sciences
********************************	******	*********************	**********************
Law Indian and International	Q3	Anil B Suraj	Public Policy

PGSEM 40%

After a long gap I am returning on this blog page. By far this was quite nightmarish time.  Qtr 3 and 4 both got over, even a month long vacation after 4th quarter completion is on verge of getting over and I will be back with the grueling time again.

For whole quarter 4 not even a single day gone by without a thought of quitting from this madness and rest in peace. But it is a tough call to quit. I guess many of the batch-mates would probably be sharing the same thought. It is not that there was no casualty and no one called it quit. So far have seen 1 each quarter quitting after having enough of it. I guess they have mastered the concept of sunk cost in entirety. Or may be others and I are still continuing as we are still thinking mechanically.

Won't go in much details for Q3 as I already had a post on that. but few noteworthy things were the 8 hours and counting QM-2 end term exam, me scoring 4/4 GPA in one subject (Law it is). Don't ask me how I got 4/4, but I know this will look like anomaly in my grade sheet. It will be impossible to replicate this again ever in life. Don't ask me why vouching for 'Life'. PGSEM made one thing very Clear, very very clear, studies and me won't go together anymore. I will be DONE with studies after this course. QM-2 paper was not lengthy nor it had too many questions that it took 8 hours + to crack the paper. QM-2 end term had just 5 questions, very 'simple' one with open book, open internet, and well within the course limit but based on real-life scenario. This will be one paper which I will never ever forget like Cell Biology paper during engineering days. Telling the paper tough would bean understatement. Prof did the justice of being a Karmakar's pupil. The linear programming and the network program just seemed liked those of Ramanujam Problem's which will be left unsolved for centuries to come. Anyways, Q3 ended and I was very happy man.

Q4 looked very easy considering 3 subjects compared to 4 what I had in Q3, but the reality hit very quickly. Subjects were very interesting but that's where the interesting part ends. 'Corporate Finance', 'Operation Management' and 'Managing People & Performance in Organization'. Short detail as below -

Corporate Finance - I got why people called it as Coffin and not CorpFin, it is truly a hell hole. No matter how much you read IRR, NPV, PVGO and feel you have mastered the concept, but then the concept just doesn't seem to work in the real-life problem scenario with high probability of making a mistake.

Operations Management - This subject was another of those subjects which I was eagerly waiting and wanted to study since pre-MBA era. Even this was in my specialization plan, but guess now I am better off with the so called 'General' management.

Managing People & performance in Organization - this was one of the course which seemed too easy but was very demanding. Moreover what could go wrong with OMHRM subjects? But innovative presentations requirement, 'n' number of surprise quiz notice in 1st class itself, a real-life case term paper and loads of reading ensured that we are engaged with the subject all the time. It was truly a interesting subject and I would say this is one of the best subjects which I have done so far in past 1 year. Those who are looking for answers to questions like where I lag, what I need to improve and may be purpose of life (if you attentive enough) and what to expect at each stage in corporate career this is one course which can give 'some' idea.

I am not writing detailed account for the Q4 subject nor making a grammar check. May be once I get some time to come back on blog page will be making the updates. For now short account should give soem idea at later point.

Q5 starting in another week time with me taking electives as 'Consumer Behavior', 'Product Management', 'Leading Change & Organization Renewal' it is going to be a busy time.

PGSEM Qtr 3 # 1/2 - MBA#1/4

Those who aren't frequent visitors on my blog may wonder how come 1/4 came so soon after 1/5. Well that's the magic of numbers, already half way into 3rd quarter and thereby this moment qualifies as quarter of MBA program. Yey!

Before writing anything further - I would like to wish all my blog readers "A very happy and prosperous new year". Not sure what to be happy here but nonetheless custom is custom and need to be followed.

Coming back to PGSEM story, 3rd quarter is special and interesting in many ways. This quarter we have 4 subjects instead of standard 3 as if 3 subjects a quarter was less. 2 Credit points for 3 out of 4 subjects are just a misnomer, it doesn't reduce the burden at all. As each subject is important from Prof's point of view and they make sure that we don't the 'beauty' by reading less or by having less exams or by having less assignment and projects. But yeah subjects are interesting - Marketing Management, Quantitative Methods - II, Managerial Accounting, and Law. Interesting because I always dreamt of having career option in them, but now no more. ;-)

Marketing Management - 3 Credit course and is making sure that we realize that 3 is a big number. With 10 case prep, book reading, 1 case presentation, 1 case submission and 4 part submission of project and a final presentation on that. Wow! and as if it was less we have a compulsory class participation and an end term. Don't tell me that there are no mid-term, each class has turned into a mid-term, can't risk missing even a single class. Apart from all these we have regular classes which talks about interesting element of marketing. Never really noticed that each action by any entity is driven by a marketing motif. For example - Real Estate supplements comes with news paper on Saturday/Sunday because people have ample time to read it and enquire if interested. All these things were much like if you look from broader perspective everything looks normal, but once you notice you can't really unlearn it and then suddenly you start noticing it everywhere. 

Managerial Accounting - Contrary to what it suggest it is mostly a theory based subject and talks about actions rather than anything else. It uses financial data to analyze the situation and than take future action accordingly. ABC, Kanban, JIT, Costing, Kaizen, Theory of Constraints, Job Order Costing, Contribution margin, etc. are living their true glory here in this course. It teaches until and unless you don't do in-depth analysis don't write off anything. An entity may look to be making loss, but once you get rid of that entity to work only for profit making entity you will realize that you may have entered the death spiral. What looked as a loss making unit was working a pillar for other entity. Unbelievable but true.

Quantitative Method - II - I am not sure why it was named II, it has no similar element and is way apart from what I studied (yes, I would like to believe that) in QM - I last quarter. This subject talks about linear programming, simplex rule and optimal mix. It definitely requires the a visualization in higher dimension to identify the optimal mix. Sensitivity analysis, limit report a great tool to identify up to what value constraint can vary without really impacting the profit margin or product mix.

Law - I always dreamt of taking law as an career option, thankfully I never got what I dreamt of. Not that the subject is difficult or boring, it is interesting but need a lot of thinking on foot ability and ability to read between lines,words, letter and what not. Court structure, legal details, IPR, Contracts, there is lot to Law and more are yet to come. Civil remedy, criminal remedy, arbitration, void ab initio - it is just interesting to listen on and on. Did you know - Location of jurisdiction written in any item bought is incorrect? You can file case anywhere and everywhere irrespective of the jurisdiction area mentioned by the company/manufacturer. Or you can still claim for a loss even though disclaimer from company says they disclaim all such request by taking vicarious route. Law is strong and rigid to those who doesn't know it, but has softer and flexible element to those who know it. No wonder lawyers take a lot of consultancy using this information asymmetry. 

I think by the time I finish the course there will not be a single rock unturned in MBA parlance. PGSEM was not a bad choice I think. Yes, it is painful as it requires a lot of personal commitment and time but then I do have to forgo something to gain something for small period. Till it gets over, Rocky Balboa for you - "No Pain - No Pain"

Time for marketing pitch - if you are following my blog page, have experience of 2+ year, have written CAT/GMAT recently and are interested in pursing a MBA program to enhance your profile or learn something new then PGSEM is the right choice - Refer to this link to apply - http://www.iimb.ernet.in/node/3497

PGSEM Qtr 2 - MBA#1/5

Welcome back! If you came here multiple times just to see if I have posted anything for Quarter 2 then definitely you would have been disappointed. Even I was. And this is my 7th attempt at writing the blog post. I started on same schedule as I followed in Qtr 1 and each time the only line which I wrote was the post header. But I am morally obliged to write an account of my quarter 2 ordeal, so here I am, again!

While I am writing this post, I am finished with all my quarter 2 exams and assigned projects. Completely chilling at my place. Just to be fair to me and give some breathing space I dint even collect the Quarter 3 books. Yeah! Mail was there for book collection even before I wrote my last paper for quarter two. As if it was telling me, don't worry about passing this quarter buddy, 3rd quarter books are already there so you are definitely going to quarter 3. What grade I will get that time will tell, but for me it was the toughest time both because of work pressure at office and subject content at college.

Whenever I think I can relax a bit and breath easy, the PGSEM rope comes around and tightens its noose. Quarter 2 was like that, and I doubt coming quarters will be any different. I have thought many a times in quarter 2, what was in my mind when I started thinking about management or what was my expectation from management? I think I have failed measurably on all accounts as everything has hit me unplanned. It is not the case that I am demotivated by the grades or abysmal performance on own scale, because performance is a relative term. And nothing can teach the magic of relative misery better than the relative grading. You may think from your scale that you are doing bad but relative scale makes you look good. Before you start running horses - I was bad/average on both parts :P

Quarter 2 had 3 subjects - Macroeconomics, Quantitative Methods - 1 and Managing Organization

Macroeconomics - Learning has its own pleasure and it clarifies many of the self beliefs (read biased beliefs). Macroeconomics was one of such subjects. It cleared my doubt that I can never be a economic adviser to prime minister of India, so I will never get the dilemma between job opportunity between economics adviser and something else. ;) Macroeconomics talked about GDP, GNP, Consumption, Govt Expenditure Investment impact on GDP. And why the GDP fluctuates and goes in cyclical mode of boom and recession. It was interesting concept to read but was tough concept to remember. This being a closed book exam and cumulative syllabus made the task more difficult. I have survived the brunt of economics somehow so far but definitely won't be taking anything in economics. It was never meant for me because of its theoretical weight.

Quantitative Method - I - Well, what can I say about this subject. This subject also cleared all misbelief on my number ability. I always thought I am good with numbers and QM-1 helped me to get rid of that 'fantasy'. Suffix 'I' is just to remind me that torture is not yet over (torture abhi baaki hai mere dost). QM showed an interesting expect of simulation, probabilistic and statistical modelling, decision tree, confidence interval and hypothesis testing and most importantly the mean and standard deviation. Prof teaching style was awesomely fantastic and terrorizing. May be I didn't pick up much in beginning as I ignored and was terrified with the load but at later part of quarter when things slowly started sinking in, I became fan of the prof and the subject. He seemed more of a techno-crazy and open source addict who has too much of energy and wanted to pass the knowledge to the students. He actually made us look at R programming as an alternate for excel and if that was not enough Libre office (open source tool) as an alternative of excel. It is the other story that I ended with excel. Regarding grades he fairly quoted - "Relax, breathe easy. It's only a stat exam. What's the worst that can happen? You might start to think everything is random" And often quoted - "If you think what you predict comes true then lets head to LasVegas". I will make sure that I will follow his advice when things start looking in my favor. Most interesting - "if you ever make a fraud make sure that you look good as a statistician". I am completely awed by the magic and awesomeness of statistics. There are lot many interesting quotes which he came up with during class discussion, and I feel bad about not keeping them with me.

Managing Organization - Managing organization was one subject which carries huge relevance to what I intend to do in coming time and sadly I didn't look at it properly during initial class discussion. Thanks to my awesomely bad grade in mid-term I had to actually go back and read entire book for the end term. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Organic and mechanistic organization, organization life cycle, organizational behavior, hierarchical structure and its benefits. There is lot to ManOrg and Organizational Behavior and I hope I will be interested to take some electives in OB in coming quarters. The prof somehow knew that we may not be catching the concept, so he made us do a book review for book based on any living organization to understand the intricacies of the process. "Only The Paranoid Survive" was what my project group picked and I thoroughly enjoyed the reading and presentation. In-fact now I like Andrew Grove, the then CEO of Intel.

While I hope for most of the thing and hope that things will turn to better but I still wonder if Red was right when he quoted - "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane" or Andy Dufresne was right when he quoted - "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies". This was an overdo - I like Shawshank Redemption. :P

BTW before I miss it here comes the flaunting part - http://www.iimb.ernet.in/pgsem/student-committees you can find me here. Anonymity is what I want on my blog but little clues here and there won't hurt.. :P

P.S. - I am plainly getting into lazy mode and losing motivation for writing anything so I doubt if I will be writing even intermittently here. So come back to my blog after 2-3 years or don't blame me offline for not writing.

P.P.S - Time is running out quite fast and before I realized 2 quarters are already gone. Nonetheless, its fun being here and if you are not at IIM B you are missing the fun big time. ;)

P.P.P.S - I am writing this after getting complains that there are too many spelling and grammatical mistakes in my post. Well, I am too lazy to work on them. So I won't be proofreading my posts, please read them in way which is making sense to you.

PGSEM Qtr 1 (5/5) # MBA (1/10)

I am again late in writing the final post for Quarter 1, blame it on the hectic work schedule at office, 3 college projects and all this sucked out all the energy out from me. And right now when I am preparing for the vicious circle of Office, Class, Quiz, Project, Mid-term, End-Term again I thought of closing what was the needed. Did I miss anything? Oh Yeah! my personal time!  But this time I have planned to change the rules of game. I just hope that I will be able to do that. :(

I have once written my encounter with Murphy's law which states 'Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong'. I guess that encounter was nothing compared to what I faced during ending time of quarter 1. I just hope that this doesn't get repeated ever.

I had a inkling that my office project beta deployment may coincide with my end-term/college project submission. I was also worried about the new requirement coming to me in office at the last moment, worried that I may have to work late night in office during my end-term, worried that my college project will be a mess altogether because of all the above mentioned priorities. BOOM! As if I was wishing for everything, and wish granter was happy with my deeds, everything turned true including things which I was not even expecting. Wish granter must be really pissed off with me.. hahaha

I some time wonder why I am pushing myself to write this, I don't love writing anymore, neither do I write for friends nor do I get money for writing this. May be I am still a confused being or may be I want to remember this till eternity what phase I have passed through.. haha..  Whatever, Quarter summary - 

Microeconomics - I always thought that I have understood the subject pretty well and not even that my day-to-day activities were having element of microeconomics principles. But somehow the theory  wasn't getting reflected in terms of performance in marks. Not that I care about it, but when you have relative marking and you join the league of Farhan and Raju of 3 idiots then you gotta be caring about it. As Virus said in movie - I  will be very very worried Mr. Raju Rastogi. I was feeling ME professor may like to tell me the same after correcting my ME answer-sheets. :( 

Financial Accounting - There is ME and there is FA, both are class apart. In ME were I was in bottom side with clear concepts and open book exam, FA was the subject were I was on the top side with shaky concepts and closed book exam. I somehow fail to understand it how and why it happened.  Not that I scored good in end-term, but I had scored so much in mid-term that even if I would have had skipped end-term I would have passed overall. Best part was, for whole quarter I was taking off from office on Friday and never worked late night in office for any other week day during my tenure at company, but then exactly on day before exam I ended in office. And when you come to exam from your office instead of your home then there is a serious problem! I guess my marks will show that problem. OK! at this very line I realized why I am writing this. This is to remind me as well as fellow/future PGSEM'ers that things can go worse, very worse, so challenge is to be prepared all the time along with your office work. :-)

Strategy Management - This was one subject where not only me none of my classmates had any idea, what could be the pattern of paper. 4 hour test  with one 25 page case reading and question based on that, was too little of time. But paper was important because this paper dint had any mid-term so pressure was high. but unfortunately I had no time to prepare for the test. Fate yet to be decided.

ME/FA/SM Projects - This was hell of a task and given the limited time to work on it along with late-night stay in office because of last minute requirement sucked out all the energy from me. But now when its over, I am enjoying one week of peace till the cycle begins! And seriously I don't want to write anything more about it, as I don't want to remember it anymore.

Now when the Quarter 1 has ended, I feel good about the time I had. Have got new friends, had opportunity to listen and interact with profs who are best in their fields. In corporate people talk about Work-Life balance, but now equation has changed for me. Work-Studies balance is the new mantra. Life you ask? well as my engineering friends have started quoting, "I have no more Life left". I will award myself a gold medal on completing this course! So my own gold medal here I come.

Whatever, MBA 1/10 is over. 9/10 more to go!!!

PGSEM Qtr 1 (4/5)

Here I am, writing a delayed account of my past one month of PGSEM Qtr1. To be honest, laziness is what which is causing this. Course pressure doesn't have to do anything with this. BTW am I really taking any pressure? Anyways I will be writing a very short note.

A lot many things has happened since past 1 month, and to be honest I came thrice on this board to write something and walked out without writing anything. Organized 'Pehel 2012' event for PGSEM community of IIM B. Got a chance to hear first hand report about Arvind eye hospital and their philanthropic work through their faculty. Was brutally screwed in the mid-term. And on all three occasion I thought of writing detailed account but didn't do that. So here goes the brief account.

PEHEL 2012 - THE event of the PGSEM'er, by the PGSEM'er and for the PGSEM'er. Somehow I landed in organizing the event along with 2 of my batch mates. Managing across different committee, pressure of getting things done along with regular work/classes, what not to do, and what to do when into the soup - event teaches a lot of things. A glimpse of fun event we organized is here. If question rising in your mind whether I participated in any stage event or not then answer is NO. As a usual practice I like working backstage plus neither had time left nor had talent, so I did what I am best doing.

Arvind Eye Hospital - I am always game for inspiring stories. Arvind eye hospital is one such story. You need to watch this video to understand what Arvind eye hospital (AEH) is doing. A faculty from AEH came to give the session on strategy management case on AEH on request of our Strategy professor. Being in IIM gives you an opportunity to get first hand information from any source, and this is not the only one such occasion, we have luxury of meeting and listening to industry honcho at regular interval. AEH idea is aligned on the theme of 'Benefiting Masses Profitably' and I am big fan of this idea and the untapped segment.

Mid-Term - Do I need to talk, fate is kinda obvious? My laziness, involvement in events and other activities running in college led me into situation where I was on verge of getting screwed. Reading for GYAN rather than marks also aided to the pathetic situation. Microeconomics was one of such disaster. Even before writing the paper I knew that I am going to be screwed and for I was so right. :-) At one point of time during exam, I was not getting idea what to write for question, so walked out from the examination hall thinking why to 'waste' time sitting here. Results are out as well and I have scored quite average as per my standard, ya ya I think too big about my standard :P. Thankfully, relative marking will save me and can hope to get a decent grade here. Accounting was on expected lines, it is my favorite subject and have got marks which I deserved. So no issues there. I was even lazy to ask Accounting prof for marks at one question where he didn't give marks for being partially correct like others. Strategy Management is the course for which brutal attack will happen in single go at end -term.

Next two weeks are going to be a hell of week. Have to complete 3 reports of 3000 words plus each, one presentation and not to miss the end-term which need to be given. First term is almost over. And unfortunately nothing has been done so far in any of the assignment and presentation. Still a engineer. It is real fun nonetheless. :)

PGSEM Qtr 1 (2/5)

As quoted in my earlier posts, I guess I was absolutely right when I told future isn't bright with respect to me jotting down day-2-day experience on PGSEM. Blame it on the time which is flying so fast, I have almost lost track of time. And now too lazy to pen down what happened in past 3 weeks of first quarter classes in individual posts. Not that, I am devoting too much time on studying, it was never my way nor would ever be. Or I guess its too early to say about future, royal screwing on grades may/will change this ignorant attitude. *Hopefully this won't happen and utopia will continue*

I have settled up for 3 posts a quarter now. It is useless to tell what would be future of this comment too.. hehe

Coming back to school after a long gap has its own set of disadvantage. 6 years have gone by since last time I attended a School (or say College) where getting grades were piece of cake. And I was, and am still in same mode thinking getting 9/10 CGPA (IIMB equivalent would be 3.5-3.6 out of 4 ) will be child's job like Engineering. So I am chill and is doing everything apart from studies. And worst part is, this is when couple of topics discussed in class are going over head. But,why to worry when sword of placement is not there. Nonetheless learning is important and Profs make sure that you take back some learning with you after ever class.Yes, I can imagine you all who went through the ordeal of IIM B rigor, laughing at  this attitude and thinking time will teach me in brutal way what is required even in absence of placement but definitely till that time I can have all the fun in the world. This is the best management course, I am telling you. ;-)


So, what exactly I am doing. Working in core committee for Pehel event  (Exclusive event for PGSEM Community) where I am suppose to coordinate between PGSEM office, inviting Profs/PGSEMers for the event, doing ground work on event plan. And this week participated for Badminton trials for Sangram, IIM K event. Unimportant point is whether I will be going to next round in trials or not, important is I am living my college life again and doing things which I always enjoyed doing. Except hostel experience and few friends who could have possibly given a crash course before exam, I am not missing anything. Time left from trivialities mentioned above are dedicated in making new friends and off-course continuing with usual office work. A fully power packed day. 24/7 times a week and 365 days a year. ;-)

Core courses covered during 1st semester are Microeconomics, Financial Accounting and Strategy Management.  After 6-8 classes idea is sinking in and shows interrelation of all three courses. For first time subjects taught in school/college are showing sense/relevance. 'Knowledge' flow statement as mentioned here

Microeconomics - Microeconomics talks about economics of individual units. There is dearth of information stored in Demand and Supply. How subsidies, income increase, taxes impacts the consumption pattern. Elasticity (Demand, Supply, Income), Marginal Utility, Indifference curve, substitution effect. Why company and Govt some time bring some policy changes, how they optimize their profit, production lines? All these with relevant anecdotes aided with class participation made the subject interesting. Prof teaching ME has an impact from day one. Luxury to have him as our mentor for this subject.

Financial Accounting - Anything distantly related to maths has been my favorite since the day I scored the magic number in Class 2 (2 for 2). ;-)  Accounting talks about Balance Sheet, Income Statement and 'Cash' flow statement. With this line you would have guessed from where the 'Knowledge' flow statement mentioned above was originated. All in all everything in Accounting revolves around Assets, Liability, Owners equity, Expenses, Revenue, and to be honest this limited scope is what which makes life difficult, as first timers always find it difficult what to consider in in ideal scenario. Going 'practical' on any item would violate 11 accounting principle even without your knowledge and put the balance sheet in real mess. FA prof figures out in various consulting project for Govt and have close to 20 yrs of teaching in IIM B.

Strategy Management - Any theoretical subject with loads of definitions/reading become a nightmare to me. Strategy seemed to belong to those class of my arch enemy with maximum weight of subject matter (in term of Kg's obviously). So far SM talked about Industry Attractiveness, Micheal E. Porter's five competitive forces, Competitive positioning and Micheal E. Porter's three Generic Competitive Strategies. Not a single item made sense to me even after reading around 1 kg of subject matter. And worst part was, I was reading this subject only for all my free time since the cases and books were handed to us during Orientation. Profs had different teaching style which did not made any sense to me and was slowly drifting away from the course. But the allocated case presentation suddenly changed the view point. Strategy is totally mathematical model and an interesting story/subject. Know Porter to know SM. Profs too talks about his real-life experience which is a great value add. I look forward to listening to him, whenever he talks. Lets see how things goes with remaining 3/5 portion of this trimester.

With mid-term date declared as 27-28 July, some seriousness is being called towards studies as well. Not sure when I will be doing my 3 projects for 3 subjects and when I will be studying for end-term scheduled on 24-25 August. Future is not bright on many extracurricular items. Balancing things will be a challenge for sure.

To be Continued..

P.S. : IIMB campus is a runner's delight. I had planned to go there on daily basis for running after Orientation day as campus is quite close to my home. But because of lazy attitude and tight schedule this plan was never brought in execution. I have decided to go there at least on Sunday morning when there is no rush for office or classes. I need to do this bit as my running club membership is biting dust and so is my body, aiding to my weight :P  Hope will be able to do this.

P.P.S : For a change this time I had some relevant header for my blog. Detailing 2/5 part of my 1st Quarter. Also, frequent readers of my post would have missed the disclaimer as well. Why to keep when you have read so far.. :P

Ready Reckoner

Don't worry about the title. It is my usual habit of putting some weird header every time. This is a personal post with no significant value for blog reader.

Finally, I closed my library account today. Exactly an year back joined the library as if everything was predestined that IIM classes will start from 15th Onward. Though I targeted to read 3000 pages on April 16 for last 2 months of membership. And as it happens by standard law, if you disclose something before the event completion there is high probability that you will never do it. Hence I failed miserably. Not sure how 'Rowdy Rathore' - do things which he says and also do things which he doesn't say.  'Brida' and 'Run Away Jury' were last 2 books apart from book 'A time to kill' I was reading while publishing the post in April. My read-list was displaying a total of 123 books/magazine at time of closer today. Satisfactory number I suppose.

Things are changing quite fast these days. And I am getting a feeling that situation is going to be same till I pass-out from the course. As I have planned to use my blog page as a notebook, will post the week-1 details soon. And definitely I am not going to check for grammar, spelling, formatting. Plus, I feel I am 'differently abled' when it comes to English/Grammar/Spelling. :P

BTW one change which has happened in Admission procedure too starting from this year. Only GMAT and CAT scores will be considered for admission. Surely, things are going to get difficult from this year onward for those who are aspiring for PGSEM course from my perspective. Though college did followed normalization mechanism across the GMAT/CAT/PGSEM test and none  of the entry mechanism were easy when considered on normalized numbers, not sure why IIM moved away from PGSEM test this year. For me it was simple calculation, as I was aiming only for PGSEM program, why I will waste Rs 1600 for CAT application & test and then Rs 500 for PGSEM application, instead pay 1600 Rs for PGSEM test directly and get the right numbers in PGSEM test to get the call for interview process after which standard route for all.  College authority must have had better thoughts then me. Hope this change will do some good to the brand and the program recognition. 

As it always happens with me, wherever I go, the place becomes happening.. ;-) Who knew Chapra before me. Now that's a major constituency, if you do not know dude! you seriously need to work on your general knowledge. Who knew VIT before I joined, and now you can see it is under top 10 engineering college. So would be the case with PGSEM. Definitely something will happen to course or college. :P Harvard, Wharton, LBS are you listening, still 'aliens' haven't heard about your college. Get me to get them. :P

PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -3

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Day-3 started on usual note of waking up in panic mode because of lack of sleep and the time crunch. Proof reading of  submitted assignment is always a bad idea, and we did a grave mistake of doing it while heading towards the canteen. We wanted a shock and we got that, assignment was with awfully bad formatting and grammatical mistake. The work was so bad that we thought if the assignment lands in professor's hand he will surely throw it away. But then what's done id done and as there was no chances of reverting the mistakes we came at peace.

Post sumptuous breakfast, we were herded back to the class which started with a short note from seniors on House Cup score and later a surprise quiz. Damn! Fortunately, right answers to right questions were given and most importantly was not sent to any prof for review again. We were not in position to risk our wonderful creations going second time in same day to prof and eventually gaining his wrath.

I wouldn't call the next 3 hour session with Prof. B Mahadevan as a lecture but a healthy discussion for sure. He started with value of case approach and why solutions are not important for any case. Also, how important questions are for any case discussion as students may get lost in myriads of options and end up with nothing.

Case was on ITC e-Chaupal (HBR) past, present and future.The entire discussion showed how multiple people approaches a single problem in multiple ways. Each one coming with their own biases and trying to reason out on 'their' amicable solutions. The discussion ended with an inspiring lecture (yes lecture) by Prof. Mahadevan, who talked about the importance of material approach and the actual goal which everyone seeks. He talked about interesting anecdotes and tales of his real-life entrepreneurial venture. The never-ending pursuit of happiness of humankind while their ignorance towards it at the same time. As usual it was left on discretion of the listener to take the idea in their own way for their own good. This was followed with the a short note from Prof. NM Aggarwal and the result which everyone was contributing and waiting for since past 1 week. Who is the winner for house cup? And the result was announced as 'Best Buddies' are the winner!!! A totally unexpected result but pleasant nonetheless and as a standard practice it was welcomed by a loud and sudden noise of cheering. Yippie! Its an amazing moment and feeling to be a part of wining team. the house cup will be presented to us during our first b-school 'informal' event due next month 'Pahel 2012'.

We were greeted with another 0.5 kg of case study which was waiting outside for us. Great! As if previous 3 kg's where not enough. Class representative election and later with lunch 3 day marathon ended. After few photo sessions around the campus, we packed our bags and vacated the hostel so as to come back to campus again on 15th June, the day when the grinding will actually begin. It will be interesting to see how the course will be manged with multiple things running around.

Last but not the least, a commendable show by the senior batch students. Our batch gave a tough time to them but guess this is the tradition. They never lost the patience and greeted with a smiling face, at least a quality which I need to learn if not master completely.The energy and enthusiasm level was really contagious and helped us to get transitioned smoothly into complex structure of PGSEM program.

Nonetheless, the departing thoughts were quite disoriented, hope to retain sanity in the insane schedule. And here were we who came here to get oriented. Welcome to the world of Bin-ness.

P.S.  : - I love my post scripts and disclaimers so they always come in my posts somehow. Most of my posts are back-dated and are posted on later dates. That's the reason, I lose the sense of tense some time and sometimes post contains hyper link with of  future dated content of some other URL.

P.P.S. : -  If you were waiting for any shocker for day-3, then by now you should have got that, there were none. I love to keep people guessing on matter which is never there. :P

PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -1

For a guy who followed the routine of sleeping as early as 10 PM everyday and waking up as early as 5:30 AM for past 8 months, all rules of biological clock gone topsy-turvy after being awake as late as 2:30 AM previous (shall I say same day) day. Day-2 started with utter panic with ringing mobile and seeing time was 7 AM already. Thanks to group member, got wake-up call in-time for the event starting at 8 AM. Day-2 was dedicated to the CSITM activities with few paper presentation by people in academia and guest lectures by eminent personalities on theme of 'Benefiting Masses Profitably' lined up for whole day.

It was an interesting theme that talked about dearth of opportunities available in the area of  people empowerment while maintaining a regular cash flow. Thankfully the assignment done yesterday, helped to get some head-start on the theme and because of which sessions didn't meet its usual fate as it always happens with me.

Day started with welcome address by Dean Academics and short note from Prof. NM Aggrawal followed with guest lecture by Mr. Jasjit Singh (EVP Datawind) who talked how they are trying to transform the lifestyle of common man and talked about vision behind 'Aakash Tablet'. Difficulty faced by them and what they are doing to counter the problem. As a whole the theme started unfolding how the masses can be benefited using the technological advances. This was followed by short note from Mr. Anand Sudarshan, (CEO Manipal Education), who talked how he his organization has revolutionize the learning experience of masses by use of technology and online education using tools like edunxt. And how technologies are bringing bigger dreams to the people for whom higher and quality education was a impossible thing to think. We also had a quick lecture by Prof. Sourav Mukherji (OB & HR) talking about various aspect of mass empowerment and difficulties behind the resources not reaching to the masses. Which was later followed by paper presentations on people from academia talking on same theme utilizing services like USSD,Mobile technologies for rural and agricultural empowerment.

Post lunch session began with the lecture by Mr. Vir Kashyap (COO Babajobs.com). It was really inspiring seeing the idea his company is working on to fetch better job opportunities for blue collared groups by utilizing the spread of the mobile's network available in the country. He actually showed how he is trying to solve the last mile problem, not in telecom sense but in connecting all class of people on single platform. It is seriously an excellent example of entrepreneurship venture which is working for people and still generating pro.

Next discussion was scheduled with Mr. Ganesh Rengaswamy, (Partner - Lok Capital) - who talked how he decide on the funding a venture and how their organization is working for ladies in the villages and generating job opportunities for them. Which was followed by lecture from Mrs Gunjan Krishna (IAS officer & Head of eMission - Karnataka Govt). She talked about the initiatives taken by the Govt. and the problem faced. She also talked about the need of hour and the requirement of more entrepreneurship ventures in the field of social upliftment of society. And why some initiatives dies after big fanfare. Too much of information load called for the tea break  which was followed by lecture by Mr Bhavish Sood (Research Director - Gartner). All in all, everyone gave a new perspective and showed why technology is not completely evil and can be utilized for people from poor class as well while maintaining the profits. This was more than what we could have taken for the day, thankfully the day ended immediately with vote of thanks by Mr. Rajesh Pandit (Chief Manger, CSITM).

Now it was the fun time with sports activities lined up. Group did miserably in cricket, satisfactory in Basketball and TT and came first in Badminton. Post-dinner activities information were passed to us and were asked to assemble back in the meeting place for treasure hunt and closing plan. By the time the treasure hunt got over it was almost 11:30 PM. We were tired because of last 2 days activities and lack of sleep but a shocker was given with the assignment and case paper planned for discussion next day by Prof B Mahadevan. What which was expected to be a simple case took almost 2 hours. As it was almost 2 AM and did not had enough energy to discuss any further all discussions were called off and formatting the answers for case questions were started. Being sleep deprived has its own funny quotient, which was released immediately when one of the group member asked for 3 'bullet' points for assignment question. This was duly given as Dhichkaon.. Dhichkaon..and Dhichkaon.. by yours truly. Somehow the assignment was completed, and discussed for some time whether to send the assignment or not in current format as we really did a lousy job.  The day finally ended at 3:30 AM with thought, if this is how coming days are scheduled we are screwed for next 2.5 years. Little did I know at that time that another shocker awaits next day..

To be continued..