Day 3

Another hectic day. Lots of companies today and many many interesting interactions. There were some "bulk recruiters" today like ADAG, Cognizant etc. So i think a good number of offers would have been made and accepted today.

The not so good part of the placement process is that pressure has started setting in for the people who have still not made it in the first two days. The feeling is further enhanced when you see your class mates and quad mates walking in jeans and T-Shirt indicating subtly that they are out of the placement process. Its dangerous to succumb to the peer pressure...But as expected quite a few have started succumbing to the peer pressure and have started accepting bad deals.

The other aspect is that companies have also started feeling the pressure... A lot of students are already out of the placement process and the companies are feeling the pressure of lesser number of candidates available for the interviews. Some companies have already started opening the roles available, for all the students. Meaning, even if you were originally not short listed, you could now walk in for an interview.

As for me, I had pretty good interactions with four companies. Fingers crossed.

Day 2

More than 25 domestic companies and many international companies have made their offers yesterday. This includes all the consulting firms, many I-Banks, commercial banks, IT majors, Conglomerates and real estate majors.

My guess is that more than 150 people should have got an offer and about 100 or so could have actually accepted it. Will get back to you on getting some more dope on this.

I had two interviews yesterday and got an offer from both of them. However i have rejected both the offers. Both of them were banks.

My interview had of course gone well with both the guys. At the end of the interview, when the HR lady broached the salary topic and gave me a number which they had in their mind, my first reaction was "Mam, may be you are missing a couple of zeroes, could you please recheck and revert?". But then i realized that she was damn serious when she made the offer... So, you can imagine the rest of the story..

My experience with the other bank was even more interesting. At the end of the interview...

HR: "Ok Mr. Rangarajan, we are impressed with your skill sets and achievements and are pleased to offer you.... blah.. blah..."

Me: "Mam.. can i bring something to your attention?"

HR: Sure.. go ahead

Me" "I had already mentioned this during te interview, but i guess this fact got missed out. One year back, before i joined ISB, i had an offer from you. However, i could not take it up, because i had decided to join ISB. The grade you had offered me then was one level higher than what you are offering me now and the salary you are offering me now is about ___ % lesser... Could you please take these facts into account" (I had a mind to ask... Do you really think, ISB could have brought down the value in me?.. however, i restrained myself..)

HR: Is it so? I am very sorry. Give me a couple of minutes, let me check and revert..

Me: Sure.. take your time

HR (20 min later): Sorry Mr. Rangarajan, our mandate for today is to hire up to a maximum of this level only. You can take this offer if you want to..

Me: Oh.. thats wonderful. I am sure you understand my position... Thanks for the efforts..

This again reiterates my views about the HR community in general (there are of course some exceptions..). Its best that i dont voice them in this forum.

My plate is again full today and I have an intersting array of companies to meet..

Day 1

All the consulting companies had 2 or more rounds of interviews yesterday and have come out with their shortlists. To get a reconfirmation on their decision, the companies are again testing the survivors today.

Most of the other shortlists are also out and the whole campus is abuzz with activity and anxiety. At least one third of the batch is expected to be placed by end of today.

Some people have more number of shortlists than they can handle and are juggling their limited time between the interviews... a few have already chosen their loyalties/ aspirations and have decided to skip a few of these interviews.

Will comeback with more updates later..

Day 0

The show starts today. 7 consulting firms - McK, BCG, ATK, Oliver Wyman, Parthenon, Diamond and Accenture and a couple of other firms start their interview process today.Expectations are running high from the recruiters perspective given the latest FT 20 ranking. We will know if our months of preparation and perspiration have been worthwhile...

All of us have heard enough about the placements week and have formed our strategies to cope with its anxieties, uncertainties, disappointments and "Appointments"... (By the way this was meant to be a joke... :-)

I will take on the role of Sanjaya (of Mahabarath fame) for the next few days and will give you all an idea of whats happening out here..As for me... I have almost made up my mind on where i would be going... Lets see..

Pecking order theory of employment

In Finance literature, Pecking order theory implies that Firms, while deciding on their capital structure and financing decisions prioritize their sources of financing as follows:

1. Internal funds
2. Debt
3. Equity

It is a popular belief that this pecking order is chosen because of cost of funds i.e. internal funds being the cheapest and Equity being the costliest. However, this is not true. The actual reason why firms choose this pecking order is because; this order helps in reducing information asymmetry. Equity issuance may signal that the firm's stock is overvalued (why will a firm sell more of something when it is undervalued?). Hence the market may react negatively to the firm's equity issuance move… A debt issuance is a better option than the equity issuance because, by issuing debt a firm is effectively signaling that it believes that the cost of financial distress is small and that the firm's future prospects are strong. In the same logic, using internal funds is better than debt issuance because of lesser costs of efforts involved and lesser resistance from external parties.

Now comes the gyaan part. I am of the view that, we can use this theory in our employment search. During an interview there is a whole lot of information asymmetry involved. You know that you have done (or not done) many things, but the interviewer is not able to believe you fully and it is difficult for you to send out credible signals. This being the case picking up cues from Pecking Order will imply that, your order of employment search should be

1. Own network - Least information asymmetry. Easier to send out credible signals
2. Leveraging experience - If you already have experience in a particular field, then you can at least send out credible signals about your past experience and give out references from the field, which will help you clinch a better job in the same field.
3. Career switch - This is the most difficult part, just like equity issuance. There is enormous information asymmetry and hence most difficult to pull off.

But if you do want to exercise the third option, make sure that you have some means of sending out credible signals, which are difficult to be imitated by others...

Actions speak louder...

Read an interesting article in Business Line on insider trading... Some excerpts.

Time for some statistics..

1. Mr. Sunil Duggal, CEO of Dabur India sold over 12,000 shares representing about 0.72% stake in the company between Jan 2 and and Jan 7. The deal should have taken place around Rs. 120/ share. The share price declined to about Rs. 85 in the crash, days later...

2. Mr. Ajay Kumar Vij, CEO of Dabur Pharma, sold around 10,000 shares in the same period. The price at which they were sold is around Rs. 87/ share. The stock price after crash was Rs. 55/ share...

3. Mr. Senthil Kumar of I-Flex (not sure of his designation.. but must be one of the directors) sold 8000 shares in the same period around Rs. 1580. Price after the crash... about Rs. 950/ share

4. Same story with Suzlon. The promoters sold over 65,000 shares in this period at around Rs. 460... the price after te crash.. Rs. 310..

5. The promoter of Crazy Infotech sold 5000 shares on Jan 10 at Rs. 206/ share. The price after the crash was Rs. 47/ share..

The interesting point is, we could have obtained the knowledge of most of these moves, with little effort and luck, before the crash itself. And this could have saved a good deal of money to many investors... But most of us dont invest the time, the market deserves...

If you can trust something in the markets it is the notion of fear and the greed. Look out for these signs. Let them not fool you. Some of the places were you can track these moves are

1. The bulk/ block trade column which is published by most financial dailies
2. http://corpfiling.co.in/insidertrading/insidertrading.aspx

11 more days…

The stage is set. Placements are just 11 days away. More than 150 companies (and counting) are participating. ISB is a different place these days..

The consulting guys are no longer seen around... most live in bunkers, studying every minute of their waking moment. Yes, it has taken its toll on some people and they are already so deep in their preparation that, they refuse to see anything normally.

Here is an example... a couple of days ago, I had the fortune (???) of accompanying one of my friends for breakfast. She was a walking example of MECE (Mutually Exclusive Collective Exhaustible) analysis of consulting. We first reached the curds counter first, she served herself a bit of curds and tasted it first, before serving herself a bigger portion. She turned around with a beaming smile to explain that its not good to have sour curds early in the morning.

Next comes the Aloo Paratha... "Bhaiya is this made of butter or oil". Once again she turned around to pause and explain. "If it is made of butter than i cant have, else i can have:... then we came to eggs counter. This time she turned towards me before the serving itself. She asked me if i could help her identify "good eggs"...

Enough is enough…I said "No" and walked past her, wishing to avoid these questions in the bread, juice and the fruits counter. I wonder what will become of these people, five years from now. The very thought of career consultants gives me a shiver.

Next comes to Fin guys. "Do you know what is a participating forward?" "When you are estimating cross border acquisitions, which beta you take?", "How do you take into account real options when you are doing a DCF valuation".... these guys are numbers walking on two legs.

There are quite a few in the batch, who are still thinking, which path to take.
"I have no clue on what fixed income sales is all about. But i have a shortlist. What do you think? Can i become a Fixed income sales guy in a week?"...
"Real estate??? All i know is that land prices are going up.. Is that good enough for working with a leading real estate player?"...
….these guys are all around. Even the supremely confident, might be privately wondering about these issues..

Finally, there are number of people who seem to experience the "DIARRHEA OF APPLICATIONS AND CONSTIPATION OF SHORTLISTS" effect... These people are sincerely hoping for speedy cure and grabbing every laxative at sight...

Just another 11 days to go...

Top of the world

ISB has achieved another milestone today. According to the latest ranking released by FT on the Global MBA programs, ISB features 20th, much ahead of Kellogs, UCLA, Darden, Duke....

This achievement comes in a span of just six years. ISB is one of the youngest schools to achieve this feat and probably the first to feature in the top 20 list, in the very first year it decided to participate in the ranking.

Read more of this in

http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings

http://www.isb.edu/media/UsrSiteNewsMgmt.aspx?Topicid=352

P.S: The picture means... "ISB Rocks"

India all the way

Sorry for not blogging for a long while (that is assuming that someone actually noted it).. Wanted to touch upon couple of wonderful things which had happened while i was away.

Tata Nano - One of the biggest inventions of our time i guess. Hats off to Tata Motors. I was reading some articles about this invention and noted some interesting facts:

• The price tag of 1 lakh was never proposed by Ratan Tata or Tata Motors. The price tag is basically an outcome of media hype. However, Mr. Ratan Tata took it as a challenge and the rest is history.
• From the time this concept came into existence till the birth of Nano, about 4 yrs have passed. The price of every component of the car has increased. But Mr. Tata still stuck to the challenge. "A promise is a promise".... the now famous quote of Mr. Tata says it all...
• Another aspect i wanted to touch upon was the reaction of people. While most of us rejoiced, there were quite a few who were quite negative to this development. People were worried about pollution, traffic congestion and what not. My point is simple - If every company and the government itself could have worked as hard as Tata Motors in the past few years, our whole perspective would have been different. So, if someone has to be blamed - it is the people who have failed to act and not the one who has actually acted....
  

Reliance Power: The next big thing was the Reliance Power IPO. The biggest primary market issue. The highest number of applications collected. Total amount committed is more than Rs. 7 lakh crores. The interesting point is that most people (including leading financial publications) believed that the issue is over valued, but despite that the response has been tremendous.

I am personally very curious to see the listing price and the share's subsequent performance in the capital market. The other interesting shares to watch out subsequent to Reliance Power's listing would be Tata Power, NTPC and Power Grid..

The Condorcet Paradox

Another cool concept i took away from my negotiations class.... The Condorcet Paradox. Imagine a situation in which people have conflicting preferences. Is it possible to influence other's choices to reach an outcome which you prefer, while at the same time appearing fair and just? The answer is a clear "Yes". Condorcet paradox could come to your rescue. Let me explain with an example.

Suppose we have three candidates, A, B and C, and that there are three voters with preferences as follows (candidates being listed in decreasing order of preference):

Voter 1: A B C
Voter 2: B C A
Voter 3: C A B

Assume you are Voter 1, so you obviously want "A" to win. The condorcet strategy to reach this outcome is as follows:

1. Choose a strategy to eliminate out least preferred candidates.
2. Specifically, for the first step, choose the candidates other than "A".
3. Ask all the members to vote between "B" and "C".
4. Between "B" and "C", both voter 1 (you) and voter 2 prefer "B".
5. So, by a vote of majority "B" will get to stay and "C" is eliminated
6. Now again choose the elimination strategy between "A" and "B".
7. Both voter 1 (you) and voter 3, prefer "A" over "B".
8. So, by a vote of majority "A" will get to stay and "B" is eliminated.

Wow... you got what you wanted and at the same time appeared fair and just by taking majority votes all the time. Cool isn't it?

The Annual Circus

I read this post in a blog of an IIM student (Alok Rustagi). Found it really cool and interesting. Read on.... its about placements (I have modified some parts to suit ISB better)

An annual circus that is organized in every business school which attracts the participation of many of the ringmasters from the corporate world to hire some musketeers for performing the same jugglery at their private circuses is branded as summer placements. But a circus cannot be organized without thorough preparation and planning else the ring masters might be displeased with the current lot of monkeys on sale. So let me (a monkey) take you through the preparations which may put a wedding planner to shame.


The preparation starts well in advance for the annual ritual of selling raw uncooked pieces of meat packaged as delicacies to hungry customers. The Alum gyaan flows uninterrupted... Read about this, read about that, read about everything under the sun. Forget about academics, forget about personal life, forget about extracurrics, and some people do forget even sleep, food and other Maslow’s basic needs. We are told to mug up ready responses to clichéd questions like, Why finance/marketing/consulting? We are actually taught to lie about our ambitions, career dreams and even why are we alive. A “tell me about yourself” question becomes so difficult that it requires 100s of hours of coaching from 10s of people, 5 out of these 10 don’t know anything about their tomorrow themselves is a different thing altogether. So this process continues for a long time, we (junior monkeys) are threatened repeatedly by alums (senior monkeys) who have gone through the same process of hire-purchase last year. A perfect example of Knowledge Sharing.

So now the monkeys are ready with impressive CVs to lure the best ringmaster. They all purchase nice costumes for the big day. The first step in the actual sale is coordinated by some internal ringmasters fondly known as PlaCom members, who make sure that every monkey is looking like some imported kangaroo and every third grade ringmaster gives an impression of an expert in his field. The ringmasters come with a jazzy presentation to lure the best monkey. Isn’t it nice, monkeys luring ringmaster and ringmasters luring monkeys!! Nobody knows who the smarter monkey is though. The masters indulge in a self appraisal mode crossing all lines of modesty, telling about the quality of food in the office canteen, the gender ratio, the cleanliness of toilets etc. After this blabbering comes the next part of announcing the names of shortlisted monkeys which suit the requirements of their circus. After all they can’t ask every monkey to jump for the same height. The rejected monkeys go back to their trees, some become sad, some cry, some shout, some drink and some simply go to sleep.


Meanwhile the shortlisted monkeys are taken to a separate chamber for further screening. Monkeys who ate together, smoked together now become enemies; they fight badly for a place in the circus. After this fight some more monkeys are sent home. The remaining monkeys are now interviewed and now it’s the turn of the monkeys to put modesty and humility to shame. Every answer is exaggerated to its limit; a simple thing is blown out of proportions and presented. Glib liars rule and honest monkeys lose. The sequence of lies continues till the ringmaster finally decides on the best monkey to dance in his circus. He goes back happily and I don’t think I need to mention about the joy of the monkey involved. Finally he is proved a superior monkey and may get some attention from the opposite sex. He is proved to be more adept in lying than others, he is proved to be a decent crook, and he can surely pull off a double face more easily than others.

This process of hire-purchase continues till all monkeys get a ringmaster. During this time, monkeys jump from one selection tent to other, changing their career choices in the flight time. They vomit the good things about a circus in front of that particular ringmaster, a sure shot formula for selection. The process is hard and takes a toll on the weaker monkeys; they get disheartened and lose hope, thereby losing their confidence to jump higher. A vicious circle sets in, a less confident monkey is more likely to fall down and a fallen monkey loses more hope. But for the rescue of these monkeys come forward the internal ringmasters. They make sure that finally every monkey gets a place to jump and dance. In the end we have a bunch of happy and gay monkeys who now believe that the world is theirs.

A world of unequals

From today (actually yesterday) the world will not be comprised of equals. Some are more equal than the others. McKinsey shortlists came out yesterday. There were a few happy and lots of sad faces floating in ISB. Lots of back biting as well. War lines are drawn and people take positions. A few swore yesterday that they would never hire McKinsey when they become CEOs. A few said they would shortsell the company's stock (unfortunately it is a partnership firm). Another group resolved that they will make McKinsey realize its mistake of not hiring them by excelling in their careers that would make McKinsey beg them to join their firm (at a future date). Yet another club was formed yesterday - "I hate McK" and memberships to this club sold like hot cakes. And yes, there were a few (a clear minority), who reaffirmed their belief that McK was indeed the best. Curious to know what my stand is? Here you go...

First of all let me clarify that i am on the side of majority - Not by thinking, but by my status. However, my admiration and respect for the organization hasn't come down a bit. McK had explained to us in detail (through a number of interactions) the pains they undertake to evaluate the applications. The things they look for, turn offs, evaluation criteria, the time they spend on the shortlisting process etc... I am sure they would have done a thorough job before coming out with the shortlist. If at the end, your name doesn't figure in the list, it does not mean that the shortlisting process was bad. They knew what they were looking for and they found that in some applications. Yes, they could have made a few mistakes. But that is the trade off between being 100% right and the time pressures. I am sure they are OK with losing a few degree of fairness in the interest of time.

Congratulations for the all the newly crowned kings and queens. And for others, do think hard. Do think why you really wanted consulting? Is it the money or the work? Is it the glamour or your true interest? In marriages you are better off marrying someone who likes you, rather than marrying someone whom you like. Its the same with respect to career. If you do not have forceful answers to some of the questions posted above, may be you will be better off sticking to an area of your strength/ interest. Money will follow. Money has to catch up with skills... at least in most cases.

2022

I was feeling bored in a class and just to keep myself occupied started thinking about what shapes technology might take in the times to come and how it might impact our daily lives.... Read on

1. Information transmission: Attaching RFID tags to the items we use on a daily basis. Eg. toothpaste, deodorant, soaps, provisions.. whatever. Let these tags transmit the information about the remaining weight/ quantity of these items on a daily basis to the place where we shop. The shop can then deliver these goods directly to our homes based on our agreed reorder points.

2. Early morning health scan: Automatic health monitoring systems attached to toilets. These take our health readings on a daily basis and transmit them to our family doc. The doc can then suggest corrective/ preventive measures based on that.

3. Nutrition/ Diet: Sensors which read our brain cells, outside climate and health readings and fix our ideal diet for the day taking into account nutrition and health requirements, taste preferences etc.

4. Organizers: We should have digital secretaries which track

a. News/ happenings in the world
b. Changes in our wealth position - stocks, mutual funds, bank accounts
c. Schedule for the day - Appointments, reminders..
d. New products of interest in the market etc..
e. Other customized information which we would like to see early in the morning

and present a crux of all these stuff in a single A4 sheet to us which can be read while we are brushing in the morning


5. Mood lifters: Sensors which are able to read my mood and change lighting, TV channels, temperature and music accordingly

6. Time optimization - The digital secretaries (described above) should be able to talk with the digital secretaries of the people with whom i need to interact during the day and should be able to optimize my time. For eg, if need to meet Mr. X today and if Mr. X is planning to visit a local store today and i also intend to visit the same store today, may be it is optimal for both of us to meet at the store rather than visit each other in our offices and waste our times.

7. Energy needs: Carrying multiple chargers is a pain - laptop, mobile, Ipod, PDA.. what not? A simple wireless charging device, which can charge all these devices would be great

8. Pocket convergence - This simply means that a single device should be able to combine the utilities of all the items you generally keep in your pockets - Palmtop, MP3 player, PDA, Mobile. This device should also be in a position to substitute my car keys, home keys & office keys. May be if i send in a message/ signal from this device and upon authentication with a password i should automatically get entry into my car, home etc... I should also be able to use this device
for doing my shopping i.e as a substitute for carrying my debit/ credit cards, loyalty cards etc.

9. Physical Google - I should be in a position to search things in the real world using my PDA. Let me explain. If I want to buy a Allen Solly shirt of a particular colour if the price is less than Rs. 1000, then i should program this into my PDA. The sellers can use a spectrum and transmit their advertising messages through radio waves. If for example a particular seller, lets say Shoppers Stop is indeed having a sale and it meets all my purchase criteria, then my PDA should pick up this radio signal and intimate me, If i happen to pass Shoppers Stop. It should be able to send me a message like "Hi, the light Blue Allen Solly shirt (size 40) which you wanted is available in this Shopper's Stop (100 meters from here... address....) in fourth floor. It is not crowded now, and you will approximately take 8 minutes to complete the shopping".

10. End Of Day health scan - When i come back from work late at night and sink into a refreshing hot water bath, the bathroom should automatically do a complete health scan and give me a crisp report suggesting preventive and and corrective measures which i should adopt before going to bed, so that i get up refreshed the next day... It should also give me a quick summary of the health status of all my family members...

One thing is sure in the digital world. Nothing is impossible... May be i would read this post of mine 15 years from now and wonder, how primitive was I in my thinking...

Congratulations

The results for the R1 applicants have been declared. I remember the day the results came in last year. I was driving my car when the SMS reached me. My first reaction was that, I was not going to take the offer. Finally i did decide to take up the offer after a lot of soul searching.

Congratulations to all the R1 admits. Enjoy your days now and get ready for a really hectic year ahead. Amidst all your celebrations, spending some time on the following will do a lot of good:

1. Try and see if you can negotiate a good sabbatical package with your existing employer. You may hate your existing job/ boss. But having a back up plan doesn't hurt.

2. Work you best for the rest of time you spend with the organization. People forget all your earlier contributions, but will remember clearly the way you exited. True colours come out at this time. Dont spoil all the hard work and the good name you have earned till now.

3. Dont burn your bridges. Make sure you end your relationship with a positive note with your colleagues/ bosses/ clients/ competitors. Its a small world.

4. Spend some quality time on what you want to get out of ISB and why? Is it a career shift? Better job in existing field? Networking? Knowledge? Platform for launching own venture? Once you are clear on these objectives, have your back plans ready too. Then start charting your strategies

5. Spend some time on revising/ getting ideas on some subjects. Revising quant skills (for the Non IIT/ Engg) and getting some ideas on subjects like finance, economics, accounting (for the IIT/ Engg) will not hurt. You will atleast get an idea of what is waiting for you.


6. Be mentally prepared for a challenging year ahead.

7. Research on various loan options facilitated by ISB. And yes.. remember that you have other options as well. The 3 Fs - Friends, Family and Fools.


8. Meet up with other admits in you area/ city. In my view it really doesn't help much. But you will feel really special and great. And thats good.

And yes dont forget to party hard, enjoy with your family and friends and live a life of a normal human being. Catch up on sleep, movies and whatever things interest you.

Enjoy well and congratulations once again.

Its a small world

I have take a course titled "Negotiation Analysis" this term. This could easily be one of the best courses i have taken at ISB. In our previous class, the professor was explaining that it is very important to build trust before starting to negotiate. One of the easiest ways to build trust is to strike a common chord with the other person. We could either discuss about a common friend, problem, enemy... whatever

To prove the point that it is not difficult to find common links with any person in the world, he took us through a small experiment conducted by "University of Virginia". This university had built an elaborate database of all actors and actresses. You simply type in the names of any two actors or actresses and program searches the database and tells us how they both are linked. Its fun..

Try it out for yourself using the following link

http://oracleofbacon.org/cgi-bin/oracle/movielinks

Another moral of the story - Never burn your bridges.

Retail investors... The step sons

Does this graph strike a bell? Its is not the blood pressure reading of someone... Its the price chart of Reliance Petroleum for the past one year. It is quite possible that this graph definitely might have a strong correlation with the blood pressure of its retail shareholders. Reliance Industries has sold about 18 crore shares or 4 per cent in Reliance Petroleum (RPL) recently. The sale happened when the price was near its peak. This deal has hogged considerable media light and has opened more questions than answers. Consider the following facts in this deal:

1. With the rise in prices RPL, a refinery which is still under construction and to be ready by only next fiscal, has overtaken the combined shareholder wealth of the three PSU refiners-cum-marketers - IOC, HPCL and BPCL.

2. The modus operandi of the sale is still not known. Whether RPL shares were sold in small lots or in huge block deals to small investors or private equity firms is still a matter of conjecture. These details were neither available in the block or bulk trade details of BSE and NSE, nor was it put on the stock exchange notice board.

3. Reliance Industries communicated about this deal to the stock exchanges late on Saturday night. (Of course both the exchanges are closed on weekends)

4. Earlier this month, the RPL share was on the rise on a market rumour that Chevron could pay $6 billion for 21 per cent in RPL. The US oil major promptly repudiated the news, but Reliance was slack in denying it and RPL shares climbed northwards probably on this rumour, to a 52-week high of Rs 295. Mind you the sale happened sometime after this.

5. While all these were happening on one side, there were players who were building huge short positions (betting that the stock price will fall) in the derivatives segment. There were 16 crore shares position built up in this category (which is around 250-300% the normal levels). These short positions peaked on the same day, the promoters began selling shares. Of course we only know it post mortem. Needless to say that these guys must be laughing their way to banks.

Thats "transparency". RIL's communications post this sale are even more curious.. "The sale of RPL shares was conducted by transactions through the stock exchanges and has helped to further broad-base the shareholding pattern of RPL and is a bid to maximise overall shareholder value".. said the company statement.

"Maximize shareholder value".... thats a nice and neat phrase. At who's cost?

RIL made a profit of Rs 3662 crore in the deal... and as usual retail investors like you and me (thank god i am spared in this case) would have been caught on thier wrong foot.

Gymoconomics

If you enrol into a gym which offers us two payment options - Either a pay-per-visit of Rs.100 or a flat fee of Rs. 1000 per month, which one would you choose?

Most of us end up choosing the flat fee option. We calculate that with this option we would be better off, if we end up using the gym more than 10 times in a month. However, if we were to do a true audit of our own behaviour subsequently, a significant portion of us would have actually visited the gym less than 10 times in a month. Yet we all fall into this trap of not choosing the pay per option. Behavioural Economics throws some light..

We tend to overestimate our needs and fail to change our views on it. Most companies understand this behaviour of ours and rightfully exploit us. Most of us fall into the trap of "zero interest rates for the first three months" in our credit card. Even if we knew upfront that the rate increases to 20% after three months, we end up choosing this option thinking that we would stop using the credit after the offer period. But if we are like a typical customer, we will not have the self control to do it.

Another case in point. For pay-per-use TV, we end up choosing a bouquet as against an a-la-carte option. The problem is, we may never watch all the channels we have subscribed to.

Coming back to initial gym example - Some might argue that they chose the flat fee option because it will then force them to use the gym and in the process keep them fit. Yet if we reflect on our own actual behaviour, we will understand that this never translates into reality.

P.S: This article appeared in Business Line.

Business Plan - II

Looks like the judges seem to share our enthusiasm. Our plan has got shortlisted for three prestigious B Plan competitions. Lets see where this takes us.

The biggest pat on our back came when we were presenting the B-plan to a panel of judges, one of whom is a Venture Capitalist. The VC commented that he is mightily interested in our area of work and has asked us get in touch with him.

Am reading some extremely interesting articles on Behavioural Economics, which explains why we do things, the way we do it. Watch this space for a few interesting pieces...

Interviews

Attended two interviews over the last three days. Could not make it beyond Round 3 in both. Despite doing an in depth review of what could have gone wrong in either of this, i am honestly not able to come out with even a single answer.

In the consulting interview in round 2, i got to solve 4 cases. I solved all of them. The interviewer was visibly impressed and acknowledged it during the interview itself. But i got a reject mail later during the day. The story is no different in the Investment Banking interview. I got 5 puzzles in round 1, solved all of them (and that too very quickly). In Round 2, they tested my banking knowledge and understanding of stock markets (both my passions) and i did a pretty neat job. Proceeded to Round three, where they just spent 5 minutes with me and we had a general chit chat and nothing went wrong there as well. I did not take any controversial stance, no showing off, i did nothing to put of the interviewer, showed genuine interest in the job and the firm.... Reject mail promptly finds its way to my mail box later in the day.

I have never really faced failures in my life. I take these as good learning experiences. I am learning to handle failures. I will never be able to find a reason for these failures today, but i am sure someday i will be able to connect these dots and it will form a brilliant design.

Nothing can separate me and my self confidence.

The Business Plan

I have never written a business plan in my life. I have never forced myself to write one, for i never had any idea that is strong enough to influence me to write one. But now this is a thing of the past...

For the first time, I have written a new business plan (jointly with another friend of mine at ISB). We are excited by this idea and firmly believe that this idea may have strong implications in future. I do not know if the judges would perceive the business plan with the same enthusiasm as ours, but our journey was wonderful.

From a mere idea (a random thought) we have now travelled a long way to conceptualize and give life to this idea. It had forced us to think in a structured manner and challenge assumptions and we have come out victorious.

Or have we? As always time will tell us. But right now, its time to bask in this comforting feeling..