And so it ends..

Thus came the end of a great and an enlightening year. We had the graduation ceremony today and I am sure you will read all about it in the media.

I had a great time blogging. It has helped me organize my thoughts, speak to people whom i have never met (and some of whom i will never meet) and at many times, question my own reasoning.

I will continue blogging, as the journey progresses forward. But this is the last time i can wish you all luck as an ISB student..

Best of luck

Doing things differently

Today is the last day of classes for me at ISB. There are no mixed feelings, i am definitely happy. As the ISB journey comes towards the end, i wanted to write a post on what would i have done differently, if i were to repeat the entire experience at ISB.

For the records, i am clearly not looking forward to such an experience of doing it all over again, but may be the future batches might find something useful in this post. The views expressed here are purely my own and hence some (or many) might not subscribe to them. But after all this is my blog..

1. Study like crazy in core terms. Do not be swayed if someone tells you grades dont matter. The point is despite all your efforts you might not be in the Dean's list or may be not even somewhere close to it. That does not matter. At least you tried your best.

2. Term 2 is one of the most important terms. It separates the men from the boys. Make sure you work double hard during this term.

3. Be sure that the consulting bug is going to bite you. The hype in the campus, the build up given in the campus by alums and the repeated visits by consulting firms will for sure affect you at some level. From all the sweet talk that happens, every student believes internally (or is led to believe) that he is a right fit for consulting. But the hard reality strikes only towards the end.

Do explore this option seriously. Talk to alums, attend these sessions, make up your mind if you really like this option as a career, look at the history of recruits done by these firms and make a realistic estimation of your chance. But do these early enough and move on. You will save yourself so much time, effort and tension.

4. With respect to placements, make three choices:
a) Same industry target - A company from the same industry which you would like to go back to.
b)Realistic career switch target and
c) A dream career switch target.
The kind of efforts you need to put in is very different for each of these choices. Develop your strategy to tackle each of them. Ignoring any of these options might harm you severely towards the end.

5. ISB is all about "relativity". Your absolute strengths and weaknesses dont matter. These matter only in the context of what is it compared to your other batch mates. This applies in everything from grades to b-school competitions to your previous work experience to extra curriculars. So, keep working on your "differentiation" strategy. Remember these differentiations have to be both meaningful and credible.

6. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Be extremely cautious and intelligent in whatever you do at ISB. I am purposefully leaving this vague enough, but hopefully you would understand the meaning when you are here.

7. B. School competitions - There are a ton of them which happens. Most of them do not even count on as "spikes" in your resume. The filtering criteria for these competitions which i used are: Participate only if
a) Prize money is good
b) There is something interesting in the format/ outcome and
c) If it can work as a spike in your resume.
No point in writing mind numbing essays on "Challenges for Indian leadership in the "Nano" era" along with a million others.

8. ELP (Experiential Learning Programme) - A vast majority of them is pure bullshit. Do not feel compelled or pressurized to take this up. Do it if it is in your area of interest or if it will help you in someway in your placements. In most cases, people are better off taking an additional elective instead of ELP.

9. Develop your BATNAs (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) with respect to your placements, at least two months in advance. Prepare yourself for the worst possible outcome in placements. Even before the placements commence, try and make sure you find at least two companies which are ready to take you (on a "as is" basis). This will not only help ease the pressure but also increase your bargaining power at the table during placements.

10. Keep juggling with business ideas. You will get ample exposure to various business ideas during your stay at ISB. Keep your eyes and ears open. You never know whats in store for you.

11. Networking - One of the most important words you will hear at ISB. To me networking is not just knowing names and exchanging cards. It is "exchange of value". Do not miss your opportunity to reach out to others and at the least make few trusted friends.

The expert advice

Lao Tzu’s famous quote “Those who have knowledge don’t predict and those who predict don’t have knowledge” seems most appropriate in this situation. I was just browsing through the Sensex targets given by various experts before the crash began in early January. Am pasting some of these below… have a good laugh.


“We are overweight on India as it is the best bull market in Asia. Our India weightage is at 38%, which is the biggest in thematic portfolio. The long-term Sensex target remains at 40,000." – Chris Wood, CLSA, Global Strategist, October 2007

“We continue to be bullish on the Indian market and have set a BSE SENSEX Target of 23,950 to 25,000 for 2008” – Citigroup, Jan 08

“This puts the Sensex target at around 27,000 mark. The breakout could be as big as 2.618 times the largest leg, leading to a mind boggling figure of 39,000. Even if we keep aside this over-optimistic view, the target of 27,000 could be achieved and that too most probably in the first half of 2008. The daily chart shows one directional wave (A) followed by wave (B), which seems to be a diametric pattern. This pattern has seven legs and has a bow-tie shape” - Milind Karandikar, Leading Technical Analyst, in Business Standard, 7 Jan 2008

“Being an India bull there are reasons such as strong corporate earnings growth (though slower around 20%), and liquidity expected from FIIs & domestic institutions that could propel the Sensex to 24000 by the end of the year (Sensex PE at this level would be around 22.85 considering Sensex EPS of 1050)” - Amar Pandit, Moneycontrol - 2nd Jan 08

“After Sensex 20,000, the market expectations are for 30,000, but I don’t see the Sensex extending beyond 24,000 this year with the benchmark making a decade high this year” - Mukul Pal (Leading technical Analyst), in Business Standard, 7 Jan, 08

“So, in order to find the Sensex targets for ’08, we added these multiples to the highest monthly closing of the Sensex in ’07, i.e. 20286.99. So, the possible targets of the Sensex in the year ’08 at 0.382, 0.618, 1 and 1.618 Fibonacci ratios are 23094.27, 24828.61, 27635.89 and hold your breath, 32177.51, respectively” – Economic Times, 7 Jan 08

“76.4% of leading brokerage firms viewed that the markets are fairly valued while 11.8% each believes that it is overvalued and undervalued, respectively” - CNBC-TV 18 poll, 1 Jan 08

“The move past 15,400 proved beyond doubt that the long-term uptrend has resumed from the June-2006 trough of 8,800. But this move appears to be the final (fifth) part of the long-term move that commenced in May 2003. This final leg can take a few more months to complete during which the Sensex will move between 17,500 and 24,800. We place the outer target for the Sensex in 2008 at 27,145” – Business Line Research, 30 Dec, 07

“Indian stock market would continue its bull run next year with the benchmark index Sensex likely to touch the 24,000-mark by the end of 2008” - Macquire Bank, 30 Dec 07

The last term

Every student dreams about Term 8 in ISB. Its my turn now.

ISB is a totally different place now a days. Some of the activities which are taking place in campus now are..

1. Night Cricket - This is real fun. The intersection cricket matches starts around 7.30 PM under floodlights and goes on well in the night. There is music, liquids and lots of cheering

2. Monopoly Championships - The good old game is back in form, with more and more converts each day

3. The Multiplayer Age of Empires Championship – People are trying to load the game in LAN and organize multiplayer championships. This is still under process. Should be good fun when its up and running

4. Most students have taken a new resolution that they would watch at least 50% of the movies available in our library. So there is a perennial crowding in the DVD section, which had never seen so many visitors in all the seven terms put together

5. Gym and the swimming pool - Many students have started hitting the gym and the swimming pool with vengeance. Some to keep fit, some trying their best to relive their memories of how they once looked and a few others just for the fun of it.. especially given the fact that its our last one month in campus

6. Other games - Many other games including Basketball, Shuttle badminton, Table Tennis, Pool, Carom have regular patrons

7. City exploration - ISB has recently increased the capacity and the frequency of the City Shuttle which takes students from ISB to the city. It could not have come at a better time. All of us are trying to do justice to this beautiful city by giving it the attention it deserves..

8. Assignments/ Pre reads - They have at last taken a back seat at ISB. Assignments are not receiving a minute extra than what they are worth it. Most of us meet the night before to complete these "impediments" which are still on our way.

Interesting times at ISB...

Efficient Markets

I had a field day today. Watching the budget live is fun. And that too when you have have the stock markets sites and your internet trading accounts opened in your laptop it is absolutely thrilling...

I was watching the markets live after having read my dose of budget expectations. The market opened lower and stayed under till about 11 AM on weak global cues and may be because of the uncertainty that it faced in the form of budget.. But once the budget speech started, the market was responding almost on a minute to minute basis to the budget provisions.

The moment Mr. Chidambaram announced the increased thrust on education in the form of a 20% increased budget spend stocks like Educomp, Aptech, NIIT were up. Then came the announcements on healthcare and the 15% additional allocation.. up goes DRL, Sparc.. Emphasis on polio and HIV eradication reflected an increase in Panacea Biotech. Waivers of loans availed by small and marginal farmers.. the PSU bank stocks fall. Excise duty reduction.. auto stocks rise. And then comes the killer…the hike in the short term capital gains tax. Then there was no stopping and markets started falling badly.

All of us know about the efficient market hypothesis. But it is during events like these you get to watch it in action. Ok.. enough of the serious stuff. I am not sure how many of you caught the real fun moments in today's budget. I caught at least three instances:

1. When the finance minister was talking about the "One Time Settlement scheme" for the loans availed by the farmers, there was one MP who was opposing it heavily without even hearing what the FM was saying. At one point when the FM announced that he is increasing the loans that are going to be eligible under the scheme, this guy started opposing even more. The speaker then intervened and said to that opposing MP that "You should be happy when the loans to be waived are increased. Then why are you opposing?" Then MP then immediately sat down with a sheepish smile on his face. Thats the state of our beloved leaders..

2. During his speech the FM was at one point extolling LIC and he said "LIC is a jewel amongst the crowns.." I hope he did not mean this..

3. When the FM increased the IT exemption limit for senior citizen from 195 K to 225 K... he had a naughty look at his face and looked at the speaker and said..."I hope there would be no objection now"...

The Pre-IPO Grey markets

I had started a project some months ago at ISB which aimed at understanding the Pre-IPO grey markets and their ability/ effectiveness in forecasting the listing prices. The project is complete at last and am sharing some interesting pieces of information which i found..

For the uninitiated, Grey Markets are actually over the counter markets where dealers may execute orders for preferred customers as well as provide support for a new issue, before the stock actually gets listed. So, these markets operate in the period between the announcement of an IPO and the actual listing.

As the name suggests, this is an illegal market and has been banned by SEBI. However trades in this market are still rampant and thousands of crores exchange hands. The grey market premiums are even quoted in many of the financial dailies and are easily available in many public forums on the net.

I had studied the time series data of the grey market premiums for 38 IPOs which came out in 2007. Some of the interesting stuff on these..

1. The correlation between the last quoted grey market price and the actual listing price is 0.9768 (a near perfect correlation). This suggests that, grey market’s ability to predict actual prices is great.

2. Not surprisingly, there is a definitive positive association between the percentage premium (in grey markets) and the subscription rates. Higher the premium quoted in the grey markets, greater seems to be the subscription rates or vice-versa. The correlation here was about 0.8095.

I am not going to bore you to death, giving the other findings here. However, I have concluded my paper stating - Stay away from these markets and don’t ever get into executing actual trades. Thousands of investors have burnt their fingers dealing in these markets.

Nevertheless, as intelligent investors use these grey market prices as one more additional data point in your analysis while evaluating an IPO. Grey markets seem to be great indicators of dumb IPOs..

Destination

The wait is over. I am joining International Finance Corporation. It is part of the World Bank group and is the largest multilateral source of loan and equity financing for private sector projects in the developing countires.

Day 7

Received too many complaints yesterday that i haven't posted the Day 7 proceedings... Sorry about that. Remember, i told you all about the "interesting appointment" that i had, I had to go out of station for the same.

Day 7 was a lackluster day. I guess, there were just about a couple of companies which participated.

The last thing i heard was that more than 95% of the batch is placed in the first 6 days.. of course these are unofficial estimates..

Day 6

A day for doctors... Apollo, Global Hospitals, Max Healthcare.. Many of the IT companies participated too. Infosys, JPMC & HSBC (for IT roles), Infotech Enterprises, Mphasis, Sankhya, Satyam and a couple of others.

Looks like my views have been heard or similar views have been floating around on the preparedness of students. From today on, the Placement Committee has decided to put in place the following:

1. CV Experts - Catch these guys to customize your CVs for the role/ company you are applying

2. Company champion - Know everything about the company/ role before you step in for the interview

3. Student Village Champions - Guys with whom you can chat up if you are generally feeling low and if you require any help in targeting/ preparing for companies which are coming..

These students (who are taking on the above roles) would be around the interview area to help people who need it. Great initiatives indeed.

The formal placement season is on just for three more days. Our last term - Term 8, starts on Monday.

I have an interesting appointment tomorrow and i will make up my mind on where i would be joining, immediately after that.

Day 5

The venue for the interviews has been shifted from the main building (Academic centre) to the executive housing (from today onwards). This has two objectives -

1. The number of students who are still in the process has come down
2. If interviews are still being conducted in the main building, then it attracts a lot of attention and the students who are still in the race are unnecessarily pressurized

This is a very good move.

Coming to the companies which took part today... the biggies are DRL, DSP ML, Fortis, Genpact, Honeywell, Intel, Pfizer, Sony, Suzlon... and many others.

Many students who have already secured jobs have gone to their hometowns for cooling off. On the other hand it’s very disturbing to see some of your classmates still in the fray... This section can be split into two kinds...

1. People who know where they want to go. These are people who are at least focused and are confident that in case they are not able to secure a job here, they would chase their passion outside. I am very confident that these guys will surely secure a job in the next couple of days

2. People who have become so desperate that they would try their hand at any company... be it pharma, banking, PE, real estate, IT... anything. This is disturbing.

I met up with one such student yesterday who was waiting for his turn for attending one interview. I happened to pass by and wished him best of luck. He had no clue what the company is into, why he wanted to join them, what are the roles they are offering... nothing. I as a passive stock investor knew more about the company than him. This is totally unacceptable. If this is the level of preparedness, no doubt he will again miss this job.

If you are not clear about where you want to go… that is forgivable. But if you do not even do your basic homework before going for an interview, i am not sure what will ever motivate the recruiter to give you this job.

Day 4

This was primarily led by IT cos. (CA, Dassualt, HCL, IBM, NIIT, Oracle, Wipro, Virtuasa, Tech Mahindra, Zensar, Mindtree...), Real estate (CBRE, DLF, Hines, Lodha..) media and some finance cos as well.

People are negotiating hard for the specific roles and salary they are expecting. Most companies are opening up their jobs.. (allowing walk-ins). About 90% of the batch should have at least one offer by now (this is just my estimate..). However, quite a few are still shopping for better deals (you are out of placements, only when you have two offers).

Crisis of confidence has clearly set in amongst those who haven't made it still. Many of them are falling in the vicious circle... “no job still - poor confidence - bad performance during interview”.. Some of the married ones are the most affected. Their woes are multiplied by the anxiety shown by the spouses, especially when the spouses start comparing the salaries of their counterparts amongst themselves..

It is important that they take some time out for themselves, build up confidence and then attend the future interviews. Remember, all of us had jobs earlier and our career should have at least been above average, else we would have never found our places in ISB.

I am beginning to get the notorious title of the one who is rejecting the most number of offers. I have rejected 6 till now (1 Commercial bank, 3 I-Banks, 1 Real Estate and 1 consulting). The point is, its not just money . If the company is not even able to appreciate the work you have done in past and give you a commensurate grade/ role, then why join them with a negative frame of mind... and yes, money does play an important role. No one works for charity..

Here is a question i want to pose to the HR clan. There are 2 candidates competing for a role. One has quoted a price of Rs. 11 lakhs and the other Rs. 20 lakhs. Which one do you choose?

We all know the theoretical answer i.e choose the one who brings in the maximum value (NPV in other words)... but the actual action taken by most HR people does not reflect their understanding of this concept. Most HR people seem to think they save 9 lakhs for the company by choosing person 1. Little do they realize that they might have actually lost may be 9 crores in potential profits by choosing the wrong person.

This example is little simplistic. Purposely so. Dont lose the main point, by trying to find flaws in the argument. The crux is, invest time in finding the right person and the right fit. Not in haggling for a few couple of lakhs..

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..