Brands that I dislike

This is my personal view. And its completely based on my experience with these brands.
All these brands have been huge disappointments and I have vowed not to use them again in my life. These are not rankings as all have been equally disappointing
1.Nokia-Anyone who has been to a Nokia Service Centre will vouch for the pathetic service meted out. Now, I had a problem with my keypad. Even though the product was under warranty, they charged me INR 600 for the change of keypad invoking the "conditions apply" clause. I was fine with it. However, I realised something was amiss when I was not given the part which was replaced. Many emails to Nokia and many visits to the service centre didnt help.A year after this incident, I planned to buy a mobile.This was in April 2010.Around the same time, Nokia unveiled its smartphone E5.The launch date was May 2010.But delays at Nokia, which led to the ouster of many senior managers at the firm led to the E5 hitting the market in September. By then I had shelled out an extra 3k more than what I would have had for a E5 and bought a BB. And I am a BB convert. So no more Nokias for me!
2.Acer-My brother recommended and bought a Acer laptop for me. Two weeks later I had a white screem problem which persisted even after it had been to the service centre twice in one year. It still persists. But now, I dont trust the service nor the product. Most of acer products on my campus have problems related to battery charge or DVD drives.So Its goodbye to Acer!

Mumbai under construction....

....is what I tweeted when I realised that getting from the east of Andheri to the West will take me more than an hour due to the many "under construction" projects in that area. Coupled with the fact that rickshaw and bus fares have increased by more than 20% since June,travelling in Mumbai has become a nightmare.
One has to brave the Metro construction, the skywalk, the two flyovers over the Andheri bridge while travelling from Andheri East to Andheri West.The fact that none of these projects get over on time adds to the woes.
We seriously need to time these projects and also ensure that this infrastructure is sufficient for a decade or more to prevent further upgrades. If not we will be left thinking that our government took Keynes suggestion of "digging holes and filling them again" a bit too seriously.

A hypothesis about migrants in Mumbai

The issue of migrants in general and those from the north in Mumbai specifically has been a burning one for many years. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Shiv Sena have been at the forefront of attacking North Indian migrants who engage in different occupations in Mumbai.
Most of the north Indian migrants engage themselves in providing a host of services;from plying rickshaws and taxis to selling groceries,etc. Most of the security guards in the private sector are also from the northern states.
I like chatting up with these people whenever I get the opportunity to do so. The usual belief is that rural to urban migration happens due to non-availability of jobs in rural areas, stagnant agriculture due to a host of reasons, etc. However the people that I have spoken to come from districts that have abundant water supply and they also owned large tracts of arable land. So these guys who ply autorickshaws and sell groceries are not really deprived of water and land in their hometowns. In other words, it is not "distress migration"
The problem I believe is that agriculture is not seen as lucrative occupation. It is also not, I conjecture, seen as a "good enough" occupation.Its also not just about livelihoods. Lack of access to good quality education can also lead to people who are earning a decent income uproot their families and base themselves in urban ghettos.
If this is indeed the case, then we need to get the manufacturing sector on a high growth path. Jobs in cities are in the service sector and this sector cannot absorb the surplus labour currently in agriculture. Factories and consequent jobs on the shop floor are needed immediately.
If not, we will see overburdened cities crumbling against rising number of migrants.

Back to IRMA

After being away from my abode for 7 weeks, I am back at h34! My final internship is over and just one term remains before I become part of the alumni.
What kept me away from blogging was the constant travel, no internet connection and sheer laziness! But I have loads to write about and that I shall in the coming days!

Why IRMA was a paradigm change in Management Education in India.

The late Sumantra Ghoshal was onto something radically different when he wrote his last paper "Bad Management Theories are destroying good management practices". That paper made academicians in B-Schools squirm as Ghoshal put a lot of blame of Enron, Worldcom and other scandals at the doorsteps of B-Schools. In fact, it was implicit that managers have a larger role to play in society given that the organisations they work are sometimes bigger than many nation-states.But managers are not comfortable with that role.
In this context, Indian B schools seem to have had a head start. The Week magazine profiles some "top" B schools engaging with social issues.This is commendable if it is done with the same rigour that they apply to their other internships and classroom segments of MBA.The incidence and extent of sensitisation of the students is not easy to measure.
IRMA has been doing such things for the last three decades. In fact, when I read Ghoshal's article, I feel that he should have come to IRMA to realise that there is a Management Institute which seeks to imbibe qualities of a "true" manager and does not narrow a managers interests only to an organisation.
Only if IRMA is able to stem the loss in academic rigour, it can emerge as India's top mangement Institute displacing its richer cousin from Ahmedabad from its No1 position.

Updates....

Its been a long time since I blogged. Some excuses include a viral which kept me in bed for a couple of days leading to a huge backlog of assignments, and studies. It also made me miss the debating competition at IIMA.My prize money for the quiz we won at IIMA is still pending. Someone at IIMA is not teaching customer satisfaction properly! They don't reply to mail nor do they answer calls. I thought 3k would not be a big amount to dispense with for future CEOs. But I stand corrected.
I am heading to ICICI for my winters. Specifically I shall be working with the Rural Finance department. Lets see how that goes. Been some time since I dressed up in formals and entered a corporate office!
My end terms end today. 4 terms over at IRMA and I realise that it is less than 4 months to go before I venture out as an IRMAn.
Besides this, I have a lot to write. Specifically, my views on IRMA (now that I have stayed here for a year and half, I think I can attempt writing about IRMA), the geela syndrome afflicting faculty members in a well known institute of rural management in western India and other mundane issues that one gets to see on my blog!
Now , I head off for my end term paper on Derivatives!

Heading to WIMWI for the weekend

WIMWI aka IIMA for the following

Dear Nitin,
Congratulations! Your team has been selected for the next round of Bone of Contention. It will be held in IIM Ahmedabad's IMDC on October 2nd, 2010.

Somehow, me and my partner Trinadh have this knack of getting through to the big ones (remember Tata crucibles) with shoddy preparation. This time the number was around 200 entries and on top of that, we submitted it late!!!
Maybe they considered our 1st place in the marketing quiz and accepted it!
The elimination round was a 300 page up write up on FOR/AGAINST Telemarketing! We wrote FOR telemarketing...Pardon the rural bias..but this is what we wrote

Hello marketing executive! Are you listening? There is Bharat beyond India! To make it simple, India rests in its 6, 00,000 villages rather than a handful of metros. This bharat is now adding millions of mobile subscribers every month. Mobile is now part of the great Indian dream of roti kapda, makan.
Marketing companies are only focusing on urban customers. The same customer who already owns three credit cards, is called by five salespeople selling five different bank credit cards! And in rural hinterland, you have millions of customers who are waiting for loans, bikes, soaps, plasma TV! And some are rich enough to pay for foreign trips (Thomas Cook, are you listening?). And they are more trustworthy. Proof? 99% repayment in microfinance industry! And yet calls are made only to urban customers who are fed up and now have availed themselves of the Do not Disturb Service (DND). So let’s stop disturbing them! The rural consumer is waiting!
But we understand the problems of reaching out to these customers. They are spread over a large geographical area, and are not physically connected due to inadequate infrastructure! BUT, they have the ubiquitous mobile phone! And incoming is FREE!!
So what are you waiting for? Refresh your database, let the urban consumer enjoy his privacy, call up his rural brethren and he will not only entertain your call, but also ensure that it is a win-win-win situation. The agency gets the commission, the consumer gets the product/service and the marketing guys get their sales.
The late C.K.Prahalad gave us the identity of the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid; we just gave its phone number! Contact them to make your fortune.