Visitor # 333

Campus 1B, RMZ Ecospace, Outer Ring Road. That’s the new address of Capgemini – Bangalore centre. Now 1200 strong. The security guy at the reception was handing over visitor’s card (# 333) when Ranjith came down to receive me. A hug and pleasantries later we were in the lift. Most of my pals are in the 4th floor. General Motors project. Ghouse is on a tele con. Andrew’s voice is booming on the VoIP, “ATG box has 4 instances...”. Ghouse puts it on mute. “Hey Ganga..Kaise ho? Websphere 8.1 is thro’. ADRP was khool..IPAR has some ip issues in the reverse proxy”. High five. These acronyms have lotsa history, teamwork, sweat and smiles behind them.

Sunil shook hands and asked about my campus life. I ask him about the
project management issues. He says severity 1 issues have been put on check. No deployment issues in the last 3 months. No 7 hour long SWAT calls these days! Team has grown to 56. Sunil is the Service Delivery Manager. Cool as cucumber even in High Temperature and Pressure conditions. The new workplace layout and design is simply khool. Made friends with the new members in the team.


Wanted to meet Santhosh. Mr. Santhosh Bhargava is the VP. Down to earth and affable. He gave me time amidst his meetings and tele cons. Also posed for a fotu! Very kind of him. He has promised to help me get in touch with Mumbai folks for guest lectures etc…Meanwhile, I asked Ghouse, Ranjith and a few others to hit bistrobanter url. Sukanya’s “Native Talk” came on Mozilla. Wished them all good luck and left Ecospace. It was a Jolie good trip!



C u all soooon,
Ganga

Native talk

This time, when I was walking past through the familiar roads of my native town, Madurai, the way I viewed the happenings around me was far more different than how I used to see the same place during my childhood days. There happened to be no change in the mindsets of people though. Their customs, traditions, perspectives about life and the expectations from life all remained the same.

The people here are a set of contented group for whom there is no better heaven than Madurai. Goddess Meenakshi was there guiding them in every walks of life. Though the children from many of the families have got settled in metros and places abroad, their parents felt at peace in their small homes that they had built in the past out their scrimpy savings as a govt employee of those good old days.

I happened to accidentally meet few girls who were my childhood schoolmates. I made no delay in recognizing them as they looked the same they looked when I left that school after my 10th class. But the case was not the same with them. As I never looked like one of them. After leading more than 4 years of life in metros anyone would have evolved from a small-town girl look. When I was enquiring about what they are doing and also about few other frens of mine, all I got the answer was that most of them were married with at least a kid. I even got to meet one girl who was always marveled as the tallest girl of our school (particularly by me ;) ) with her 3 year old kid.

For a while I was shocked to see that girls still don’t get to follow their dreams in most of the families in towns like this. But then the reality was different. Many of them liked to be what they are though apparently for reasons that this is what any normal girl’s life at Madurai would look like. Maybe people lacked the courage to go chase their dreams or even to dream rather. Or they just are forced to abide by the custom of the society.

In any case these girls were happy. After all what do we live on this earth for? Ultimately to be happy! And that I could see in their eyes behind all those buried dreams. Although there was a trace of longing for a life like mine, there were no regrets about their present. This does not tell all about the city and its people. This city had traces of everything. People like me and people like the girls I met.

The economy here also has seen its boom these years and the bustling activity in and around the city and the town hall says it all. You don’t see flashy cars much on the roads but the air is fresh and free from any pollution. You would not like to drive through the narrow crowded roads and broken bridges but behind the conservative minds of the people you certainly would love the warmth they show. There is a truth in the way they live and people don’t regret for what they have in life.

Above all they live and let live!

Cheers!

Sukanya.

Paanch

Finger kitne hain haath mai? Counting karo tho...Jab gaal pe kaantaact hoga, print kitne banenge? Bad retailer gets just that.

Once upon a time there were 2 grocers. One was perceived to be good and the other was considered bad. The good one always used to weigh his cereals, pulses, grams etc in such a way that if he had to weigh a kg he would initially place in the weighing pan grams less than a kg and then keep adding to it until it reached the required weight. The bad retailer, on the other hand (with 5 phingers), always rather unconsciously placed much more and then kept removing stuff from the scales until it weighed a kg.

Now, sample this. Customer shoplifts and walks away. But in reality, he is carrying the stuff that he had bought thro’ sensors that scanned at an instant all the merchandise he had. And in no time another sensor identified him, and consequently took payment from his credit card too! This will be possible in a few years from now. Some of us will be making it happen in India. Please don’t try the demo till then. Statutory warning.

Uday, there are lesser no. of items of that product on such a big shelf (low merchandising density of that SKU)… andre customersge biscuitta? (you have a fat margin on that..right?). The store manager of Food World near my house gave a knowing smile.

Watch out this space. PGDSM MIT’s retailCom is getting organized…

VP & Financial Controller of M&M Group of Companies Visits SP Jain

Mumbai, October 10, 2006:

Public Relations Committee of PGDSM MIT 03 of SP Jain organized a guest lecture with Mr. Venkatraman S., V.P and Financial Controller of Mahindra & Mahindra Group of Companies on 10th October 2006.

Mr. Venkatraman, apart from being the Controller of Accounts of M& M Group, which comprises of about 75 companies, is also a member of the Working Committee appointed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for revising Accounting Standard 9 on "Revenue Recognition".

Mr. Venkatraman addressed us on the topic "Current Management Practices in Industry" in general adding with it the dimensions of his 33 years of Industrial expertise. Mr. Venkatraman also shared with us his industry experience while he turned back and flipped past his industry life as a Financial Controller.

He was able to capture the attention of the audience in an eminent way by sharing his learning from his real life incidents. He was able to bring a clear idea of how it would be different for a manager in real life to manage between routines and challenges than what the life looks like from the eyes of a student. "Professionally right and personally nice" - a mantra he taught us all in his couple of hours long talk.

He shared with us the lessons he had gathered over 3 decades of professional experience. In all ways, it was an opening to the student community about the real life scenario once they step into the corporate world. The participants took much value from his lecture not only in terms of business management but also from the aspect of human values and people management.

The event coverage was also published in coolavenues.com and can be checked in the following links

http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/index.php3

http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/news.php3

http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/061016/spjimr_mm_1.php

Flash News!

4 of our classmates have been shortlisted for XIMB’s Xpressions 2006 Gurukul module. Gurukul is a paper presentation contest and is part of Kurukshetra – the business excellence awards. Check out http://ximb.ac.in/~beabs/gurukul.html

The competition in the marketing and ops arena looks something like this –

MARKVEDA
Vishal Dedhia and Gangadhar Basavalingappa, SPJIMR
Madhurjya Banerjee and Srihari Bharatthi R., IIM, Bangalore
Abhishek Sancheti and Mansi Bhatnagar, XLRI
Sandeep Komaravelly and Tony Navin, XLRI

OPSVEDA
Siddhartha Roy and Anil Gubrele, IIM, Kozhikode
Gautam Sukanya Krishnan and Amit Kumar, SPJIMR
Sunil Kaul and Ashish Harish Naik, XLRI
Vaidyanathan S. Iyer and Nikhil Jacob, IIM, Calcutta

The Kurukshetra battle will be fought on 3rd and 4th Nov, 2006.

Cheers,
Ganga

Lage raho Munaf bhai!

Coming back home has its dividends. Yep, Siyaram had warned us. An India v/s England cricket match to start the itinerary. Some real khool line and length bowling by Munaf. He earned his first of many MoM awards. Irfan looks like he has laid his demons to rest. His in-swingers are as sleek as… well, got a glimpse of Honda Civic..It is sleek, sexy and that some thing that the BMW design philosophy moved away from. Has lush interiors and a 1.8 l pet engine. Also, they have got their 4 P's just right. Now, this one’s a man’s car. This car is gonna catch eyeballs and lotsa awards this year.

Speaking of awards, ET awards telecast was a treat to watch. Mr.P.M.. the sardar of reforms, Mr.Ahluwalia..chote sardar of reforms, Mr.F.M, Dr.Y.V Reddy were representing the Reform Club..(guess they were part of reformCom in their respective schools). They looked at the Indian economy and its 15 years of reforms with X-ray goggles. These days shops are open even after 9pm in tier 3 cities. Families go on a picnic on Sundays irrespective of the petrol price. Corporate India spent $ 10 billion to acquire foreign companies. Something is happening out there…PC observed. We will see more fruits in the next 3 years. Out of the 700 corporate invitees, most of the nominees were children of the reforms. Those who had built their enterprise in the last 15 years…because of the economy..not inspite of it. That was the heartening part of the dazzling evening.

Dazzling diwali gifts are on display in Louis Vuitton, Frazer n Haws and Ravissant in Mumbai. With a 2.5 lac Swarovski Ganesha, Frazer n Haws are definitely asking Ganesha to…pudhecha varshe laukar aa! Well, I’m expecting some gifts from my TCS friends. TCS has declared a Rs. 3 per share interim dividend. Coming back home has its dividends…you know.

Cheers,
Ganga

Drishtaanta

There were several aspects of Swamiji’s teachings that had an impact on me. There were some about which I had not given much thought till now. There were some small earthen pots and some plastic grapes kept on Swamiji’s table. Session after session I was curious to know why they were kept there. After the second session break on the first day, I approached one of Swamiji’s followers. I asked him about what I had observed. His answer was very informative. It was the concept of ‘Drishtaanta’. If one teaches about earth (clay) by showing a small earthen pot, the disciples can easily discern about a pot of any size because the same attributes and behavior apply to a bigger pot which may not be present in the immediate vicinity.

Swamiji used the concept of Drishtaanta all through his discourse. His teachings were crisp and clear distillations of profound philosophies in the form of allegories and fables. In a similar way, the values that we imbibe by means of little habits can cumulatively give shape to our larger philosophy towards life.

I have always believed that happiness is not the absence of problems. It is the ability to deal with them. To that end, what Swamiji taught had a deep impact on me. The synthesis of his discourses was the concept of a happy ‘self’. Swamiji explained that if we take away the happiness from ‘self’ what remains is nothingness. This is because, all the success in the objective world comes to a zilch when the ‘self’ is not happy and does not have the ability to appreciate it.

The harmony between the material and spiritual sides of a person is also something that Swamiji helped us understand. The drishtaanta of the ‘blades’ of a fan representing the matter and ‘electricity’ representing the spirit very vividly explains how both are required to make the fan run smoothly. That is when the full potential of the fan is realized. Thanks to SPJIMR’s Gita Shibir, I am now able to appreciate and understand these aspects of my life better.

Cheers,
Ganga

Gita Shibir

Temple bells playing morning raga for sun’s dance on the horizon. Fresh blossoms happily looking skyward. Lush grass giving me back the joys of morning walk. Busy squirrels stopping and munching on nuts. There couldn’t be a better place to think about self management. Kayavarohan (off Baroda) had the right ambience.

It was important to understand and be convinced about the motivations for self management. Swamiji, through his easy anecdotes, made a vivid case for the harmony of our success in the objective world to be in same measure as that in the subjective world. All the materials surrounding us and to gain which we work hard are part of the objective world. Whereas, the subjective world is presided over by ‘me’. Most parts of our formal education till now concentrated on the knowledge and skills required for doing well in the objective world. Very little time and energy were dedicated to know about self and for self management.

Swamiji helped us understand about expectations. One may have any amount of expectations. But, it is important to understand and be aware that not all of them can be accomplished. This is the mantra for managed expectations. This mantra is instrumental in realizing the true potential of ‘self’. Also, by cracking this code, one derives happiness as there will be lesser expectation conflicts within and without.

Swamiji explained the mechanism of anger. One gets angry because others may not be feeding the expectations or ego of one’s self. But, anger leads to sadness and disappointment. So, it is important to manage anger. The thumb rule for anger management is to “do unto others what you would want to be done to you”. Such a succinct, yet so powerful, advice from Swamiji.

Cheers,
Ganga

LiFe at SPJIMR- My perspective

My 123 days so far at SPJIMR..

It all started with an aim to "Bell the CAT". Finally the struggle came to a halt when the hallowed portals of SPJIMR stood wide open infront of me. There was no time available to taste the fruit of hard work but to take up the gauntlet. The first few days at B-School were remarkably hectic and wonderful. Presentations, quizzes, team events and what not? 11 pm became a normal hr to get back to hostel. Day doesn end there though..Woosh! got a quiz in the morning followed by a presentation..Gaaawd! when do I sleep then.. Still everything was enjoyed minute by minute.. Thanks to our seniors (PGDSM MIT 02) for all the time they took out and gave us a lot of valuable inputs in those first few days.

Still can't forget the day when we were given a task at 09:00 pm to present a B-plan next day morning. None of us slept that day. And the strength to stay awake till 5 am and come back fresh to college by 9 am is all an entrant to B-school gets to adopt in the first few days itself. Of course i need to agree that i used to feel sleepy during lectures.

Quizzes!! They are an integral part of any B-school. Quizzes on QM and MicroEco!! I used to get even dreams on quizzes (Or may be I slept while writing the quiz and so I feel so… Well! I don remember in both cases what happened)

Now don’t conclude that there was no time for fun. Well! the main course of life at SPJIMR starts only now. With a wonderful batch of people making up the set of PGDSM MIT 03 fun is filled in the air and is all pervasive. There we have Mr. Sudhir Kumar Jena who makes the whole class roar with laughter with his comic strips on each of our batch mates. On the other end we have Mr. Siddharth Dhar busy throwing out fundoos on six sigma and Manufacturing. Girls are no less active. There I see Ms. Navneet Nayyar questioning Profs who go haywire after listening to her. And this time Mr. Partho inherited some of the attributes from Navneet and proved that even he is no lesser in confusing Prof. Tom.

Hey! You cant miss out the “Chintu” of our batch sitting cool and calm. But behind the pardha you surely would miss out the chat window. ;) There always is a row at the back that keeps wondering whose socks stink. But suddenly one will hear Mr. Aditya Baliga’s “I Disagree” though not from no where. Whats our RJ-Rahul doing? Making a movie on PGLAB or a video on “ Gandhigiri”?? Kit-pit-kit-pit…there I hear Shireen’s typing sound. It goes on and on and on. She would seem busy typing something important yet with all her ears in the lecture. All on a sudden a question pops up from her from nowhere to just hold the neighbors for a surprise who were all the time listening to the kit-pit-kit-pit.

How can anyone be let to doze off during lecture? That too when am an Acadcom member!That’s our dear Shruti Gupta ready with a question. There goes on the inbuilt microphone with a sufficient amount of decibel that would even wake our sleeping Javed bhai up with a thud..( ooops! where am I??) When all this is happening Nats is lost in her own world. Still Pallavi is in the quest to find out why is that her number in roll not 1 but 2. Well! Who cares is what our GClisa feels.. Merrily playing “Hangaroo”.

Sorry friends for pulling you all. But all these are those moments that we would all be cherishing in the future. As far as I am concerned these form part of my take away from SPJIMR. I have learnt a lot from each one of you in someway or the other.

Now! From the lecture time to party time! McD our favo.. Tx to NIMITT ;) We celebrated Moon’s birthday out there ( Hey! not that Chanda Mama this is our very own Moon Nagar). Ankur, one of the staffs of McD still remembers our dear Moon. That’s were our enthusiasm for parties started..And Wednesday dinners?? There is no need to ask about it… Yippee! no mess food today.. There you can see Ganga, Sidd, Vishal, Amit, Myself, Moon et al deciding on the place. Hey! we are free this week end. Chaaalo chalthe hain.. Movie or restuarant? And how can i forget the way i tortured Amit Kumar for translation while watching OMKARA. Well! Laghe raho without any native slangs was easy enough for me . :-)

BistroBanters owes its genesis to all those wits and jokes cracked about each other sitting in the Bistro having VadaPav and Masala Chai. Ganga and myself used to sit for a long time even after our favorite hot pizza gets over. And that’s the time when a lot of creative thinking happens. Also major activity planning for PRCOM takes place :-). Sipping a lemon tea and having a debate on “Spirituality suggests liberation from pain is through liberation from physical identity- is that so?” was one of those ever cherishing moments. Ganga! The topic is still not closed.

This is just a glimpse of my 123 days at SPJIMR. There are lot more incidents that are beyond the scope of explaining by mere words. The much enjoyed RJ-Chintu radio, our very own IP messenger and Multicasts and at last not to forget our movie server which houses resources almost comparable in quantity with our libserver (he he ;) ) will all form part of everlasting memories.

And now comes the time for us to explore ourselves during the much awaited Gita Shibir. Management on books alone doesn make a wholesome Manager.

A Manager with values is what SPJIMR produces.

LiFe at SPJIMR Part II can be expected after Gita Shibir

Seeya guys for now!

Cheers,
Sukanya.