My Birthday in Great Lakes

Wow !!!

This is the only word which came out when I entered my room yesterday night, my birthday night. Thanks to all my friends who made my birthday special.

It was one of those nights when I enjoyed the most. Right from the cake to balloons, cards to gifts and chocolates and what not, everything had my fellow friends love written all over it..

A special thanks to Ajith, Priyank and Sonakshi for arranging everything amidst the busy schedule. Also Purnendu, Rachna and Tina for coming and making it a memorable night. I was touched by the preparation and didn't had words to show my happiness. However, this was one of the most memorable Birthdays I have ever celebrated. Thank you all.

Pics can be seen at My Birthday Pics

Cheers'

Karma Yoga

A day in Vayalur village.

A group of 10 people went for our first visit to the village. Great Lakes has adopted 30 villages and all of us are supposed to visit respective villages once a week to help villagers solve their problems and make some difference in their life.

We started around 10:30 am after our first lecture and reached the village around 11am. We were supposed to find the Village Officer and get some information about the village. Unfortunately VO wasn’t available and we had to do the information collection on our own in the scorching heat. Out of the 10 of us, 2 people knew Tamil which was of great value in understanding their problems.

Villagers were very helpful and appreciated our effort. A lot needs to be done to improve their lifestyle. We plan to impart education and raise funds for them through various initiatives initially. Something worth doing in life, isn’t it?

Pictures uploaded in Picassa: Rahul's Picassa Album

Cheers’

Birthday Celebration in Great Lakes

Enjoy the video.
People are scared to admit their birthday nowadays in Great Lakes :P.

Good fun.

Cheers'

Cultural Fest in Great Lakes

First cultural show of Gladiators amidst rain couldn’t have been better. Considering the amount of workload everyone has, it was an excellent show. Show was scheduled to start at 9 in the night. Excitement was at its peak even though rain threatened to disrupt.

Our last class ended at 7:30 and I went to canteen to see what’s in for dinner. There were 2 varieties of Uthapam (Veg and Onion) and I decided its time to head towards Akshaya, only place outside campus where non-veg and beer was served. It has become quite a routine to visit Akshaya 3-4 times a week. People have started saying that Akshaya would have given some money to our canteen people to prepare food which will drive us to them more.

After finishing the food, I went to the amphitheatre where the program was scheduled to start. It started on time despite continuous drizzle, courtesy Laila. All the ladies and boys were dressed nicely and Masti was in the air. A series of performances kept us glued and entertained. Talent was evident and considering time constraint, it was an awesome show. Love songs seemed to be the order of night and it was very well executed as well. Some of the songs and the weather reminded me of my own courtship days which are still fresh in my mind. Every performance was made special because of the weather. Even Rajiv’s Tamil Love song was a hit in the audience even though no-one understood the lyrics. It’s been long I had seen so much love and energy around. It felt good. Then came our college Rock Band, “Straight F” and set the stage on fire with unmatched energy and passion. It was an amazing performance and left us wanting for more. I will be uploading pics on Picassa soon which will enable all of you to live the moment.

However there were some performances which weren’t appreciated by the audience and were rejected in a unique way with the chanting of slogan, “Ek Do Teen Chaar, Band Karo Yeh Atyachaar” continuously. Dance performances were extremely colourful and innovative. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Show ended with people hitting the dance floor. It eventually became Rain dance because of heavy drizzle later on. I came back to my room at 2 am and there was a Marketing Management lecture at 8:30 am with 50 pages of pre-read and case study for the same. Finished the pre-read and went to sleep. It was already 4:30. Life isn’t easy here.

Cheers’

A Day in Great Lakes

All the books that you see in the picture needs to be completed by Term 1 which is 7 weeks long. I have uploaded the picture else, I won’t make sense when I will describe my day here.

My day starts at 8 in the morning. I go and pick up Economic Times and TOI news paper first. After getting fresh, I go to canteen to see if there is something I can eat. More often than not I skip my breakfast unless, we have pooris. 8:30 is usually the first class of Marketing Management. Somehow I reach just in time before the doors are closed at sharp 8:30. We pick up keywords in those 2 hours of lecture and try to “re-semanticize” as TNS says most of the concepts learnt in the class. We have picked up few keywords in marketing from Prof TNS, “Value proposition, competitive advantage, customer cognitive space” and the list gets longer. After getting rid of those 2 hours, we get back to our room and do the pre-read for afternoon session. We are so engrossed in Marketing terms that, once Prof TNS saw a student was sleeping in the lecture room, he asked him a simple question. To which the poor soul answered, it has something to do with 3Cs and 4Ps which obviously TNS was not expecting.

After having Lunch, we proceed for our next lecture Micro Economics which is impossible to study after lunch. Prof Shanthi runs through slides and all of us one eye on the watch just sit helplessly and wait for 2 hours to finish. After a coffee break, we finish one more lecture and it’s already 7 pm.

I come back to my room in the comfort of AC and try to figure out how many pages I need to read before I sleep today. After taking dinner, I start the pre-reads and try to finish as much as I can. Around 1 am, I usually go and play TT since that’s the time when expert players are not around. After taking a round of campus, I come back to my room and somehow flip through pages to finish the remaining ones. I usually sleep at 4 am. 3 - 4 hours is what I sleep these days. And I am not complaining.

Not to forget, we have quizzes, mid-term, Marketing Plan submission, Presentations etc going on simultaneously too for all courses. Sundays is what we keep to clear backlogs. This week, I have Marketing Management and Business Stats mid-term which is like half of each book. Also, Micro Economics and Group Process Quiz along with Marketing Plan submission and some more which are not yet known. This will be a long week.

Cheers’

An Hour in Amphitheatre everyday

Wind is blowing slowly across the amphitheatre. It’s an hour past midnight right now. Week had been hectic as usual. There were lots of pre-reads, backlogs and preparation for surprise quizzes and not to forget mid-term for Marketing Management on coming Monday. This is the place where I usually come and sit for sometime alone at this hour and reflect on the time that has passed. I see some people sitting in Bistro chit chatting and few people roaming around the campus. There are few of my friends sitting on the stairs of amphitheatre discussing Marketing Plan.

In between all these, if there is something missing from my life, its old friends and their unconditional love over the years. We don’t realize their importance till the time we loose them. And as Rangarajan says, “Not everyone gets everything. Make it count”. Life is very short and very cruel. Love your friends and value them before they feel ignored. We are so busy in Networking that we forget to connect with people.

We have a course on Karma Yoga here. Karma Yoga is kind of a fresh breeze amidst Economics, Stats and Marketing course; although my entire class will differ here. Only if I would have understood the essence of Karma earlier, I wouldn’t have been disappointed in my life. Karma says, we should just do our duty without being attached. It further states that, we should not expect any personal return from any of the duty we perform towards our folks. We should just keep doing our duty under any circumstances. This saves us from future disappointment. I have started following the principle of Karma. I guess at times we need to touch our spiritual side which somehow seems to have been lost.

Cheers’

Convocaton and Freshers Party

I landed in Chennai on 26th April. Reached the new campus in the afternoon and we were scheduled to meet seniors from 6PM onwards. We all knew what was coming and nobody was disappointed at the end. I must say, it was one of the friendliest Ragging sessions I had attended. Seniors were very sporty when at the end they asked us to Rag them. I am pretty sure, Murugan and Pushkar (Seniors) will remember “Ummmm .. It’s salty” for a long time.

We had to reach CTC for Convocation ceremony next morning where Narayanmurthy and other big people were invited as Guests. Amazing atmosphere with all Patriots (seniors) and Gladiators assembled in the hall. This was the first time I heard Narayanmurthy and Bala live. It was a great experience and all of us went ahead in time to see ourselves on the podium next year.

We moved to our next destination where we were hosting a party for our seniors. Some of us who were in Chennai arranged everything. The party was rocking. The bar was opened after the seniors arrived. And as you would expect, liquor started flowing everywhere. After having few gulps of Vodka and few sips of Beer, we moved to the dance floor. Nobody remembered where they were dancing, with whom they were dancing. It was a great night for all of us and the last opportunity to meet seniors personally. We came back to our hostel around 12 in the night.

We all were tired and full with alcohol in our head, suddenly someone said; we have to report in Basket Ball court at 5 in the morning. Welcome to Great Lakes.

Cheers’

Sriram K, Sr.VP, Mahindra Satyam

Mr. Sriram K is the Vice President, Consulting and Enterprise Solutions at Satyam Computer Services Ltd. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras and IIMA having work experience of more than 30 years.

He was working in the manufacturing industry (20 years) before coming to Satyam in 2001. He worked in the Consulting department initially in Satyam. He observed that a high sense of conviction was needed. He saw that IT companies were running on a model of 30% growth and 25% profit year after year.

He explained us the problems, he faced while starting a Plastic company (for Cars) in the 90’s. 50% of net worth eroded in first 3 years of production. The company was running on 100% capacity utilization and still making losses. He said, Finance people looked at the balance sheet and went saying the company is gone. Plastic company failed initially because of accumulated problem from the past. He said, he didn’t loose hope even with the initial losses. Chairman had no hope of this company going profitable ever.

He bought a cheap second hand plant and used the same plant to create plastics for other products like chair till the Automobile market picked up. In 6 months, with the old plant, the company became profitable. He said, that was the time when his MBA knowledge helped him.

A question was asked to him about how he went about retaining talent at the time of Satyam fiasco? He said, he didn’t give his employees false hopes. He said, there might not be salary for 6 months. He only told them that if they leave now, the other companies will take advantage of this and pay lesser salary because of too much talent in the market. Moreover, if they stay, Satyam will improve and the growth will happen. If everyone leaves, Satyam is definitely going to die. He said I told my employees to leave only if you get a good salary.

He told us to stick and fight rather than quitting as most of us do whether in business or life. A lot of investment of time and effort goes into establishing relationships with customers/someone else. So, don’t give up when you see failure. This lecture was quite inspirational and motivating. A loud cheer from Gladiators (Class of 2011) summed it all up.

Cheers’

P.R Venkat Ramarajan, MD, Ramco Systems

Mr. Ramarajan, a student of C K Prahlad and an MBA from University of Michigan was in the campus to talk about Entrepreneurship and Family Business.

Ramco Enterprise was founded by his Grandfather in the 40’s and started with a mill factory and later moved to Cement and IT products. Mr. Ramarajan joined in 1983 and founded Ramco Systems. He talked about the way Ramco invested in the Research and developed the product over a period a time.

He said, CEO’s should have intuitive capacity. CEO’s should be able to make decisions with unknown variables. They should have emotional, spiritual and technical maturity. It’s all about Risk Management. He said, all their assets are in the company. He believes in keeping the Organizational growth above the personal growth. He talked about how they captured market and competed with the likes of Oracle and ERP. He also talked about how to make a market for a product? How to go international? How to be the best in business?

One of the Questions asked to him was, In a Family Business, how to deal with Generation gap and Attitude differences?
He answered, older generation are partially right. They had leisure and the time which current generation doesn’t have. Today the clock speed has increased. Knowledge has become a commodity. Older generation should transfer the knowledge and value to the current generation. Both Generations should agree on the best. Ways might be different. He also added, Management is about moving from known to unknown. As an Engineer, we know what output is expected and the variables involved.

Uncle Bala had a different view on this; he said Family disputes are when Spouses come in the picture. He quoted Nita/Tina Ambani are the same, only the spelling changes :).

And the punch line, “Your Ego should not be bigger than Your Logo”.

Cheers’

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman, Cognizant

Lakshmi Narayanan is the vice chairman and ex-CEO of Cognizant. He was in the campus today. Mr. Narayanan holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Cognizant is one of recruiters from Great Lakes. So, all of us were very keen to know his expectations from us for obvious reasons.

He asked a question, where is IT industry heading?

He talked about the way IT companies have evolved where the work is done by collaboration now. He talked about all the models. Earlier the rival companies tried to capture a particular domain. Markets have become customer centric these days. Earlier customers used to come for solutions. Now, a bunch of IT companies go to the customers with the services they can offer and value adds and all of them work together seamlessly.

When asked what they look for in a candidate. He promptly replied, he looks for 3 capabilities.
1) Domain Capability
2) Technology Capability
3) Process Capability

He candidly admitted, it is difficult to find all 3 in one person. So, they look for people who can learn things quickly.

He took question from our curious batch before the session ended. Everyone was surprised to see the way he communicated with us to clear our doubts. One question asked to him was, how Cognizant managed profits even in Recession times without any layoffs? To which he said, there was a financial firm in US which was on the verge of bankruptcy and could not afford the services anymore. So, they asked to stop it. Cognizant Management said, we will provide services for 6 more months and you can pay later or if the condition doesn’t improve, you don’t have to pay. We will forget it. And after 6 months the same firm came back with more customers. A big cheer followed from the Junta.

It was great fun hearing him and having confidence in us and recruiting every year from Great Lakes. It was a huge learning experience to get first hand information from the top Management leader himself.

Looking forward to more of these lectures.

Cheers’

Uncle Bala's First Class

Bala V. Balachandran, Dean Great Lakes also popular as Uncle Bala between his students addressed us for the first time yesterday. He has been teaching Accounting in the Kellogg’s Business school and has been a founder member of MDI, ISB and Great Lakes. We probably do not realize how big he is now, may be few posts later we all will know. It was his introductory speech and his amazing/unmatched energy, being 72 years was more than all 300 of us together had that morning (Quiet evident from the not so impressive good morning roar). There were a few things that he touched which I will write here.

3 Rules of Uncle Bala
1) Nothing is free. There are no free lunches.
2) Not only figures can lie. Liars can figure out too.
3) For every Free Loader, there is an equal and opposite sucker.

Uncle Bala is a true believer of Lord Ganesha which is evident from the fact that there is a newly built temple inside the campus. Uncle Bala says there is only one CEO and that is Lord Ganesha. He says, every CEO should be like Lord Ganesha.
1) Big Head. CEO should have huge brain to run the company and formulate policies to successfully run it.
2) Lord Ganesha has 2 sets of teeth. Inner one is not shown that means not all information are to be shared with the market. Inner teeth smells bad in his words.
3) Lord Ganesha's one tusk is broken that means there is no ego. CEO should not let someone feed his ego.
4) Very attentive and analytic. If you look at a Lord Ganesha's pic and move away, the eyes follow.
5) CEO should have Lord Ganesha's big ears. He should be an active listener.
6) Trunk. It can uproot anything and find the minute details at the same time. There is no engineering machinery created till date which can do both.
7) Pot Belly. CEO should be thick skinned to take criticism. Tough leaders don’t want praises all the time.
8) 2 Legs one of which is folded and the other one is straight. Folded one is like expense/cash outflow. The straighter one is deep rooted and reflects revenue/profit/cash inflow.
9) Laddus are incentives that he gives for a good job and kicks ass for a lousy one.

The description was amazing when he described these with examples.
Uncle Bala is going to teach us Accounting. More posts to follow.

Cheers’

T. T. Rangarajan, New Age Guru of India

T. T. Rangarajan or Rajan, as he is fondly called is the founder of Alma Mater - an organisation dedicated to self-mastery and holistic personality development. He is also the Editor of "Frozen Thoughts" - a growth oriented magazine published monthly by Alma Mater wherein his teachings & messages are disseminated to countless readers across the world. Rajan is an eminent speaker.

He was in campus yesterday and kick-started our MBA campaign with spiritual thoughts. All 300 of us were awe struck with his inspirational speech about life and ethics. He will be in campus again later to teach us.

I will be posting few of the things he shared with us here. Rajan said, there was a survey done on top 500 people from different fields who ever walked this planet to find out what they had in common. These are the 7 things that they got.

1) Passion towards everything you do. He said, if you take a different path, you will be ridiculed and made fun of in front of others. Don't stop doing those things. Those people will admire you once they understand and they will look up to you later.
2) Team Work. Every successful person was successful because he had a great team. Together Everyone Achieves More.
3) Master in communicating with people. An idea is not good or great if it cannot be conveyed and implemented.
4) High energy level.
5) Hold on to your faith. Find a source to hold on.
6) Live a value based life. Values are frameworks on which your decisions should depend. Adhering to values might trigger materialistic loss but spiritual gain.
7) Methodology. Every successful person has a unique methodology. Example: Narayanmurthy (Internal Brand Building), Gandhi (Non-violence).

Rajan said, in order to succeed in life follow this principle. "If you can’t be the Messenger be the Message". He said, not everyone gets what he/she wants. Make it count. Be a tree and stand on your roots. He gave a unique example to motivate us to become leaders. Rajan said we all are born leaders because one sperm out of millions raced ahead among others and became life and that’s us.

He had a unique theory for Innovation. Rajan said; do not compete in the market. Provide value adds which will differentiate your product from others. Market pays for value adds. Run ahead of others or form a new path. Run in a new direction with a purpose nobody has ever thought. Or even create a new market f you can't compete. Example: When Rajnikant came to film indutry, he created his own brand because he realized he cannot compete with the existing actors.

We were all spell bound for those 2 hours that he gave us. Whole class is waiting to get the next issue of Frozen Thoughts signed by him. I will continue more on his teachings as and when he comes to the campus.

Cheers'