Concluding OM, the OM way ..

In the past few sessions of OM, we have been exposed to this concept of quality, which is basically the difference between the perception of customer and expectations that customer has.

Well, in the final session of Operations Management today, Amrou got with him the information sheets that he had asked us to submit in first class of OM, where we had all entered our interests in general and in this class, and our expectations from the class.
So, as part of wrap up, we were all told to write down three things that we learned from the class, two things that we learned about businesses in general and one thing that we discovered about ourselves. Finally, we were told to compare the first sheet entries with these ones.

Tadaa !! the moment of truth - the service encounter - the comparison of expectations with perceived learnings !!

Amrou wrapped up his OM class by making us implement one of the important concepts he had taught. The subtle nature of this implementation was quite impressive, I must say.

Of course, before this class, we had our final presentations for marketing, where our group talked about promotion for Uniqlo, if it is launched in Spain.

Finally, apart from Technology & Innovation class which concludes tomorrow, term two is almost over.

Double the sleep, Double the lunch, Double the fun .. Yet Destiny awaits :-)

I know the subject line is bit too long .. if you have not already guessed this one, it is a mix of quotes from Kungfu Panda. When Tailong is supposed to escape, the Rhino prison keeper shouts "Double the guards ... double the blah .. double everything".
While Master Ugway [pardon my spellings] calmly replies "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it".

Well, for me, I wasn't really avoiding anything - yet, I did sleep a little too long than I expected, and then ended up with having a birthday lunch and accompanying a friend for another late lunch near the school. A birthday treat plus some leisure time spent with friends - isn't it double fun already.

So, you may think if I studied at all today. And there comes the destiny part :-D

I did study and am currently sitting studying. After all the fun, I started about 5 PM to study accounting and am working on it even now. Tonight I plan to cover as much ground as possible. SO my destiny to study till late today is fulfilled after all :-D

About time ...

Well, although I had done my part of group work last night, I still had to meet with the group and consolidate. So, afternoon today was spent with the group. The last group meeting this term.

By the time the work was all done, it was already 7:30 PM. I tried to take a toll of the course material for all exams as soon I had to be back home to cook dinner. Turns out that there is so much to read and study and I was suddenly nowhere in terms of preparing for the term two finals.

So, after cooking and having dinner, here I am trying to start my studies for the exam. It's about time, i would say ..

Wrap-ups, advices and the limelight: A day of mixed feelings

Two sessions in a row of Luis S. and Luis for Investment Analysis and Managerial Accounting to wrap up the two of my favorite courses in this term.

It was a morning that brought along mixed feelings - the thoughts that I will not be learning from these two great teachers again, the sense of achievement that I actually learned finance and accounting thanks to these two and the anxiety of the final exam coming soon, it was all bubbling up in my mind.

Both Luis discussed the final group work that they had asked us to do in last week, provided their take on the cases and then shared some final words of advice.

Luis S. reminded us that there will be ambiguities in every decision, and he will be more happy that we remember this, despite may be forgetting what he taught about wacc and CAPM. He also advised us to not carry a gun, unless we are going to use it :-)
"Education is what remains long after we have forgotten what we learned" was the best quote as per me that he gave us today.

Luis on the other hand reminded us, as a manager, do not trust the accountant blindly. ask for the assumptions behind each number, the methods used and make informed decisions. Sometimes common sense is more important than numbers, was his argument for the concluding remarks.

When it was finally time to end the session, I had a S.T.A.R. [something that all will remember] moment when I gave a comment in cost accounting lingo about the negative grading. I think Luis really liked the comment.

Just as we finished this class, and I checked facebook, Shalabh, my flatmate had posted about my interview published by the Asiapac IE office on its blog page. I mean I knew that it would be published some day, as I had answered those questions during the holidays, but I also was expecting an email from Dirk informing me about the publishing.
Anyways, as I was not aware that this interview is already out there, it came as a pleasant surprise to me.

For those keen to read it, here is the link:
http://asiapacific.blogs.ie.edu/archives/2013/08/416-a-unique-journey.php

And now I also know how in the last two weeks I met at least three people who stopped me on my way to classes and told me that they liked my blog, even though it was the first time I was meeting them. Unfortunately, each time I was about to be late for a class and so had to rush without asking them their names and also how they came to know about it.

Anyways, as I said earlier, a day of mixed feelings. A day which has created cherished memories - about the blog, about Luis S. who was always so keen to share so much knowledge on every small number we dealt with, about Luis who was patient enough to explain the concepts again and again until everyone understood, about the exams which are so close now !!

Had a great dinner made by Yehia at his place tonight, with my EM group and tonight will be the night I finish all my group work, to start studying from tomorrow.

Until next week, weekends are not going to be weekends, so not really a Friday night feeling as I am writing this post :-)

Technology & Innovation at heart of Social Revolution ..

The Technology and Innovation class today was a little off-beat. Instead of discussing any IT concepts, Greg brought to us various ventures that are working for making the society better by effectively using technology and innovative business models to their advantage. Lot of these ideas were really impressive.

The session then landed into ventures that are deploying crowd sourcing successfully. Sanamax, Duolingo and Quirky. I was specially impressed with Duolingo - a platform which people use to learn languages, and in turn when they translated different words or sentences, they are actually contributing towards completion of various translation jobs that the company undertakes.

So, the subscribers learn foreign languages for free, clients get their data translated, and Duolingo earns its profit even while helping so many subscribers learn a new language.
I have to say that this is use of crowd sourcing at its best !!

Anyways, spent some time with Sophie to give finishing touches to Colorscope assignment and then enjoyed a great dinner at Nishant's place, prepared by Mrs Nishant and Mrs Hitesh :-)

A much better day, a much shorter day compared to last few :-)

End of the EM marathon ..

Well, the Entrepreneurial Management course which spanned all over term one and two came to an end today.

But the longest course is not the Marathon I was referring to. The EM marathon was what started yesterday at 5 PM, went on till we got thrown out of MM31 at 3 AM, only to be continued until 6:30 AM in Majo's place.

And after getting home at 6:30, taking a break for one hour and getting ready in another hour, went back to school at 8:30 AM, only to present and to listen to pitches of the entire section, something which went on until 1:30 PM.

Finally, when it was all done, I realized that we have been busy with preparation for this pitch of today for continuous 20 hours !!

Anyways, after lunch, spent some time editing the pitch video and then joined my regular work group to discuss assignments for cost accounting and marketing, until 8 PM. Got home only because my study group is coming over for dinner and I needed time to cook.

It's been a stretched 48 hours with literally no sleep. I hope this week goes past sooner !!

One Down, Three to go ..

After a loooong night, we finally got done with the Investment Analysis presentation for today. Slept finally at around 4 AM.

One good thing was even while this work was going on, I was sneaking around in between and making changes to the clips I shot during the field trip yesterday. Finally, I could get the final video out as well.

After a rather long marketing class, finally it was time to present the final case of investment analysis. I think we did a pretty good job with it.

Anyways, one of the final group deliverable is now done, three more to go !!

And for those curious about the field trip video, here is the link [somehow the embedding doesn't work with this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osAiGbt1iNc

Mba's day out :-)

Today, we had a day for Operations Management study tour - two venues, one a manufacturing plant and other a service operations management site.
Sounds pretty boring right?

Now, how about I give you the names of these venues?
Mahou, one of the highest selling beer in Spain, with the largest plant in Europe and Barajas Airport Terminal T4, a new state-of-art facility with modernized control systems.
Does it sound interesting yet?

What if I tell you that we had not just a learning exercise, but also a guided tour, with videos and exhibits to help, and the assembly lines - filling 90,000 bottles per hour - imagine seeing this from just a few feet away !!
And also that we saw one of the four luggage carrying high-tech system, with rails laid all over the place amounting to 250 kms in total length, ensuring that bags being automatically passed to designated flights as soon as they are checked in !!

Still not exciting enough?

How about I tell you about the fun we had, as soon as the bottling lines ended, when we did a free raid on the freshest beer there can be, chilled not because it was in freezer, but it because it had just come out cold-brewed, that too in a bar created with some really ambient setting?
And what if I tell you, that we were in the airport control room, where large screens monitored every face, every food plate served, every elevator and escalator operating, every flight arriving and departing and every piece of luggage that was moving around, on large screens erected all across a big hall that looked nothing less than some movie set of Pentagon or some secret service organization?

Now, we are talking, isn't it?

The day was awesome !! Although towards the end of it I along with many others felt really hungry, but had to drag ourselves until we reached back to school.

I have taken some videos of the tour - of course not in airport, for obvious security constraints, but outside Mahou plant and in the bus. Hopefully, will be able to make a short clip out of it soon :-)

For now, the night is young as there is final presentation for Investment Analysis tomorrow and for Entrepreneurial management on Tuesday :-)

After-victory nap !!

Well, after dinner last night, I started working on our final assignment case of cost accounting - the Colorscope case.

As I went on crunching numbers, I began to understand the case even better. More numbers I created, more they told me the story of the case. In the end, I think I cracked this one.

After finishing the entire solution at around 4 AM in the morning [obviously, we were thrown out of MM31 at 2:45 :-D], when I finally slept, I woke up only at 1:30 PM this afternoon. Cooked some pasta for lunch, had some talk back home and I am back to MM31 at 6 PM again.

Preparing for the Operations field trip tomorrow, and if there is time, will work on some other group work.

Cannot stay back late today as gotta get up early and be in school before 9 AM tomorrow. Anyways, good news is I had a nice long sleep last night - a victory nap :-)

Time to sell yourself :-)

Finally, I kept my phone aside, shut down facebook and sat down for around five hours to get my resume right and prepare cover letters for a couple of jobs, which had their deadline for today and tomorrow.

If you are wondering why would I take five hours for this, well - to start with, I have applied for a job only once in my life before. My first job was a campus selection, and my last job change was more than three years ago. Add to it, there was a MBA angle missing in the resume. Add to it, I had to make a resume that fits in one page and tells it all. As Mark Twain had once said, "If I have more time, I would write shorter letters". You get the gist, right?

When I had showed my earlier version to my study group last week, they literally ripped it off with comments and corrections. So, it was that I revamped my resume today. Focus for this revamp was simple "make it a document that will sell yourself".

And with the first application that I posted some time back, the sales season is now officially open :-)

Going from Decisions to Numbers or Numbers to Decisions??

Well, after discussing the Delphi case, Luis showed us how, numbers get cooked, when the people making decisions have already made the decision, and just need numbers to support this decision.

Considering same costs for a factory in Spain and in Poland, considering same transportation cost from Spain to Germany and from Poland to Germany, considering sunk costs to advantage -  so many ways to cook numbers and make them speak the way your decision is supposed to be.

Not to mention, eventually, this decision had to be corrected in real life as well - so, the lesson of the day, crunch numbers to help you decide better, don't decide first and then cook numbers only to support those decisions :-)

Although, I had skipped the IMBA cocktail last night, partly because of my health, and partly because I feared ending up asleep this morning for long enough to miss classes [:-)], I could still catch up with the IMBA team this morning, thanks to the 'drop-in for coffee' session hosted by the IMBA team :-)

Being Friday today, plans are already being discussed about tonight - and trade-offs will be needed between a movie, a drinking session or a Peruvian dinner. By the way, today is the day when I started my career nine years ago, so whatever the decision is, it would be enjoyed and we will make it worth it !!

Numbers deceive, don't trust your accountant :-P

Well, today in managerial accounting class, Luis presented the class with an example of printing press, which works for two clients. And then showed numbers how the contribution margin and the net income for one client was positive and other negative, and when there was a proposal of this other client to have additional business, he asked the class would you do it?

Thanks to the fact that I had actually done my homework, I knew that they should accept the offer. As it turned out, I was the only one standing against the whole class who would accept it. The signal to Luis was clear - I was the only one who did his homework :-D

Enough bragging, Luis played some more with the numbers, removed the fixed costs and showed the contribution margin to the class. Again a vote, where I was the only one standing for this second client. Finally, when Luis revealed the calculations, and the criterion of unit contribution margin to make decisions, he also commended me for being the only one who did the homework.
A moment of happiness :-)

And then the lesson of the day - don't trust numbers blindly, they can deceive - and never trust your accountant. Check, ask, confirm and then believe.
And to add words of Luis himself 'Never trust your professor' ;-)

Rest of the day was spent for group work - considering that everyday next week is going to be a presentation or delivery date for some group work or other.

Bid for electives open tomorrow sounding the beacon of terms to come. CMC has started sending mails for job, graduate program and internship postings. Before I can apply, I need to fix my resume and prepare the cover letters. Things are piling up, and I will have to accelerate my momentum soon !!

Theoretical is not always correct :-)

Today, in the cost accounting session, Luis took us through the City Symphony Orchestra case, where costs were based on per ticket and per show basis. After all the calculations were done, and after everyone had accepted the breakeven and safety margin etc numbers by their face value, he did something and got a new set of numbers; numbers which had been bothering me since last night. He plugged in the breakeven numbers back in to find the total revenue and when he calculated the profit, suddenly it showed not zero but a loss number.

I had tried this last night and when I saw the negative number, I was sure that my initial calculations were wrong. But then, he taught us something. When some of the variable costs are allocated on per ticket basis and others on per night basis, we cannot club them together as variable costs. WE have to treat the cost for night as fixed and only then a real break-even can be obtained !!

Interesting learning I would say, as it is so easy to be misled by the earlier number, considering that we get it by doing everything right, at least theoretically.

Anyways, following this was the last session -  a wrap up session of Entrepreneurial management today, where Rachida helped us recollect various key concepts and takeaways of the course.

Signals that this term is about to end are becoming more and more evident now :-)

5S and 5C : a marketing point of view :-)

Well, while today’s class of Marketing was about Pricing Strategy and the Unilever case in Brazil to prevent another Nirma from happening there, the class began with discussion about reactions from People about what they think about the cheap version being launched by APPLE – the 5C.

And suddenly, even though I had not given much thought to it before, my brain started thinking – APPLE hasn’t really got any technological innovation in this version of 5S. But, it cannot really afford to damage its brand image based around innovative premium products.

So, adopt the Attraction Strategy of marketing and introduce a ugly twin of 5S – the 5C and ensure that by behavioral patterns of consumers, they will perceive 5S to be technologically superior to 5C and go for it. So, the evangelists in APPLE are turning into marketing managers after all.

There were multiple points spoken in the class against and in favor of this move by APPLE, but I am content with my theory about it :-P

There was also a presentation by IMBA team today, where Eric discussed by term 3 and the MCH module that starts in October.

So, even before we realize, term 3 is already knocking on our doors.

What can I say other than ‘bring it on!!’

Crunching numbers on a Monday morning !!

Well, a class of managerial accounting on cost-volume-profit analysis followed by a marketing case to find capacity bottleneck, both of them on a Monday morning, meant a lot of numbers were needed to be crunched.

Of course, as I had done the preparations yesterday, so already had my answers, so although I did not need to do anything in the class, I was following through the calculations anyways.

We had a session briefing us about the Venture Lab and the Knowledge Incubator today. That suddenly made me realize the approaching deadline for finalizing my electives.

As people around have been saying 'Electives are the real MBA, Core is just something to make you ready for it", "Be sure you take the right course with right professor as this selection will define your future career", "This is the time when you recover most of the fees spent for an MBA, learning from Industry experts, and this is where the school spends most of its money, so go for it", "Venture Lab plus electives is totally possible" ... Aaargh !!

The importance of this electives selection cannot be denied, but it has been so much talked about, that I have a feeling that everyone around me must be taking so much pressure, just for selection of the sessions!!

I need to start working on my own selections pretty soon !!

Not really a weekend :-)

Well, after waking up at around 9 AM, when I went to school, did some preparation for tomorrow's classes until afternoon, wrote a report for OM, and was finally out for lunch at around 3 PM, Manuel, who had joined me and Hitesh for lunch commented "well, this is not really a weekend. Weekend got over last night itself"

What can I say? that is true. After studying whole day, it was time for the Entrepreneurial group meeting in the evening. I got out of this meeting at around 8:30 PM as I had to come home, to cook. It was my turn for cooking dinner tonight - made some delicious daal, rice, chicken chilly and aloo jeera.

And now, its time to continue studying, probably for some group work. It did not indeed feel like a Sunday today !!

Finally got rid of the suitcase !!

Well, ever since the school has resumed, as I have shifted to a new place, I have been living out of a suitcase, with only the bare minimum things outside for daily use.

Today, I finally decided to not think at all about school work or any other thing and get my stuff out of the suitcase and into my wardrobe and cabinets.

After cleaning the room and rearranging the furniture as per my liking and then arranging all the stuff from suitcase in the room, I am now finally settled at this new place. It took me almost four hours though to do all that.

And now as the night becomes young, it is time for the grand birthday party for Nishant, Shalabh, Dee and Marcelo, where both A1 and A2 and may be some from other sections will be joining the celebrations :-)

Fallacies of assumptions, discount rates and profits : The Luis Connection

Well, an entire day for my favorite subjects of Managerial Accounting and Investment Analysis. Happy Friday Everyone.

Day started with Luis S. discussing about discount rates for various country specific projects including the emerging countries. We all saw how the discount rates change with change in our assumptions and methods. So, which is the correct discount rate? still remains a big question.

Luis S. explained the effect of assumptions of discount rates and thus the NPV, and also mentioned the multiplier effect an assumption can have on financial decisions.

If this was not good enough, in walks Luis for Managerial Accounting, explaining us various ways of calculating budgets and costs and guess what, he also explains how a simple change in assumption can have multiplier effect on the operating profit. With an example of a beer brewery, he shows us how a slight change in a couple of assumptions can give us as many as 54 different numbers of operating profit, and all of them correct and legal numbers.

Give me a company with no profit but Cash, instead of a company with profits and no Cash - statement of the day, by Luis.

Anyways, although the two subjects discussed different topics, after a long time, I saw a common thread between them - assumptions matter. Make sure you get them right - was the message both my professors were giving us today.

After classes, I went for lunch to the Thai restaurant nearby; where a mishap took place. One of my friends' bag was stolen and then we spent the next hour or so trying to see if we can see at least the empty bag around.

Six PM was the meeting with Prof Alvaro. First meeting after vacations for discussing my fellowship related work. The paper on risk analysis of crowd funding platforms is almost ready to be sent for initial review. After discussing a few updates needed, I came back to MM31 and worked on those updates so that Prof Alvaro can consolidate all the changes soon.

Tonight is the birthday dinner for Nishant. So, not going to be studying much. Happy Weekend folks :-)

Restful day after an awesome night out !!

The football game between our section A2 and the A1 section last night was epic. Mascots, drums, trumpets, cheerleaders, beers, wines, vodka .. the audience was all set last night and the mood was absolute fun.

Game was very competitive with our section scoring a goal in the first half and A1 leveling it only a few minutes before the end time, thus ending with a draw. After game drinks were in Bo-Finn until it was closed down and the after games party was in Callehon until it was closed at 4 AM.

Considering that it was a weekday last night, we didn't go beyond 4 AM to Gabana and came home to sleep.

So, today I woke up late, came to school at around 11 AM and started to complete my part of group work and to prepare for the classes tomorrow. Today it was a career strategy session by Daniel Porot for the whole day. I decided to skip it in favor of completing more of the group work and hence a relaxed day, where I took my time to study as per my pace.

While the talks of last nights game would go on for a while, the overall feeling after all the fun and rest is just great :-D

Budgets, forecasts, simulation and Football !!

Well, today started with Managerial Accounting class on budgets. We did so many different types of budgets that by the time the this class concluded, I felt a bit dizzy :-)
Just kidding. The great thing about this class has always been that Luis either asks one of the students to solve the examples on board, or walks through himself through the examples, explaining every detail. Even though that sometimes slows down the class, it definitely teaches us all.

Anyways, operations class today was all about simulating production levels for 10 periods, where we only had a forecast curve to refer to and some data provided. It was a group exercise in the class, and proved to be lot of fun.

After the long operations management class, I came home for a siesta. Since my study/food group has now divided the daily dinner responsibility to one person on a rotational basis, everyone is enjoying benefits of time savings. Today was my turn. So, cooked some food in the evening and got ready for the big event for tonight.

Tonight our section A2 has challenged A1 for a football game. Game will begin at 11 PM and I am soon heading for the game, right after I publish this post !!

Its going to be a fun night :-D

Impressed !! Seriously Impressed !!

Well, what can I say !! Yesterday when I read the Marriott case for Investment Analysis last night, I got lost. I wasn't sure of the whats and howz.

Anyways, today when Luis S. started his class, he put a disclaimer that its going to be a lot of numbers today, so there is a chance that those who don't pay attention may start feeling dizzy after a while !!

And then began a marathon of calculations from tax rates, debt-to-capital ratios, beta, cost of equity, wacc, hshhh !! Class extended for 10 minutes after it was over, but the extent of things that Luis taught us today, and the way he explained the meaning and significance of each number; the merits and demerits associated with each of these numbers and the limitations of finance to arrive at a more accurate wacc; I must say I am seriously impressed with his knowledge and teaching skills.

Its time now for some homework to practice the whole thing all over again. And yes, just in case the teaching in class had not impressed me and the others enough, Luis concluded his class saying, If you find you are stuck at any point of time, when you are trying this at home, just go to the documents section and I have posted a video of me teaching all of this. So, you can watch me teaching this over and over again, until you understand it all. What can I say, other than WoW !!

Mr. Murphy at his best !!

As the mid-terms are over and finals are due in about two weeks time, and as the final reports and assignments for many subjects need to be done within a week or two, and as all the subjects are reaching towards their end, with so much more information shared and preparation required everyday, Mr. Murphy decides to work his magic.

A dinner invite for every night starting today until all the way up to the Saturday night. So, everything that I do on a daily basis needs to be done before 9 PM everyday.

I don't think I would be in a state to do anything after those heavy dinners with my friends anyways.

I hope I can stay awake enough during the day times to do my work more efficiently. There is no other answer to Mr Murphy that I have than being more efficient :-)

TODO TO DO List !!

Well, when the day started and I pondered on all the things to do today, I was overwhelmed for a moment. By the way, Todo in Spanish means All.

So, here is the list of items that I had to complete before tonight:
1. Work on EM Graphs and Agenda for mentoring session;
2. Study for Marketing mid-term;
3. Work on NUS Case and prepare the executive summary for it;
4. Prepare for the Investment Analysis and EM classes tomorrow;
5. Work on my Fellowship Project and update the document related to it;

Looking at the list I pretty much figured out that it is going to be a long day - that too today being Sunday.

Anyways, what is got to be done has got to be done. So, here I am in MM31, working and studying and checking the boxes as I complete these items one after the other :-D

About time to step up ..

Well, my Entrepreneurship group met today to discuss the work distribution, etc for the E.M. final report. It was then that I realized that now is about time to step up the game, as coming Monday onwards, there is going to be a bloodbath with delivery deadlines of final reports, assignments and presentations of all subjects; and before we know it, the term finals would be here.

Anyways, not that I got to work immediately. After the meeting, went to a Peruvian place for a heavy lunch, and then had a good Saturday siesta for almost 3 hours. Need to do some chores now and there is a dinner plan at Indian Restaurant Sagar tonight.

All-in-all, today is going to be all about the dinning experiences :-D

Two Down, One to go !!

Well, finally, the mid-terms for Technology and Innovation, and for Operations Management are now done. I would say I have done good in both of them.

Apart from these exams, we also had an Investment Analysis class today. Luis S. started with the new block of syllabus today with case study related to Discount Rate calculation. While today's case served as a stepping stone for next few sessions to come, it also brought forward various limitations and challenges that accurate estimation of discount rates pose. Looking forward to learning various aspects of this topic.

Did some work for the fellowship project in the evening and then, after a brief siesta, went out for a dinner and birthday party. Came home only to write this post and have a peaceful sleep. Yes, the marketing mid-term is yet to come, but for tonight, I am happy to know that 2 of the mid-terms are now over :-)

Hypocracies and Hazards of People using Budgets :-)

Well, we had a double session on Managerial Accounting today, and while Luis walked us through the Siemens case that we did as a group work in the first half, to conclude the ABC, he started with Budgeting in the second half. After explaining the various types, and other details of budget he came to a slide which listed the hazards and hypocrisy that people exhibit when it comes to budgets. Want to know more? How about asking yourself - have you been in a situation where you increase expenses and spend your budget in last quarter, just to ensure that you utilize the budget fully [because other wise next year, it is going to be cut down]? Do you eagerly wait for headlines of national budgets, where they announce all the plans for upcoming year? Have you ever gone back with the same enthusiasm and checked/read about the control measures that the administration uses while allocating this budget?
I guess you would have got the point. Thinking about all these aspects, and the experience so far with Luis, looks like it is going to be a great learning experience in budgeting. Looking forward to it :-)

Skipped the technology class today in favor of preparing for the two mid-terms tomorrow. Add to it, there is also an investment analysis class to prepare for. Stayed back in school to study for mid-term until around mid-night and then came home to write this post, go through a few sample capacity problems and prepare for investment analysis.

Long day, but full of great learning and studying experience :-)

Who uses it, pays for it :-D

Well, the sound of it makes the subject look like a common knowledge of life. But I am not trying to get Philosophical tonight.
This is the basic principle behind activity based accounting and Luis explained this approach today with help of Enred@me example. Again, having solved the questions before-hand, the class was so much fun to attend.

There was also a marketing class about Mountain Man beer case. Good, not great I would say.

And the Operations Management class in morning was about discussing various process types and relate these to the various cases we had done so far. Again apart from the Benihana and the Toyota and the Four Seasons, Amrou explained many concepts using the IMBA program as an example.

So, IMBA program came into focus for two days in a row. Had an hour of siesta in the afternoon before starting to read for Technology mid-term exam scheduled on Friday. Planning to prepare for OM mid-term, also scheduled for Friday, tomorrow. 

Shutting the assembly line is BETTER :-)

Well, an early morning operations management class to discuss the Toyota case. Amrou took us down the numbers lane to finally prove that it is not such a bad idea to shut down the assembly line is actually a better option than losing money on overtime payments, specially if we take into account the per unit cost of this shutdown with profits that are generated per unit. Lot of people in the class did not quite agree with him, and there was an extended discussion that he had with all of them until Dilney finally told him that he's got to login to the board.

Class for Marketing was about Colgate Precision case, and thanks to the fact that I had been working on this case for past 2-3 days to submit our group analysis report, I understood all that was going around and had a good participation in today's class.

Next up was the Investment Analysis class, where we got to discuss our criteria for choosing various investments we did as part of the simulation exercise last night. It was an interesting discussion in terms of various aspects that people had given a thought to, while deciding on things. Budget Constraints, Timeline of decisions and flow of funds, different department level strategies, risks for various projects; so many different aspects to consider. Add to it, explanation by Luis on each of these points made the whole exercise even more interesting.

We also had an extra session for Technology in the evening for discussing Technology mid-term exams related queries.

Came home after this class for a little siesta and went back to school to prepare for tomorrow. Gradually, in about a week's time, I have now got used to the school life again :-)

Branding, Investing and building Social Enterprise :-)

Well, morning started with a marketing class on branding, and we learned about the branding pyramid analysis, about how the brand eventually builds into serving specific customer needs through the features of its products, and so on. Interesting thing to know was the concepts of core product, actual product and augmented product. We were discussing or rather arguing for a long time after the class on the statement by Dilney that 'doing an MBA' or  'Getting a business degree' is the core product just like 'the promise of hope' is a core product; IE Business School is the actual product which personifies or delivers this core product to us, just like Obama is the actual product for Americans; and then 'IMBA' is the augmented product or a service provided by the actual product, just like the policy decisions are augmented products by Obama.

Next up was another excellent class of Investment Analysis. Going through the numbers of Numar, Luis provided so many insights on different aspects of financial modeling, assumptions and analysis in this one class. "The best way to have an accurate analysis would be to tie the correctness of it to the person's compensation" or "When doing M&A, sorry it is usually acquisitions; I do not believe in Mergers; let the people doing analysis run the acquired company as well; because the management that takes charge of acquired company has no clue of the assumptions made by analysts that said the acquisition makes sense". These statements by Luis also indicate the shortcomings that he has observed in the accuracy of financial analysis in the real world; and through out the class, he delivered his best to ensure that people from our class do not make the same errors.

We also had an Entrepreneurship class, after a long time. Rachida conducted a class discussion on Social Entrepreneurship, with reference to the case of Streetwize and Mobile Schools for street children in Columbia. It was an interesting discussing, with topics varying from ethical dilemmas associated to the practical ways that can help social enterprises become self-sufficient and hence sustainable.

Of course, a lot of group work due to shorter term, made us all be in school till late for working on EM project, accounting report and a marketing report.

When it was all done, did preparation for tomorrow's class. Preparation for Investment Analysis was particularly interesting: It was a online simulation exercise, where we get to be an investor in projects, with a budget of 8 million per year, for five consecutive years; thus helping to improve the company's APV. I managed to grow it from 240 million in 1999 to 585 million by the end of 2013. Not bad huh !! :-P
Looking forward to tomorrow's class :-D

Report and Report !!

Well, when I am having a marketing management report to write and an accounting report to write as well, it is more than obvious, I would be inclined towards the accounting report. After all, it is about playing with numbers.

So, it was that while I am supposed to do a group report for marketing management and work on a group assignment for managerial accounting, I ended up doing the accounting assignment and then struggling to make myself sit down and do the marketing report.

Not that the case wasn't interesting enough, but it is still about theory based report :-)

Anyways, despite today being a Sunday, most of my time was spent in School working on the couple of reports that I am supposed to discuss with my work group tomorrow.