MBA over..time for some reflection

Long time no blog. Guess studies sapped creative side of me. The one year passed not sure what I achieved out of this program....Business vocabulary and learnt some tools.... Many here are talking of Return on Investment but I am not sure whether it is measurable for me or not....It has been really difficult time to stay alone in a country like UK. Living in western countries I felt has its own advantages and disadvantages as it comes from living in any country. Sometimes you understand and appreciate value of what you have when you go through real tough times. But it has been really wonderful to see many different aspects of life and how different people and nationalities perceive things.
Life comes with its own kind of problems, challenges and benefits whenever you make a big change or enter into a different phase of life. That’s what I am feeling at this crossroads of life.
I am uncertain about my future career plans. I am looking to get some job in London post mba.

Reading Branson's book 'loosing my virginity'

I started reading this book and found it an intresting read so far though read only 50 pages so far. The guy himself is a real ecentric. .His media image matches with what he has written in the book. I personally believe diversity of experiences you go through is a major factor in making you what you are. Branson was very poor in acedmeics because of dyslexia since childhood. He mentions that because of this he has to train himself to concenterate and also this makes him more intuitive. He excelled in sports and must have learnt importance of team work from there. He is an adventurer and has gone through some near death experiences as in his trans atlantic balloon flight. He says," I am lucky to be alive". Someone like him would have no fear of failure and that could be one of the reasons why he successfuly started and running so many different ventures.

Change in Generic Strategy of L.G.

L.G. seems to be seriously trying to adopt a 'differentiation' strategy than 'cost leadership' or 'me too' strategy in the indian and world market. L.G. recent advertisments ( the one related to 'ultimate seduction') also tries to send more differentiation message than any cost related signal. L.G. has also dropped 'Abhishek Bacchan' from his brand ambasador in the India. I think they will not go for any brand ambasador in India as most of the stars/icons in India are associated with so many brands that they do not project the right aspirational values of a product. It would be interesting to see the marketing strategy adopted by LG in the coming year....

It is the best of the world, it is the worst of the world

India is a conutry of paradoxes. I came acoross this para in World Bank Report (2006) about India. This resonates with my experience of India.

The top students from the Indian Institutes of Technology are not just globally competitive, they have set the global standard. Yet, many, if not most, children in India finish government primary schools incapable of simple arithmetic. While there is increasing "medical tourism," where people travel to India for high-quality, low-cost medical treatments—the typical Primary Health Center doctor in Delhi is less competent than doctors in Tanzania. India’s Supreme Court is justly world renowned, but local courts are backlogged and ineffective and local police are frequently a miasma of corruption and brutality. Similarly, in economic performance, while parts of urban India compete for business in software engineering and biomedical research, parts of rural India have poverty rates comparable to borderline "failed states," such as Haiti and Nigeria, and have child malnutrition rates higher than any country in the world.

I think we need some innovative corporate strategies and political policies to have a long term sustainable inclusive growth...

The Intelligent Investor

Warrent Buffet had described the book 'The Intelligent Investor' written by Benjamin Grahman as best book written on investing so far. I was happy to see this book available online. Thought I would share the link with you. The book can be accesses on this link: http://www.investinvalue.com/0/value.php#intelligentinvestor
Thanks. Hitesh

Failures and I..

To me failures mean different result than expected or desired.Failures have been an integral part of my life. Since my childhood I have been failing in almost everything I have aimed to achieve. Some of the failures have been really painful. I have also aimed higher everytime I have failed though unintentionally pushed by some internal instinct.

To be ctd..

Poor services in India

In last two and half weeks after arrving from London, My experience of services provided to customers in India has been very bad. Naturally I am comparing the services over here that are provided in UK economy. I do not want to sound cynic but just want to point out so that it could increase the awareness and lead to some improvement. Even at the big brands name like Crossword, Shopper stop, Costa ..services provided to customers are consistently inconsistent and poor. Like Crossword, they said that I can not return anything unless it has some manufacturing defect. At Vishal Garments, three differet sales man told me three different return policies that too after being inquisitive. If I bought anything in discount offer from Vishal, they would not take it back. At Costa, Hot coffee was served like cold coffee. Coffee day AC was not working. Mcdonald seemed like sabzi mandi last Sudnay at GT. Reliance Fresh is so poorly managed , I prefer any day to buy vegetables from local vendors. SBI branch waited half an hour for a person to arrive at his desk and after that being told to come after three weeks to receive my Debit card pin..

I think all this is because we are not demanding consumers. we would fight with local shops and vendors and bargain ..but when it comes to big brands we just let them exploit us..We are so blind in associating ourselves with big brand names that we even forgot to claim our basic rights.

I think, this chalta hai attitude needs to be changed here in India...