Comeback Capsule :)

Now into the fourth month at SPJIMR, I'm genuinely ashamed to find that my last post refers to me being two months old at b-school. A zillion apologies folks for the prolonged absence from here ... The latest news from this part of the world is that the first trimester has wound up with a harrowing set of end-term exams and the grind of the next trim has well and truly begun. Sleep was of course the first casualty at exam time, but what also had to be given a miss was my cricket watching. I managed to catch a few exciting moments from the Ashes, but otherwise mostly missed out on the historic action. And post-exams, cricket news has been confined to the Ganguly-Chappell crisis, which has been deeply depressing and painful, to say the least. More on that from me soon ... :( For other events of note during my period of blogging abstentia, here's a quick blast from the recent past ... MBA (ummm, PGDBM actually!) ... Trim 1 meant "quizzes, tests, quizzes, tests". And the happy reality is that Trim 2 means "quizzes, quizzes, tests, tests, quizzes, quizzes, tests, tests"! SP Jain's brilliant multiplicative workload model, somehow doesn't bode too well for Trim 6 :) We were fortunate to have some excellent faculty though in the last trimester, especially for Financial Management and Macroeconomics. Marketing was interesting in parts, especially the industry presentations we made (see below). This trim, however, there is much more substance in the marketing course, as we've got into domains like distribution and pricing. No Mumbo-Jumbo this ... we also had to make a big end-term presentation on a company in an industry assigned to us. My academic group worked on the retail industry and we took up a study of Jumbo King, Mumbai's hugely successful "branded" vada-pav chain. The highlight of the entire exercise was an enlightening morning we spent with Ms. Reeta Gupta, Jumbo King's marketing head. An MBA herself (from Symbiosis in Pune), Ms. Gupta eloquently talked us through a wide spectrum of practical marketing and management issues, and how they as a small start-up handled them. Somehow, one can't help but feel that marketing cannot be learnt purely the Kotler and text-book-cases way ... it is integral that we get opportunities to go out into the field and interact with people who have made on-the-ground marketing successes out of their dreams. Committee Capers ... At SP Jain, all students are involved in some committee or the other, running the show on various fronts and hopefully acquiring some administrative acumen in the process. My committee, IT Comm, is responsible for the IT infrastructure in the institute. What that in effect means is that we are the favourite whipping boys (and girls) of our batchmates and seniors when the internet goes down for even a couple of minutes! We were also seen as being party to certain restrictive administrative decisions regarding IT usage in the insti, which did a brilliant job of beating down our popularity! However, we have subsequently recovered lost ground by some rather persistent negotiations with the institute's powers-that-be, and by engaging in an aggressive PR drive with our batchmates. We're now seriously considering having a crisis management case study modeled around our experiences :) Out into the field ... SP Jain has always had a very strong link with NGOs across the country, thanks to our active Centre for DOCC (Development of Corporate Citizenship). The DOCC committee recently organized a visit for all first years to the Yusuf Meherally Centre in Raigad district. The Centre has been able to generate fairly large-scale employment in surrounding villages by promoting and supporting small scale industries. They produce natural soaps, oils, furniture and pottery, all of which are sold in the open market, and have even set up a vermiculture unit within their premises. Overall it was an enriching experience to observe what they have termed as a "replicable model for rural development"