Raghav's Blog

The Tea Factory - Ooty

2014-07-10T02:20:00.002-07:00

Sivagangai Trip

2014-02-07T20:02:00.003-08:00

Gomathi shankar

Sam Joshua

Ramachandran

Debate on FDI in Retail

2013-01-09T08:59:00.002-08:00

Today, Meenakshi Sundararajan School of Management conducted a debate on "Foreign Direct Investment in retail" commencing the debate with a prayer and a floral tribute to the founder of the institution. Followed by Dr.H.Sankaran, Principal and Shri V.S.Vikram Director gave a wonderful welcome address and felicitations to students, chief guest and speakers.

The Introduction of chief guest & speakers were given by Prof. Saiju.M.John HOD.

Chief Guest of the Debate:

Prof.S.Badrinathan, Advisor (Development), IFMR, Chennai

Participants of the Debate:

Against FDI:

Mr.L.Annamalai (MICA), Founder/Ideator of OHO Productions, Chennai
Mr.S.Sambamoorthy, Founder of Howzatt & Founder/Ideator of OHO Productions, Chennai

For FDI:

Mr. Manu Srinivas (MICA), Founder of Kappi Cheenu, Chennai
Mr. Manoj Ramanan (IIM-C)

The purpose of the Debate was to make the students understand

The aspects of FDI
FDI from a Socio-economic perspective
FDI in retail's postitive and negative impact on the economy

Against FDI:

Mr.L.Annamalai & Mr.S.Sambamoorthy spoke about

Globalization and Foreign Influx, Market Imperialism, Business point of view of Kirana shops in India, Indian entrepreneurs (Annachies), Middle men problem in retail industry, Governments Intervention to have price and margin control, Indians attraction towards western culture, State government’s acceptance towards FDI, Kirana shop's hospitality, flexibility, personal relationship with the customers, Convenience seekers in India,

Margin fixation by retailers, Sustainability of FDI in longer run, Negative impact of FDI on Indian products, Short and long term vision of Indian government, Profits taken out of India by Foreign players and SEZ's contract with government.

For FDI:

Mr. Manoj Ramanan & Mr. Manu Srinivas spoke about

Indian market players, Quality of food related products in Kirana shops, Price hike on Food related products, Liberalization, Quality of superior products, Foreign retailer's world class processes, 30% local rule on foreign retailers, FDI's pull towards the world class standards, US(60 - 70%) and Indian (20%) farmers margin on MRP, Wastages on perishable goods because of lack of cool storage for the farmers, Benefits of the Indian farmers, Increase in competition, Globalization of Indian brands, Shift from Emotional aspects to rational aspects, Benefits of Foreign retailer’s competition and Manufacturing companies collaboration with foreign companies.

Finally, the adjudicator Prof.S.Badrinathan concluded the debate and gave invaluable advice to the management students by sharing his professional experience.

Short term investment strategy for Stock Mind game

2012-10-09T14:16:00.001-07:00

It seems that everyone who are about to participate in “Stock Mind” game have some sort of questions in their mind, but at my point of view I found a similar question among every one which is how to go about it? If you too have the same question prevailing in your mind then continue reading. This blog post will give you some suggestion as how to plan and execute an effective short term investment strategy for our ten day stock mind game.

Which approach am I supposed to use? - Fun or Tek

Firstly, let’s decide which analysis better suits the game. I know that everyone have read well and more about fundamental and technical analysis which helps one to analyze a security and make investment decision from our academics. I think its time to apply those methods in this game to make some winning decisions. Fundamental analysis involves analysing the characteristics of a company to estimate its intrinsic value whereas technical analysis is all about studies of supply and demand in the market to determine what direction/trend will continue in the future. Contrary to the fundamental analysis, technical analysis doesn’t even care about the value of the company. Both are very broad topics so you’ll need to dig deeper into the concepts to understand it. Lets get into the details of how these two approaches differ to find which suits us.

In Fundamental analysis it tries to determine the intrinsic value of company by looking at its balance sheets, cash flow statements and income statements. Its fairly very easy to take decisions in this approach. If you ascertain and invest in a company’s stock which trades below its intrinsic value then it a good investment. However, it takes a long time for a company’s intrinsic value to get reflected in the market so till then no gain will be realised. They call this as value investing and assume that the short-term market is wrong and believe it’ll correct itself in long run.

Some critics say that Technical analysis as a form of black magic. Don’t get surprised but recently it has got some credibility like fundamental analysis. Technical analysis argues that the past trading information is already reflected in the price of the stock and, it is useless to value an undervalued stock/security. Here in technical analysis it tries to determine the trend instead of the intrinsic value by looking at the historical charts, indicators and oscillators. It believes that prices of a stock moves in trend and history tend to repeat itself. For a short term investment decision this analysis suits best.

I would suggest everyone to concentrate more on Technical analysis rather than Fundamental analysis to grow your portfolio's value within ten days. Tomorrow I’ll give more information about the strategies while investing and how am I going to use technical analysis to take investment decisions. Guys if you are so curious go back and take out your Security analysis and portfolio management books to have a glance on technical analysis. See you guys tomorrow.

An industrial visit to Indian Piston Rings

2012-10-02T03:49:00.004-07:00

We visited India Piston Rings Ltd on 1^st October 2012 at 12:00 P.M to 4:00 P.M at Maraimalai nagar plant, Chennai.
Prof.Ranganathan, Ms.Renuka & Ms.Jaisuchi tailor led students on the visit.
On behalf of Company Mr.Rajamanikam (HRD General Manager) welcomed and also gave invaluable information regarding India Piston Ring Ltd. He also accompanied and explained us the various process in the plant.

Company Fact Sheet

Company Information : India Piston Rings is promoted by India Piston limited a memeber of the amulgamation group. It is one of the largest producers of Pistons, Piston rings, Gudgeon rings, Cylinder liners and allied components in India. Formed by Mr.S.Anantharamakrishnan in July 1949. In 2010-11 its revenue was $350 million.

Year of Establishment : 1991

Nature of Business : Manufacturer

Total Number of Employees : 600 Employees

Conform Employees (Operators) : 150

Trainee/Apprentice : 150

Management Staff : 110

Contract Employees : 125

Supervisors/B.E : 80

(75% of employees are ITI holders & 25% are +2 & 10)

Major Markets : Indian – OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers)

Primary Competitive Advantage

: Technical collaboration with Nippon Piston Rings, Japan

: Surface Coating Technology

: Latest Surface Coating Technology

: Experienced R&D department

: Good TQM implementation

Plant and Machinery:

At India piston rings, they have latest state of the art manufacturing plants and machineries having a capacity of 10 lakh piston rings per month. India piston ring produces piston rings, both compression and oil control rings for a variety of gasoline and diesel engines. They offer Pistons made out of a variety of high quality cast iron and steel materials. Their raw materials are being imported from Japan and the materials ranges from grey cast iron; (heat treated) alloyed grey cast iron to sperodial graphite cast iron. Their product Piston rings which includes high alloyed steel having 17% carbon content. In India piston rings they have process which include surface treatments or coatings like Granoliting, Chrome plating, Chrome Molly, Molybdenum, Moly Chrome Ceramic and Flame sprayed coatings. Their Piston rings fits for Pistons with bore diameters ranging from 35 to 160mm.

Products of the Company:

Piston Rings for four wheeler & Gears

Quality Assurance:

They are quality oriented organisation which is ISO 9001:2008 for management system and ISO/TS 16949 an ISO for technical specification aiming to the development of a quality management system that provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain. The company believes in providing the clients with the premium quality products as per their specifications and requirements. In my observation I found that their quality control is rigid and they implement TQM (Total Quality Management) system so that the finished products are at par with the international quality standards.

Manufacturing Units:

They have the manufacturing process in the latest technology from Japan is installed. This ensures the quality and fast production of Piston rings. Manufacturing is done as per the specifications and the requirements of their clients. Major of their selling is to the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) in India and they do export a very little amount of their products to Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. They have divided their manufacturing units into 24 zones for better maintenance.

Ware-housing and packaging:

They have a well spacious warehousing unit for the safe storage of products. Quality is assured at every stage.

Current and Future Expansions:

In our conversation with Mr. Rajamanikam, he briefed us about the future plans. In 2004 they expanded themselves into gear manufacturing from Piston Rings. Also, by very next year they are planning to enter into the 2 Wheeler piston ring market. The entire organisation strive to achieve 5 star because an external audit which is conducted every year by Hyundai rate in 5 star. If they achieve they bag the project to supply piston rings to Hyundai all over the world.

Clients:

They have a huge customer base in India.

1. Ashok Leyland

2. Tata

3. Mahindra

4. Eicher

5. Escorts

6. Hindustan Motors

7. Ford

8. Maruti Suzuki

9. Royal Enfield

1. Hyundai

Competitors:

In our conversation with Mr.Rajamanikam, India Piston Rings currently have a 50% market share and their major competitor is Sriram pistons & rings ltd.

Some Good Practices found in India Piston Rings:

Hands on system – Each machine has a Beacon attached. Where three lighting are there which has specific meaning.

o Green Light – Machine is functioning

o Red Light - Some Problem in the Machine

o Amber - Machine is in need of materials

OPC (Operation Control Process) – To recycle the scraps. Currently, they sell their paper scraps and 1.2% industrial scraps to the vendors.
2 suggestions for improvement in process is mandatory for each employee per month.
Small Group activities scheme is introduced and managed.

Achievements:

100PPM certificate from Hyundai
Gold and Platinum award for quality excellence
Frust and Sullivan IMEA super gold award for manufacturing
ACMA silver trophy for excellence
HV Axles ltd – best new mod. Company

Corporate Social Responsibility:

Rain water harvesting – Maintained in their own premises
Commitment to Society – Park maintenance at Maraimalai nagar
Recently donated 3 lakh worth X-ray unit to hospital
Annually they spend 4 lakh for Single teacher program – 10 schools are being maintained by the management and 4 schools by the employees contribution.

Ascertain your Life's Blueprint

2012-03-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

Let me first define the “blue print of life” for you. It’s simply the way you think, feel and act. These apply to everyone. This doesn’t need lot of education or very little to find and reset your blue print. The blue print is the real root cause of every happening (Success or Failure) in your life. In this article you’ll understand how your blueprint determines your feelings around everything including your fears, your worries etc. It is the same blue print that creates your habits and determines whether you’re a saver or spender, good manager or poor manager, brilliant or dull. In short, your blue print determines your life. After reading this article you exactly know why you are not able to be successful and why you’re not able to reach your maximum potential?

To have a better understanding, let me compare life with an apple tree. On the tree grows fruits which are called our results. So let us take a look at our fruits or results and honestly we don’t like them because they don’t taste good, they are too small then what do we tend to do? We’ll start focusing more and more on the fruits (i.e. results) which is a wrong approach. If we closely look at it what is that caused those particular fruits? It’s the tree’s roots which are under the ground and invisible. These invisible roots create the visible fruits. I hope you all agree that Human beings are also a part of nature. If we want to change out fruits we put attention on the roots. Then think where we really need to work on.

To work on you need to really know that we never live in one world; we live in at least four different worlds at once.

1. Mental world (MW)

2. Emotional world (EW)

3. Spiritual world (SW)

4. Physical world (PW)

Your physical world is just a print out of the other three worlds. Physical world are our fruits and the rest of the worlds are the roots which are invisible. Here nothing happens in the real world before it happens in MW, EW and SW.

To change your outer world you need to change your inner world first. In management jargon, it’s nothing but “cause and effect.” The blue print is already been preset in each one of us. The way we look at the life differs country to country, state to state, family to family, person to person. You know why? The reason is the blue print of life. The blue print of the life is formed by the programming we received in the past (when you were young) from your parents, teachers, television etc. Most of us were taught how to look at stuff instead of making us think how to look at life. So my advice is take a plain sheet writes down the positive things which you know about success and read it every day to remind yourself about the value of success until you reach your goal.

So guys I hope you understood. If it sounds great, reset your blue print as soon as possible to achieve your goal…………………………….

Time management tips for Exam

2012-03-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, its time to face a battle. What I mean is trimester examination dates are announced by the management. I must say I am quite happy with the subjects which have been quite challenging, interesting and tough at the same time. However, I have to develop my time management skills a lot this quarter. I don’t have enough time to procrastinate or post pone for the last minute all my subjects and I think this as the toughest part. That’s why I thought I write some simple time management tips that would help you all for last minute examination preparation.

While browsing I found an interesting article on time management so click this link which will direct you to the article. I am taking the tips, I think this can help you the most and adding some personal advice as well:

“Study difficult Subjects first.” I normally follow this one because I am one among the students who prefer doing the hard thing first so that I can relax later on….. However, I understand for some everything looks just as tough. In that case just make sure you start as soon as possible.

“Avoid scheduling marathon study session.” This would be the most important thing because I normally used to make a study plan which finally becomes an utter flop because of long hours. If you make a study plan, make sure it’s not a 10-hour session with no break…… you know one thing? No human brain can take it! From my own experience I would suggest having a study session in your study plan which is less than 2 hours, otherwise its point less…… after a couple of hours I need a break otherwise I would not be able to concentrate or focus anymore. What I do, for instance, is two hours of study, and then one hour of work out. After that I do two more hours and then I relax a bit.

“Beware of the best time of the day” I my case, I work better at the night. That causes many problems some times, because I need to wake up early which may result in less sleeping time. However, two hours of study at night is worth much more than the two hours in the middle of the day for me. You need to find what is best for your plan and plan study session accordingly. I recommend writing down your study plan in a white paper instead of having mind maps. Guys, this is the time to revise.

“Don’t get too comfortable” If you get too comfortable you’ll soon fall asleep! Believe guys this has several times happened to me. Discuss about your study plan with your family members or the person living with you, so as a result you’ll be forcing yourself to do it and you don’t let your plan down. Try it and see how it will motivate you.

“Get off your gadgets” I would also say to get off your laptop, mobile phones, ipad or whatever gadgets you use. Don’t have an excuse like “I need to do some online research.” Please keep away from face book monster and Television time eater.

Don’t feel that no one is supervising you while studying. Assume as if you are your own manager. I hope you don’t like your own manager to think you are a lazy procrastinator.

I hope this tips would be help full for your exam preparation. I wish you the best of luck for trimester/semester exams. Good luck!

Weekend's hangout

2012-03-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! A week ago I went along with my friends to the film “John Carter” which is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoon Novels written in 1911. Also, it’s a Disneymade feature film.

To brief about the film, the hero (John Carter) is actually a Virginian from earth who gets a chance to visit mars (aka, Barsoon) there Carter encounters both alien creatures and humans on mars.

After some fights and struggle he join hands with gorgeous Martian princess, Dejah thoris of Helium. The very next day after his marriage on mars he will be sent back to earth into his original body where he becomes rich by the use of treasure he finds there on earth. He spends some more days on earth then he dies on earth and then gets restored to Mars (ie, Barsoon).

The last part of the film shows as if he occasionally returns to earth to prove his adventure to his nephew (Burroughs). Hope you all will watch this film. See you all next week.

Late night party

2012-03-02T17:46:00.001-08:00

Even though my friend’s birthday was on last week, we had a nice KFC meal today. The idea of having the party again today is something that brings us beyond happiness, so you can imagine how happy this kind of events makes us. But then some of our friends were missing. We had the party with, KFC’s pop corn chicken, Fried chicken, krushers and all the delicious stuff.

This is my first time ever celebrating our friend’s birthday in Chennai because I had been in Bangalore and Coimbatore since my childhood. However, thanks to this party I remember how fun the day was. May be it’s because it remind me of my college parties in Bangalore and Coimbatore.

The party got over late in the night but all of us were still chatting as if there was no time running. I remember we started from there only after noticing other shops were closing even KFC. Just imagine how much commitment we would have had in the party…………………………….

Hopefully, I would be posting a blog this sunday about the experience we had in the swimming pool party which we planned to have it on the same day. See you later ...............

Entry into Programming language

2012-02-29T17:33:00.001-08:00

I just started learning the basics of Object Oriented Programming (i.e. Java) for my new mobile application development. It is going to be a great learning curve as well as to get an impression of the audience in the “New product launch program.” As it is in the initial stage no one is able to understand the concept of my product but I hope going forward after I complete the program they would be able to understand and realize the concept as well as the importance of my product. Hey guys wait for a while I would most probably complete within the month of March. I must say I am very lucky to have professor guiding me who is so committed to the program. I mentioned about the program before in my second post; however, since I am going to be talking a lot about my experience at the development of mobile application, I thought it would be good to explain what it is about in a more detailed way.

The New product launch program is a simulation of product launch for students. Each team acts as if they launch a product in the real market. The concepts are selected by the faculty and every team has a month time to research about it. Basically the team needs to know everything about the product, market, and target customers’ etcetera. What’s more, every participant needs to be trained on public speaking, writing business plan and a big etcetera. The New product launch program will take place in the end of the month of March. The final goal is to impress the Students, Faculty, and Participants with a great product.

I hope to make it easier I’ll attach a video about my Product in the future posts. It is definitely a lot of work, but it is also very rewarding for the participants. First of all, the learning experience is priceless. In addition, it is going to be an opportunity for networking and, of course, to have fun in such an environment. Now, if you are a MSSM student and think you might be interested, I definitely encourage you to comment or suggest any action plan for me to do better in New product launch program.

Procedure and Permission Day

2012-02-28T00:59:00.001-08:00

Today I finally got permission from the College’s management to conduct a market survey among the students of all grades for “New Product Launch Program.” For me it is always exciting to meet students from so many grades. Anyways, I must admit the best part is the network! The faculty asked us for three concepts from a team of five members among which one concept will be selected by them for execution. I am strong enough that my concept would be selected for execution.

In this new product launch program, there are various steps of work through which we are supposed to work on. The crucial part would be the Survey which decides the feasibility of the proposed product. As the population is too high (Approximately 4,000 Students) I wouldn’t be able to do census rather sampling work good for making decision. My Concept which I have to the new product launch program is to bridge the gap between to Knowledge and Wisdom. Soon the New Product will be unveiled with better stratergy wait guys………………………………..

A Great Experience

2012-02-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Chennai’s College Life! First of all, a little bit about me. I’m a student from MSSM Business School who moved to Chennai a couple of years ago. I spent the last year working with TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) as Business Process Associate. Before that, I studied at Nehru college of Aeronautics an Applied Science in Coimbatore. My greatest passion is to trade and generate new ideas. I’ve been to many places in India and it just makes me want to discover more and meet new people. This is the reason I recently joined the MSSM Business School at Chennai, and I’m really excited about it!

I’m blogging because I love writing. In addition, I am a very enthusiastic person. I always find something interesting to do in the city, so I have many things to tell! I will be writing about my life at Chennai, whatever interesting happens in the city and anything that makes me experienced. You are more than welcome to post any comment, suggestion or question you might have.

This is already my second trimester of class. I can finally say I feel happy in Chennai. I run six kilometres every day in Marina beach which makes me wake up with positive energy! (To be honest, I started jogging only a week ago). Last week I had an Entrepreneurship and Business plan workshop in Rai Business School by Amit grover (an IIM alumnus). I participated in this work shop program to gain knowledge and to have a great experience to fit it perfectly with my entrepreneurial career. Besides it’s a nice opportunity for networking and, why not, having fun!