The Cloud

Pearls of wisdom

2011-11-25T12:39:00.001+05:30

I am reading The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, and the book starts of with a following great quote from Leo Tolstoy.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

MBA Salary Survey 2011 (India)

2011-11-21T19:57:00.001+05:30

Here is a MBA salary survey for 2011, done by a MBA job site called iimjobs.

MBA salary survey 2011

View more presentations from iimjobs

"Apple" gone sour

2011-11-21T11:07:00.000+05:30

Unlike all other consumer goods company, where the company wants to associate itself with the customer, the case for Apple is just the opposite. Apple has created for itself such as niche that customers buys Apple's product to create a differentiation from the masses. Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone have been a testimony of the same. Indians have not been indifferent to Apple. People in India are also as excited on a launch of an Apple product as people are in US or Europe. However, Apple has been i(n)different to Indian consumers. The company has always delayed the launch of its products in India, so much so that when iPad 1 was made available in india, US consumers almost had iPad 2 in their hands.

Things have become worse with the launch of iPhone 4. In India, Apple has launched iPhone 4S at much higher price than its US retail cost, almost at a 33% premium. The following post from Economic Times sums it up. Needless to add, Indian Apple fans are complaining. Will Apple pay heed?

Getting into XLRI GMP (in any B-school for that matter)

2011-11-16T00:23:00.001+05:30

Come Nov, Dec and MBA aspirants rush to evaluate their chances in getting into the B-school of their choice. They have a billion questions on their minds on the compisition of the batches, suitability of their profile for a particular course, cut offs and so on..
Some time back, I had written a detailed post in a popular MBA forum, Pagalguy on this very topic. Putting the same over here. Hope it helps to bring in some clarity
Even though I have never been on the other side of the table, I surmise that there are seven points that are considered in the admission process, viz
- Acads

- Extra Curriculars
- Test Score
- Work Experience
- Essays
- Interview (once you are shortlisted)
- Overall profile
Now let us understand these points once by one. Acads: This is a sunk cost you cannot change. So don't sweat about this at all. But prepare a question a two on your (poor) acads in case this topic is discussed in the interview. You all are not in that position as of today, so just chuck this. If you have good acads, pray to the Almighty that a question or two is also asked to you which you can blush and answer.
Extra Curriculars: Very much like the acads, you cannot do much about this at this time as the admission process is less than 4 months to go. People who are planning to apply later can still pick up a vocation of choice and fare slightly better. For the time being I will consider this as a sunk cost as well. But pls dont try to become a philatelist or a sportsperson over night. That will do more wrong than right.
Test Score: This is one of the most important criteria at this point of time. Try to get it as higher as possible. This can be a make or break as there is, most often that not, something called "cut-off" on this unlike the previous two points.
Work Experience: This may be important. I am using the word "may" because most of the aspirants have very similar profile. This is all the more true for engineer + IT professionals. This is the most dangerous combo because of its ubiquity. At least for this genre of aspirants, this is also a sunk cost unless one has done something really spectacular such as hold a patent, or is a Microsoft/Intel Research scholar etc. Do you think a IT professional with 5 years of work exp can compete with a doctor with 5 years experience when it comes to comparison? I think the answer is "no". If you know that you won't be able to compete, then why compete? (Disclaimer: I also belong to this herd).
Essays: In some B-Schools, the aspirants are supposed to write essays while applying. In XLRI, if I am not mistaken, one is expected to write and submit essays only before the interviews. Again, don't worry about this at this point of time.
Interview: Cross that bridge when you come to it.
Overall profile: This is of utmost important apart from the score (GMAT or XAT). Try your level best to improve your profile. You can develop your expertise on some topic or domain. There will always be something you are really good at. For example, an IT professional who can do Technical analysis, or one who writes in popular websites/ blogs, or some one who likes to spend casual weekends in social service, etc There is always something. A brief self-introspection will do a world of good.

I hope this long post of mine helps at least some of you. All the very best in the pursuit.

Oracle of Omaha buys into the Big Blue

2011-11-15T23:55:00.001+05:30

Well, well, well, after shading decades of apathy towards the technology companies, the legendary investor, Warren Buffet invested close to $11B to buy some 5.5% stake in IBM.
If this is interesting, then hold on, there is more to it. Buffet has been buying IBM for sometime and also had got exemption from SEC to avoid disclosure in its filings. Even IBM was not aware the Buffet has been increasing his stake in his company.
The point to ponder is whether it is okay for the SEC to grant exemption to the big investors such as Buffet, Carl Icahn etc when they start buying in publicly held companies...

My way

2011-11-15T23:13:00.000+05:30

I was just watching a popular stand up comedy on TV, when the reference of this very famous and thought provoking song by Frank Sinatra came up and I just couldn't stop myself listen to it and share it with all of you. This is just as beautiful as it gets out there. I am sure it will capture your imagination too...

XLRI-GMP on HT

2011-08-31T19:52:00.000+05:30

In Open the Excel Sheet, Hindustan Times has published a short article on XLRI's General Management Program.

Also, Anna Hazare's Anti Corruption Movement is all set to become a case study at XLRI.

Back..finally

2011-08-15T21:11:00.000+05:30

After dilly dallying for a long time, I am back to posting my thoughts on to my blog. I will looking forward to the long weekend but it didn't live up to the expectation. Firstly, the Independence Day celebration was muted, may be because of the morning rains at Delhi or may be because of the war of words that is going on among Congress-Anna Hazare-BJP. It is not good over there.
Secondly, I had a lot of work and so had to spent a good part of the Monday morning on the office chores. Who likes it?
Thirdly, India's debacle at the hands of the English, did spoil the mood for the last three weeks or so.

My last post

2010-02-22T11:29:00.000+05:30

From today, I will write my posts on my website www.prijitdebnath.com. You can read them in the Random Musings section of my website.

Thank you so much for reading !!

Toyota fiasco, Japanese image takes a beating....

2010-02-06T04:44:00.000+05:30

Quality is perhaps one thing that cannot be taken for granted. And this is one point that comes up from the Toyota fiasco. I am not sure what would have been the case if any car manufacturer would have found defects in cars sold in India. But selling in the USA is a whole different paradigm. US customer give value for money and given the competition the producers are bound to follow suit. In B-Schools, there are so many case-studies on Japanese car manufactureres especially Toyota and how they always give top preference to quality. Something manufactured in Japan always underlined the fact that the product would be fault free. Not any more !!

With the President of Toyota going around apologizing to the consumers about the faulty break pedals in Toyota cars, I am certain that more than Toyota, Japanase brand image has taken a severe beating and it would take a long long time to fix this image issue.

My love for backpacks...

2010-02-01T10:59:00.000+05:30

I have been using backpacks ever since I was admitted to a school. That makes the association over a quater of a century old. I am so fond of backpacks that even after my academic life got over, I remained faithful to it. There was a threat when I got my first laptop which came with a different type of a shoulder bag. However, I continued to carry my laptop in my laptop INcompatible backback. However, it is not that I am faithful to a particular backpack. Once a backpack gets old, I replace it with a new one but at any point of time I associate myself with only one backpack. Such has been our bonding for a long stretch of time.

I have been using my current Eddie Bauer backpack for over three years now. I had bought it from a Target store from Cockeysville, Maryland. It had been with me almost every single day ever since. This time around while I was coming to US, I decided to retire my old mate. Yesterday, I went to Sports Unlimited and bought a new "Adidas" backpack. This bag has more protection for a laptop. The best thing of this bag is that it is not as bulky as a laptop bag is and hence can be used while I am without my laptop as well. I hope our association continues for a long time.

Back to San Jose....again

2010-01-24T03:55:00.000+05:30

Ok, I am in San Jose, California again. I was here for close to two weeks in August last year and now I am here..again...sounds a kind of boring..one of our big development center is here is at San Jose, next to the sprawling Cisco campus and so I have no other place to go. More so because most of the folks I work with are here. We also have an development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, but I don't see any opportunity to be there anytime soon.

The journey this time was kind of difficult. Since the total time to come to the west coast from India, be it from Mumbai or Delhi, is close to 19 hours, with a stop in between, it is preferable to have a stop somewhere in the middle i.e. have a 9 hours' journey followed by one for 10 hours. Air India, Lufthansa and other such airlines stop for some time at Frankfurt, Germany. This almost equally divides the journey into two halves. However, this time it was different and difficult. We took Emirates which meant that we had a stop over at Dubai, barely three hours from Delhi. This was followed with a long 16 hours non stop flight to San Francisco from Dubai. I felt kind of sick in the flight. To add to the trouble, the weather in the Bay Area was far from accommodating. It was windy, cold and rainy. Due to this inclement weather, we have no other option but to stay indoors. I have come over here so many times that am not complaining...

Training on (not indulging in) Insider Trading

2010-01-13T14:40:00.000+05:30

I had to attend a 30 minutes online training on Insider Trading today (on why we shouldn't be a part of it? to be precise). I am sure we all know that Insider Trading could be a pretty expensive affair, more so, if one gets caught. It has already reduced Rajaratnam bank balance by some $100M. Some of the high profile executives from IBM,Intel and Mckinsey have been indicted in this case. That made me wonder, if one can pay a bail amount of $100M, how much money he must have in his bank accounts.

Even though I don't own a single stock in my company and neither do I have any intention to trade on NASDAQ, where my company is listed, I was serious with the training atleast for the shake of learning.

Go on..be a Tiger..

2009-12-29T18:09:00.000+05:30

My friend Rishi wrote a post on Tiger Woods on how he is a miserable human being given the mess he is in at this moment. I think there is one another angle to the story which we have failed to consider before passing our comments.

Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods for what he does, i.e. for playing golf and that too playing the game remarkably well. His exploits in the game will confirm this. Again, he has been a brand ambassador of companies such as Gillete, Accenture and Nike because of his exploits i.e. again playing golf superbly well. When Accenture says "High Performance, Delivered", it tries to cash in on the on the superlative performance of the great player i.e. Accenture can delivered high performance as Woods does. In all these, the character, at least the one with a personal hue, of Tiger Woods never comes to the picture. Had Tiger Woods been a supremely moral man and awesome in playing golf (or for that matter some other popular sports), I am sure that these biggies would not have even considered him as their brand ambassador. Woods was chosen because he was one of the best, if not the best, professional golfer,a game popular with the corporate honchos who take decisions. That was perhaps Accenture's reason of selecting him. Nike,perhaps required a great and a popular sportsman to represent them and hence selected him and Gillete, perhaps for a reason somewhere in between.

The bottom line is that Tiger Woods was chosen for his capabilities, exploits and popularity and not because of his fidelity and chastity. It is only the media and Woods' celebrity status that has brought his case in the limelight and made it a world-event out of nothing. This doesn't mean that I want him to be infidel, but my point is simply that, infidelity or otherwise, Woods is still a top golfer and most often than not, it is "High Performance, Delivered".
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04-Jan-2010: A very interesting post by Prof. Damodaran of NY-Stern on the impact of Tiger Woods' related incidents on the market value of the companies he endorsed.
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Disclaimer: "High Performance, Delivered" is a punchline of Accenture.

My Christmas gift ...to myself

2009-12-28T10:43:00.000+05:30

Christmas is one more occasion when we give gifts to our near and dear ones. The other being Durga Puja, bengali as I am. So, after much ado and a lot of encouragement from my friend, I decided to buy myself a domain and host a website.

Since I didn't get an opportunity to create custom web pages as yet, I relied upon google, as always. I had created a few useful web pages a few days back on http://site.google.com. For the time being, I am redirecting my site to my google pages.

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Visit me at www.prijitdebnath.com
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Another one from experience....

2009-12-15T18:17:00.000+05:30

The more one runs after ones goal, the easily it deludes him. To realize something, just work for it and leave it alone.

SaaS / No-SaaS (What all apps moves to the cloud?)

2009-11-10T12:25:00.001+05:30

We had a talk delivered by Dr. Anand Deshpande, the MD of Persistent, a software company based in Pune. Mr. Deshpande, a acclaimed figure in the industry, spoke at length on the future of the IT industry, on Clouds (private and public) and so on. He also came up with a 2X2 matrix on what all apps would move to the cloud? With due respect to him, I came up with my own 2X2 matrix on SaaS/No SaaS. The example I have taken is for a banking industry.

I shared this with Dr. Deshpande for his comments but perhaps he is too busy to reply. Understandably :)

Random thoughts

2009-11-05T14:29:00.000+05:30

While the Sensex fell close to 500 points the day before yesterday, I thought -
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Since the market (say stock market) is inefficient and imperfect, it corrects itself to reflect the true value of the stocks, can't we human beings, imperfect as we all are, also correct ourselves from the misconceptions we hold.
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One more thought crossed my mind while I was watching the CBS serial, Numb3rs:
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Since the Universe is expanding at such as breakneck speed of 1.8 times the speed of light, we all eventually move away from one another one day. Knowing this reality, should we not try our best to get as close to one another as possible.
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Finance wisdom from Thirukkural

2009-09-13T09:53:00.000+05:30

Thirukkural, a non finance Tamil literary work written more than 2000 years back by Saint Thiruvalluvar, also speaks of finance sense, much of which, or rather the lack of which, is the cause of our financial troubles. Some of the gems are -

1. Kural No: 113; 'nandre tharinum naduvigandhuaam aakathai andre ozhiya vidal'

It says: 'Even when apparently giving gains, ways which are not truthful are to be abandoned.'

2. Kural No: 112 : 'seppam udayavan aakam sidhaivindri Echathirkum yemmaapu udaithu'

It means: 'Wealth (children, financial wealth, friends, charity and fame) earned by a person using fair means will protect not only the person but also his future generations.'

3. Kural No: 385 says: 'eyatralum eettalum kaathalum katha Vazhuguthalum valladhu arasu.'

It means: 'Producing, saving, protecting, regulating and equitably sharing is the way to powerful governance.'

I hope we pay heed from these basic thoughts as we plod up the road to recovery.

Source: Financial Lessons from Thirukkural, Rediff.com

To my dear motherland....

2009-08-23T13:10:00.000+05:30

Time to pause...think

2009-08-23T01:26:00.000+05:30

Think, I thought, was simple word. But when I tried to look for the meaning of the same in Merriam Webster, I was nothing but surprised. This word is a noun, a verb both transitive and intransitive as well as an adjective. So while I was expecting a small couple-of-line definition I pretty got a whole web page. Hence I decided to do more justice to it.

It is weekend here at San Jose and am coming to this country after a long year, yet I decided to stay back in my hotel room and contemplate. By the way, contemplate itself means to "think intently and at length". Most visitor would rather go out in the weekend for shopping, sight seeing and the likes but I decided to stay put in my comfortable hotel room. I realize that in the course of my fast life, I haven't thought enough. In other words, I have not given myself the time to think. In office, I am busy with my work like everyone else and in my non office hours, I am spending time mechanically. I have been kind of flowing in the stream of life without knowing, very likely, where am I heading to.

Am I wasting my time "thinking"? I reckon not. This is my chance to do some thinking. Who knows when will again get another golden chance to think?

Self Service

2009-08-15T10:43:00.000+05:30

The days of self service is back. Even since coming to Pune, I had parked myself in a rented accommodation with a couple of other guys. We had a cook, more of a family member so to speak, who used to take care of all the household chores, from cooking to doing dishes to washing clothes. But the Swine Flu scare in the city had terrified him so much that he decided to calls it quits for the time being and return back to his native.

Now since life don't appreciate such excuses, we were left all alone to fend for ourselves, and that includes cooking, doing the dishes and even ironing the clothes. Perhaps it is a small reminder from above that one is all for himself. I am slightly lesser hit since I am leaving for the USA tomorrow for a small training and a few all day meetings. That will take care of nine good days. Once I come back, I have decided to stay in a hotel for a couple of days, a kind of way to quarantine myself after the overseas visit, so that I know that I have not contacted any of the viruses out there.

Back to Reading...again

2009-08-08T20:17:00.000+05:30

Am back to reading...again. After a hiatus, have again decided to go back to the good old source of knowledge and entertainment. This will surely keep me away from the internet and will be a welcome change, and a positive one too.

Remember what Mark Twain had said about reading:
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A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
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It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and having no great thing to do, I decided to head to the British Library here in F.C. Road, Pune. After spending a couple of quick hours, I realized that the library is small and doesn't have a great collection. But then if I read a good book a month, that should suffice my need. They had a good collection of biographies and autobiographies of sports persons though. Without further ado, I filled up a membership form and submitted it to the gentleman at the desk. And within five minutes, I was a member. I issued two books and an audio CD. The books are -

Moral Intelligence - A book on enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success

The Beautiful Game - A book on the game of Football

Appointment with Death - An Agatha Christie (BBC Radio Collection)

So let me start from the very start and revive the good ol' habit of reading.

Things have changed

2009-08-07T22:07:00.000+05:30

Things have changed a lot in the last two months. Before leaving XLRI and in most of my pre MBA days, my surfing used to include time spent on websites like Business Week, CNBC.com, Economictimes.com and so on. In short, I was mostly interested in financial news. But now, when I surf I visit tech websites and blogs such as Techcrunch.com, Neowin.net, Linux Insider. The development on the tech side (from software perspective) is my bread and butter. I am more interested in when will Microsoft RTM Windows 7 than what the Fed says about the economic slowdown.

Is SaaS a panacea?

2009-07-03T20:43:00.000+05:30

With so many good things being written about SaaS, I am of the opinion that SaaS is not a panacea to everything. It is true that SaaS requires a lot less capital expeinditure but is that going to solve all the problems. It is true that the owing to the Global Financial Meltdown, the CIOs are under pressure to cut down the IT costs and this has led the CIOs look at SaaS as a viable alternative. One of my old post talks about the problems associated with SaaS.