My Point of View

Perception Problem!!

2018-02-20T12:47:00.001+05:30

I was all excited to make my first trip to Delhi, traveling alone for the very first time. One thing that stands out about Rajdhani express a/c first class is that they serve freshly cooked food in first class and not the usual packed food. I reached Mumbai central on time. As usual I checked the reservation chart before boarding the train. The compartment allotted to me just had two seats and my fellow passenger was some f 24.
Snacks were served as soon as the train started. I had forgotten my mp3 player and was really getting bored. I briefly introduced myself to the beautiful damsel (I was assuming she was unmarried) sitting in front of me. She was casually dressed and carried a grim look. Although she had beautiful eyes, they didn’t seem to express too much. As my small introduction came to an end, she continued to sip on her coffee. She just didn’t seem interested. It felt really awkward. There was a sense of arrogance…no!! She was out rightly arrogant!! I called for the staff and asked him to get me a magazine.
It was soon time for dinner. It was strangely silent even during dinner and by now I was really cursing her for having shared up space with me and spoiling, in what could have been the most exciting journey of my life-my first travel alone. I had so looked forward to it. After having my dessert I lied down on the berth still holding on to the worst magazine of all times. I just couldn’t have read it. I was disturbed still trying to figure out what had gone wrong. She looked unperturbed and kept looking at that one single point ever since she had boarded the train with a constant expression on her face. I switched off the light and went off to sleep. I had never been this silent. It was like I was getting punished for a serious crime and the worst part was that I couldn’t help but recollect what wrong I had done.
The longest seeming fifteen hour journey was finally coming to an end. I got up late as I always do and called for coffee. Something was missing. The lady was gone. I heaved a huge sigh of relief, because it is really disturbing when your fellow passengers are weird. There is something about it and you just don’t feel good. But now the sadness part was finally away and I could lie down in peace. Later when breakfast was being served, the waiter passed on a small piece of paper. It was a letter written in the most beautiful hand writing I’d ever seen. She had written it. After having cursed her all night long for the arrogant behavior I didn’t feel like reading it. I kept it away. But within five minutes I grew curious, obviously. It was the most shocking letter I had ever come across. I had never felt this bad. My perception was all wrong. Natasha was on the run trying to avoid marriage which was being forced upon her by her parents. She had a certain class which helped me assume that she hailed from an educated and a rich family. And the fact that such sad incidents take place even in affluent and educated families made me even sad. But this was not all. Just before getting on board she came to know that both her parents had committed suicide. I was numb!!!

“It’s not always the other person’s fault, sometimes you just don’t read it.”

Prophecies of the west!

2018-02-20T12:43:00.001+05:30

Nostradamus had predicted the end of the world on 21st march, 2012. The ancient Mayan calendar abruptly ends on the same day. The most famous oracles at Delphi had also foreseen the end. The Holy Bible warns us about 2012 too. The list of prophecies is endless. But the matter of concern remains: Are all of these pointing to some danger or is it mere coincidence.

There have been many predictions in the past about a total wipe out of planet earth but time and again these theories have failed. What struck me about this one though is that it is backed by science; Albert Einstein had calculated that a planet almost as large as Jupiter would hit the earth around 2012. It’s called planet X (Nibiru). His studies suggest that even if the head on collision is somehow avoided, the strong magnetic field of the planet would lead to a magnetic shift.

A magnetic shift takes place after every 3600 years. It means that the North Pole and the South Pole interchange their positions and in doing so, earth undergoes regeneration. Tsunamis, earthquakes and huge volcanic eruptions are just some of the results of pole shift. It leads to the extinction of all the existing species paving way for new ones.

This might sound scary but the fact of the matter remains that we cannot predict the future; at best we can sit back and hope for the best.

What really motivates us?

2018-02-20T12:37:00.002+05:30

~ We work hard for a paycheck, harder for a person and the hardest for a mission ~

The Messenger Effect

2016-11-14T14:22:00.001+05:30

The next big thing in social media may not be a Facebook competitor, like Snapchat, or a high-profile Facebook acquisition, like WhatsApp. Instead, given Zuckerberg’s strategic focus and investments, there’s a good chance that Messenger could dethrone Facebook. Messenger has almost entirely been a Facebook experience so far. It is now transforming into a consolidated commerce platform as well as the global go-to communication platform.

On the commerce side, Messenger now natively processes payments. This is a huge step that allows for a seamless transition from intent to transaction, all within the same platform. On the communication side, Messenger is gaining ground in both peer-to-peer and B2C markets. Messenger allows users to send GIFs, transfer money, edit photos, and conduct audio/video conference calls, while offering a directory of Facebook’s ~2 billion users. But that’s not all – Messenger is opening up to third-party content that will keep users engaged and also help developers find an interested audience – something web Canvas did so well on desktop.

FB's network of active business pages is growing. These businesses are using FB to connect with a target audience. That is the first-leg of the B2C relationship. The second-leg of the B2C relationship is turning that connection into a transaction, and this is where Messenger naturally comes into play. The obstacle for other messaging platforms, such as traditional SMS, is they do not support an already established first leg of the B2C relationship. Messenger is on a path to replace phone based customer service and apps. Bots for Messenger will allow businesses to deliver automated interactive experiences, e-commerce guidance and customer support with the help of chat-bots. Bots have the potential to increase user engagement and satisfaction for a brand.

While the future looks very promising, it’s not without a set of watch-outs. Messenger’s worry, ultimately, has to be that it’s almost impossible to win over young consumers who have grown up using chat apps. That issue aside, Messenger needs to evolve much further and in more fields to become dominant in the future. On a strategic level, it could invest in the following areas:

(1) Extend its use case beyond private communication in order to capture business relationships. If people get used to using Messenger in a professional context, interacting with brands, carrying out e-commerce transactions and directing digital assistant applications won’t be that unusual anymore.

(2) Improve user engagement by developing a creativity ecosystem. It should let users create their own messaging experience by letting them be creative and do things they couldn’t do before.

(3) Target the masses with valuable services offered through the conversational interface. It should make bots discoverable and more present in the online and offline world.

In summary, Messenger is well positioned to become the holistic platform that hosts all different kinds of services in the future. Messenger already has a strong position with its vast user base across the world but needs to keep innovating in order to continuously engage and delight this user base in new ways.

Medium: Opportunities and Challenges

2016-11-13T09:50:00.000+05:30

Medium aspires to be the best place to read and write articles. While I’m optimistic about the future of Medium given how great the product is, there are some critical factors that Evan Williams and the company needs to watch out for.

The online publishing space is fairly fragmented and all the publishers are engaged in a zero sum game: user’s attention. The space comprises of paid content providers (newspapers, journals, magazines, etc.), celebrity writers (politicians, sportsmen, actors, etc.), professional publishers, independent bloggers / opinion providers and others. Medium's simple and standard design along with an unbiased ranking algorithm is a strong competitive advantage. On the flip side, a small user base (~25 Million; small relative to other social networks) along with a significant reliance on other social media sites for traffic is a watch-out for the company. To achieve its vision, Medium must find a way to increase its share of direct traffic.

An important aspect of growth for Medium is diversity of publishers so that it appeals to more users globally. Currently, most of the opinions and posts come from tech and media elite. There is a huge opportunity to partner with and empower professional publishers through Medium. As Evan and his leadership team thinks about growing globally, it’ll be really important to get adoption from writers across the globe from different countries, languages, etc. Also, to ensure reader engagement in the long term, Medium needs to find a way to scale up while maintaining quality standards.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, getting the monetization strategy right for the company and publishers is going to be the key for Medium. As they bring more professional publishers onboard, they’ll need to show value to the advertisers quicker, to keep the professional publishers engaged.

Recommendations: Medium has gathered some momentum since inception (25 million + visitors and some paid content) to begin the transition towards being a platform.

In the short term, Medium can continue with its current model with free access to the non-paid content. As an add-on feature, Medium can partner with some paid content providers and create a sling box like service by bundling paid content. This will create additional value for the readers – access to more paid content without having to pay for each service individually, and more value for publishers – more readers; thereby expanding the pie for both parties. A sling box like service serves as an experiment (low risk) with minimal disruption to the loyalists but attracting new users from the lone-standing paid content providers.

In the long term, once Medium has a significant reader population (thereby higher negotiation power with paid content providers), they can add a Spotify like service i.e. aggregate all paid content and monetize using a monthly subscription model.

Japan: The aging society

2015-06-01T12:55:00.000+05:30

For many years, Japan has enjoyed one of the highest life expectancies in the world. While it is certainly an envious record, high life expectancy coupled with a decline in fertility is posing serious long term and short term challenges for Japan. Not only is Japan’s population in decline since 2004, but also the population structure is becoming increasingly weighted towards older members of the society. Japan’s population was estimated to be 127.3 million1 in 2013 and it is projected to be 97.1 million1 in 2050. What’s even more concerning is that the labor force (age range: 15-64 years), is projected to shrink from 62.1 million1 in 2013 to 51.5 million1 in 2050.

This demographic shift has various social, economic and political costs. The shrinking of the productive stratum of the population (age range: 15-64 years), will lower tax receipts, negatively impact potential growth and shrink Japan’s GDP. This also raises the danger that it will be difficult to sustain the pension system, healthcare costs and other elements of social welfare system, thereby bringing down the nation’s standard of living. The depopulation in rural areas may put in danger the very existence of some municipalities.

Over the years, a wide range of factors have led to a decrease in birth rate in Japan. First, an increase in labor force participation of Japanese women has resulted in the decline in fertility. Faced with society’s fixed gender roles with men at work and women at home, Japanese women find it particularly difficult to manage working full-time and child-rearing at the same time. Second, there is an increasing trend amongst Japanese women to stay single. It is widely believed that marriage ends a woman's working career in Japan, even though most women are well educated. Once they have a child, women face strong social pressure to quit their jobs and assume very traditional roles, serving both the husband and the child. Third, child care is scarce and expensive, while Japan's brutal work culture often demands that employees work more than 50 hours a week.

The central and regional governments have initiated a range of policies to deal with the population decrease, in particular the falling birthrate. Policies have been designed (a) to create an environment in which people who want to have children and could do so with ease, (b) to create a system in which society as a whole supports child rearing and (c) to facilitate measures that emphasize benefits to children. Initiatives have been introduced to support working women and to enhance child care services, but those initiatives haven’t really reaped benefits yet. Private sector participation is required to enhance the working environment for women and there is a dire need to align public policy design and private sector implementation. Additionally, the government has taken some direct measures to reverse the plunging birth rate trends by funding matchmaking and dating services to get more young people married and produce babies.

So far, the Japanese government has managed to keep the economy stable despite labor force issues. To improve efficiency of the workforce, there has been an increased focus on compact cities. This has brought workplace and home together helping ease traffic congestion and also improving access for elderly people. To counter the problem of a shrinking workforce, Japan has focused on technological innovation and has stood out as a world leader in robotics and automation for several years. Moreover, the central bank has managed to keep Japan competitive in the global market by undervaluing the Yen.

Redressing Japan’s population problem calls for fundamental changes in labor policy, corporate management, education, gender relations and economic structure; and continuing to encourage participation of women in the workforce yet providing them means to start and support families. In the short term, they can address the shrinking workforce situation by increasing the retirement age from 64 years. For the long term, one option is to open up the country’s borders and its society to immigration on a much wider scale, which the Japanese have so far appeared reluctant to consider. Perhaps, the Japanese can also take a leaf out of France’s success story of improving birth rates by providing incremental benefits such as tax breaks, etc. as family size increases.

Corporations and private companies have the responsibility of creating a workplace that has a single standard for both men and women. They can implement policies such as maternity and paternity leave, child care services, flexible working conditions such as work from home, etc. which will go a long way in changing the mindset of single women in Japan towards starting a family.

As the Japanese population continues to dwindle, one of the most obvious remedies to help stem the effects of the Japanese birth shortage would be to allow more immigrants in. Just like women, immigrants are a largely untapped resource which could boost the workforce right away and the children they have would be able to do the same for Japan down the road.

Since Japan is one of the first countries to be staring the demographic winter in the face, it has an opportunity to be a model, a leader to the rest of the world, to guide other nations toward the right way to deal with the issue. The countless number of stories in the international media about Japan’s demographics shows that all eyes are on Japan. This spotlight on Japan presents the perfect opportunity for it to remind the world of the forward thinking, ingenuity, and global leadership which the country possesses, giving it a renewed and more influential role on the world stage.

First Year student experience at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business

2015-04-22T12:44:00.002+05:30

This time last year, I was accepted into the #1 part time MBA program in the country - EWMBA. I was really ***excited*** to become a part of this great academic institution. Since childhood, I had dreamt of studying at a world class institution, sharing the classroom with really talented students and learning from top class professors. This is a dream come true - not only because I have been accepted into the EWMBA program but more importantly because of where I come from and the journey that I've had.

On one hand, I wish I had made a diary entry last year, to keep a record of things I wanted to get out of the program and check boxes at the end of year 1. On the other hand, I'm really glad that I did not write that diary entry as it would have limited the amount of fun I've had.

Following are the highlights from my first year at Haas:

1) FFL: Whoever said that b-school is all about networking got it all wrong!

I have made a few friends (mostly from the Gold cohort) but I can proudly say that I have found "Friends For Life". I also met my girlfriend at Haas which makes this place even more special.

2) Haas Student Community: One of the things I love about Haas is the sense of community. The core course if 1.5 years, this is time that you spend with your cohort (60 people). The camaraderie and friendship that one develops with the cohort is incredible.

In my experience, I've found EW students (across cohorts and batches) to be really supportive of each other. The student council does a great job of representing the entire batch in meetings, raising concerns and making sure that the concerns are addressed appropriately.

3) Student activities: It's just amazing how much energy people have! Almost 50% of the students in my class are married and ~30% of the class has kids. Yet everyone finds time to participate in events on campus and competitions across the US.

Thursday is the new Friday. We do a happy hour almost every Thursday, after class, and find time to destress!

4) Academic Excellence: I came to b-school with an engineering background and data-analytics work experience. I started every single course (economics, finance, marketing, accounting, stats, etc) as a poet but I can proudly say that I can have an intellectual conversation and make an informed decision about the topics that I have learnt at school. It has made me a better employee at work.

A shout out to the program office for thinking through the core courses and stitching together the curriculum, to the professors for employing some innovative teaching methods and to the GSIs.

I have my finals in 2 weeks and can't wait to go on a Vegas trip with the entire batch. It's been an incredible 1st year and I can't wait to see what year 2 has in store for all of us. While, sometimes it does become a little crazy, managing a full time job and full course load together, I'm enjoying every bit of it.

For those of you reading this and considering doing an MBA, I would highly encourage you to explore Haas's EWMBA as an option.

Career: Management Consulting Vs Corporate Jobs

2013-07-01T11:01:00.002+05:30

I recently gave up a flourishing management consulting career and took up the challenge of working in a corporation. It wasn't the easiest of decisions but I studied a combination factors to finalize my decision.

1) Value chain - Every company can be looked at in terms of a value chain:

Revenue Generator - Brings business/revenue for an organization. eg: business developers, key account leaders, etc.
Revenue Manager - Either helps manage company revenues to maintain profitability or directly helps reduce organizational debt. eg: Marketing teams, economic advisers, etc.
Cost Center - Neither helps increase revenue nor helps manage it - exists for smooth functioning of the organization. eg: Human Resources, Office Administration, training staff, etc.

Logical thought is that a company needs and equally values all 3 entities. However, a practical thought is that a company values the entities in the following order: revenue generator; revenue manager; cost center. A company can function without a cost center - it might become a little less structured but will not cease to exist. However, a company cannot function without a revenue generator.

The key is not only to identify your value chain status in the old/new organizations but also to climb up the value chain during the move.

2) Decision Tree -
Every job enables an individual to either directly make organizational decisions or indirectly influence them. The biggest difference between consulting jobs and corporations is that consultants are outsiders in the decision making process (no stake) whereas in a corporation you are supposed to make and support decisions.For example, if a consultant helps establish that investing $5M will benefit a company, the consultant will get paid only for the assistance. However, the consultant will not have a stake in either the profit or loss incurred based on that decision.

For me personally, being a part of the decision tree is important.

3) Span of control -
This refers of the role - individual contributor, team leader, vendor management, senior leadership, etc. The key of course if to widen the span of control.

Consulting provides really quick and timely opportunities to grow. If you meet your goals and expectations, you get promoted. Role progression is built into company's growth and as the company grows, new roles are created to meet business requirements.
Corporations are very different. There is an organization structure which does not change often. So there are limited number of spots up for grabs as you grow higher. In general, role progression can be unpredictable and much slower as compared to consulting.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that meritocracy doesn't always lead to role progression in a corporation. Maintaining a strong network is the key for widening the span of control. Consulting companies are generally meritocratic.

4) Location and Work Life Balance

As a consultant, life can be pretty hectic. Work is circled around client delight and timelines are more often than not very tight. There are way too many last minute requests which have to be handled at priority. Also, consulting jobs usually require travel which can be taxing as well.
Corporate jobs are pretty hectic too but they are known to offer better work life balance than consulting jobs. There is usually a fixed work location but travel can come up once in a while.

Review : Life of Pi

2012-12-18T06:24:00.002+05:30

So, many things stand out about Life of Pi -

Pi's love for God and his practice of 3 religions is interesting, the scene between him and Anandi discussing the meaning of a bharat natyam sequence is subtle yet delightful, the symbolism of the carnivorous island has multiple interpretations, the coexistence of a tiger and a boy leading to the absolute loss of fear is an impressive passage, the movie has meaningful quotes sprinkled all over it, a great story of hope & determination and strong narration that makes it sound true and believable.

Interview Experience - Richard Ivey School of Business

2011-11-06T15:53:00.000+05:30

Interview Experience -

I had my interview with Karen Conway on 1st November 2011 for admission to the Richard Ivey School of Business, London, Canada. I had submitted my application in the 2nd round. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the interview experience but its very difficult to assess what will happen and in my opinion it's best to let the process take its own sweet time rather than calculating the odds. The process went on for roughly 50 minutes where I had a chance to ask questions towards the end. Here goes the interview experience: -

Karen : (Introduced herself). Tell me something about yourself.
Me: I started talking about my personal and professional life. Within 60 secs, she interrupted and asked me to give her more details about my transition from Infosys Technologies to ZS Associates. I explained that and then followed it up with the remainder of the introduction.

Karen : Explain in detail how your career has progressed at ZS over the years.
Me : 120 secs, standard answer

Karen : What did you learn from your international experience? How did you handle a conflict situation while you were at client site?
Me : Long answer, shared 2 instances with Karen

Karen : What is your involvement with the client while you work from India?
Me : Described my current load and participation in the global delivery model

Karen : Have you done any strategy work till now? Can you share your role and responsibility in brief?
Me : Long answer. Not very well structured.

Karen : Define Leader. Give me one instance where you exhibited leadership qualities.
Me: Talked about 3 attributes of a leader and followed it up with 2 specific examples - professional and personal.

Karen : What do you want to do post your MBA? Give me specifics - company name, profile and location.
Me: Talked about my short term goal and then got into specifics - dream company, profile, etc.

Karen : What is your back-up? If this company doesnt hire you what do you plan to do?
Me - Answered her question by telling her about my back-up option. She asked me if I had a back-up career option.

Karen: In which geography do you want to launch yourself?
Me: Spoke to 1 minute about the positives of Canada. Its a tricky question when you have work experience in the US. The question goes more like why Canada and not US? So I ended the answer by talking about me being flexible as far as geography is concerned.

Karen : You have less experience than the average experience of the Ivey class. How will you cope up and manage to add value?
Me: Talked about what I bring to the class at Ivey even with my background.

Karen : You must have a formal review process to get feedback from your superiors at work. What feedback did you receive in the last cycle?
Me : :D Well this is something I wasn't expecting and talked about my areas of improvement.

Finally, she asked me about the research that had gone in from my end. Website, current students, alumni? She then signaled that she was done asking questions and asked me if I wanted to ask any. I did. She then explained the admission process to me and who will take a final call on my application. Have my fingers crossed now and waiting for Dec 16 :)

What's the truth?

2011-11-02T23:36:00.000+05:30

A lot of people ask me "सच क्या है"?

My first memory of fun goes back to the early 90s - weight balancing on a seesaw. Its interesting that both 'going up' and 'coming down' gave me thrill and I wanted to go faster each time. There was a similar appeal while taking a swing and I would ask my friends to push as hard as they could. There was then an inquisitive stage in life where I wanted to know about everything - how did cars work, aeroplanes, universe, how were babies born, etc. I was interested because I was still exploring. I grew up and started going to high school and that's when I began chasing my friend's dream or my parent's dream or probably my neighbor's dream. Nothing around me had changed and no one was forcing or feeding things. I now realize that the change happened because I was done exploring around myself and felt comfortable in that shell. I did not feel like venturing out for 2 reasons, 1) I feared the unknown ; 2) I had lost the drive.

In this process, I changed the definition of fun for stage #2 - It was now called 'doing nothing'. I followed the crowd blindly and went to college. During college, I did not apply thought to any of my actions. I was deriving fun by following others and in the process I lost my confidence. I was so lost in my own reverie that I would spend 10 hours in front of a book and not flip a single page. The biggest concern however was that there were no thoughts. My brain had actually stopped thinking and working. It had gotten accustomed to the sleep mode.

This continued into the next stage of my life - professional life. It was my new found slavery and I was now being forced to do something. I did not have the thought process to analyze what I was doing. The fact that my sleep was being disturbed was irritating. I started looking outside the professional arena and was back to exploring. I wanted to go to a new place, meet new people and just get away from the routine. I was instantly able to connect and started deriving fun from my old source. The catch however was, that I was no more free to explore at will. During stage #2 in life, I had build around myself a huge chain of constraints which were not so easy to let go off. I was beginning to feel miserable.

The reason I am not ending the story is that I haven't seen the dream beyond this point and well the 'I' here represents most people I have come across in life. There is no right or wrong. This is just my version of truth as I see it.