IIM Ahmedabad tougher than Harvard Business School ??

The Indian Media essentially thinks of our society as a very intelligent fool , you know, and guess why do they do that ? Because they know we will lap it up .There are many examples ; but just for this time, I’ll discuss one aspect I want to write about.

There was a speculation based on a statistic that IIM Ahmedabad was more difficult to get into than Harvard Business School (Let us forget about Wharton/Sloan/Stanford for the time being). A lot of you know the logic already but I’ll explain it one more time.

Its very simple – IIM Ahmedabad selects roughly 250 out of 2.5 lakh CAT candidates with a success rate of .001 or 1 in 1000 and Harvard takes in around 100 candidates out 8000 giving a hit rate of about .0125 or 1 in 80.

The thing is , this statistic is all too wrong. The real fact is CAT is Common Aptitude Test and is an entrance exam to many colleges beyond IIM A or even BLICK. Not all of those 2.5 lakh CAT aspirants are aspirants of IIM A. Very few write the exam having a realistic chance of cracking IIM Ahmedabad. On the other hand barring a few who rely on a leap of faith ,most of the Harvard applicants have a realistic chance of cracking into it since sucha an application requires a lot of soul-searching (SOP) , previous enterprises (Social/community Service) or even a spark of genius (Read : Very high extra curricualrs) and lastly solid work experience (More than just Infosys/Wipro etc). Harvard gets to select the choicest choice of these applicants hence have a classroom full of extremely high potential and diversity in terms of both sex and educational backgrounds.

I am not saying IIM Ahd does not boast of the same but the above might be the reason why it does not rank regularly alongside the top B-schools of the world despite being so tough getting into. Both Harvard and IIM Ahd are very different b-Schools and have a different approach as well as methodology of admissions and it would be unfair to compare them and come out with a definitive one-on-one opinion.

Rafa Ramblings

It was one cold December night back in 1998 in Calcutta, my exams were near but I was bored.So I sneaked up when everyone was asleep to have a peek at the television.Nothing was on, nothing I was remotely interested in, anyways. Then a football match involving one Liverpool and Newcastle United caught my attention. A young forward called Michael Owen scored two beautiful goals tor register a home win for the Reds.I have been a avid supporter of Liverpool ever since. A love affair which continue till date.

Liverpool fans are known to be extremely loyal.Lately though , the Kop has grown a bit too restless the prime reason being as they say “A lot is happening at Anfield but we are not winning anything - this primarily because maybe we are at the peak right now and we are not winning the EPL. You know how Arsenal won when they had their dream run, Chelsea won when they had theirs for 2 straight years and even Blackburn Rovers edged out Man U once when in the early 90’s(yes , do check out wiki).

We are the best team in the Premiership right now , because you see we defeated Manchester United both at home and away , did the same to Chelsea and to Arsenal as well except for that draw at Emirates which was mainly because Rafa wasn’t in charge and was in hospital. We are simply not winning EPL because we draw a lot against some mid-table teams. See when teams are scared of losing against us , they park the bus in front of the goal , and it takes a special something to break them down. We have that special someone in Gerrard and Torres but as luck would have it we have either missed both separately or together and that meant we lost precious points against them, whereas Man U and Chelsea have always had the services of Rooney(who has turned out to be an excellent winger, maybe better than Ronaldo as well), or Tevez(scored some very important goals this season) or Lampard (he’s never been better or bad as well). Even Drogba, Malouda and the two Coles have all provided Chelsea the constant firepower they need to break down mid and low table teams. Even Ballack provides the constant threat.

This may seem cliche’d but we need to have some patience right now. Liverpool does not have the funds or the permission to spend like Arsenal(almost into bankruptcy) to bring in talent randomly. Like Rafa said we get to buy 2 players a season and Man U, Chelsea get to buy 5 ,if our 2 fail to deliver everybody notices but if their 3 fails there’s always 2 of them to make Fergie or Scolari look good. Another thing that hurts Liverpool is that teams like Stoke City, Hull City and Fulham play total defense in front of their home crowds against the better teams and their fans support it , since for them a draw against us is as good as a win.And contrary to West Bromwich Albion or Wigan they have the defense to do that.

Our fans are always busy criticizing Rafa’s rotation policy, his decisions and everything he does, of course only when we lose. The fact is that even Fergie did not achieve as much as Rafa did in his first 4 years. It took him ages to win the Champions League and look what Rafa has done to us – We are the best team in Europe in the last five years and we are regularly beaten top notch teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Chelsea in their own backyards. To think at some point Owen left us because we were failing to qualify for the Champions League, I think he has done a phenomenal turnaround. The Rotation policy isnt a simple whim of Rafa’s, he does it based on a complex computer simulator which has a database which indicates how each player could get affected in certain situations and shows which players are fatigued and could be a weak link and then comes the final training sessions where the team is actually picked.We don’t lose matches because top form Benayoun is not playing , or simply because Skrtel is playing on the right and Kuyt was playing lone striker instead of Babel. Liverpool’s squad is too top-class for these minor changes. We lose matches because Gerrard and Torres does not play, we lose because sometimes Alonso has a bad day, we lose because decisions go against us, we lose because of one defensive fumble, we lose because sometimes we don’t make the most of our chances. Even Fergie rests Tevez ,O’shea like anything. Did Man U fans cry hoarse after their loss to Arsenal ? See football is affected by lots of real pitch events and a Gerrard injury and a lack of a superb sub as a striker can affect the outcome more than a simple rotation policy. This year we gave a severe title challenge but it does look like we may lose once again but I would say it was a huge gain for us. If Rafa had the money, he would have lured David Villa or Aguero into our squad with the ease Chelsea bought Deco and we probably would have finished those easy chances in the absence of Torres and who knows a couple of draws converted into wins would have put us right into the title challenge at the business end of the year.

I would say Rafa’s experiment sometimes go wrong but most of the time we have reaped huge rewards. It would be a mistake to say that his squad selection and transfers were mistakes. We are growing and learning, as a Liverpool fan, we just need to have a little more patience now that we are so close. Like my friend said “Either get used to Rafa or suck it up !!”

The IIMs ,IITs and India

This article appeared on Financial Express for those of you who missed it.

Nearly half of the India Inc’s professionals in Chief Executive role hail from the country’s elite institutes — IIT and IIM, a study says.

“A whopping 50 per cent of the professionals in Chief Executive or Strategic Business Leadership roles hail either from the IITs or the IIMs or both, across corporations studied,” global executive search firm EMA Partners International said in a study.

Explaining the trend, EMA Partners International’s Managing Partner-India K Sudarshan said, “Since mid-60s, graduates from these institutes have steadily permeated the Indian corporate landscape and through their sheer brilliance and contribution have climbed the corporate ladder and they further patronized their alma mater in their organizations.” “The major contributory factor for the success of IITs and IIMs is largely because of the selected input quality.

Besides, the very presence of several successful and distinguished alumni from these institutes in the corporate landscape adds up to the brand value of these institutes,” Sudarshan added.

The study was conducted on the educational background profile of executive leadership across companies in India.

They covered top 200 companies in India chosen on parameters including market cap, size of revenues, sector wise market leadership and employer branding.

Out of the four elite IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow, IIM-Ahmedabad produces the largest proportion of Chief Executives at a whopping 62 per cent and IIM-Calcutta comes at the second place at 27 per cent.

However, IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Lucknow have made a lower impact in the top brass of corporate India, the study said.

A sectoral analysis shows that financial services and manufacturing sector represent the lions’ share with 26 per cent and 27 per cent of the potent IIT-IIM combination, respectively. IT and ITeS comes third with 20 per cent.

The study further highlights that IIT and IIM graduates have skipped the public sector over the years, as the study said when it comes to the IIT-IIM combination, public sector accounts for roughly 8 per cent share.

This trend is however changing in the present economic scenario as PSUs have now emerged as the preferred job destination for the IIT and IIM students.

Last year, eye-popping salaries were offered on the campuses, but the effect of the financial meltdown has already taken its toll on the campuses this year, Sudarshan said adding though that the impact would be “temporary”.

I would like to infer a few facts from the above survey.

1.It seems like IIMs and IITs are indeed contributing to the great Indian corporate. A lot of hue and cry is made when surveys come out proclaiming how meagre these elite institutions’ contribution to research has been, but do remember that when you gloat about how India Inc. has come off age, a large role was played by the IITs and IIMs

2. I do see but in very very minute quantities people emerging as CEO of a global company when people choose foreign locations in placements. Does it mean India does manage to recruit back some top talent and make good use of it (by putting them in top positions)? IS it that Indian students rather prefer a top job than a dollar job ?? Remember the CEOs that you are seeing now probably graduated way back in the 70’s and 60’s when some of the newer IITs and IIMs dint even exist, so this does not involve any recent trend.

3.PSU s are recruiting in large numbers in IITs and IIMs , good to know that, and even better they are getting accepted by students given the current sorry state of affairs in the other glam world of finance. But, practically speaking, its impossible for them to retain such top talent, as soon as the world comes out of recession and the top companies start hunting for these grads,most of these will be gone. Hence the challenge is not to try and retain them (which will never happen) but to make the most of their talent and skills to improve affairs at various PSUs. Most of them suffer from deep organizational and operational maladies and can be resolved by putting these people at the very helm of affairs.

Classroom Drama

I am now standing at the fag end of the 2nd year. Among the many ubiquities privileges that come in 3rd year and I am looking forward to, is that I won’t have to take crap from subjects I don’t like, importantly Geotechnical Engineering. This is a very unique slot we have, taken by a faculty who is in fact extremely hard-working. Unfortunately there are only a few takers .

The class starts with our faculty entering right on time and as some allege sometimes before time. But the Civil sense of time(pun not intended) can hardly be reliable since we take it for granted that every class shall start at least 10 minutes later than schedule. F(Faculty) will take our attendance right after entering the class with the following efficiency solutions.

1. The proxy experts haven’t yet arrived and hence no need to look at individual faces.

2. Less number of students means faster attendance. Hence energy saved and time saved. The class starts with F writing X on the board.

X refers to all study material which seem Roman at that point but seem perfectly Geotechnical before the day of exams. The initial ten minutes will result in people diligently copying down formulas/bulleted lists/diagrams only to realize that those were ‘recap’. Meanwhile the rest 90% of the class will have gathered outside by this time and with use of sign language which only the M17 and FBI can detect, will try to gather vital information as to the status of the attendance. Hearts are broken when they get their negative replies but nevertheless get inside thanks to F having a peek outside.

As the last benches get filled up now, the murmuring becomes louder which irritates F and he in turn murmurs a few threats which eventually have some effect. Now that the lecture is in full flow we can easily divide the class into Two Phases and Three Types of Junta. For fear of stereotyping, I won’t classify using names like Nerds, Sleepers, Boring phase, Active phase etc.

Junta Type One

They are the ones which keep the professors at bay actually. They copy down notes diligently stare at the board or the professor most of the times. Not that I blame them , since come exams they are our Saviours.

Junta Type Two

These mainly comprise the back/semi-back benchers. They utilize their time exploring their creativity, venting their feelings on the back page of their All-In-One notebook, scribbling on the desks, throwing missed calls to people to check their silent mode status, participating in the under-desk chatting network, cursing themselves for choosing engineering, breaking high-score records in Snake , drawing caricatures or sometimes taking photographs of others(including F)

Junta Type Three

These comprise people for whom the most productive hours of the day last from 1 AM to 3 AM and hence get their precious sleep in the class before they get back to Counter-strike, Dota and movies. There are three different poses in which you can sleep in the class The Face in hand pose, in which you put both your hands on your forehead, seemingly staring at the notebook. The other variation is in which you support your forehead in one hand and pose your other hand on the notebook. This is less riskier since you appear to be taking notes as well in addition to staring at you notebook. The third, the most daring and only employed to fight drastic bouts of sleepiness, is to go heads down on the bench. I repeat , DO NOT attempt this with high-risk faculties and HODs and if you do, take the precaution of informing your bench-mate to give you a tight kick in case of an emergency.

Phase One

This is the phase when people have higher levels of patience and endurance and are ready to take crap from F in exchange for the attendance. Diagrams are drawn, tables are made and notes taken, even by the back-benchers. Some even venture out their curiosity by asking questions.Overall a very feel-good phase which exists for the first 40 minutes.

Phase Two

This is when the furtive glances at the watches become more and more frequent and then anxious as one spots other department students strolling out in the CLC corridors like that deer who has just been released in Madagascar from the New York Zoo. Anxiousness gives way to desperation as the regulated time is exceeded and groans for release are rejected with “just 5 mins” statutory remarks.Needless to say it is never “just 5 minutes” and maybe way more than that. This phase is I think a true test of nerve , if you can endure this , I guess nothing in life will be more difficult be it listening to your wife’s rantings in future or your Boss taking credit for your work. After all it’s an engineering college which makes you a man.(Feminists please shut up, it’s a figure of speech)