Time to Move on......

Scored 640 in GMAT

2011-01-25T22:32:00.000+05:30

I appeared for GMAT last month but was disappointed with the score secured by me. I was hoping that I will atleast secure a score above 680. But it is obvious that my English is not upto the mark for securing my dream score.

I may need to reappear, obviously, for exam with a better preparation.

On my way to write GMAT

2010-09-05T22:17:00.000+05:30

It is almost nine months since my last post. I have been on and off studying for my GMAT.

Joined CAT classes in TIME. I found them to be pretty useful since being away from studies especially maths had its effects. More so joining an institute made studying a joy.

I will appear for my GMAT in Oct 2010. Wish me luck.

Highest Per Capita Income - Qatar

2009-12-05T14:35:00.001+05:30

"Do you know which is the country with highest per capita income?" asked my friend out of nowhere. I drew my head out of the document giving details of the US sanction programs and countries covered under it. Without even giving a thought I blurted "may be Japan". But when he said that Qatar is the country with highest per capita income it dawned upon me that having highest GDP and the country with least population/size matters (which I did considered while saying Japan rather than US) but there is something called 'Oil & Gas'; which can change things.

I thought, "Qatar one of the six countries in GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council) with increased Gas export, definitely had a fair chance of being the country with highest per capita income."

I later checked and found that as per IMF, Qatar with $86,008 per capita income is indeed the country with highest per capita income. (Ref. World Economic Outlook as per IMF). But only question that I had in mind is - is this sustainable?

Appreciating your Colleague

2009-11-08T20:59:00.000+05:30

It is often said that "The deepest craving of human being is to be appreciated". And I never doubted that! And I always tried to provide heart-felt appreciations lavishly. And I always felt good knowing that this little act of mine could bring smile on my colleagues.

And I always felt short of appropriate words to express my sincere appreciations. And google has always been at my rescue. And I everytime amazed to see in how many ways a simple 'thank you' can be expressed.

Food Security

2009-11-06T00:21:00.000+05:30

I have friend of mine who hails from a village and whose parents are into farming. I couldn't resist and asked him why he didn't choose to be a farmer? And, as expected, he told that there is no enough money in it. And even their parents have given up farming and have given the land on lease.

This is not the plight of few select individuals; this is the predicament every famer's son has - should he continue to live struggling life being a farmer or choose to be part of industry to lead a comfortable life. And most choose the second option and the direct impact of this is 'land abondonment'.

We need to start thinking now; if this continue where will it take us? We will have world class cars, hi-tech buildings etc but plates of most will be empty! Is this the end result of industrialization?

A step closer to my Dream

2009-09-13T10:45:00.003+05:30

I have been a consultant in leading technology and worked for various organizations. The nature of my job requires me to keep travelling to various locations across globe. These new assignments are challenging and interesting; as they give opportunity to work with different set of people and provide different working environment altogether; and gives you to an opportunity to start it all over again - understanding them, gaining thier trust, helping them grow etc,.

As a Consultant it is expected of everyone to be expert in thier technology and the customer's business. And it happens quite often that you are dealing with an area of technology for the first time and customer's business is also unfamiliar to you. And this poses a huge challenge on the consultant to quickly learn and understand both technology and business processes. And believe me this is quite challenging and demanding; but at the same time very satisfying - moreso when you see that the customer gains trust on you and feels that he is in right hands.

All these leave no room to join for a course or prepare for an exam, as thier is no stability and high likelihood of being placed at some other place/assignement.

As I have been comitted to my MBA, I have joined an organization (one of the fortune 500 company) in thier IT department, 2 months ago. This will give me ample scope to prepare for my dream MBA. Now isn't is evident that I am a step closure to my dream?

Privatisation of Education

2009-07-02T00:46:00.003+05:30

Advocates of privatisation of education support their arguments with the perceived advantages like availability of choice and better quality of education because of competition.

A research conducted by Stanford University professor's on Chiles National Voucher Plan is pertinent. The Chilean voucher plan was supposed to improve Chilean education and make Chilean parents feel better off because they had a wide choice of where to send their children to school. The plan aimed to provide CHOICE, COMPETITION and ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY.

This paper intends to examine the impact of privatisation of education in Chile using voucher plan. Few of the interesting observations of this paper are :

=> Private schools are more likely to locate in areas with more educated parents, who have more income and whose children are, on average, easier to bring to high levels of achievement.

=> Lower income parents might not be as likely to choose higher-performing schools with higher social status student bodies even when their children might qualify for these schools or they could afford to pay the somewhat higher costs associated with them.

=> Less-educated parents’ self-perception as not “belonging” in these better public or private schools may prevent them from making choices to send their children to higher status schools.

=> Profit-maximizing schools tend to have this rationality (of selecting children of educated parents) in their selection process.

=> Lower class size is not an important factor in influencing the attractiveness of a school to more educated parents.

=> Educated parents pay more attention to school status (as measured by average parents’ education and average test score).

=> Educated parents may not get higher value added from sending their children to private schools (and paying tuition besides), but they probably do get a significant peer effect on their child’s achievement and a potentially large educational attainment effect.

One of the pertinent observations authors make is "Our results neither refute nor provide strong support for the notion that competition will lead to improvements in the quality of public schools."

Bing vs Google

2009-06-28T23:48:00.004+05:30

I always believed competition is good for the consumers, as it keeps the vendors on toes to constantly innovate and improve their service.

A whole-hearted welcome to the Microsoft initiative to unveil Bing - its search engine, rather I should call it "new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions."

I am yet to use it for decision making, but did try it for doing my search to get information and found it to be fast and good. And I found the awesome photo (changing every day) to be cool. The birds-eye-view is also very useful. Some functionalities of like Bing Image search are distinguishing and give a lead to Bing.

However, one thing that we all have to agree is Google's reach; any search you do, the number of records retrieved are huge and incomparable. This is sometimes discounted on the fact that users don't view beyond one of two pages of search result. But as we start doing search with more words/ phrases we start seeing the impact. For instance, I tried to search my blog name saideepchandg on Google and could find it; but no trace of it on Bing.

Only time will decide whether Bing will be able to garner higher market share in the search industry or will remain in the case studies as a failed attempt by Microsoft.

Learning from Experiences

2009-06-28T13:56:00.000+05:30

One of the points that we should remember while we embark on our life's journey is to remember that it is important to Embrace Failure gracefully and Learn from Experiences. Every experience/ failure is an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to start with greater vigour and determination; of course more wisdom.

As per the book The Guru Guide to Entrepreneurship: A Concise Guide to the Best Ideas from the World's Top Entrepreneurs, one of attribute to be successful entrepreneur is to Embrace Failure. And the authors give example of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-mart, who faced severe set-back early in his career, but the learning from those failures ensured that he didn't repeat that mistake again. In a way his early failure can be attributed to creation of today's Wal-Mart - a company ranked 2nd in Fortune 500 ranking of 2009.

Further, Narayan Murthy in his book A Better India A Better World goes further and points out the importance of learning from experiences. As per him ,"It is less important, I believe, where you start. It is more important how and what you learn. If the quality of the learning is high,the development gradient is steep, and, given time, you can find yourself in a previously unattainable place. I believe the Infosys story is living proof of this."

So keep learning every day and move-ahead in your journey.....but remember personal experiences are the best teachers around...

Competing for the future

2009-06-28T09:32:00.000+05:30

Competing For The Future is more so relevant in the current scenario when organizations in the name of cutting cost, increasing the ROI are reducing the head-count. Though these actions are necessary for the survival but doesn't necessarily make companies market leaders in the near future.
It is a essential to spend 20% to 50% of senior management on dwelling on future, however less than 3% time is actually spent. I am sure in the today's world most of the companies senior management is spending most of their time managing the business, way to increase market share, better the profitability rather than thinking about the future. Only companies that keep an eye on the future and stay ambitious and committed to them will be ushered into the new era as market leaders....

Based on book Competing for the future by Gary Hamel and C K Prahalad