Tea Vendor to Ex President

Yesterday witnessed students of FDP at IIMA analyzing the case "The business of RBK-A Role to be Understood", a case written about the business of Rambhai, a very popular identity in the campus, almost every one in this institute knows about him, a poor farmers son from UP who has been making his living running a tea stall and pan-shop outside the red bricked campus since 25 years. Though I am not sure about the contents of the case - I can assure you that you can have something very inspiring or motivating - at least that is what I can decipher from the title.

Tomorrow its going to be Dr. Adbul Kalam, ex-president and one of the best brains the country produced, donning the role of professor teaching a set of students from PGP-PMP programs. He is taking the course titled GRIT - Globalising and Resurgent India through Innovative Transformation, an initiative to get the WIMWI students work on some of the public policies that can benefit the nation.

Just with in a span of two days - we have seen the illustration of the fact that the learning is omni present and we just have to keep our eyes and ears open to grasp the same - it could be from a tea vendor outside the campus or it could come from ex first citizen of the nation. Students should be enthusiastic about learning from everywhere. Wow Such a wonderful place this is !!!

Perfect Dinner

Prof. Ravi C hosted a dinner party for all the students of Logistics Management at DasaPrakash. If Saral da's attempt of using the example of cheetahs and elephants to explain us that variety and quantity cannot be simultaneously manged was brilliant, I am tempted to call this dinner as a masterpiece.

From the previous experiences - I often found that when the group size exceeds single digit number and the dinner is not a buffet - there is a lot of over-ordering and hence wastage of food. Huge amount of time and energy is spent in co-ordinating and placing an order and rarely get a chance to spend quality time. But nothing of that sort happened though there were 40+ people.

It was a south Indian restaurant with a large number of items in the menu. The professor gave clear instructions to the restaurant before hand - he decided all the categories and in some of the categories he also mentioned the popular items and in some categories he asked the restaurant to give 3-4 options allowing some flexibility to the guests. In detail it goes like this -

Category 1: Starters - Bhajji followed by idli and wada ( A couple of rounds of each)
Category 2: Dosas - A choice between 3 kinds of Dosas + Uthappams
Category 3: Fillers - Bisi Bele Baath - South Indian Dish (Ratio of 1:6) + Curd + Papads
Category 4: Desserts - Sweet dish and Ice cream

The students had a choice with in some boundaries in each categories and the food items with in these categories were unlimited and it covered the entire range. Plus of course he allowed students to make one off order apart from the above list - the main intention of the above set up is to minimize chaos. You might even look it as a buffet being served at table - whatever it is a very good workaround to the well known problem that the variety and quantity cannot be simultaneously managed and for me it is something I would like to remember forever. All in all - it is an experience provided by one of the great profs at WIMWI

Kingfisher @ 3AM

March 25 2008,
We were working on a SFI project which was to study the strategy of Kingfisher and the deal it struck to overtake Deccan and provide a road map for the future. The first two parts largely involved to collect all the information from the web and analyse the same using some of the standard strategy frameworks and debate on the effectiveness of each move made by Mallya in the case of Kingfisher and Deccan. The last part was to look at the current performance and come up with a plan to go forward - one of my group mates (Piyush) and myself debated over various issues for over about half an hour which cleared most of our doubts and helped us come up with a clear set of ideas which we eventually mentioned in our report. We completed the report and looked at the watch it was 3AM. We laughed over the fact that we came up with a road map in an hour - that too at the most odd hour of the day. Now thats WIMWI life !!!

WAC and WACA

WAC is Back in Term III and this time it has some work in groups too. The first edition of this term one was to be written by a couple of students and hence the grind was on. We were writing some stuff on PPP in Water Management. Submission was due at 4:30PM, we were getting WACed and at the background Indian team was whacking Aussies at their stronghold WACA . I was impressed by both our efforts and planning in writing this WAC and team India's magic at WACA especially after losing the first two tests - the second one was not a lost match of course!!!

Great men raise to the occasion - proved again by Rahul Dravid ... he rose from his worst patch and scored a gritty 93 in the first innings and one more thing that needs to be mentioned is about the new wonder - Ishant Sharma who took the priced wicket of Ricky Ponting who was (c) Dravid (b) Ishant in both the innings - Oh boy!this boy has a long way to go .

Gusshow India!!!

Just in Time

Prof. Saral Mukherjee a.k.a Saral daa .... the operations prof continues to impress us. After using the examples of cheetahs and elephants to explain us that the variety and quantity cannot be simultaneously managed ... he now tells us what is the basic principle behind the success of JIT - the most envied Japanese concept of production- in his own style

" The system designed to SUCCEED will SUCCEED only if SUCCEEDS to SUCCEED and the system designed to FAIL FAILS if it FAILS to FAIL"

These two lines depict the complete success story of JIT and why it is so reliable - which we the students can rarely forget - Hats off !!!

Day out at Ahmedabad

From the day I have arrived in the city, I have hardly seen anything other the red bricks - even the thought of crossing the gate of the campus did not come to my mind all these days. Let me clear a doubt here - we have no restrictions on going out just that I did not find any reason or time to think about it!! Thanks to the OM assignment - Yesterday I had an opportunity to go out of the campus to visit the head post office at Navrangpura. I was amazed to see the world again, the people, buses, noise and roads - hardly thought about them in the last 3 weeks at campus and it was all evident on my face. My group mates could see it all and I had no intentions of hiding it - I was amused after all - relishing each moment of my outing !!!

Huh .... This is what fachchadom can do to you!!!

The Campus

Now that I have new laptop...yes we got the new laptop after the grand welcome by our tuchchas. First week at IIM has been an experience, now I am as confident as the batsman who has seen through the initial overs and fairly equipped to face the rigor of the life time.

As I sit down to describe the 100 acre campus I am not sure where to start off.Let me make an attempt to take you through the hallowed portals of IIMA.

At the entrance of the old campus you find the Harvard steps leading to the Faculty chambers - yes as the name suggests that is where the you can find the teaching and assisting faculty. Then we have a five storeyed Vikram Sarabhai Library which remains the highest point of the campus barring the water tank ofcourse. Just go a bit further and you are at the old class rooms - CRs 1 - 6 . Did you find a lush green lawn just go there and now you are at famous Louis Kahn Plaza, the happening place of IIMA , just stand staring at the library and now on the left you find the way to auditorium - RJMCEI Auditorium named after the institutes first director Prof. Ravi J Matthai and on the right you find the way to the Mess Building which houses the mess and a canteen, cafe TANSTAAFL.

Now that you have seen the core of the old campus lets move on to the better part - 18 dorms in the old campus (15 boys and 3 girls dorms) . Each dorm has around 30 rooms with 10 rooms on each floor with almost equal number of fachchas and tuchchas. Oops the poor fachcha is a first year student and the godly tuchcha is his senior, guide and philosopher. Each dorm has a Dorm Rep, Fin Controller, Pantry Manager(s), Printer Manager and Beverages Manager - tough job in the dry state? Not really I guess. The first two roles donned by tuchchas and the others carried out by fachchas. Please note that some of the functions or roles are optional. The dorms are something that you associate to for the life time and this is the place where you begin to learn the art of surviving the most dreaded academic system on the planet.

Getting late ... lets rush through the 100 ft tunnel down there and reach the new campus and its not the red brick any more but still you can find the arcs and circles stating that its part of the WIMWI. This has 5 dorms - all boys with 40 rooms each and 5 class rooms CRs 7 - 11.

The time constraints force me to leave you out here anyways I would be over ambitious if I thought I would be able to tell you about the campus in a single post.