Newspapers were splashed with its news, everyone was talking about it, the whole nation was following up every bit of information, every event was a record in itself- listing of Reliance Power. This is happening again and this time it is IPL -Indian Premier League.
Could IPL be the next R-power? IPL is creating the same buzz before opening ceremony as Reliance power did before listing and it may also repeat the results after opening as R-power did.
Anil Ambani used to call it the great Indian story so is Lalit Modi saying about IPL. Every one wanted a pie of R-power and corporates are having of IPL. Though the ordinary man (aam admi) does not have much to do this time around as they could do in case of R-power by applying for Rs. 100,000 worth of shares. But, everything will depend on this very aam admi(they have to watch it for it to be successful). While R-power made millions dream about earning a quick buck IPL is making the rich dream of becoming richer and it has already made a few not so rich Indian cricketers richer by a few crores.
But, Why would IPL be the next R-power?
T20 world cup was a great success and so is English Premier League. So BCCI (Lalit modi) decided to mix the two and come up with a winning formula. It indeed is a good idea but every idea has a right value and I think IPL is over valued in terms of the money being thrown around for everything from tournament sponsors to TV rights to buying players.
IPL is a twenty-twenty tournament, which is all about cracking, blasting and lightning - hitting sixes and fours, scoring runs at breakneck pace. T20 world cup was successful for this very reason especially after Yuvi's (Yuraj Singh) 6 sixes in one over to Andrew Flintoff. EPL is about local clubs contesting against each other with international flavor and high standard of the sport. But, T20 world cup was also about nations competing, which IPL is not about and EPL is more about football with many more nationalities participating in the form of players which also is not the case with IPL.
Nation vs. money
IPL will have teams comprising of people from different countries with different languages and different creed. Some of these players have been through recent brawls and will not have the same spirit towards each other that a national team has on the field. This will be an important factor and will reduce the intensity of the teams to win. On the other hand there will be players with long history of playing on the same side who will stand against each other. The question here is what bounds the team together, the feeling of belonging to the same nation or being paid by the same employer? Since money is the only reason for all these players to get together in the same team, they will not be able to perform the way these very players performed in T20 world cup. For some the performance appraisal pressure will not exist either because they are already standing at the end of their career. We may see matches as we have seen before that of India XI vs. World XI etc.
Player combinations
The Indian public is much more emotional than that of many other nations. Now imagine Rahul Dravid and Misbah-ul-Haq celebrating Sachin's wicket when Bangalore Royal Challengers clash with the Mumbai Indians. This may not go very well with the crowd unless the batsmen and the bowler smile and laugh while being bowled or being hit for a six. In either case intensity of cricket will be down.
Less cricket more bollywood
The organizers have already promised a lot of music and dance, which is also very much visible in team advertisements. But, do we not have enough of music and dance on Indian television? Adding more and more masala into the same dish does not make it more tasty! This masala may just make IPL another entertainment show and not a sporting event. Leaving the viewers with a bad taste.
Fans
I am a Sachin and Rahul fan. I shifted from Bangalore to Delhi a month back. So whom shall I support? Well there are many like me who will not have one team to cheer for and hope to win so we will follow the matches just to kill time while not doing anything else.
So while I do not say that IPL will fail, I think IPL will not be a massive success or a run-away hit as expected. It will end up as just another event with respect to TV viewer ship! let us wait and watch on 18th April.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sabbatical, before and after.
Last Friday, I was off the pay-rolls of my firs job. Though I was happy to be moving on, there was a small element of sadness for leaving a job that was my first, one that gave me the taste of money that I could claim as mine. I also completed 2 years and 6 months on that very day. Though I did not sit down and reflect upon these years but I felt having come so far and only so far!
I am already 4 days into my sabbatical and I am really liking it!(unfortunately my so called sabbatical will last only 2 weeks). There is so much more time to read 2 full newspaper, read books, practice music, follow stock markets, write blogs and more.
One side effect of a sabbatical of my kind is - I have not taken bath for the last 3 days. I guess this side effect is locational as it did not create problems in Bangalore weather but survival with this in the north India may not be feasible. If god wishes then may be I will take one tomorrow and may be come back with another post - more meaningful.
I am already 4 days into my sabbatical and I am really liking it!(unfortunately my so called sabbatical will last only 2 weeks). There is so much more time to read 2 full newspaper, read books, practice music, follow stock markets, write blogs and more.
One side effect of a sabbatical of my kind is - I have not taken bath for the last 3 days. I guess this side effect is locational as it did not create problems in Bangalore weather but survival with this in the north India may not be feasible. If god wishes then may be I will take one tomorrow and may be come back with another post - more meaningful.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
B-Schools and the ranking mania
In India, B-school rankings often get published around September as applications start rolling out at that time. So when Outlook and others came out with their rankings in September I thought of expressing my own take on the same but as usual missed like I miss on so many other occassions. Last week there was news of ISB, Hyderabad appearing at #20 in global rankings and as always blogs, newspapers like ToI, mint and portals all were flooded with this news. So I thought, why should I be left behind in writing about this frenzied B-school rankings(this is why I say I am just another mortal).
First of all I think B-school rankings should not be taken by their face value and instead should be used as a resource for data they provide.
Though many people have started believing that these rankings are all crap but I think they do offer some value though not in terms of the rank they assign to institutes but in terms of information they provide in the process of arriving at the rank. If, you go through the methodology of every ranking you will feel their are factors that help one institute over the other. Magazines are often blamed for being biased in setting up those parameters in order to skew the rankings. But, any ranking will have parameters and any amount of parameters will always be in favour of one or other participating members. So why exactly blame those rankings? Instead students should actually come up with their own rankings based on their own order of preference.
Here is my wish list of parameters that I expect magazines to publish and consider while compiling the rankings.
Growth in salary of alumnus over a period of 0-5-10 years of period.
Average salary, highest salary and information like that is already taken into consideration. But, today anyone with an MBA degree from any institute is walking out with a handsome package of 4-5 lacs/annum. Fairly good students are getting above 8. But, when the wheel will slow down the first to face the heat would be the bottom layer of students who managed a job today because of the surging economy. A B-school's worth in terms of real value addition to its alumni and industry preparedness would surface only in long run.
Career growth of alumnus over similar periods.
Now, if we were to measure only salary growth over the long run then those placed with huge organizations with stronger brand value or better work quality would rank lower than those placed with some of the smaller unpopular companies just because they shell out bigger sums to fill in for their other weakness. Sometime monotonous work is offered along with better pay cheque and there is no growth either. So an individual choosing a high growth career over high salary career should at least stand at par if not more than the other way.
Diversity quotient of the last 3 batches.
More and more is being written about how institutes are trying to have a mix of students in their batch in order to have a more heterogeneous pool of potential managers/leaders as this stimulates diversified thinking. But, having 1 candidate from arts, science and medical each, a few from commerce and rest engineers is not a heterogeneous batch. Only if there could be a diversity quotient to find out how much hetero a batch really is?
Average input score of last 3-5 batches.
Institutes accepting applications based on scores of various entrance tests can also list average scores of their last 3-5 selected batches. This will inform if quality of input students is improving or its the other way. There is a catch here though - with increasing number of candidates year after year, if an institutes invites same number of candidates as it invited the previous year, the percentile of the last invited application would be higher.
Average experience of the last 3 batches.
As experience is increasingly becoming important during the course of Business education and placements. It would be interesting if institutes provide data on no. of experienced candidates, average experience and average salary of experienced candidates before and after. ISB provides this data.
Average experience of the faculty in industry and as faculty.
Now getting over my obsession of the selected candidates. Having huge number of faculty is easy but the tough task lies in having sufficient number of good quality faculty. Quality is always subjective but still basic criteria - qualifications, total teaching experience, total industry experience and research papers published etc. could be a good starting point for assessing
overall faculty quality.
Entrepreneurship(E)
This is another cliche which everyone is using obsessively. But, it can still be judged more rationally. E quotient of a B-school could comprise of star-ups coming out of schools, initiatives from institute etc. E.g. what percentage of the graduating batch opted out of the placement process to start something of their own. Though this may be attributed to students and not institute but institute initiatives like IIM-A's followed by IIM-Indore's similar action contribute a lot.
There can be many more things that one can look into while opting for admissions depending upon personal priorities. Do share if you think of any.
Till now if you stuck with this post then I really admire your patience.
P.S I was missing from the writing scene for nearly 3 weeks now. But, with this post things will start rolling again.
First of all I think B-school rankings should not be taken by their face value and instead should be used as a resource for data they provide.
Though many people have started believing that these rankings are all crap but I think they do offer some value though not in terms of the rank they assign to institutes but in terms of information they provide in the process of arriving at the rank. If, you go through the methodology of every ranking you will feel their are factors that help one institute over the other. Magazines are often blamed for being biased in setting up those parameters in order to skew the rankings. But, any ranking will have parameters and any amount of parameters will always be in favour of one or other participating members. So why exactly blame those rankings? Instead students should actually come up with their own rankings based on their own order of preference.
Here is my wish list of parameters that I expect magazines to publish and consider while compiling the rankings.
Growth in salary of alumnus over a period of 0-5-10 years of period.
Average salary, highest salary and information like that is already taken into consideration. But, today anyone with an MBA degree from any institute is walking out with a handsome package of 4-5 lacs/annum. Fairly good students are getting above 8. But, when the wheel will slow down the first to face the heat would be the bottom layer of students who managed a job today because of the surging economy. A B-school's worth in terms of real value addition to its alumni and industry preparedness would surface only in long run.
Career growth of alumnus over similar periods.
Now, if we were to measure only salary growth over the long run then those placed with huge organizations with stronger brand value or better work quality would rank lower than those placed with some of the smaller unpopular companies just because they shell out bigger sums to fill in for their other weakness. Sometime monotonous work is offered along with better pay cheque and there is no growth either. So an individual choosing a high growth career over high salary career should at least stand at par if not more than the other way.
Diversity quotient of the last 3 batches.
More and more is being written about how institutes are trying to have a mix of students in their batch in order to have a more heterogeneous pool of potential managers/leaders as this stimulates diversified thinking. But, having 1 candidate from arts, science and medical each, a few from commerce and rest engineers is not a heterogeneous batch. Only if there could be a diversity quotient to find out how much hetero a batch really is?
Average input score of last 3-5 batches.
Institutes accepting applications based on scores of various entrance tests can also list average scores of their last 3-5 selected batches. This will inform if quality of input students is improving or its the other way. There is a catch here though - with increasing number of candidates year after year, if an institutes invites same number of candidates as it invited the previous year, the percentile of the last invited application would be higher.
Average experience of the last 3 batches.
As experience is increasingly becoming important during the course of Business education and placements. It would be interesting if institutes provide data on no. of experienced candidates, average experience and average salary of experienced candidates before and after. ISB provides this data.
Average experience of the faculty in industry and as faculty.
Now getting over my obsession of the selected candidates. Having huge number of faculty is easy but the tough task lies in having sufficient number of good quality faculty. Quality is always subjective but still basic criteria - qualifications, total teaching experience, total industry experience and research papers published etc. could be a good starting point for assessing
overall faculty quality.
Entrepreneurship(E)
This is another cliche which everyone is using obsessively. But, it can still be judged more rationally. E quotient of a B-school could comprise of star-ups coming out of schools, initiatives from institute etc. E.g. what percentage of the graduating batch opted out of the placement process to start something of their own. Though this may be attributed to students and not institute but institute initiatives like IIM-A's followed by IIM-Indore's similar action contribute a lot.
There can be many more things that one can look into while opting for admissions depending upon personal priorities. Do share if you think of any.
Till now if you stuck with this post then I really admire your patience.
P.S I was missing from the writing scene for nearly 3 weeks now. But, with this post things will start rolling again.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Weight accumulation
No, I am not talking about weight gain or loss. I am writing about the limited weight that we can carry on air travel.
Different airlines have different limits. While Air Deccan did not increase it from 15 to 20 kg even after becoming Deccan some others let u carry a 20 Kg of maximum. Business class travelers have it 25 Kg (in some airlines).
Why not accumulate it?
Now coming to the point of accumulating it. More often than not during my travel(especially traveling home) I carry way beyond that paltry 15-20 kg cap. Then I go requesting, insisting and citing instances where I was waived off a few Kilo grams last time and all that. But, once in a while I carry only a hand bag too. Now, if an airline could actually create a loyalty card where I could accumulate the unused check in luggage weight, how great it would be. Just as the last time I traveled by Deccan I checked in only 5 kg. I would have been so tempted to travel by Deccan if the remaining 10 could be used again in near future and letting me carry 25 kg next time. Most of the premier airlines like Jet airways, Kingfisher and Indian airlines do have loyalty pro grammes where by customers do get freebies for enrolling and then accumulating free miles. What they cannot accumulate is unused weight limits. I would definitely become a loyal customer to an airline that could offer me something like that. In fact most of the Indian people traveling to or from their native would be delighted by this as they have to carry lot of ghar ka khana etc.
Benefits:
1. Loyalty could substantially improve for family customers as families often tend to carry more average weight.
2. This could be a great differentiator for an airline in the highly cluttered aviation sector.
3. It could be a great feature to advertise.
Limitations
There would be a possibility of having passengers once in a while who would come with 200kgs of luggage smug smile on face and their membership card in pocket. Keeping air safety in mind the airlines may not be able to permit that and keeping the loyalty pro gramme in mind they may not be able to say no to the passenger either.
But, if the accumulated weight would lapse on a regular basis like half yearly or so then there could be way out.
Well, till when something like this does not come up, I can only think of requesting, insisting or finally giving up and paying more.
Different airlines have different limits. While Air Deccan did not increase it from 15 to 20 kg even after becoming Deccan some others let u carry a 20 Kg of maximum. Business class travelers have it 25 Kg (in some airlines).
Why not accumulate it?
Now coming to the point of accumulating it. More often than not during my travel(especially traveling home) I carry way beyond that paltry 15-20 kg cap. Then I go requesting, insisting and citing instances where I was waived off a few Kilo grams last time and all that. But, once in a while I carry only a hand bag too. Now, if an airline could actually create a loyalty card where I could accumulate the unused check in luggage weight, how great it would be. Just as the last time I traveled by Deccan I checked in only 5 kg. I would have been so tempted to travel by Deccan if the remaining 10 could be used again in near future and letting me carry 25 kg next time. Most of the premier airlines like Jet airways, Kingfisher and Indian airlines do have loyalty pro grammes where by customers do get freebies for enrolling and then accumulating free miles. What they cannot accumulate is unused weight limits. I would definitely become a loyal customer to an airline that could offer me something like that. In fact most of the Indian people traveling to or from their native would be delighted by this as they have to carry lot of ghar ka khana etc.
Benefits:
1. Loyalty could substantially improve for family customers as families often tend to carry more average weight.
2. This could be a great differentiator for an airline in the highly cluttered aviation sector.
3. It could be a great feature to advertise.
Limitations
There would be a possibility of having passengers once in a while who would come with 200kgs of luggage smug smile on face and their membership card in pocket. Keeping air safety in mind the airlines may not be able to permit that and keeping the loyalty pro gramme in mind they may not be able to say no to the passenger either.
But, if the accumulated weight would lapse on a regular basis like half yearly or so then there could be way out.
Well, till when something like this does not come up, I can only think of requesting, insisting or finally giving up and paying more.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Mumbai Airport
Last weekend(extended weekend) I was in Mumbai just for a break. Being from Bangalore entering the arrival terminal on Mumbai airport almost felt as if I had traveled a few seas across and reached another country.No exaggeration! Just look at the help desk in pink, orange and white. It looks better than a privately run internet cafe.
The amount of space available is so huge it raised the question in mind - where was all this space till now?
Ofcourse GMR(builder of the new mumbai airport) is spending a good time, effort and space to make the travelers realize what it has done. But, it is only adding to the looks of the airport.I do not have pictures of departure longue with me but that was equally good.Like a few other international airports they have come-up with their own magazine too - 'Mumbai touchdown'.
Did you ever see a feedback form drop box on any of the Indian airports? Well, I have seen one on Chennai international departure terminal and it was being used properly to dispose of small litter like chewing gum wrappers, shopping bills etc.Visiting the Mumbai airport after 1.5 years I was highly impressed to see all this and decided to fill the feedback form with positive comments. My cousin with me picked up the Hindi form, which was tough to understand with so much of pure Hindi(its disappointing though that we in India find it difficult to understand Hindi). Well you think who reads all the feedbacks, don't you ? To my surprise someone seems to be doing that as I received an SMS from 'MUMBAI ARPT' thanking me for the feedback.
Message - Thank you for your feedback. It will help us continually improve passenger experiences at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. *Empowered by Moveo systems* Some advertisement there at the end.
But, so much gesture by an airport - to enter my phone number into the system, only to send me an automated message is commendable. For the rest I can show only this. Yes, again from the same airport.
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Blue Umbrella
I haven't written movie reviews here before. I will not be writing them in future either(I mean frequently). But since I found this one worth watching, worth reviewing and may be among the more unknown movies of the year bygone so here is why you should watch it.
Colors are as vibrant as they can be. In fact once you watch it you would feel that urge to visit Himachal pradesh during your next vacation!
Cinematography is beautiful with camera showing views which we often miss out in real life even when we go for those vacations.
Acting had to be outstanding with Pankaj Kapoor playing the lead role. But, even the child actor has done her role well enough and is fitting in very well as a north Indian kid.
Script has a lesson for most of the kids but there is a surprise element every now and then keeping predictability of next scenes low and hence making you wait for the next scene.
It has been popularized as Child movie because it has a theme which could be a lesson for kids but then watch it and you realize isn't this the case with all of us. Why only kids?
Yes, it is a tad slow but if you like watching movies for more than songs, dance, love making scenes etc then this one's worth it.
Colors are as vibrant as they can be. In fact once you watch it you would feel that urge to visit Himachal pradesh during your next vacation!
Cinematography is beautiful with camera showing views which we often miss out in real life even when we go for those vacations.
Acting had to be outstanding with Pankaj Kapoor playing the lead role. But, even the child actor has done her role well enough and is fitting in very well as a north Indian kid.
Script has a lesson for most of the kids but there is a surprise element every now and then keeping predictability of next scenes low and hence making you wait for the next scene.
It has been popularized as Child movie because it has a theme which could be a lesson for kids but then watch it and you realize isn't this the case with all of us. Why only kids?
Yes, it is a tad slow but if you like watching movies for more than songs, dance, love making scenes etc then this one's worth it.
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