Dsm Chronicle 2016-17

Business Magazine

DSM CHRONICLE 2016-2017 Edition

DELHI SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY (Formerly Delhi College of Engineering, since 1941) Shahbad Daulatpur, Main Bawana Road, Delhi - 110042

Message from the Vice Chancellor

First of all, I would like to extend my warm greetings to all the students, faculty members and staff, and all other stakeholders of Delhi School of Management. It gives me immense pleasure to introduce the 2016-2017 edition of our business magazine- DSM Chronicle.

It is highly satisfying to see Delhi School of Management successfully reach a pinnacle in management education in a journey that it began eight years back in 2009. It has been able to inculcate managerial skills into the students and has nurtured them to make them at par with the corporate world. It has been actively organizing conferences and industry interactions to help students gain an understanding various managerial challenges. This magazine is a continuation of our efforts in the direction of developing our future managers with a holistic view of business world and latest disruptions.

I appreciate the continuous efforts of students and faculty members of DSM that they have put in towards curating the DSM Chronicle. I hope the magazine serves as a source of knowledge and wisdom to its readers.

In the end, I wish DSM to achieve great heights and become an epitome of management education.

Prof. Yogesh Singh Vice Chancellor Delhi Technological University

From the HOD’s Desk

Dr. Rajan Yadav HOD, DSM DSM Chronicle is an initiative by Delhi School of Management, Delhi Technological University to connect students in b-schools to the dynamicity of the corporate world with a touch of creativity. We are grateful to our Honorable Vice-Chancellor for the encouragement and support throughout this initiative and making it a success.

I also congratulate the team of DSM Chronicle guided by Dr. Archana Singh and Dr. Shikha N. Khera, Faculty Advisors for the constant effort and dedication for bringing out new edition of DSM Chronicle. I also convey my regards to all the contributors and wish them all the best for future endeavors.

Delhi School of Management (DSM) was established in 2009 with the up gradation of Delhi College of Engineering into Delhi Technological University. Since its inception, DSM has shown promising growth and progress at making distinctive future managers keeping up with the tradition of DCE (now DTU) of excellent education established for the engineering discipline. Continuing its tradition of growth, DSM has opened doors for students from various disciplines other than engineering and science background to encourage cross disciplinary learning.

I hope the magazine continues to expand its reach to wide audiences and be a platform to share knowledge.

I wish the faculty and students to continue doing the fine work and take DSM to greater heights.

Editor's Note Dear Readers, It gives us immense pleasure to release the 2017 edition of DSM Chronicle - The Business Magazine. The journey started in 2011 and we are delighted to have come so far in the pursuit of sharing insights from the world of business and management. The magazine has not only been a source of stimulating pieces of articles by students and industry professionals but has also been a window for the world to have a glimpse of life in DSM. For this edition we invited articles from B-schools across the country on several topics.

Along with the support from our faculty members, we selected two best articles from an overwhelming number of articles to be published in this edition. Under Alumni Speaks section, we bring to you some interesting insights from our conversation with the effervescent Ms. Tanya Saraswat who is currently a part of Amazon Recruitment team.

We are also happy to present to you a detailed interview with Dr. Ritesh Malik, the serial entrepreneur and investor who has been listed on Forbes 30 under 30 Asia. It was a wonderful experience for our team to meet this young and vibrant personality who had a lot of wisdom to share. The Internship Diaries features an exciting account of one of our students who competed at national level to bag the internship of his dreams. So do not miss out on that inspiring tale of hope, hard work and success.

We hope you would enjoy reading this edition as much as our previous editions. We would like to thank all the participants of ‘Pariprekshya’ - the article writing contest, without whom this magazine would not have been possible. We are also grateful to the faculty members for their constant support and motivation.

Along with the promise to return soon, we would like to sign off with a quote by Walt Disney -

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”.

-Team Chronicle

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IN THIS

DIGITAL DISRUPTION

IN BUSINESS

ISSUE

ZEENAT JAHAN, XIMB

HOW SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN?

NISHANT GOYAL, GLIM CHENNAI

ALUMNUS SPEAKS : A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH

TANYA SARASWAT

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CORPORATE CONNECT :

AN INTERVIEW WITH

DR. RITESH MALIK

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INVESTING IN A FUTURE

THE GIG WORKERS:

HOW THEY FIT IN?

ANIRBAN DAS, DSM-DTU

12 DSM 15 18QUIZ

SHIKHA SHARMA, DSM-DTU

SUMMER SAGA : TRYST WITH

14 LIFE 16

A DREAM INTERNSHIP

RIJUL CHATTERJEE

POET'S CORNER : JOB VS BUSINESS

SAHIL MALIK, DSM-DTU

@DSM

ACHIEVERS

TRIVIA

Digital Disruption in Business Zeenat Jahan, XIMB

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s the Director of the mentoring panel of Employee Resource Groups and Affinity circles, Michelle called the panel members for discussion of strategy that their company is going to implement in the field of SMACIT. She has recently returned from PBWC (Professional Business Women of California) conference and wanted to share some of the views that were exchanged by the subject matter experts in the field of information technology.

“We are quite acquainted with the lyrics of the song of digital era: Social media, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Internet of Things. How do we go about the movie?” said Michelle in a way that confirmed that she was overflowing with the enthusiasm and zeal. While she was overwhelmed with energy the panel members looked confused and started exchanging glances.

“Yes, we must know that how this digital disruption is going to disrupt our business and revolutionize it. The confluence of these technologies is fundamentally changing the opportunities and our way of business because they are eliminating the technical limitations.

We don’t need to worry about how much processing power we need or how much data we need to draw our inferences. Any organization that has access to these technologies can make use of it “, said Michelle.

Ann who was a project manager, asked, “Then how do we navigate this wave of digital disruption? What would make us stand apart or give us a competitive edge over

our competitors?”

Michelle answered “It’s the way we will coalesce our varied technology enablers of SMACIT and integrate it with our mega-services. The different applications we build and market, should provide seamless experience that will make the life of our customers more pleasant and simple. So, the technical limitations are eliminated but we still have human limitation for expertise in the implementation. That’s why I have called this meeting so that our quality circles engage and work more collaboratively. And that’s how we go about this movie.”

Rajat who was solution architect said, “We need to focus more on digital footprints and integrate it with the data analytics. Today we see researches being done in the field of Artificial intelligence as well.

We need to have applications that makes things more automated. We are talking about augmented reality. As we aim to progress in future, we must also look for feasible options, to provide our customers with the incredible virtual reality experience. So, that, they are able to judge whether it’s worth paying for”.

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to be an asset to the organization if we can leverage it to produce information to mitigate the risk of Employee attrition. Imagine the HR metrics like employee turnover ratio, employee engagement index and engagement profile details are collated with Business data like increase in sales of a certain product this year. You might be thinking what is the need to combine it with business data? Well I feel everything is interrelated.

Such particular product ‘s demand increase, comes with the increase in demand of the requisite skills needed to manufacture it. We therefore need to have the information on human cost in the current market Charles, who had interests in advertising, suggested, scenario. It will also enable us to comprehend the “Even the upcoming wearable technologies promises business KPIs which can be at risk if such skills aren’t the future of business. We can have few apps in that available with the organization. field that can be integrated with Google glass or Vivoactive HR or Apple watches.

Let’s collate it further with data sources of behavioral We can improve the IntelliSense as we enrich our product applications with upgrading versions.”

“The ubiquitous sensing and connectivity with the help of mobile, is undoubtedly a growing opportunity in the field of marketing and sales. The dynamic and agile market requires a change or re-engineering of the business processes to be in line with the disruptive technologies”, added Kiara.

Meanwhile, Michelle could foresee that the functional team along with technical team must work in synergy. If they continue to work in silos, they would never be able to overcome the competitors.

“Let us take another example of Big Data in the field of Human Resources and how we can implement it in a scenario of Employee retention. Every employee is associated with enormous amount of data pertaining to their performance, competencies, their career history in the organization, their payroll information, attendance pattern etc. which need to be preserved to derive meaningful insights. This data lying around can prove

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pattern of employees in social media platform, their Stay interview responses and family details of the employee, which would help to understand the behavior, aspirations, interests and probable decisions of the employee. Looking at the various aspects we gain an overall view of the employees of the organization. It will help us to understand the hidden aspects of retention more clearly. The employees at the risk of leaving, the top drivers of disengagement and the cause of their leaving can be easily identified. Thus, big data can help in predictive analytics and can enable the HR managers to take engagement action on such employees and prevent them from leaving if they feel that these employees are genuinely an asset to the company and can’t be easily replaced. The difference between good turnover and bad turnover becomes crystal clear. So, let’s come up with an application of Human Capital Management”, said Andrea, the Head HR. Michelle applauded her for a wonderful idea because this could help them build an amazing application that can be even provided as software as a service to the other businesses as well. At the same time, it will help tackle the human limitations that she feared about in her organization. Michelle thanked everyone for turning up for the meeting and sharing their valuable insights.

She got busy with prioritizing the possible steps, she should start taking to revolutionize the business.

How make change happen?

Nishant Goyal, GLIM Chennai “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed’, William Gibson said. (The Economist, December 4, 2003)

sustainability, social entrepreneurs should have a clear business model and a clear vision. Ideally, they should

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he observation noted a decade back by science fiction writer William Gibson is still relevant in today’s context. Economic inequality is strongly correlated to major issues prevalent in the society from the increase in crime rate to political instability. Over 65 million Indians are still living in slums, still struggling for the basic necessities while the rich enjoys luxuries beyond means. And the cycle continues, as poor have no means to break the chain and rise above the pyramid.

Social entrepreneurship can prove to be the remarkable solution to economic injustice: an important tool for even distribution of future.

How social enterprises are different from the corporates?

Social enterprise follows business model but the end goal is not profit (return in terms of money) maximization.

These enterprises measure profit in terms of the value they bring to the society. Social entrepreneurs are driven to make a positive impact in the world around them. Just like any CEO or senior executive position, they take decision every day and work hard for financial sustainability of the company but they are invested in community, society, environment benefits instead of monetary benefits. Their mission can be summarized as an overlap between value for money and value for society.

Although the world is full of success stories of social enterprises, not enough has been done yet. For financial

have “zero profit, zero loss” model to be true in its spirit.

Business model that are normally followed by social enterprises: Frugal ecosystem Social enterprises based on the frugal ecosystem are driven by “affordability”. Their value proposition to their customer is cheaper yet efficient products. The Perfect example of this kind of social enterprise is Jaipur Foot, an affordable healthcare model renowned for its product innovation. Jaipur foot has produced in collaboration with Stanford self-lubricating knee that cost only $20, while otherwise; it can cost as much as $50000. Customers for this product are usually from the bottom-of-the-pyramid society. These people can’t afford a high-cost knee joint. Although the institution accepts donations, it keeps its cost head down as much as possible and that helps them to sustain in longer terms. Social enterprises can keep their expenditure DSM CHRONICLE

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There are corporates who spend money in R&D working towards building a product that caters the needs of masses. Even though they don’t fall into the category of social enterprises per se, but they follow the philosophy of social innovation. Tata’s Nano car for $2500, GE’s low-cost ECG developed for emerging markets, ‘bucket-mounted’ washing machine device for INR 1500 developed by a startup Venus are just tip of the iceberg.

It’s important that these enterprises establish a proper benchmarking system to measure their contribution towards society to build the trust of its donor. Corporate manage profit, NGO manage the impact. Social enterprises should be expert in managing both profit and impact. A Corporate is analyzed by its balance sheet for its investment opportunity. What balance sheet social enterprise has to show? Balance sheet of value it generates to the society. Social enterprise is as much accountable for ROI to its investors as corporates.

Hybrid model A proper legal framework / policy are required to There are few NGOs that are run by profit earned from strengthen the sector in India. other enterprise established to support the philanthropic cause monetarily. Combined, the two organizations fulfill Social Stock exchange the idea of social enterprise. Annalakshami restaurant Establishing a mechanism in the line of the stock located in Chennai has implemented such model quite exchange can increase participation of donors/ successfully. The restaurant is a revenue stream for investors in social enterprises. It will not only provide Temple of Fine arts, an institution that promotes Dance financial resources to those setups but also make these and music as a social phenomenon. The restaurant is enterprises accountable to their customers. integrated with the non-profit organization; the volunteers serve as a waiter in the restaurant and customers pay as Social entrepreneurship education program their wish. The profit restaurant generates is transferred Education sector can impart a higher value in building to Temple of fine arts. This model is the epitome of the social enterprise sector by establishing properly self-sustainable model of philanthropic premises. structured programs to produce driver of social entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, currently, India has no strong program concentrated on shaping up future social entrepreneurs.

Social enterprise is an idea that can change the world but as any other startup, an idea is just 1% of it, executing the idea takes 99% of the effort. And now is the time to work towards that 99%.

Connector These social enterprises work as a facilitator, establishing a sort of philanthropic marketplace and links donor to the beneficiary. Milaap Social Ventures, a leading crowd-funding platform, connects bottom-of-thepyramid borrowers to people around the world willing to lend. It charges a very small amount from borrow that goes into running the business.

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CORPORATE CONNECT

An interview with

Dr. Ritesh Malik

by Nandita Srivastava & Arna Chatterjee Dr. Ritesh Malik is an Indian doctor, entrepreneur and investor. He has been listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 in the Finance and Venture list (Asia) 2016. DSM Chronicle got the privilege to interview him in which he shared his views about the startup environment in the country and educational reforms needed along with his entrepreneurial journey so far.

1. To start with your background, you switched career from medicine to entrepreneurship. You also went for a course at London School of Economics. So what exactly led you to it?

Very interestingly, I realized that I definitely did not want to become a doctor.

I found myself inclined towards entrepreneurship, but being from a family of doctors, I had no business background. A friend of mine suggested me to join the course at LSE. It was a very good learning experience for me. I met my first mentor there who guided me. He taught me the concepts of marketing, startups etc.

2. What ignited the spark of entrepreneurship in you?

I believe that as a doctor I can impact only 100 lives in a day but as an entrepreneur I can touch millions of lives through technology. When we launched our first app, it saw downloads of 2,50,000 in a single day. So that’s how you can create a difference in millions of lives through technology.

3. Please tell us something about your business model of angel funding.

We invest a small amount say between 10 to 30 lakhs in startups. We do not care for a seat on the board or a say in startups. We invest in startups which we are very passionate about, say in industries like crowdfunding, hardware technology, patent based, India-focused. Our model is simple. We don’t take money from investors. We have our own capital so we don’t have the pressure of returning their capital.

4. You’ve invested quite a lot in hardware startups? So where do you see the future of these startups because India still lags behind in hardware.

The thing with hardware startups is that their incubation period is too long, so nobody wants to invest in them. But for us it has been a boon as we have made a lot of money from it. So it’s a personal choice. I believe these startups can impact the nation in a huge way by generating employment. By 2030 we’d be the most educated unemployed nation in the world as our population will cross that of China. So the idea is to generate a lot of jobs.

5. You have also collaborated with the Government of India for Startup India campaign. Tell us something about that.

That is on an unofficial note. I keep on helping the government in terms of being there with them to guide them through the whole process and policies.

We just give our suggestions, it’s entirely up to them if they wish to take it or not.

6. What’s your competitive advantage?

First, we do not care about return on investment. Once we invest, we don’t create unnecessary pressure on the founder. This is because pressured founders can never create great products. Second is the strategic advantage.

We have a good network of people whom we know from Harvard, Silicon valley, etc. Then we also know people from Sequoia. We can go pitch to them if the product is good. So we have one of the best running portfolios in India

right now. Also we have been lucky because people have a lot of trust in us which is important to succeed in an emotional country like ours.

7. What are your thoughts on women entrepreneurship?

Women entrepreneurship is very close to my heart. I have friends who are women entrepreneurs and I have seen their passion. They run companies much better than men because they know the value of the resources. We have under 3% women entrepreneurs in the country which is sad. So we need to improve the ecosystem. We have partnered with Women Who Code and are open to provide all the support to them.

8. What reforms do you think are needed in our education system?

Massive reforms are needed in that front. The biggest one is - stop teaching children what you want to teach, instead teach them what they are passionate to learn about. It needs to be more structured. Why do we force children to be doctors or engineers? I’m a typical example. I wasted six years doing medicine and realized my interest didn’t lie there. We also need to introduce entrepreneur cells in schools.

9. True, a lot of engineers in our country don’t really want to become one. They realize this later and for some it’s too late to go back. A lot of them go for MBA then. So how relevant do you think management education is in today’s times?

I would say it definitely is relevant. Basic knowledge of management is important.

But it’s not necessary to do MBA to become an entrepreneur. Management degree can be an added advantage. But learning is very important. Along with that collaboration is also very important these days.

10. Can you tell us something about your recent projects?

Right now our main focus is on Innov8 which is a co-working space. We will be launching India’s largest co-working place in Bangalore soon. We also plan to launch more next year.

11. Any advice to college students who want to be entrepreneurs?

Learn as much as possible. Don’t start a startup for the sake of starting. Also have enough savings before you take the plunge.

12. If you get a chance to speak to your former self, say 4-5 yrs back in time, what would you say to yourself?

Think big. Also learn to be patient. I could have waited for some more time when that acquisition offer came in. Along with that read a lot, focus on building your skills, remove people from your life who do not add any value and build long-term connections with trustworthy people.

13. Finally, what are your hobbies?

I like to play guitar but don’t get much time. I also like to read a lot.

14. Which is the last book you read?

Buffettology. It’s an excellent book and I’d definitely recommend it.

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Alumnus Speaks

A Trip Down

Memory Lane with Tanya Saraswat

by Shikha Sharma

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anya Saraswat, a Delhi School of Management alumnus from the 2012-2014 batch is currently a recruitment

coordinator at Amazon. Having worked for organisations like Deloitte and Zomato in a short yet multi-faceted career span, She is a vibrant and positive person who believes in the power of continuous learning. The fact that she was all enthusiasm to share her journey with us at 10 P.M after an exhaustive Tuesday of work goes on to show how she still wants to contribute to her alma mater. Here is an excerpt of the insightful conversation that we were fortunate to have with her.

1. Can you tell us how DSM has contributed to your professional and personal progress in life?

I came from an engineering background and I joined DSM as a fresher.

So, before joining the corporate, whatever knowledge and insights that one requires to make a successful stint came from DSM for me.I was a naive person before and whatever I learnt in DSM through internships, courses that I took up etc. made me who I am today. DSM, in that sense, has been a big turning point in my life.

2. Moving on to your professional life now, your career spans across multiple domains. How has been this journey so far?

My journey has been full of learning and growth. I have done multiple roles in areas like operations, quality management, knowledge management and now recruitment. I have learnt three things in this journey- “Life never stops”, “Time management is everything” and “No learning or experience goes futile in life”. Anything that you learn at any point of life will be useful to you someday or the other.

to become relevant in this highly competitive corporate world?

Groom your personality by taking up each and every opportunity that comes your way during MBA. Become presentable and confident while interacting with people in whichever language you feel comfortable in.

Most importantly, go out and interact with people as it will help you in your career no matter which domain you choose to work in. Build your knowledge about business and about the domain you wish to work in.

4. Since you were a part of DSM Chronicle during your college days, how was your experience working on the magazine?

It makes up for one of the fondest memories of mine from DSM. Our seniors were the flag bearers of Chronicle at that time and we were a team of five people working on it. Sending out Chronicle to various stakeholders of DSM, inviting articles from various b-schools and interacting with multiple people through the medium of Chronicle made this experience worthwhile for me.

5. What are some of your fondest memories from DSM?

Connecting my two completely different roles, I worked on Sharepoint as a knowledge management analyst at Deloitte and when I joined Amazon, there was a requirement here for someone who can manage data on Sharepoint. Even though my role of a recruitment coordinator was completely different from my previous role but my knowledge on the tool came handy in this role as well. Similarly, my first stint at Oysterconnect gave me a platform to interact with clients which was not comfortable for me at first but having done that, my role at Zomato became more meaningful.

I truly believe that no work is big or small and everything you do ultimately helps you to grow and succeed.

3. What skills should students focus on building during MBA

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I have lots of amazing memories from DSM. There are a couple of them that I would like to talk about. Organising the HR conclave was a super fun and challenging experience. Another one is my experience of working with DSM Chronicle itself. It used to be published in a black and white version before but we came out with a coloured version for the first time. I also distinctly remember the launch day of Chronicle when I was on stage with my seniors and peers, It was a big day.

My experience of working with admission committee is another awesome memory where we used to have a lot of fun interacting with the fresh batch of students coming in. Also, I had really good times with all the faculty members of DSM. DSM has given me not just good memories but also people who are my friends for the lifetime.

Investing

in a

I

Anirban Das, DSM-DTU

nvestment, irrespective of the career and level of income, is one of the most important decisions to be taken by an individual during his or her lifetime. So, why is investment required? To answer the question, we need to look into a few factors based on which “how to save your money” decisions are taken.

Life after Retirement The most important factor that makes investment important is that in general, one cannot work throughout his or her life. In India, the average retirement age in India is about 59 years while the average life expectancy at birth is about 67 years. This means that an individual lives about 8 years after retirement from work. Now, to sustain a certain lifestyle even after retirement one needs to have a regular source of income. Thus, it is important to keep aside a certain amount of money while an individual is working to save it for the future.

Inflation Is it enough to simply keep a certain amount aside or in a bank to accumulate enough for the future needs?

The answer is no. Another important factor that compels investments is the inflation in an economy. Due to inflation, the value of money decreases with the passage of time.

In India, inflation CPI for the year 2015-16 according to Economic Survey 2015-2016 is 4.9%. Now, money simply kept aside doesn’t grow and serve the purpose of overcoming inflation. On the other hand, investments provide returns and help to increase capital.

It is a common practice to achieve all financial goals through credits and loans. Nowadays, people tend to buy almost everything from a mobile phone to cars on credit. This method may seem suitable at the time of transactions but in the end, one ends up paying way more than the actual amount as financing on credit comes at a cost. Often a very high interest rate is charged on the credit. Investments and savings play a very important role to achieve financial goals. If purchases are well planned, short term small goals can be easily achieved by savings and a significant amount of long-term goals like buying a car or a house can be financed through investments. This way a much lesser amount would be required to be financed through credit and thus the final amount of purchase would also be much lower than the one when the whole purchase is financed through credit.

Myths about Investments One of the main reasons why people are reluctant to invest is the myths surrounding it.

I am too young to invest A very common excuse to defer investment is thinking it is too early to invest. On the contrary, it is never too early to start investing. Legendary investor Warren Buffet started investing at the age of 11. By starting late, one fails to capitalize on the power of compounding. The longer the money is invested, it grows exponentially.

Financial Goals “I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage leverage being borrowed money. You really don't need leverage in this world much. If you're smart, you're going to make a lot of money without borrowing” – Warren Buffet

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A lot of money is needed to start investing It is believed that one needs a lump sum amount to invest. Nowadays, there is a new tool called Systematic Investment Plans (SIP) that enable investors to invest small amounts at regular intervals in various investment vehicles including stocks, mutual funds and even gold funds. This not only helps investors to maintain a focused and dedicated approach towards investments but avoid any hassles by simply instructing his or bank to allow automatic debit of the investment amount from his or her account that would relieve him or her from worrying about missing out any monthly investment.

Also, SIP helps in rupee cost averaging which in turn helps in reducing risks in the long term.

Direct Investments in Equity This refers to buying and holding shares in anticipation of rise in prices of the shares leading to capital gains and dividends. This investment vehicle may be highly risky but may give the highest returns in comparison to others.

Bonds A bond is an instrument of lending money to an entity (corporate or government) for a fixed period for a certain rate of interest. This is a very safe investment option as the risk is low with decent returns.

Mutual Funds Mutual funds are professionally managed investment Investment is like gambling vehicle that brings together a pool of funds from “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long investors to invest it in different instruments like equity, run, it is a weighing machine.� - Benjamin Graham bonds, etc. In this, the funds are invested in diversified options trying to minimize risk and maximize returns.

Investing is often confused with trading, that involves frequent buying and selling of stocks, commodities or Fixed Deposits other instruments to generate high short-term capital In this option, money is parked in institutions like banks gains. Investment, on the other hand, focuses on wealth and post offices for a defined period of time and earns creation over an extended period of time by holding a an interest in return. The interest earned in this is higher portfolio of instruments for a longer period. Thus the than savings deposits and also has a low risk. risk involved in investment is much lower than that in the case of trading.

The investment decision depends on various factors like Thus, most of the beliefs people have about investments age, income, type of goals (short term or long term). are not true to the word. They simply hamper the For example, Low-risk options should be preferred to decision making process of managing money by invest for short term goals whereas high returns should individuals and thus, hinder the opportunity to grow be considered for long-term goals. Similarly, a person money for achieving financial goals. can take a higher risk at a younger age when liabilities Investment Options The next question is where to invest? There are a number of investment vehicles that can be used to invest money in order to grow it. Some of the popular methods of investment are:

are less than the one at an old age. These decisions can be taken with the help of a financial planner who would analyze the present scenario and future goals to frame out a suitable investment portfolio.

On the whole, one needs to dispel the myths surrounding investing and take a step forward to secure a future.

Provident Funds Also, it is very important to educate oneself about This is one the safest long-term investment vehicles in various investment opportunities that would enable one India. It is mainly a pension fund aimed at saving money to take better decisions. After all, goals in life can be for retirement. In India, a Public Provident Fund gives a achieved easier if approached in a planned manner. return of 8.1% and Employee Provident Fund gives a return of 8.65% as on fiscal year 2016-17.

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THE GIG WORKERS:

HOW THEY FIT IN Shikha Sharma, DSM-DTU It’s really a dream come true. It gives me the freedom to set my own hours and I can do what I do anywhere there is an internet connection” - Heenan, an online songwriter.

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eople like Heenan are part of new model of labour economy that is poised to redefine the quintessential nature of employment relationships. Such a model thrives on the elixir of ‘talentism’ –the new capitalism of global era referred to as ‘Gig’ or ‘The On demand’ Economy.

According to Congressional Research Service, 2016, “The gig economy is the collection of markets that match providers to consumers on a gig (or job) basis in support of on-demand commerce using digital platforms”.

The changing landscape of the business environment, lightning digitalization, shift towards flexible working condition are some of the reasons that are attracting the workforce. The traditional employer-employee relationship is being tweaked. General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Centre points towards a significant increase in the contingent workforce.

What are we attributing to this rise in numbers? The below stated reasons highlight the ambiguity enveloping the premise.

• Businesses that face short term fluctuations in demand of goods and services prefer workers who provide them with the flexibility to cope with market changes.

• Every organization is trying to reduce the costs attributed to labour to pump in money in some other areas such as diversifying to a new product line.

Training costs and investments are reduced when workers with specialized skills are sub contracted.

• Capital market pressure on firms in terms of short term efficiency and performance make contingent workers an attractive segment given the ease of layoff.

The Gig Workers: Employees or Independent Contractors Black’s Law dictionary defines “employee” as “a person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed” and an “independent contractor” is one who, “in the exercise of an independent employment, contracts to do a piece of work according to his own methods and is subject to his employer’s control only as to the end product or final result of his work”.

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Whether a worker is considered an employee or an independent contract has grave implications both for the workers and the employer. Some economies like France, Estonia, The Netherlands, Mexico, Czech Republic have statutorily bestowed ‘Employee’ status by default (OECD 2014). However in economies like US there is no such statutory provision resulting in legal uncertainty and high transaction cost both for the workers and employers.

Under US law, an employer is obligated to pay minimum wage, overtime pay, abstain from any form of discrimination in terms of recruitment, retrenchment, terms of employment on the basis of race, sex, provide safe working conditions, contribute for taxes that makes the employee eligible for social security, unemployment insurance, disability benefits, and medical benefits.

Statutes that govern the employer-employee relationship are: • The Occupational Safety and Health Act, governing workplace safety; • The Fair Labour Standards Act, governing minimum wage and overtime; • The National Labour Relations Act, covering collective bargaining; • The Family Medical Leave Act, covering family and medical leave; • The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, covering job discrimination; • The Employee Retirement and Income Security Act, covering employee benefits ; • The Internal Revenue Code, covering withholding and reporting requirements

purpose of the statute is ambiguous to the concerned or where people are not aware of their status for the purview of the said law.

Though these laws provide a plethora of benefits to the employee and safeguard their interest, their application is dependent on the classification of a gig worker as an ‘employee’. The uncertainty around such classification comes as a result of the relic of common law of tart which allows the court to enact the law yet leave the jurisprudence on a case by case basis. It becomes more of a question of fact than a question of law (NLRB v.

Hearst Publications; Mednick v. Albert Enterprises)

Discrimination - Civil Rights Act of 1866 Under federal law provisions, any worker other than employees is devoid of anti-discrimination protections.

Civil Rights Act of 1866(section 1981); the independent workers are provided protection against the “race” discrimination only. However, the anti-discrimination provisions related to sex, age, disability and alike do not take the aspect of independent workers into account.

This method of categorizing workers as “employee” for the purpose of each individual aids courts to enact the legislation in question, at the same time, it lays down the stumbling blocks of notice and uniformity where the

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Legal Implications The legal front has seen major cases fought on the grounds of misclassification of workers, as they languish in the void of ambiguity concerning their employment nature. Some of these, as charted by Miriam A. Cherry in one of her research papers, are given alongside.

The most recent and the famous lawsuit has been that of O’Connor v. Uber whose outcome was being anticipated as the pivot solution. But the latest trial in June 2016 could not come up with the clarity on whether the drivers need to be considered as the employees or contractors owing to the lack of clarity in the federal and the state laws related to independent contractors.

These loopholes are also evident in the laws as mentioned below: Wages and Hours Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) • Measuring the working hours of the independent workers similar to the employees • The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour but no minimum wage is set for independent contractors • No provision of overtime pay for Independent contractors • Mislabelling employees as independent contractors to reduce payroll cost

Health/Safety – Occupational Health and Safety Act, 2004 and Affordable Care Act U.S.C. § 654, 5(a)1: “Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees’ employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards

that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” This act does not clearly define “employee” and its determination is based on the certain legal tests. However, the caveat is that the act does not cover all the workers.

• • •

Affordable Care Act The mandate requires the firm to have fifty or more full-time employees to offer health insurance meeting minimum value, failing which, the employers will be penalized. As per 26 U.S.C. 43 § 4980H, the minimum working hours of full time employment should be thirty hours per week. Inability to measure the working hours of independent workers raises an issue of concern over their coverage in the mandate.

Moreover, not counting independent workers towards the fifty full time employee threshold, the employers will not be liable to pay penalty if they do not cover independent workers under health insurance.

• • •

the best interests of both parties are fulfilled. Six important facts need to be taken care of: Need for clarity Business models may be changed in response to bad laws Majority of costs associated with federal and state laws are borne by workers Law should not influence the gambit of benefits High percentage of workers prefer part time The best employee protection policy is a strong economy that creates highly skilled jobs.

3. Enhancing economic efficiency Research found that 80 percent of the costs relating to health and retirement are borne by the employees.

Thus, in conclusive thought; the provided benefits by intermediaries might cost the employees more. When the table is turned over, and independent worker status is administered; it enables intermediaries to provide benefits in a better streamlined way.

Recommendations The gig economy segment is a rapidly growing one with implications in both the short and long term having a profound effect on the economy. Influx of workers into the gig fold will lead to lower full time employment and higher contingent workers. Owing to this, the following points have been recommended: 1. “Third category” creation Seth and Kreuger, members of the Obama administration, suggested forming a third category of workers called “independent workers.” A combination of existing and new laws can be formulated to govern this grey area of workers. The existing laws that have been proposed to govern this new category are the antidiscrimination laws and FICA tax laws.

2. Streamlining specific laws to fulfil the purpose Law professor Richard Carlson advocated amending existing laws, subject to approval by Congress. Individual laws may be defined and applied when parameters of nature of work, degree of control exercised by employer keeping in mind

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SUMMER SAGA

TRYST WITH A

DREAM INTERNSHIP

H

i I am Rijul Chatterjee. I am doing my MBA in Marketing and Supply Chain Management from Delhi School of Management, Delhi Technological University.

the final round at adidas. I was excited beyond measure and I had absolutely no idea of what to do next. We were told to report to the adidas HQ at Gurgaon, where the final process would take place.

I did my summer internship at the adidas Group. I got the opportunity to intern there by winning the LinkedIn MTV Get a Job Season 2, where around 200,000 applicants participated for a role of a summer intern at 12 companies.

These companies included Flipkart, Amazon, Uber, HCL, PepsiCo etc.

The D-Day was finally there. I reported to the office early in the morning. I’m not kidding, I was literally spellbound and at a loss for words. The trademark 3 stripes were everywhere, along with huge posters and banners of their sponsored players. Then came the coveted adidas footwear and apparel which are just amazing to look at and touch and feel. I was as excited as a little kid in playground. I could see all my favorite football players, along with retro jerseys, which are not available in the market anymore and are a pure treasure.

Being an adidas fan since childhood and a huge football fan, a chance to work in this company was like a chance to fulfill my dream. Learning about sports, retail, merchandising, visual merchandising in the biggest sports brand company in the world was the chance of a lifetime.

So I applied to three companies- adidas, HCL and PepsiCo, just to increase my chances of getting a summer internship at a good company. I found out about these on LinkedIn and on Facebook. The first round was the shortlisting of candidates on the basis of their LinkedIn profiles. Post that round, the selected candidates were required to send a 1min video, where you were supposed to sell yourself.

I got selected in all the three I had applied to, and shot the video in the campus itself, and uploaded it to YouTube and their site. To be honest, I had absolutely no hope that I would be selected post that, since the sheer number of applicants was intimidating. Students from the utmost premier educational institutes had applied to this and sent in their videos.

After about a month, I received a congratulatory mail, that I along with 4 other contestants had been selected for

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I met with the other contestants. Two of them were from MDI Gurgaon, one was from SRCC GBO and another was from Anna University. Talking to them was slightly intimidating, but I had just one thing in my mind, that since I had come this far, I won’t go home without winning the final thing.

The people from MTV and adidas came and greeted us, and we were taken to the adidas store where we were told that we could buy any apparel of our choice. I immediately picked up a Manchester United jersey, excited beyond measure. The MTV guys recorded video at the store, and asked us about our reactions.

We were then taken back to the office, where we recorded our introductory videos. They told us that the entire process would be telecast on TV, which increased the pressure to a whole other level. Being in front of a camera was really scary, and we had to give multiple takes, just to record our introductions properly.

VJ Gaelyn from MTV came in, and told us about the first round. In it, we were supposed to create a sport out of scratch and make the rules of the game, explain the modalities and also design the marketing strategies for promoting the game. We were given an hour to create it, and then we were told to present it to the jury. Designing the idea of an entire sport within an hour was tough, but we did it somehow and presented it to the jury which consisted of the adidas HR head, the Brand Marketing Heads of adidas and Reebok, and the MD Mr. Dave Thomas in the sidelines.

After all four of us had presented, VJ Gaelyn gave us the results that two of us were selected. When I heard my name, I was really happy, but then I had to gear up, almost instantly for the interview round.

We were told in the very beginning that it would be grilling, so the wait for it was pretty scary.

As I entered the room for my interview, it was a completely different atmosphere. The HR head and the Brand Marketing head, asked me general questions about my passion for football specifically Manchester United and adidas, my passion for music, my views towards success and failure and a lot of other stuff. It went smoothly, and at the end of the process I was relieved coz I was done with the interview and also scared, upon the thought of how I performed.

a regular project, but was asked to search for a project which could give some value addition to the organization.

I observed that all the sports brands had health tracking apps, while none of them had any apps which were actually sports related. So I proceeded to create a proposition for a score sharing and social connectivity app for adidas. Along with that, I had expressed my interest in a competitive analysis of the major sports brands. So I was given that project also, which was a competitive analysis of apparels between Reebok, adidas and Nike.

Those two months were extremely exciting as well as grueling. I played football with the Category Heads thrice a week, made bets on the ongoing Euro 2016, lost my goatee and won a Limited Edition Germany World Cup winning jersey, whilst all the time working like crazy. There have been days where I stayed in the Hyatt, Gurgaon for 2 days for the Spring Summer 2017 product launch, and there have been days where I reached home at 2am, just to leave again at 5am, since the work had to be completed.

This process made me stronger and more confident than I was before. By the end, I am ready to take on any challenge head-on and work hard to win.

Finally these two months got over and it ended with me wishing for more. I still miss those days. I am still in contact with the people from adidas and MTV. Got a lot out of that Ultimately the results were announced by the Managing internship, in terms of experience and knowledge, besides Director of adidas Mr. Dave Thomas. And I had won. I was the stipend and the goodies. Working with the department on cloud nine. It was something which I had worked hard heads and creating live implementable strategies was for, something which I wanted, yet was something which I amazing for a fresher like me. had not expected. My happiness was beyond words when it finally hit me that I would be working at adidas, one of Just remember guys, dream big, difficult to achieve the biggest sports brands in the world. dreams and believe in yourself.

My internship began on the 1st of June. I was termed “The MTV Kid”, and was told that I because of my ‘celebrity’ status (sarcasm was wholly intended), I would not be given

Impossible is Nothing.

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Poet's Corner

Job vs Business B

usiness needs a moral victory: When you decide to go opposite the tide, When you decide to go opposite to what the league is doing, When you decide to quit your job to be an entrepreneur.

This moment earned you a moral victory and First step to start your own venture Your own Business.

You have a whole gamut of activities in business To perform and It is you who has to decide.

Until you don’t step into the shoes of a craftsman, You won’t be able to make your business Shine like a diamond.

Business indeed means a big thing Than a vocabulary word.

Business tests your mental strength.

Business may challenge your personal life.

It takes the most precious thing of your life - Time, Even more than your daily working hours.

It needs devotion and attention.

Business give you deep pockets.

Business may change your way of living.

You are being considered from elite class, You have privileged reservations.

Business lets you feel a sense of ownership of, Which your job can’t buy.

Business enables the livelihood of several families of Which a job is a fraction of it.

- Sahil Malik, DSM-DTU

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DSM Achievers At DSM, we have had the legacy of looking beyond the curriculum to learn and develop ourselves by participating in various competitions such as Quizzes, Case Studies, etc. conducted by B-Schools across the country as well as Corporates. Our students have won accolades at institutions like IIM – Indore, IIM – Lucknow, IIT – Bombay and many more along with organizations like KPMG and ICICI. Below are our star achievers who have made DSM proud.

1st Row (From left to right) :- Nandita Srivastava, Shikha Sharma, Sahil Gupta, Nandivada Nagaraju 2nd Row (From left to right) :- Anirban Das, Dishant Kumar, Anurag Joshi, Jitendra Tiwari 3rd Row (From left to right) :- Deepshikha Suri, Deepika Nautiyal, Tushar Singh, Rohit Raman Subedi 4th Row (From left to right) :- Gandharv Sharma, Nabil Ahmad Afifi, Shubharansha S. K. Singh

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Seminars and Conferences

MBA at DSM provides immense opportunities to students in the two years to hone their managerial skills. Along with academics, you get involved with corporate seminars and national level conferences to gain industry insights and exposure to recent developments from various domains

Guest Lectures

For the overall development of the students, beyond the curriculum, their engagement with business and academic stalwarts is encouraged and multiple guest lectures are organised on campus on various industry relevant topics.

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Life @ DSM

Cultural Events

Life at DSM provides the right mix of experiential learning and fun & frolic. The vibrant DTU campus has many special interest groups and the myriad clubs available on campus. Be it dance, music, quizzing or debating, you get to do it all at DSM.

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TRIVIA

QUIZ 1. Dean of famous

business school and board member

2. Founder of a

hypermarket and supermarket chain

3. Chairman and CEO of an American multinational technology company.

4. An Indian domestic

airline based in Gurgaon with its hub at Delhi- IGIA.

7. “Shoe Dog” is a book on a advertising and public relations company, headquartered in Paris.

8. The term X refers to rupee dominated borrowings by Indian Entities in overseas markets.

Identify X.

12. X is the CEO of a well

known global spice producer and seller based in India. X is a school dropout and is India’s highest paid consumer product CEO. Identify X.

aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website.

9. Once a British Entrepreneur

said, “Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.” Name the Entrepreneur.

10. Which famous Indian

Investor is known as “Pied Piper of Indian bourses”?

11. What is the new name for the investment part of Yahoo that has not been sold to Verizon?

1. Nitin Nohria 2. Radhakishan Damani 3. Virginia Rometty 4. Vistara 5. Reddit 6. Publicis Groupe 7. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman 8. Masala bonds 9. David Ogilvy 10. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala 11. Altaba 12. Dharmpal Gulati

6. A French multinational

famous sports brand’s business history and strategy by one of its founders. Name the founders of the brand.

5. An American social news

Answers to Trivia Quiz

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CHRONICLE TEAM

HOD, DSM

: Dr. Rajan Yadav

Faculty Advisor : Dr. Archana Singh,

Dr. Shikha N. Khera Editing Team : Anirban Das, Nandita Srivastava, Shikha Sharma Design Team : Anurag Joshi Shikha Sharma Members : Arna Chatterjee, Jitendra Tiwari, Shubhransha S.K. Singh

For any suggestions/queries, mail us at -

dsmchronicle.dtu@gmail.com