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Reflections of Prof. RNV My dear fellow professionals & students,

corporate career, you would have or get many occasions to work on CFT's (Cross Functional Teams). Here your functional knowledge (gained thru your elective subject choices), and the basic knowledge gained from the core subjects can help you to make meaningful contributions. Be it statistics, to understand and analyze your data; corporate finance to evaluate the financial implications; Human Resources Management to hone your skills to work in teams everyone of the skills is required to make your presence and contribution visible in the team. And make sure to follow-up and communicate in the relevant forums and work on to implement your suggestions, which can bring visible, however small, benefits to the company.

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'm writing this as I lay down my office at the completion of a chronological event - of attaining superannuation. I'm reminded of a line by William Shakespeare, “All the world's a stage, and all the men & women merely players”. Perhaps still a long way to go for the last stage “sans teeth, sans eyes and sans everything” and the final “farewell-bid”, I feel I'm still healthy & active enough to add some value to the community, and in particular the young student community, for whom I have a special place and passion in my heart.

It still looks very fresh, when I came to KIAMS on the Foundation Day of 2001. The Director, Dr. Gopal Iyengar asked me if I could make it on that day and present the students' seminars as part of the selection process. It was a real “love at first sight”, seeing the compactness & serenity of the campus. An ideal locale for the pursuit of intellectual explorations, I felt. I considered I would be extremely fortunate to be part of this institution, which eventually materialized. After being in Industry for 30+ years, I felt it was time for me to shift to full-time academics for sharing my experience, knowledge and expertise with the managers-in-the making for tomorrow's corporate world and KIAMS provided that environment. My MDP and part-time/visiting faculty experience helped me to take to academics as fish to water.

One of the characteristics of successful contributions is Innovation”.

Be it new product; feature; market; customer; process or system.

Innovative contributions come out of upgrading your knowledge and understanding the developments and paradigm changes and put them to use. Dr. Albert Einstein said “You cannot solve a problem with the thinking that created it.” Please read Dr. Osborne's “14-thought provoking questions” and sensitize them within you. They can be applied in any situation and can help you to contribute meaningfully.

Now the aspect of concern in “the top of your mind”, viz; placement.

Please understand that the Institute can be a resource for placement and not a reservoir of placements. There can be a dichotomy of negative correlation between your academic performance and placement performance. Don't get disillusioned with that. Analyze your previous interview performances and improve on the shortcomings. While communication is important, it is not a sine qua non for success. We have had students who were poor oral communicators, but could still impress the recruiters with their in-depth subject knowledge, and came out successful.

The development of TPS (Toyota Production System) self-learning CBT; the case-study in Knowledge Management in the first edition of Alliance Anthology of Cases; the paper on Communities of Practice as a Vehicle of Knowledge Transfer in the International Conference on Green Competitiveness at IMT Ghaziabad, the paper on “Change Readiness in Young Executives” presented in the 4th Asian Business Conference, Dhaka, Dec. 2010 and the case study on Entrepreneurship presented at the ISB-SEE conference in March 2012 among other contributions, bear ample testimony to my initial expectations. I would like to still continue to contribute.

Now the final thing: your elevation to the permanent status of Alumni and joining the alumni community. Have concern for the Alma Mater.

It is your performance & contributions which make an impact and pave way for repeat visits of recruiters in future years. Remember you are the best brand ambassadors of KIAMS, in the future years to come!

While you would have enough occasions to visit KIAMS for Alumni Day or Nostalgia Day, you can also do meaningful contributions through your sharing of experience and knowledge on a continuous basis. Share your problems and solutions with the Faculty and juniors.

That is part of the continuous learning cycle. Make the different clubs active with your communications. The web is an excellent forum for various interactions.

Learn to keep you active, and “kicking and alive” not just floating - for continued growth and success in the years to come.

I conclude with a Vedic prayer: “Let Indra bless us with a fertile mind; because it is that which the harbinger of growth, prosperity and progress”.

As students who are shortly going to enter the corporate world, you should look at employment security than job security. Employment security comes from making yourself employable, which consists of your academic and soft-skills. The Rig Veda states “Let noble thoughts come to us from everywhere”. I would just rephrase it to “let knowledge come to us from anywhere”. You should be open to learn from any source- be it your Boss; Peers; Subordinates; and Customers both internal and external. If Gandhiji had said that, “customer (external) is the very purpose of our business”, I would like to add that “internal customers are the very purpose of your position and function”.

Unless you add value and contribution, your function and position can be at stake.

As PGDM (or MBA) students, you have gained a repertoire of subjects and techniques. Every one of the core subjects you learn in the first year is important for your understanding the totality of business. In your

Best of luck & wishes to every one of you!H

Editorial Dear Readers, A very warm welcome to the new batch at KIAMS, and also those who have come back to college, bringing in the experience and learning's from Summer Internship Projects. A very famous personality once said that experience is the name given for one's mistakes. Well, we would like to add upon that by saying that experience is the learning's from previous mistakes. Our director always says that college is the safest environment to fail. Thus for most of us who fear failure more than anything else, this is the time to face it.

It's only after overcoming that, are we going to adapt to new things, venture into unknown arenas, face new challenges and make our mark.

This issue is focused on “International Business”. Thus we would like to emphasize that anything unknown is foreign. What is foreign and what is not is in the mind than in physical boundaries. “Narrow domestic walls” as Ravindranath Tagore said. So, in the beginning of the new academic/financial year we wish all a great success and hope that we venture into unknown not with fear, but with curiosity and confidence.

Happy Reading!

The Editorial Team 1

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Conquering Markets Abroad: Some Thoughts for Emerging Market MNCs Dr. V. S. Pai

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n the past several Indian companies have shown a tendency to grow exponentially both in the domestic market as well as in markets abroad. The growth trajectory chosen has been one of mergers and acquisitions. There are several reasons for this trend with the most significant being the high growth opportunities in several markets and the cash rich position of these players. For example, the leading Indian business houses the Tatas, The A V Birla group and the Mukesh Ambani group had group turnover of Rs. 14,000 crore, Rs. 3,100 crore and Rs. 2,300 crore respectively in 1991. By 2010 these three groups' turnover stood at Rs. 3.46 lakh crore, Rs. 1.35 lakh crore and Rs. 2.6 lakh crores respectively. Even other family-promoted groups such as Essar and Mahindra & Mahindra grew from Rs. 350 crore and Rs. 1030 crore to Rs. 67,400 crore and Rs. 56,000 crore respectively.

fixed costs across regions. This will require standardization at the base product level. Godrej Consumer Products has achieved this via cross-pollination of products across countries and continents. An example is the successful launch of its insecticide brand 'Hit' from Indonesia in the Indian market. Another example is the introduction of powder hair colour from India to Africa under 'Rapidol' brand, which again is doing well. Brand can be a very good platform strategy in regional/ national markets.

The last is the mandate strategy, which focuses on economies of specialization as well as scale. Companies that adopt this strategy award certain regions broad mandates to supply particular product for the whole organization. A company can have centres of excellence in different continents. Each one can concentrate on one product category. What emerges from these individual centres of excellence can then be sold in different regions/ countries with necessary customization based on specific customer requirements.

Thus by limiting geographies and product categories and riding on these five strategies explained above aspiring Indian MNCs can in the medium to long-run succeed in its international growth strategy.

For questioning minds it is but natural to have thoughts arising about the soundness of the approach to growth pursued by these conglomerates. Could there have been better alternatives, were the M&As undertaken effective and finally have these firms done all that has to be done to become emerging market MNCs? According to the Ghemawat and Hout (2008), broadly speaking, there are five types of regional strategies that companies adopt while venturing into international markets. Given below is a quick review of these strategies and how they relate to what some Indian companies are doing in this regard.

Majority of the Indian companies have adopted the growth path of acquisitions as it has several spinoffs. For example the gestation period is nil as buying a company lock, stock and barrel is like hitting the ground running. At one shot a company gets possession of well healed brands, established manufacturing facilities, government approvals, human talent, supply chain as well as marketing and distribution setup. Of course we are not talking about purchase of distressed assets in which case the stream of events could be quite different post takeover. However, it is necessary to determine whether these takeovers have been effective or otherwise.

The first is the home base strategy using which companies generally start their international expansion by serving nearby foreign markets from their home base, locating their R&D and, usually, manufacturing in their country of origin. Tata Motors has used this approach to export several of its brands like Indica, Indigo and Nano to neighbouring countries with aplomb.

Thus to address the issue of effectiveness in acquisitions it is necessary to look at the three rules on this issue proposed by Michael Porter (1987) and laid down in his article referred in the endnotes.

Porter argues that an acquisition has to be judged by:

The second is the portfolio strategy which involves setting up or acquiring operations outside the home region that report directly to the home base. It is usually the first strategy adopted by companies seeking to establish a presence outside the markets they can serve from home. Godrej Consumer Products has done this in Asia, Africa and Latin America but has to be cautious of the negative possibilities in this situation that may arise involving the struggle to deal with non-home rivals as well as dealing with and retaining talent in the acquired firms.

 The attractiveness test: The market that the acquirer is getting into via the acquisition has to be structurally attractive and conducive to making adequate profits.  The cost of entry test: The price paid for the acquisition should not be so high that it reduces the gains that result from the acquisition.

The third is the hub strategy. This is frequently adopted by companies seeking to add value at the regional level while serving a cluster of countries. A hub strategy involves building regional bases or hubs that provide a variety of shared resources and services to local (country) operations. The logic being that such resources may be hard for any one country to justify, but economies of scale or other factors make them practical from a cross-country perspective.

Pune based Bharat Forge the world's second-largest forgings manufacturer under Baba Kalyani has deployed this strategy with élan in developed markets of Europe and North America.

 The “better-off” test: Either the acquiring company or the acquired company (or, preferably both) should be better-off after the acquisition (the concept of synergy or the whole being better than the sum of the parts).

An Indian company has to administer these tests to each of its buyouts and assess the outcomes. When Kraft, the US foods giant acquired Cadbury, the British iconic brand (especially with reference to the Indian operations) it appeared to have cleared only the 'attractiveness' test and flopped in the remaining two.

The fourth is the platform strategy. Even as hubs spread fixed costs across countries within a region, interregional platforms can spread 2

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Further, a company pursuing growth strategy has to look at the issues raised by Ghemawat (2005) in his paper in which he alludes to three aspects that aspiring emerging-market MNCs need to focus on to become truly global. These are:  They must compensate for their relative inexperience in crossborder coordination by tapping into the expertise of MNCs which can mean collaborating with them or even hiring away key personnel (what Mahindra & Mahindra is doing after taking over Sangyong Motors, South Korea).

-Dr. V.S.Pai, Professor, Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies.

References 1. Ghemawat, P. (2005). Regional strategies for global leadership.

Harvard Business Review, 83(12), 98-108.

2. Ghemawat, P. & Hout, T. (2008). Tomorrow's global giants: not the usual suspects. Harvard Business Review, 86(11), 80-88.

 Should exploit local knowledge, ride home-product strengths into niche segments overseas, and avoid entering high-cost games they cannot win (Godrej did this with its acquisitions in Asia, Africa and Latin America).

3. Porter, M. E. (1987). From competitive advantage to corporate strategy. Harvard Business Review, 65(2), 43-59.

 Should anticipate losing their cost advantage over time, build capacities to compete at the next level up, and use core operating strengths to acquire and turn around distressed businesses overseas (how Tata Motors have leveraged the Jaguar Land Rover, UK

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

- Ayn Rand

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Going Global - Some Strategic Imperatives Mr. Achal Raghavan

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oday's corporations have to grapple with the increasingly complex challenge of doing business in a globalized and uncertain market place. As hitherto “safe” domestic markets come under attack from competitors from all over the world, companies have to start expanding into new geographies and markets overseas, in order to grow. As these corporations go global, business leaders must keep some strategic imperatives in plain sight as they take decisions for the long term. In this article, we will take a look at four such imperatives.

brings in stringent requirements on business ethics applicable to all corporations which are UK-based or have some business connections with UK. The Act also makes it necessary for such corporations to put holistic “ethics systems” in place, so that the companies can prove that they have taken every precaution possible to prevent unethical actions. This Act has been described as the toughest anti-corruption legislation in the world.

Globalizing corporations have to realize that it is in their enlightened self-interest to go beyond mere “compliance” with existing laws however stringent these may be. Compliance systems have their own limitations in preventing unethical acts. Exhorting the employees to “do the right thing” is no longer sufficient. The only progressive ethics strategy that a company can adopt for the long-term is to work consistently on establishing an “ethics culture” which governs the way business is conducted by its employees worldwide. The responsibility for establishing such a culture rests squarely with the leadership team.

Imperative #1: Sustainability and green business strategy Not too long ago, phrases such as “sustainability” and “green business” evoked images of idealistic notions of “doing good”, which often meant additional costs and lower profits for corporations. This has changed in recent times. Business leaders now realize that sustainable business practices are capable of delivering growth at higher profits, through a combination of cost reductions on the inside and increasing market shares and sales in the global market place. Green business strategies are now increasingly seen as competitive weapons to win against global competition.

Climate change and sustainability have also brought in new risks and opportunities for companies. There is a groundswell of customer preference for products and processes with the lowest carbon footprint. Concepts like “Design For Environment” (DFE) and “product stewardship” drive product design from the very beginning, so that companies assume responsibility for their product right through design, manufacture, distribution and sale and then through the entire lifecycle of its usage. Product stewardship strategies mandate getting the product back from the customer at the end of its useful life, and then recycling it into fresh production thus introducing a closed loop “cradle to cradle” approach. Such an approach brings costs down, reduces or eliminates pollution, and creates a brand preference in the aware customer.

Governments are levying punitive taxes and duties on products and services that are not environment-friendly. A recent example is the EU regulation which imposes carbon taxes on airlines that fly into Europe, because of the pollution that they bring to the atmosphere.

Vehicle manufacturers are under pressure to reduce continually the amount of CO2 emitted per kilometer of travel. Customers in global markets are increasingly using carbon footprint labels to differentiate between brands, and reward those which are more environment-friendly. The emerging global corporation, therefore, will ignore sustainability challenges and opportunities at its own peril.

Imperative #3: Execution excellence Research shows that a majority of good business strategies fail to achieve the intended results, because of poor execution. This is especially true in the case of strategies to “go global” as a means of achieving rapid growth. The key questions that a CEO needs to address before embarking on such a strategy are, therefore, the following:  Do we have the right kind of people, with the right global mindset and skills, to execute our global strategy? If we do not, what is our plan to fill this gap?  Is the organization as a whole well and truly aligned behind the strategy? Have we taken sufficient care to communicate the strategy clearly to all relevant team members, and get their ownership?  Are our business processes sufficiently benchmarked against the world's best?  Are our key current customers clued in on our plans, and are they convinced that they will continue to get our priority attention?  Do we have the patience and the financial strength to give the strategy sufficient time to gain traction and deliver the intended results?  Do we have sufficient risk management skills and plans in place, just in case we face a business environment that has changed dramatically?

Imperative #4: Local leaders with a global mindset The more astute global corporations have realized that local leaders, by and large, are a better choice for running businesses in far-flung geographies as compared to expats from headquarters. The challenge of cultural differences, additional costs, and the time required for an expat to “settle down” have all combined to push the needle of choice towards a leader from the local culture. However, the corporation must ensure that they choose leaders who have a global mindset and the commitment to uphold the corporate values that govern actions. In the case of acquisitions, it is no longer to be expected that the top management of the acquired company will be replaced totally by people from the acquirer.

“Going global” can only get more and more complex and

Imperative #2: Ethics in business The global financial meltdown of 2008 and the scandals surrounding the business practices of some large global corporations in recent times have brought business ethics into sharp focus. Already existing regulations such the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977, enacted in the US to govern ethical corporate behavior and ensure transparency in accounting practices, are being enforced with renewed vigor. New regulations are also getting enacted in recent times to discipline business practices even further.

One such example is the Bribery Act 2010 enacted in the UK, which 4

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challenging in the coming years; business leaders need to remember that all strategies ultimately get implemented through people. Good

people, as always, will make the difference between failure and successH Mr. Achal Raghavan, Strategy and Business Excellence Consultant, Bangalore.

Challenges for International Business in IT for SMBs Mr. Anand Godse

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he IT industry is all about globalization and global business. As they say IT knows no boundaries and knowledge flows everywhere. However in the recent past with rapid growth in IT and IT skill sets in developing countries like India, there is a growing threat felt by advanced countries. This has resulted in many challenges and compliance steps which are required for International Business for IT companies. This article mentions few of the learnings which I had during my journey as a entrepreneur and now in the space of international business and with dreams of making it big.

permits and business visas and their knowledge at many times is same as that given on the website.

5. Incentive Schemes For SMEs, Government has many initiatives and schemes which are there. Most of these are from various bodies which Govt. has formed and they have various subsidies / grants / loans / export incentive schemes. It is important and worthwhile to do a research and study of these schemes for your business. There are also inventive schemes for women entrepreneurs where government also incentivizes such SMEs.

1. Registrations : The IT boom happened in the 2000 where IT was decontrolled and Government did not imagine the potential for growth. Now with many incentives for growth, Government has come up with incentives like STP, STZ etc which promote foreign exports. Each of the registration requires a lot of paperwork and the bureaucracy which comes along with it. Each registration demands a compliance which is monthly, quarterly and yearly. For a startup / SMB, even if the incentives sound good, you have to practically spend one full time person for such compliances.

6. Banking Rules and Regulations With the various crises going in the banking world, India is no exception to this. Recent rules introduced by RBI where 50% of the foreign funds get automatically transferred in local INR has wide impacts for a SMB. It is important to plan for such contingencies since your cost of capital would increase suddenly.

7. Cultural Issues Working in an international business often has its own challenges. From a people perspective there are often challenges to Food: particularly, even though as Indians we may say that we eat Non-vegetarian. The Nov Vegetarian food which we get in Europe and in SE Asia is quite different from what we would imagine. As Indians we are quite used to and expect well cooked and spicy food which often is not the case in western countries

2. Choosing a Bank : a. Choosing a bank has never been so difficult, earlier it was only a handful of nationalized banks. Now with International banks it is now about competition to choose the banks. b. There are basically three type of Banks i. Nationalized. E.g. SBI, BOM etc ii. Private Indian ICICI, HDFC etc iii.Private- Foreign- HSBC, ABN, Deutsch c. Besides the service factor we need to consider the cost of banking with such banks. Typically nationalized banks have the lowest cost of banking; however we do expect a lot more service levels with such banks. Foreign banks are expensive to bank with from their service charges; however they are often good if you need loans in foreign currency. It makes sense to opt for foreign Private Banks if you are dealing in large foreign currency and have large remittances and expenses in foreign currency.

8. Work ethics Work ethics has a very large gambit, at an operational level it also includes the way we greet people, show respect when talking, email communication, meeting etiquettes, conference etiquettes etc . These are very important since they project the image of the person, the company and country as a whole. Often as a part of my profession where I have interacted with people who have never seen India have a perception which they see in BBC / CNN which is either violence in Kashmir or extreme poverty scenes out of Mumbai slums, or have seen the picture Slum-dog Millionaire. These images and perceptions come into focus when any westerner in general talks to an Indian.

At the other end, I have also encountered extremely knowledgeable people who have spent time and effort to understand our culture and our value systems. To give an example they are very curious about our festivals in India and want to know the significance, and the origin of the customs we follow. It is very important that we know these and explain in terms which they can understand.

3. Rules and Regulations Foreign trade agreements When you are doing international business it is important for an entrepreneur to have knowledge of the various treaties which are signed.

These treaties often have small clauses which can impact your business plans. India has entered in many bi lateral trade treaties and double taxation avoidance. It is important to know these clauses. It has been experienced that services which are non taxable in some countries are classified in some other countries as taxable. E.g. IT services in Thailand are treated as Royalties and are taxed at 15% of the gross revenue. Such surprises often lead to lot of issues for cash flow projections and a large amount of capital is locked up in such transactions.

9. Cultural value system One of the major areas which one should adhere to is the value system which we are accustomed to and the outside world follows is quite different. We enjoy a rich heritage and a family value system which is one of the best in the world. We find many similarities of these value systems towards elders and family in general in the SE Asian countries.

However there are quite many differences in the western world. E.g. it is very common that in Europe people would have their Christian wedding after many years of leaving together, possibly even having kids also. , or e.g. in one of the tribes in Africa, the woman would accept a male as her husband only after they have a child which the woman wants. Such differences have to be respected and extra care should be taken not to hurt the sentimentsH

4. Visa Rules and Regulations With increased competition, the Governments are increasingly becoming protective of their workforce. Visa Rules are becoming tighter and more stringent. Visa eligibility is becoming more and more complex, work visas, Business visas; tourist visas are now becoming more costly. While big companies have a separate Department for such issues, for SMB it becomes very difficult to keep abreast of the latest information. Travel agents do help, but travel agents rarely do work

- Mr. Anand Godse, Director-Consulting, NIPL, Pune

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Future of Global Financial Markets Prof. Arvind N Sinha

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lobal financial markets are ultra large scale, social, technical and economical system of systems and they impact business in myriad ways. The high degree of interconnectedness and integration - designed, implemented and managed by independent organization, further augments the complexity of the super system.

Given their high degree of operational essentiality, impact on business and society, it is of important consequence for how the financial markets would be designed, engineered and managed in future.

As role of regulation is preventing system failure, there would be two dimensions of regulations i.e. micro and macro. Macroregulation would concern itself with reduction in gap of institutions' risk perception in time of boom and bust. Micro-regulation focuses on individual institution and defines ownership of asset classes, capital adequacy, procedure of listing and trading of various instruments. There may be three main goals for regulation at the international level i.e. fist is to achieve higher degree of integration to allow better allocation of capital and to permit a better diversification of risk, second to avoid international regulatory arbitrage arising out of tax heavens, and third - independence of national regulatory systems.

As a measure towards enhancing general efficiency, the constituent organizations would try to increase their size as well as to reduce costs of financial transaction. Integration of markets throughout the world, at one hand increases operational efficiency of the system but on the other hand makes it vulnerable i.e. the risk factors impacting one market affect other markets in real time. Therefore markets would make effort for improved risk management. With high level of integration, there would be intensification of price based competition. Further, facilitated by advance information and communication technologies, there would be convergence and concentration of markets. Also, technology will take the existing high level of standardization to even further higher level with even lesser human intervention and more sophistication.

Such changes as discussed above will have effect on natural evolution of financial markets. We are considering here four important scenarios which are illustrated by leading actors: USA & Europe; USA & China; MNCs, and nation-states.

USA & Europe have been there since more than two centuries, with one taking over the other randomly. To continue with the old order Europe may look for further enlarging the area to increase its weight in the world economy and move towards higher integration where as USA might further strengthen its regulation to avoid any systemic failures and it may look for closer association with Europe. But given the perilous state of both i.e. American and European economies, it would be difficult for this scenario to take on the stiff competition from Asia and other emerging economies from the world.

Evolving economical dynamics like emergence of Asia as a dominant economic power, crisis and recession flowing through in Europe and the USA may help emergence of new locations for financial markets. Recent emphasis on development of Islamic finance may help market centers to thrive in the Middle East. This phenomenon is supported by continuous opening and liberalization of markets. The growing role of commodities as safe havens, some new centers are emerging in the countries producing those commodities and could play a major role.

In another scenario, supposing USA and China continue the current trend. USA follows a domestic demand led growth approach with accommodative fiscal and monetary policy whereas China favors export led strategy for growth accumulating foreign exchange in dollar terms. This will lead to a sharp supply of dollar assets causing price rise in other currencies and would slow down growth in other areas of the world consequently hampering their debt sustainability.

Ethical and green finance is expected to play important role with increasing importance of good governance and environmental responsibility of corporate houses but it is too early to assess their future importance. Both of them are closely related to future financial innovation and regulation. Development of financial innovation has long been motivated by desire to avoid government taxes and regulations. There may be increase in transfer of capital to offshore financial centers providing high degree of secrecy or there may be development of shadow financial markets to avoid taxes and regulation.

The rising influence of MNCs and declining power of states will encourage firms to take advantage of competition among states in terms of taxation, regulation and confidentiality. It will result in concentration of financial institutions and will affect system stability. This may lead to fragmentation among regional trading blocks.

Due to negative effects of globalization, there may be a fourth scenario of weaker corporations and very strong state with protectionist policies which may result in currency and interest rates crisis.

Both public and private player will continue to remain major players. On one hand sovereign funds have been aggressive and on the other hand private equity, hedge funds and other private actors are called upon to play an augmented role. Massive investments by sovereign funds are increasing the asset price and it is difficult to say what role would be played by hedge funds as it would depend on the reforms and changes made in regulation. But speculative activities of hedge fund may affect systemic risk and may in turn impact the banking systems. Apart from public and private players, there would be increased influence from NGOs like IMF depending on the nature of likely reforms.

We may conclude that there are serious concerns for future financial markets and a market system which yields stability and benefits for all stakeholders will depend on a high degree of consensus among all key playersH Prof. Arvind N. Sinha, Assistant Professor, Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies.

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International Trade Scenario Of Cotton Mrs. Kanica Agarwal

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nternational Business in India looks really lucrative and with every passing day, it is coming up with only more possibilities.

The growth in the international business sector in India is more than 7% annually. There is scope for more improvement if only the relations with the neighboring countries are stabilized. The mindblowing performance of the stock market in India has gathered all the more attention (in comparison to the other international bourses). India definitely stands as an opportune place to explore business possibilities, with its high-skilled manpower and budding middle class segment.

With the diverse cultural setup, it is advisable not to formulate a uniform business strategy in India. Different parts of the country are well-known for its different traits. The eastern part of India is known as the 'Land of the intellectuals', whereas the southern part is known for its 'technology acumen'. On the other hand, the western part is known as the 'commercial-capital of the country', with the northern part being the 'hub of political power'. With such diversities in all the four segments of the country, international business opportunity in India is surely huge.

The growth rate in India is slowing down, it will slow down further, if the euro zone collapse happens, the implications will be very strong.'' Given that European banks which lent liberally during the boom period are advocating belt-tightening, the market growth for Indian products and services may be delayed. Europe is finding itself at the crossroads and there is only one way forward, and that is reduction of deficits. “The fall in garments exports is not surprising and so India needs to concentrate on this sector. For the export basket to sustain, India needs to analyze the trade balances of different countries to recalibrate its trade strategy. The exercise needs to be done to help us identify and diversify into new markets where our products can enjoy a sustained demand. The ASEAN countries along with Latin America and Africa are the new geographies that India now needs to target.

There would be wonderful gains to India as a nation if it grows its presence in International trade of cotton. Other than earning valuable foreign exchange, we would also be able to have an optimum utilization of resources i.e labor and raw material from India and capital and technology from the advanced countries. To sustain in the International markets, India needs to maintain the minimum standard quality which requires modern machines and equipments, therefore achieving the objective of advancement in technology also proves right with growth in international business.

And the most crucial and important advantage remains the governments benefits, concessions and facilities given to exporters.

They get many financial and tax benefits from the government thereby encouraging the cotton exporters to expand their business.

To foster the international business scenario in India, bodies like CII, FICCI and the various Chambers of Commerce, have a host of services like these bodies work closely with the Government and the different business promotion organizations to infuse more business development in India. They help to build relations with MNCs while helping to adapt the right policy recommendations to different overseas government. And last but not the least helping our nation towards a steady path to be the knowledge capital of India.

It was evident till a few years back that India had a marginal role in the international affairs. The image was not bright enough to be the cynosure among the shining stars. The credit rating agencies had radically brought down the country's ratings. But, as of now, after liberalization process and the concept of an open economy international business in India grew manifold. Future definitely has more to offer to the entire world.

'India's GDP growth may fall below 6.5% in 2012-13' India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth during the ongoing fiscal 2012-13 is expected to be below than 6.5%, according to industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

800 exhibitors from 42 countries to exhibit at India ITME 2012 INDIA ITME 2012, the 9th in the series and the most prestigious and anticipated textile technology show in India and its neighboring countries, is scheduled to be held in December. This year, India ITME will see 800 participants from 42 countries with 100,000 visitors making it the largest and most prestigious Textile Engineering Exhibition in India and one of the renowned exhibitions in the world showcasing Textile Technology.

The exhibition, the largest of its kind in India will present new market opportunities in India and its neighboring countries, and offer a forum for participants to explore joint ventures and technology transfer. This platform will prove most opportune for foreign participants and research institutes who have new technology ready for commercialization.�H

Now specifically talking about the cotton scenario in India presently EU Crisis may open new vistas to exporters. Indian exporters may be better positioned than a few years ago if banks in India and euro zone blowup, said commerce minister Anand Sharma. This is mainly due to spreading their presence in Asia and Africa where the Europeans dominate.

- Mrs. Kanica Agarwal, Executive Managing Director, Durgesh Impex Pvt. Ltd.,

If the euro zone crisis is not averted, India which has about a sixth of its total exports to the European Union, will face unemployment in the lower income category, such as textiles, one of the biggest employers. Textiles, including readymade garments, account for about a fifth of the total exports to Europe. The eurozone crisis has eliminated the benefits of a weak rupee, which is down 20% in a year, to Indian exporters as the spend-thrift consumers in the continent do something they are not used to in three decades save.

The slump in spending by the Europeans will aggravate the Indian economic slowdown where growth rate has already dipped to a near year-low for the March quarter.

References: 1. www.fibre2fashion.com 2. www.cottonyarnmarket.com 3. www.cottontradeindia.com 4. www.cotlook.com 5. http://cottonmarketnews.com

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International Business

The Impact of Facebook IPO on World Business Mr. Sidharth Mishra

necessarily in social media," says Ankur Jain, vice-president at Blumberg Capital, an early-stage VC firm with a nearly $200million fund focused mostly on Web 2.0, software and mobile.

To illustrate, he points to one of his firm's portfolio companies, Nutanix. Founded by an ex-Googler, Nutanix, which does not use Google's core business, enables datacenter virtualisation without using network storage.

"Facebook going public will have a profound impact on Silicon Valley and sprout an entire new crop of start ups as a result of this newfound capital" from Facebook's IPO, said Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul Systems. "I believe this IPO will create a domino effect of new money flooding into the mobile realm as well as international markets."

The IPO of Facebook Facebook raised $16 billion in its historic IPO. Facebook sold 421 million shares for $38 each, a price that valued the company at $104 billion, 107 times its profits in the last year.

Employees leaving companies after they go public for entrepreneurial pursuits is almost a part of Silicon Valley's culture. It happened during the dot com boom, when hundreds of companies had rapidly rushed to the market. But it was arguably felt the most with the Google IPO. Several of its former employees turned into angel investors and now run a start-up incubator called Angelpad.

The biggest winner in the Facebook IPO is its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who has always made clear that what he cares about is building Facebook into a powerhouse. He didn't leave any money on the table in this IPO. There was no big IPO pop, suggesting that Facebook sold shares for the maximum amount possible.

Guleri shares how one of his firm's portfolio companies Ooyala - a Mountain View, CA-based video infrastructure company - was founded by product managers for AdSense (once Google's main product) who had left the internet giant soon after its IPO.

Zuckerberg priced the shares correctly. This was not a modest debut; it was a home run. It distinguishes Zuckerberg from many Internet billionaires and entrepreneurs who priced their IPOs cheaply, costing their companies massive amounts of money while enriching IPO investors. This sort of mispricing was a common feature of the first dotcom bubble but it still often persists. LinkedIn underpriced its IPO pretty badly.

Vibhu Mittal, who was a senior scientist at Google and one of its early employees, too left soon after the Google IPO. He had earned several millions of dollars, which he invested in pursuing his lifelong passion: revolutionising education.

"When I had joined Google, there were 100 people and by the time I left, there were 20,000 people. It was a very different company. I wanted to make a real impact through education, which is not something I could pursue at Google," says Mittal.

To be sure, Facebook will be sharing much of this rich bounty with other early investors in the company like Goldman Sachs that are benefitting from Zuckerberg's shrewdness. Zuckerberg himself sold over $1 billion of Facebook stock in the IPO, mostly to cover a huge tax bill.

Today, his start-up Root-1 is making neuroscience-based games that make learning languages for elementary school students a lot of fun.

"In such cases, it's essentially the second and third tier of management who tend to leave. They have done a lot of groundwork, feel empowered and want to replicate the success," says Raj Jaswa, a serial entrepreneur who had earlier worked at Intel.

A great example of this is GokulRajaram, once known as the godfather of Google AdSense" who had left Google post IPO to start Chai Labs, which he then sold to Facebook. Earlier this month, just days before Facebook's big day, the company's Vicepresident of Technical Operations Jonathan Helliger quit Facebook to join venture capital firm North Bridge Venture Partners (NBVP). His LinkedIn profile now lists him as "entrepreneur, investor, rebel".

But Christopher Nguyen, a former Googler who has founded a social network called YaTown, feels that there are only so many similarities between Google then and Facebook now and therefore, the impacts on entrepreneurship will tend to vary greatly as wellH

Can a 28-year-old manage a $100 billion company? Zuckerberg has clearly hired the right chief financial officer, David Ebersman, who managed the Facebook IPO beautifully with the help of Morgan Stanley. Shares of Facebook were changing hands for nearly $41 in the early afternoon of its first day of trading, up about 7.5%. The stock then fell back to $38, closing about where it started. The Facebook IPO, which Zuckerberg long resisted, is clearly an important moment for the company and it seems like Zuckerberg played the IPO just right.

The Un-IPO-d Social Biz : Impact on Startups "I'm sure there are ideas cooking up inside Facebook right now!" adds Canice Wu, angel investor and president of Plug and Play, Silicon Valley's largest incubator that is home to over 300 start-ups.

"We are extremely excited to see these new entrepreneurs come out and hope to see many of them at Plug and Play."

-Mr. Sidharth Mishra, MBA-TM (Systems & Finance), SITM (Pune).

When this new wave of entrepreneurship happens, experts feel they will most likely be in mobile, big data, social networks and the next generation of cloud infrastructure. "These are all billion-dollar markets in their own rights and Facebook users have seen these firsthand from the inside walls of Facebook. We are likely to see more activity in these areas," says Tim Guleri, MD of Sierra Ventures.

"Facebook employees are likely to start or invest in companies that leverage their domain experience in Facebook; and these are not

References1. http://www.cnbc.com/id/47460478/Facebook_IPO_Impa ct_Inspiring_a_New_Generation_of_Startups 2. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kauffman/012/05/21/thefacebook-effect-how-many-jobs-do-ipos-really-create/ 3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/facebook-ipopoised tocreate850newmillionaires/2012/05/21/gIQAWWwnfU_story. html 8

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Impact Interview

we excel and why we endeavour. In such a competitive world everyone is running to manage things which would make their lives better. People work hard throughout the week, and then they have to settle their day to day home affairs on weekends, finish the shopping, hair cut and what not. They have to plan everything now.

And what is funnier is that a mere picnic has become an activity which they need to plan up ahead. So you can imagine the kind of stress. Now here we have to see that why everyone is running actually, to be HAPPY. We Say, Sit down for a moment, and think, that what makes you happy, like really happy, and by this we mean, a thing which makes you happy when you are alone. When there is no one around and you can afford to be yourself. That thing in most of the case is their “PASSION”. And amazing thing about it is that we need not to run behind it, we don't have to struggle for it. We just have to enjoy it, give it a little time. And we can have a more satisfactory happiness with such an ease. It will relax your mind, will motivate you, and will put a smile on your face. And if you are happy, your work will automatically get better. It's important to remain happy, everyone says it, everybody knows it, and those who follows it ….LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER (Like our bollywood movie endings)

Dare to dream and strive to achieve is the saying. Today without doubt there is lot of achieving, but is that success the dream as it is supposed to be, or is it just a compromise. Vilupt.com is a platform focused to rejuvenate the lost dreams, showcase your inner self and appreciate talent in others. Whatever your dream is, whatever your passion is..."Dare to Share" The creative heads behind Vilupt.com, Kunal Singh Chauhan and Anush Bulusu share their insights in this interview.

1. “Today's generation is chasing realities and forgetting dreams”. How much do you think this statement applies to our generation?

I would say today's generation is getting practical. And there is nothing wrong in being practical. But we have to keep in mind that you don't have to stop dreaming while being practical. You can be practical with your dreams as well; eventually it shows your seriousness towards it. People who have been serious about their dreams have done nothing but the wonders. It's all about your commitment level. How much do you believe in yourself? Of course they are going to be times when everything around you will fall apart. And you would stop chasing your dreams and start following so called reality. But this is not being practical. We have responsibilities and some priorities in life, may be our passion and dreams does not allow us to fulfil these things, and you have to go for some other path, but that doesn't mean you have to leave your passion. That is the message we are trying to spread through Vilupt, you don't have to abandon a path while choosing the other one. We can be good at both. We can be so called realistic to meet our requirements and we can be dreamers as well to keep ourselves happy. HAPPY. That's should be the main reason why we should live.

3. Sachin Tendulkar said right after winning World cup “Chase your dreams, they will become realities eventually” Do you think modern education encourages one to chase dreams?

Modern…well this word is always relative. It never loses its relevance. Back at the time of Sachin Tendulkar, things were modern, relative to the previous system. What I mean to say is things are always changing, always improving with time, with conditions.

So actually, this has nothing to do with the education. Because if you pick any of our text books they are filled with the sagas of great heroes who followed their dreams and changed the world with their actions. And education itself is a motivator as it blesses us with knowledge, and knowledge is something which liberates us. So in this particular aspect education has very little to do. Let me quote a very interesting example. We read it in our primary school text books that man is a social animal. I defended our community back then by resisting to my teacher that it can never be as they cannot dream. She shouted on me and made me sit. Now here if you at look at the situation closely, what has happened that she actually killed my free dimension of thought.

2. What importance do dreams play in a life of a busy corporate?

On 28 August, 1963, much before we all were born, A great visionary delivered one of the greatest speeches of all time. “I have a dream”. These four simple words of Martin Luthar King changed the course of the future which was knocking at the doorsteps of that era. People called him crazy, an outlaw, but these 4 words not only educated and inspired the people there but the generations unborn.

Such is the power of dreams. They are the reason why we exist, why 9

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As a child I thought I was wrong and I never dared to say anything in her class again. But here I cannot blame education as it only gave me the power to reason. Here is where the role of a society lays, parents and teachers who are eventually part of it. Now every teacher is not the way I mentioned above. There are always people around us who inspire us for good. We need to have that kind of society which is full of people who are always inspiring, who not only believes but help others in believing. Like Sachin has inspired so many young kids. We need more Sachin, we need more such people who believe in their dreams. And that is what we are trying to do through Vilupt, helping others to realize their dreams.

Exploring one's self and bringing the best of him are parallel processes just like those train tracks which wherever you go maintain a constant distance within them, a little shift and the train derails, so to bring the best out of you , you have to keep on digging yourself. One peculiar thing about human is the way his mood changes and with that he tends to go off track, this is where he needs to keep motivating himself and then the motivating factors can be anything , music , movies , past experiences and yeah something like a little push from your dear ones.

Secondly there is nothing like right time when you dream something and then go for the chase, it's a gradual process and an experience of life time, you might feel very down sometimes in course of your journey but it's when you reach to your destination, look back , you'll enjoy those moments of struggle. All the Great people we keep talking about, be it any in sports, academics, movies have not become what they are today overnight.

It's just through that gradual process of exploring , making subtle changes within themselves in order to adjust to the demands in particular situation and determination these people are today the idols for so many of us.

5. What does the word “Vilupt” signify? Please tell us something about your initiative & the inspiration behind it.

First we will talk about the inspiration. Well it was something which was always there, but we always ignored it as we were too busy in making fun of life. Nobody cares much when you are young. That's what youth is all about. Right. Well no, it's not. We realized it kinda late now we feel so. Youth is the best gift nature can give to us. Now it's up to us what we make out if it. Anush and I realized our passion almost at the same time. We thought of making a website to club our work together. My poetry and his photography, both of them jammed together. Then suddenly in between all of this we thought how many more people must be out there, looking for a platform to showcase their talents. And then came up with the idea of Vilupt.com, an end to all the compromises to your extinct passion…answer to all your hidden desires…Vilupth.com. The initiative is to create a tribe, a society and bring like minded people together. Where people can celebrate each other's talent and take it to another level. It's about collaborative appreciation which will enhance the individual's inspiration and determination which will eventually improve the quality of life. Vilupt.com is committed to give you an unconditional and stag entry to a whole new world where we all are going to bring back our real selves and to bring a positive change in our attitude forever and ever.

7. Can you tell us why some people go take risks, go explore the world (that lies outside and in themselves) while others just stay back where they feel they are comfortable.

Well it's really tough to comment on that. It's easy to pass judgment from sitting outside. We don't know the situation in which others are. I would like to come on the same word here and that's Motivation. One needs to be constantly motivated to go that extra mile and take that additional risk. You need to educate yourself to know how much its worth if you really take that risk, those who know it will have the courage to take that risk.

Moreover, what we feel as a comfortable zone for the people is actually a name which we have given to the fear which they have within. Human being just cannot be comfortable and satisfied with what he has and where he is, he always strives for more, something new, something he has never achieved. He always looks for those far sighted dreams, but not everyone goes and chases them because there is a fear of losing, there is a fear of consequences.

6. When can one take time out, I mean where can one find time to explore himself and bring out the best out of him?

When's the right time to do so?

A great writer Dale Carnegie once said that “when you go for any kind of assignment just think of the worst possible case that can happen to you and convince your mind that, that's what going to happen to you in reality”, now what it does good is whatever the results you are going to get are better than what you actually were ready for, and that's where you can motivate yourself to reach those unconquered heights ( You can visit the Vilupt Page on Facebook at- https://www.facebook.com/vilupt ) .H

By exploring one's self which lies within. One cannot explore himself just by thinking to do it, somewhere in the corner there has to be a small reason to do it or a question to answer yourself "Why am I doing this "? It's when you challenge yourself and tries to push the limits till that threshold where you could see what you actually aimed for; you'd say "yes at least I am on the right path".

- As told to Ms. Ekta Maheshwari and Mr. Siddhartha Modukuri

"Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives.

Ninety percent of the time you haven't."

- Peter Drucker 10

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Summer Internship Experiences: Through The Eyes Of The Class Of 2013 My Experiences at Stryker India Pvt Ltd.

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y summer internship at Stryker India was an enriching experience wherein I got an exposure to the world class supply chain. I got the opportunity to work on analyzing the working of the supply chain by being with the very best brains of the industry.

I had a wonderful experience as I was the only intern in the company.

Working with a great team in Gurgaon, the entire team went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and included. The culture at Stryker really stood out. It is one of mutual respect and openness.

From day one I was made to feel like an integral part of the organization. There are no closed doors- you can walk right to the offices of the top managers and speak to them directly. The enthusiasm in the organization is highly contagious, which makes you want to walk that extra mile. The two months at Stryker India, working with the supply chain team, was a great learning experience.

getting support from the SCM team, I identified the project. It was on the Excess and Obsolete (E&O) inventory which the company was caring. This inventory was a loss for the company. I did a deep research to find out the reasons for the stocks becoming E&O. I divided the project into different section so as to have a clear understanding of the reasons attributed by the different product lines and the percentage contributed by each product line for such a loss.

This was my first project.

One day, while I was on with my project, I was called in for a meeting. The agenda of the meeting was to make a feasible solution for the tracking of the instrument sets whose item number fades away. The team unanimously came out with a solution for the problem, but because of its complexity, it was difficult to be implemented. Of course it was difficult but it was not impossible. So I took up the project and started working on it. The whole team was ready to give me the inputs I required. The management was waiting for this project for years and I knew that it was going to be a great learning opportunity which I have never had till now. These forces were enough for me to carry the project with full motivation. I worked day and night to complete this project and was ready with the “skeleton” within 5 days. To make the project reach to perfection, I had the guidance of Mr. Kamal Gupta, head supply chain. Finally the project was completed in 10 days and submitted it to the management. Now this project will be used by the company as a literature to track its instrument sets and eliminate considerable amount of losses. It will be used not only by the supply chain team but also by the Marketing team, the dealers as well as the suppliers.

Then I got my third project. It was to do the time motion study of the workers and thereby do the efficiency mapping of the workers. I have successfully made a module by which the company will achieve it and also predict the number of employees they need as their sales increases. I have developed the module in such a way that it will calculate the standard time to do a particular job and then compare it with the actual time taken by the workers to do that job.

By this we can track individual workers' efficiency and then work to improve on the week links and thereby increase the company's efficiency.

Now finally it was my turn to give some recommendation to the company. My fourth objective was to make the supply chain more efficient. I introduced a new technology called RFID, which would simplify the whole supply chain process and will help the company to save a lot of time. This technology was to be implemented in the warehouse which would be used by the company to track its inventory, reduce the time to track it and also to do it in a very efficient way. This would eliminate all the manual work done and make the warehouse world class and highly advanced.

So it was a great experience and good opportunity to work on live projects. Those moments will always be cherished and the experience gained there will be useful forever. Overall my experience at Stryker India taught me a lot about the functioning of a central business unit and the co-ordination of units connected to it. I have once again realized how inspired I am by the Operations department and how it is the right career path for me to pursueH

It took me some time to settle but once I did, I got to learn so much.

The freedom to do things the way you want them to and the flat organization structure, where everybody is equal and approachable, really stood out.

Good HR policies and a friendly, open office environment made it an experience I'll not forget in a lifetime.

It was March 19th, 2012 when I received the final word from Stryker India that I would be a part of their organization for my summer internship in Gurgaon, Haryana. With more than 21000 employees worldwide and $ 8.3 billion in annual sales globally and a fortune 500 company, Stryker Corporation is one of the best company to work with. Stryker Corporation is a Kalamazoo, Michigan based medical technology firm which produces medical implants, surgical and imaging technologies, as well as patient handling and emergency medical equipment.

Stryker is one of the world's leading medical technology companies and is dedicated to helping healthcare professionals perform their jobs more efficiently while enhancing patient care. The Company offers a diverse array of innovative medical technologies, including reconstructive, medical and surgical, and neuro technology and spine products to help people lead more active and more satisfying lives. The company has in its kitty more than 57000 products and it has performed brilliantly over the years with a 19% CAGR over 32 years.

My project was well directed by my company guide, Mr. Amit Sharma. Mr. Kamal Kishore Gupta's (head supply chain) guidance helped me to complete the project in such accuracy. The whole supply chain team was very co-operative and helpful. Finally, I would like to thank the Management of Stryker India and Mr. Dheeman Vaidhya, Director Stryker India, for giving me such an opportunity and of course Dr. Gopal Iyengar, my faculty guide and Mr. Arun Vasudevan, my alumni guide for guiding me throughout my project.

Project Description: My first day, 2nd April, started in the warehouse with the “Annual Physical Inventory” count. This helped me to identify the different types of product the company has. It was a great learning experience. I landed in the company with no project in my kitty and I was told to identify my project. After a thorough investigation and

-Mr.Nitesh Kunwar, PGDM-II, KIAMS.

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Mastery in Mystery

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paid SIP and that too with one of India's most influential company in the terms of commodity trade was like a dream start to my summer. I got the great opportunity to complete my summer internship with NCDEX. And if all this was not sufficient to add fuel to my imagination the company was asking me to work on a project which they intended to launch as soon as possible. It was an individual project with a determined company and a meticulous guide. I couldn't ask for more and yet my dreams of staying in Bengaluru 'the cool city for a hot summer' as earlier planned came crashing down and I was asked to travel to Bijapur in Karnataka and other places in Maharashtra like Sangli, Pandarpur and Tasgaun to conduct primary work. My SIP was on the feasibility of launching raisins through Nspot Platform.

market and to understand its way of functioning I travelled to various locations across the major trade regions. Also it was important to understand how it could be done from the point of view of a very large Indian organisation such as NCDEX. Well then I travelled to these places and met and interviewed many interesting people and yes my dream SIP was back on track. It was like one of those innings where the ball just turns a little bit but again comes on the bat comfortably for the batsman making it sweet and challenging at the same time. Well the only regret is of making those long reports which I am not good at unlike my other friends like the editors of this magazine, the Chanakya Reps. Well the end is near but it turns out now that I missed few fun moments of travelling to those malls like my friends in the better cities did but then I travelled the road of mystery and found it fun and fulfilling. For the informal part I would also like to add that whatever you learn in theory is put into practise but in a way you and I as students would have never realised to be possible.

Nspot is a branch of NCDEX which deals with the spot exchange of commodities. The project was about to identify the possibility of introducing Raisins as a commodity in the spot market. The project extensively dealt with how the production and trading of raisins happens across the country by conducting survey at the major markets across the country and thus analysing the data using simple graphs and bar charts. Also the questionnaires were prepared to understand how the raisins are graded and sold across the various markets and how the value addition takes place across the chain of supply and how the division of money value happens in the same chain.

Also from the point of view of the company you always need to get data which is almost impossible to get and I did this by using few simple tricks and using what I had in my little clumsy bag of experience. To communicate with a trader of raisins which is generally informal and tax evasive, you need to gain confidence of the trader while not revealing which company you are working for and yet get the nitty-gritty details which would be impossible for an outsider to even guess. Even details like, nearly 100 kilos of a commodity of such value is wasted and the part that most MNC's buy and use the cheapest raisins in the chocolate offerings of their premium quality and the order sizes of major tenders of temple trusts across India left me in a daze.

The project focuses on the major and minor factors that are critical in pricing of the commodity and understanding how the market trade happens i.e. is it a credit market and if so how many days would it take for the produce to finally reach the ultimate buyer and what are the various processes involved. By analysing the above constraints the company wanted to understand the feasibility of launching raisins as a commodity and the recommendations thus made at the end had to be in line with the data and understanding of the market that I had gained from the exposure to the raisin trade and interaction with the various parties (like the traders farmers commission agents and buyers) involved in it. The questions thus asked were important in a sense because they highlight the various vital factors i.e. pricing of the commodity, the trade cycle of the commodity and the thinking of the trade and farming community about the feasibility of launching the commodity in the spot market.

And it reminds me of the fact that even during presenting facts you need to carry samples because as I have known from my experience people believe what they see so a simple trade secret is always get concrete evidence in business as it helps you to prove a point and also people who listen and share might come up with better ideas and suggestions. All I would like to write at the end are two thoughts which inspired me during my course of internship.

Hope and dream because unless you dream you don't know where you want to go and where you will go and then you won't be surprised also.

From all the views expressed by various parties including the views of co-operative societies various government departments like the NHB were intended to include the best viable lot as the commodity contract while including some of the practices which are already present in the industry so as to make an efficient as well as effective change in the market as well as in the society about the way raisins are being traded. During the entire project to get the feel of the

And, If you are going to sleep now then what will you do in your graveH -Mr. Bharat Gilda, PGDM-II, KIAMS.

"When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste.

Almost everything else can be bought by the yard."

- John W. Gardner 12

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From Theory to Reality

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ummer Internship Programme called as SIP is a perfect abbreviation for a programme which is intended to 'sip' the practical experience by putting in the theoretical knowledge that we gain during our study.

delivered.

I have forgotten to mention how company is able to deliver the requirements of the customers. It's the most important task to meet the requirements of the customers. At the end of every month the marketing department come together and make rough estimate of number of cases of each SKU required at each shop and then they calculate it day wise and provide those details with a 10% margin and thus provide a rolling order sheet to the Road-to-market department who are responsible for providing the goods from depot to the desired location and this rolling order is further sent to the production department. During my visit to plant I have learnt how well the demand planning is done in order to meet the ordered demand.

It all started with Goal-2 in which the author says “There is a lot of difference between nice theories and harsh realities”. According to me, it all depends on the organisation you are in and the way you take things.

My journey in sipping the knowledge and absorbing the nectar of experiencing the real practical stuff started from 2nd April 2012, coming to the work place. A place which makes millions of people happy and feel refreshed with its beverages in the form of soft drinks and water. It's a proud feeling to work in a company which is the leader in the beverages sector i.e. Coca-Cola. I have done by project on “Brand Coke Availability”which is a market research oriented project .The company has found that their Coke sales have decreased over the years and it has come down to 4% by volume out of the total sales of Coca-Cola India Limited.

Now coming to the project, I have designed a questionnaire which was aimed to check the sale and number of orders of Coca-Cola and to know the outlet owners views why sales were down and what should be done by the company.

It's a great experience while making questionnaire because I had to put in all the steps while making it i.e. applying all the things that we learnt during in Research methodology.

In the process of conducting survey, I have learned the process of how exactly sales are made in the FMCG Sector and which way a deal is made and how the products are ordered by the customers and even the process of manufacturing i.e. when and how much production should be done and last but not least the process of delivering the products. Coming to sales, a total of 4 depots provide the required SKU's to all the shops in and around Hyderabad. So total area is divided into routes and for each route an executive sales man is appointed and for five to six routes a sales team leader(STL) is appointed and again a group of STL's are headed by Area Sales Manager. The main part of sales is done by STL's; it was really enthusiastic to see how the sales are done. I was guided by Mr.AnantSakaray, a STL who has really given me great exposure during the project.

After making the questionnaire the real test started, going to the shops and interacting with the owners which was both sweet and bitter experience, as most of the owners of the shops are not well educated it was my duty to ask questions to them so that I get the answer properly.

I successfully completed my SIP with a great level of satisfaction which made me realise how company sticks to its Vision of striving to “refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness, create value and make a difference.”

I sincerely thank our director, Dr.GopalIyengar who has taught us to view the world in a new perspective and who made us realise why and how the vision and mission of a company are important in the success of sustainability of company. I take this opportunity to thank all the faculties who have taught us during first year at KIAMS because without them today I wouldn't have learnt the importance of each and every single aspect done in the industry. As they say “A work is never a work of individual.” I owe a sense of gratitude to the intelligence and co-operation of my Alumni Guide Mr. Arun Vasudevan sir who has helped me in providing me approach and also encouraged me with his SIP experiencesH

After learning the process of sales I was sent with the ESM's to know the process of taking the orders, I just felt Wow to see this process in which all the ESM's had blackberry phones which were GPRSactivated, orders were punched on their devices and then those orders directly went to the server and they were retrieved at 8:00PM every day and then by using software called Roadnet.

As we learnt in Management Information System that excellence can be achieved when the technology is used, thus by using these GPRS technology and the Road net software the work has become very easy at Coca-Cola. By using this software the function of logistics is done i.e. this software checks the orders and locations and depending on that it displays proper routes by using least number of vehicles and by using this results number of vehicles are decided and thus the desired SKU's are

-Mr. Suryateja Rallapalli, PGDM-II, KIAMS

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Prestige with 4P's

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y experience about summer internship program is not only about SIP as a curriculum in KIAMS but it also talks about Places, People, Processes and Prejudices just like 4P's in Marketing.

I got a chance to do my internship with TTK Prestige, India's leading kitchenware and home appliances company. Initially I was cynic about this company as this was not the industry where I anticipated my SIP. But thanks to wonderful experiences shared by our seniors about TTK Prestige, I started my SIP feeling sanguine.

Talking about the people, it is one of the best experiences of my SIP. I met different dealers and distributors from different areas with different perceptions about induction cook-tops, brands and customers. One thing I found common in every market is that, it had some big players, some small players and a few market destructors.

Most of the big players sell appliances in large numbers and small players sell metal utensils majorly whereas market destructors are the elements or people who disturb the market by selling goods in retail and wholesale at a price much lower than what a dealer or distributor can sell. Some dealers who have extraordinary relationships with TTK Prestige showed excellent hospitality that was sometimes overwhelming. Whereas some dealers who've had tough experiences with TTK Prestige made me walk out of their shops on being told that I am from Corporate Office of TTK Prestige. Initially, dealers were little cynical about sharing their earnings and their profit margin details from brands other than Prestige (which was major part of my market research project), but later I learnt some skills that made them divulge all the desired information I wanted. The local languages i.e. Marathi and Hindi came to my aide to strike a conversation with the dealers comfortable with me. “Kyasirjee? Per month kitne piece nikalleteho?� were my pick up line those days. Some dealers looked towards me as I am going to raise their voice inside the company for their benefits and they expected I will do something for them but my research work was limited to Induction Cook-tops and I got guidelines from the Company. Moreover things out of my area of research work would not contribute much towards my project. So at those moments I was unable to give dealers some assurance about solutions of their problems which are not related to Induction cooktops and sometimes I was tongue-tied.

6th April 2012 is the day I joined TTK Prestige Ltd as a Summer Intern in Bangalore, accompanied by five others friends from KIAMS and a bunch of people from SDMIMD, Mysore. I commemorate the moments that day when all enthusiastic minds were sitting in a conference room looking forward for a good project. A couple of hours later Mr Anil Kumar, DGM Marketing, TTK Prestige Ltd announced the respective projects and like others I too got a rattling project for which I would have to show my adeptness. I got offered a market research project on Induction Cook-tops covering the region of entire Maharashtra state except the Mumbai territory. This project involved meeting and interviewing various dealers and distributors of Prestige Induction Cook-tops as well as non-Prestige dealers and distributors. I knew this could have been achieved only with extensive field work and exhaustive travelling and this was my first prejudice I came across during SIP. I was assigned 45 days for field visits and 15 days for analysing the responses of dealers and distributors that completed my 8 weeks of SIP. After preparing my weekly travel plans, then the daily travel plans by getting into minute details of area, markets and dealers I have to visit on a particular day. Initially meeting the daily targets of dealers was not easy but I manoeuvered and achieved my target within the mentioned time frame. I travelled down from Pune to Nashik, Aurangabad, and Sholapur and also to the east side of Maharashtra, Nagpur.

I researched a lot on and sales, distribution and service management of various appliances companies. Every company keeps one local distributor of their products who has strong selling and leadership skills and a person who is amicable with other dealers. Company keeps sales officers in different territory to make dealers avail about new product and schemes of company also to help distributor sell those products to dealers. Dealers cannot take product directly from company as they have to follow Company-Distributor-Dealer chain.

However companies sometimes keep authorized dealers in markets which are big in size and where it is not possible for distributor to penetrate complete market. Some wholesalers are also there in markets who buy and sell products in bulk and this element in market sometimes disturbs the dealer and distributor chain. There are some authorized service centres for the repair of defective products but such complaints are mostly routed only through dealers.

I received mixed responses from dealers and distributors to my questionnaire as the target audiences of my project were diverse. I came across different kinds of people, their languages, hospitality, and their views about market growth prospects of Induction Cooktops.

Though I was born and brought up in Maharashtra, I never had the opportunity to explore so many places in this region until now. Most of my target audiences were in a crowded steel market or the old markets in respective cities. I walked down the narrow lanes in cities with areas full of crowd and life, ladies busy in bargaining with hawkers for getting additional benefits and all these wonderful things I observed under scorching sun with the temperature of almost 45 degrees in the months of April and May. I walked an average 2-3 kms daily till the end of field visit period to meet the dealers and distributors. Reaching a place in midnight and then looking for some accommodation in a lodge or hotel was the thing I did for the first time in my life and these moments are unforgettable in my life. I scanned the markets for metal and appliance shops like the way a hungry man looks for food.

Overall I had a wonderful experience during my SIP as I learned about sales, distribution and service management of big brands in appliances industry. I broke my prejudices to achieve the objectives of my research workH -Mr. Bhooshan Khadgi PGDM-II, KIAMS.

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Learning and Developing

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n October, before going home for Diwali vacation, we were told to try for our own Summer Training. When the same was told to our seniors, they just laughed and suggested us to enjoy vacations and come back; they said it is still time left for that and there is no need to worry.

formalization process of the bank. Days passed by, I started to get a grip on things. It was easy and enjoyable.

Flipping those pages, I stuck on something. I went to one of the bank employee sitting next to me, to ask him my query. From the look on his face I found that I'm at a wrong place. There I learned, it is not the things which are complicated but the HR quotient, which make things complicated. See, now HR concepts are getting cleared in my mind.

But, from that very day, I and many more started looking for their SIPs and got excited about the opportunity of learning the corporate experience and if possible get Pre-Placement Offers. I was selected in the company of choice and was excited to join it as soon as possible.

Now that I know how things work, I started working seriously.

Google helped me for a start, then the bank's work felt the same.

Initially, I was a little lethargic, and then the reports of how SMEs in India grew and helped the economy, got my all attention. I learned quite a lot about the way government policies and SME sector molded things around.

As days passed by and it seemed that clock was ticking slower than ever before, reminding about the time left to join the office.

Then, the day came, April 25, Bank of Baroda, the SME specialized branch. My mentor was the Assistant General Manager himself.

The day I went, he was out of station but I was guided by the other manager. He couldn't understand the topic I need to be trained for, but out of his experience of handling Summer Trainees, he explained me how things work there and showed me the place I was about to spend the next eight weeks and complete my training.

Then I was told to collect information about the account holders' growth over the period to substantiate my study. The next few days' experience took me back to days when I use to carry weights at gym.

The information about the account holders were in form of Binders.

They were too heavy to be carried around.

Next day, I was told to meet my mentor as soon as I entered the office. With some confusion and a little bit fear, I entered his cabin.

He told me to sit and handed me two certificates. They were from London School of Economics. He gave some exams in the fortnight passed and got those certificates. A thirty year experienced guy who is expert in his steam, to my knowledge didn't need those certificates. Then he humbly said, “You see, a manager has to continue learn throughout his life”.

But, the learning under my training was very useful and true learning would be the day when I'll start formulating policies for the company I would be working with as now I have an idea about SME sector and Indian economy. Don't know about others, as time passed at the office, things everyday made me more of a professional than a student.

My mentor kept me on the path by telling where to rectify myself and my study from time to time. I had a great time in these eight weeks and felt my MBA turned to the right direction. Now that I have completed my training, I can say, I'm quite ready to pursue my ambitions.

Even before my project started, I learned the first important concept.

Next he explained me the topic and how I should go about that. The way he explained was professional as though at a professional corporate office instead of a PSU.

- Mr. Ayush Gupta PGDM II, KIAMS.

My topic was “Future of MSMEs in India”. First few days I was told to flip pages of few Account holders, so that I can understand the

“If you do a lot of things to build business, you'll build business.

They don't have to be done perfectly to work, although the better you do them, the better they'll work.

But the main point is that you have to do them -- a lot.”

- Joe Girard

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Through The Eyes Of The Class Of 2014 The Scholastic Melee

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he results of CAT & XAT was a straight hard blow on my face & the myth possessed by my parents & the people around me & to be a little honest me myself also of a so called intelligent & good student fell apart. Balancing final year B.Tech preparation along with the dream of bell the 'CAT' proved to be a little quixotic and the bitter truth was in front.

did show on the marks and the rank. Finally the much awaited dawn after the darkest hours of night arrived. I was happy undoubtedly without being late I mailed my score and got the call for GD/PI from KIAMS. I took help from a senior of the institute regarding the GD/PI preparation. The 'D-day' had come. I was a bit nervous but was confident enough to face the panel. Warm welcome from our respected Director made all the applicants more comfortable. The whole procedure went off smoothly and I was happy with my performance. I am grateful to God for having blessing me to render a good performance that day. The next day early morning new sun rays came and the much awaited and expected good news. Yes I had been selected. It was good news indeed and a cause for celebration.

Through Facebook I got the chance to interact with the seniors and got the clear picture of the college, placement scenario ,campus life and my heartiest thanks to all of them for clearing the doubts to the core. Taking the final decision became easier.

With a heavy heart and boulevard of broken dreams, I was gearing up for my campus interviews & made up my mind writing the exams next year. But God certainly had some other plans for me.

Announcement of new entrance exam CMAT took place from nowhere. A slight ray of hope & that was more than enough to boost up my confidence level for the final plunge. Nobody was sure about this entrance exam since very few reputed colleges were enlisted under this and KIAMS was one of those few thus with a skeptical mind I filled up the form. Moreover, it was pretty evident that the competition would be a cut throat one as it was the last resort for most of the students who messed up the premier entrance exams like I did, to get in to the reputed b-schools this year. I was at par with my preparation having appeared for various online mock tests and analyzing the mistakes (I missed doing it previously and I regret now). I worked hard on my weaker sections and left no stones unturned. This time, I was determined to make it big with the best result possible. In the mean time I was done with the application procedure of KIAMS. With lots of anxiety, speculations and countless prayers to God, I wrote the exam. Within 20 days, came the next big day of my life-declaration of CMAT result. Hard work

Finally I am joining KIAMS. Wondering why among all colleges, I chose KIAMS? Well, the brand name KIRLOSKAR is just enough to cater the needs required by any b school to promote and push it among the best ones. Now I am counting my days for that new day, for the new place, for new friends, for new seniors, new teachers and new environment. In short, for a new family and a new life all together I am very excitedH -Ms. Titir Ghosh, PGDM-I, KIAMS

A New Dimension

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ince my childhood, I always keep hearing from my ancestors that success is in the 3D's i.e., Discipline, Determination and Dedication but after my CAT examination result, '3D' concept went in vain. For once dream got shattered and my life's objective won't be achieved. But soon I realized that “the buck stops here” and by complaining and giving excuses is not a solution to any problem.

Then, I started preparing for other two national exams MAT and CMAT and I consistently scored well in both the exams which were turning point in deciding the colleges which provide me vast knowledge and enhance my skills.

subject I would be able not only to nourish my skills but also apply them in a better way with every possible result. I not only want a degree but also overall development of my personal and professional skills and KIAMS is a temple where I truly believe that I can shape myself to capture my dreams.

This B school also has a lot of expectations from its students all of which I intend to fulfil. Real journey starts from here and it will never end till I get what I want. It won't be easy to chase my dreams which are full of Apocalypse and Catastrophe but with the help of environment as provided by KIAMS it will be fun to say after 50 years that I really had the guts to capture the worldH

One of my friends suggested KIAMS. After this I started acquiring information about the institute, the placement records, industrial exposure, infrastructure, faculty experience and most importantly the friendly nature. And then I decided to fill the form. Once I got the call from KIAMS for GD/PI. I started preparing for GD/PI and finally burning the midnight oil. Fruits were evident as I was selected for the institute. Selecting an institute is the first step to reach my life's objective which is to bring the society and corporate parallel to each other without which a strong and powerful nation cannot be established. With experienced faculty in their particular

“Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow” Helen Keller - Ms. Ragshree, PGDM-I, KIAMS

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How to get the job or life you want: A view from top - Mr. Supratim Kundu

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elcome back to the campus. Some of you had really enjoyed the SIP experience and you have seen how businesses are run. These experiences are of great fun if you know why you were there. And for students, without any work ex it's always better to have a firsthand experience. So, the first half is over and we should now be concerned with the second half only. Post our SIP, this is the time when we can look back at ourselves. Like the mistakes we highlighted or the areas that we had pointed out for more focus. We know this is important to highlight the areas where by putting a bit of extra effort we can move ahead. These are called the areas of improvements. These areas can vary from person to person. And these can be comm. skills to interpersonal skills to domain knowledge to other things also. But you know, the greatest benefit is that we are able to highlight it. That means, 50% work is over. The rest 50% is to actually motivate it by putting the extra efforts.

only, you can decide on your priorities. Otherwise, you will only look into and decide on your career based on emotions, which can be the biggest mistake for anyone wanting to go up the ladder. Every human being has got weaknesses and there should not be any problem in highlighting them. Thus after the SWOT, you'll be confident on the kind of works you like to be into. For eg, you like to communicate with people, or say analysis is one of your greatest strength. So, now you can understand the broader areas to look for you career objectives.

The 2nd step should be to look into the sector or industry or the type of company you want to work for. This can vary from software firms to BPO's to medical units to advertising firms, financial institutions who provides jobs in the fields of analysis, relationship managers, client management to marketing research etc. The point is you should be able to identify yourself to the areas you'd like to get associated with. This is required to create the base on which you will start your professional life. After this, when you know who you are and what jobs you want, then the logical next step would be to start knowing about the companies that are operating in those areas. You should be able to track them in a manner such that you know all their requirements. It is like shopping from a supermarket. You have lots of options in front of you and you need to choose depending on the best of your abilities. All the MNC's and big companies go for both on campus and off campus hiring. If you know their requirements, then after some trials automatically you can be placed in one of them based on your interest, provided you know to sell yourself as a package.

The next big step for us is our placements. This is the reason why most of us have come here. But the irony is this should not be viewed in that respect. Do you really think that a college or an institute is a placement agency? I hope, you'll answer in the negative. But again, for professional courses, yes of course, there should be enough assistance so that we can get the good placements. And this will enable us to live the life we want. But, again, there is a problem with the phrase “good placement�. Getting a package of say 8L can be a good placement, but you might not be willing to work for the company or for the job provided. Thus, it is actually essential to know what you exactly want. And in this situation, the summer internship experience may come handy. For the fresher's, the SIP provides an opportunity to look in to the professional world and to understand the bigger picture. I hope, by now you have understood that the office culture is different from home or college atmosphere.

To become a professional, you need to think like a professional.

Let us now, concentrate our efforts to understand what kinds of jobs we want and where we can fit into. It is required because, your professional life will occupy a large portion of your life (say 40 ).

Thus if you are not in the right track, you won't be enjoying your work. And if you don't enjoy what you do, you will consciously attract negative thoughts and frustration for you. In this discussion, I'll explain 2 major ways in getting into the life you want for yourself. The funda, to enjoy the best benefits of both worlds, is to mix them intelligently.

All this seems well and good. It would have been of great pleasure, had it actually been like this. We all know that some of you will start arguing saying that getting the job you want is not that easy. And I know, some of you will say that forget about getting the job of your choice, getting a job itself is not easy. By this, don't you think that you are diminishing your abilities? You are trying to go against the basic truth and that is jobs are created for human beings whereas human beings are not created for jobs. The truth is you need to have solid nerves and thorough understanding to take the control of your life. We are habituated to lead our life through someone else's lenses. We hardly do what we prefer to do. Instead we keep on thinking about the consequences or what others will perceive. Thus, self-respect and self-belief are the biggest tools you need to achieve success. And these will come, once you know that what you are doing is right. So, try and test your understandings. Day by day, you will gain confidence, when you see that your actions are producing the desired results that you have thought off. Ultimately, you will start acting like successful people who are filled with tremendous self-belief and enthusiasm and they know where to look for what they want.

The most obvious approach is the logical one. Since, you are going to manage things in the near future, thus thinking logically should be our natural activity. Here we are trying to find out the job profiles that suits you the best. This includes the company you are working for, the sector/industry you are working into and your future career aspirations. For these, the 1st step should be to understand you. You will not find a great person (who has achieved success on his own) without understanding what he can do and what he cannot do.

Therefore, it is very essential to have done SWOT analysis. You need complete understanding of yourself as a human being. Then

So till now, we were combining logical sense with self-belief which comes from better understanding and timely execution. But do you

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really think that you are a robot and your life can be defined by logic? Do you think that only proper planning and strategy can save you all the time or rather they can create the life you want as if you are bounded by precision machine like systems with bits like 0's and 1's. Why then we talk about the unknown factor called luck. Why then we have heard about praying. Why then we also talk about the will power and the power of attraction. Why then, we can see some people willing to give up lavish life for peace of mind? This is because there is a huge difference between a machine and a human being. Machines don't have emotions and humans have something called conscience. And we don't live within computers where everything can be defined by logic. Our existence is dependent only on the state of our mind.

above our mind. It does not require our mind to operate. It is selfsufficient and independent. The point is we can get a glimpse of the super powerful consciousness through our mind. You have to cross the earth's gravitational field in order to reach space. Same way, consciousness lies beyond the scope of the mind. But as the space is visible from earth, consciousness can be utilized or reached through the mind. And if we can tap the source, then all is yours. There are specific ways to do this. And the best part is, it doesn't take much time for our objective, because I believe no one of you would aspire a yogi to practice for years. We are talking about few weeks only.

We know that we can think of 4th dimensions and can imagine it (through mind) because our mind has the potential to operate in 4th dimension (where time is not a constraint, eg realistic dreams, though projections, clairvoyance, tele-kinetics, intense will power, gut feeling or intuition etc). But we cannot act in 4D, because of our physical limitations which is 3D. Consciousness is in much higher realm than that of our mind. Our mind is given to us just to make us understand and act to the surroundings. In simple terms, consciousness is nothing but the awareness.

The last sentence of the last paragraph might have made some of you crazy. Let us try to get into the root of the discussion. We had started the kind of job / life you wanted. Have you ever thought as why you wanted those jobs? You wanted those because of some emotions (or attachments) or from some thoughts. This means, in most of the cases you are not taking decisions independently. You are bounded by emotions and practical problems. And we know, that important decisions should be taken after complete understanding and not by emotions. Thus there is a loop-hole. We need to raise our consciousness in order to have full and better understandings. You can refer to my previous article named “For Joy: A better life� in the last edition of Chanakya to have an understanding.

We discussed these, because we can take the advantage of these powers which are already given to us. The thing is either we are not aware of them, or are not confident about using them. I'll try to throw some light on these. Though consciousness doesn't require mind to operate, but that stage can be reached by crossing the stage of mind and this requires time and patience. If we are able to calm our mind (because presently we are not in a position to stop it) we can get a glimpse of the consciousness. We will understand that whatever we are seeing surrounding us, are nothing but vibrations at different levels. At a very subtle level, they create dreams. But in a deep sleep, we are not aware as if they were dreams. We sometimes, mistakenly things they are real unless we wake up. Similarly, vibrations in gross level create life (we live). And after the mind ceases to exist (after death or in higher meditation), with consciousness (the yogis) can understand that life is the gross version of dreams. I told you this, to make you understand that with consciousness you have the power to create the life you want because consciousness is an energy and it doesn't require any material existence, not even the mind. Only the body needs the material existence. And those existence can be provided to the body (thus to the sense organs) in the same manner as in dreams through the power of your mind, in a gross level. But again, since at the present situation, it is not possible (for most of us) to go beyond mind, hence we should try to take the advantages post calming down the mind. Like when the lake water becomes absolutely still, it enables us to see our own images, similarly to grasp the power of the pure consciousness, we will have to calm don our mind during the practice sessions.

We are actually free entities hardwired in such a manner that we can get anything we want provided we know how to get that. This requires actions and diverting the mind in the right direction. But the greatest problem is throughout the day, we keep on doing things that are either connected to some past activity or are acted upon out of our emotions. Our mind is not bounded by emotions and emotions always create attachments, which will create a loop.

We can direct our mind and other higher senses to create the life we want for us. Please remember, what you are seeing in front of you are not permanent from our perspective. Because, we are not sure whether they were there before we came (birth) or they will be there after we go (death). This life is just a phase and we are into specific surrounding depending on the nature of our mind. And in this phase, we are constantly creating something (objects / actions / thoughts) for our purpose. Again depending on the results, we are creating other (objects / actions / thoughts). And this is happening as a loop.

After some time our mind will stop functioning and we will be buried / burnt. And we know that energy cannot go vanish, it can only be converted. Thus want happens to our consciousness after we go and before we came?

This consciousness is the biggest mystery of human life. Let me give you an eg. to make you understand what does consciousness means.

Generally we do what we want (our sense organs). But there is one thing that helps us to decide and help us to operate. That is our mind.

But that is also not enough. Mind takes rest when we sleep and it does not exists/works when we were in mother's womb (due to lack of aerial oxygen). But we are not dead in either of the cases. Thus, there must be something which is independent of our mind and which needs nothing to exist. It simply exists. Because, it is an energy, it is completely free from our emotions / preferences or whatever you want to associate with. Consciousness lies in a stratum

The thing which we call luck, are nothing but chances we had created for ourselves are a certain point of time in the past. And you can never live your life on chances. So, the objective is to create chances consciously for us. Two such greatest techniques are Affirmations and Visualizations. Let us discuss it and try to understand what they are.

Affirmation is the technique of affirming something. You might have felt that if your friends / colleagues keep on telling you that you are great, you actually start feeling great. Or in reverse, if your friends keep on telling you that you are dumb, you actually think that 18

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you might be dumb. All these happen, due to lack of self-confidence.

Our external locus of control is dependent on what others say as we don't have the confidence to be in charge of our life. Another example can be, when you repeatedly affirm that “I can do it” with confidence and self belief, then the results are outstanding. The sports men and the martial artists, the soldiers are trained in these affirmations. When we affirm something with strong mental determination, we are releasing some energy in to the space. Our mind starts believing as if really that is happening. As per string theory, the universe and our bodies are nothing but various vibrations of energy. Similarly, when we release energy, the universe returns it back to us. But for a ping pong ball to come back to you, you need to throw the ball with enough energy. Thus, for the universe, to return the energy to you (in the format you had asked for) you have to throw it with higher energies. This requires the mind to calm down. When you calm down completely, the mind becomes still and when the mind is still you can have the glimpse of the superpowerful independent consciousness (which is the universe in another vibration / level). In the later stages, I'll discuss on how to affirm.

Hence, to have complete control over our life, we will have to consciously create chances for us. You have to take the control and will have to be in charge of the beautiful journey called life. The most pertinent question now is “how”. As I told you, our life is nothing but the summation and implications of the choices we made, hence the most appropriate way is to make better choices. For better choices, we need to have better knowledge (of life in broad), better analyzing skill, better understanding to comprehend. And we can't alter the accumulated knowledge, that we have, instantly. But of course we can have better perceptions and thus better understandings if we want assistance from higher realities and existences. Our body needs rest after a certain time to get back the energy. And remember, our mind also needs rest. If you can consciously refresh and calm your mind, you will experience freshness. You will feel energy in so abundance that will force you to think why you did not tried for it earlier. To put in simple words, it is like becoming the tour guide, rather than continuing as an unknown traveller in the beautiful journey of life. Suddenly you will realize that you are viewing and perceiving things in totality instead of viewing in subsystems. Our mind exists in different dimensions. The more high you raises, the more complete view you can have and thus more complete understanding. Thus, you can have the sense of the bigger purpose and you will realise that why you exists after all. Your life will become an awesome journey with full control.

The next step is Visualization. To know what it is and how it works, it requires a greater understanding. I hope all of you had watched movies in theater. While watching a good movie, sometimes we lose the sense of watching and we start thinking of playing the role we like. Exactly, this is what happens in dreams. We lost the sense of watching the dream and we think we are acting (in the dream).

Rather, we are just watching and are doing nothing. This happens because of the power of our mind to work in 4th dimension. It had happened to many scientists to discover in their dreams first than in real world. Our mind can operate beyond time and in many places parallely. In our real life, most of the activities that we do are based on some of our thoughts. For eg, we are studying MBA. We had either heard of it or had seen someone studying it and a thought came into our mind. Later we started acting towards the thought (repetitively sometimes) unless it materializes. Same way, we can create thoughts consciously about the things we want and can materialize it at will. Of course it requires practice, as you are using something which you have never used before consciously, i.e. your mind in the proper way. All our thoughts come from some choices we have in the life. Say for eg, if Warren Buffet had been in my place today, he would have different priorities. This is because, we want only those things we are looking for. And we decide to want something when we think that might be useful at that instant. Thus, essentially, it is a thought that forces us to act on something. Before going on a tour we think for some time and then we decide and this very thought of tour comes from some other thoughts. In the higher stages, these are the thoughts that are creating the situations / life we are living in presently. And our wants and desires are based on our nature which is nothing but our personality, our types. This is based on our previous actions. That is why every human being is different from the other. Without, going into further details, we can see that our lives are nothing but materializations of our thoughts which are nothing but vibrations of our past actions and experiences. Since our body is bounded within the boundaries of 3 dimensions, we can be at one activity at one time. But for the higher properties of our mind, we can think of many things at the same time. Based on the intention, we choose to act on a thought and thereby we materialize it without even knowing it in most cases.

Visualization is the process of consciously visualizing the life / activity you want as if you are actually doing it. Suppose you want a car. You need to visualize as if you are driving the car or are enjoying in the back seat with all the emotions you can think of naturally. With time, your mind will guide to towards those thoughts (rather you will attract those thoughts) that will enable you to achieve your goals.

But the motto is you have to do it full concentration and self-belief (that you can do it). Remember, with self-belief, half the battle is won. With repeated practice, you will understand that your mind is actually guiding you for the activities that are in line with your objective. Because, now this is the responsibility of the universe to act on your will.

The question comes now is how to go for the two greatest tools of affirmation and visualization. The basic is both of these require you mind to calm down as they need full attention of your mind without any disturbances. In other words, here you are actually instructing your mind to create / materialize things for you (with the help of all powerful independent consciousness). In real life, the more you concentrate the more concrete your job becomes. It is always suggested to go for meditation before applying these high end tools.

Meditation seems to be a tough word for many of you. Just take it as a way to focus and calm your mind. You may fix any time of a day (but practice regularly, better if done at the same time). Sit straight and simply start feeling your breath. In the last edition of Chanakya, I had already told you that breath is the mystery of life. We all had lived without it (in womb) and will be doing so later, but now we can't even think of existing without it. It connects us from the subtle world of consciousness to the gross universe during our physical lifetime. There are certain higher orders of mediation, where the practitioner exists only on consciousness without the need of breathing consciously. But those are outside the scope of our present discussion.

Keep on focusing on your breath. You will start feeling the entry and

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exist of the air. Star feeling the air entering through the nostrils, reaching the lungs and again coming back through the nostrils.

Simply drop all your thoughts as if you want nothing and you have everything. Say firmly to yourself, that in the next few minutes, you'll not be disturbed by any thoughts. You will simple enjoy the breathing. After sometime you will feel your heartbeat has slowed down and you are feeling energetic and you are not in a mood to think something. You are at peace. This is because you are forcing your mind to calm down and you are not letting the mind go here and there. You will start feeling joy. This is quite natural. The more your mind ceases to exist, the more joy you will feel. Because you are going nearer to the super hero called “consciousness” which lies beyond the mind and thus cannot be felt through mind. When you fell the peace and joy, start affirming on the things you are looking for. This is like instructing the mind to create the life you want. When the mind clams down and you instruct it, it will follow your orders like a good servant. Throughout the day, we follow the orders of the mind, but actually mind is gifted to us to lead the life we want. This is the time to instruct it. It will attract all the thoughts required to attain the objective. After you have fully affirm the things you are looking for, start feeling them simultaneously. Feel with all the emotions as if it is real. Feel the subtle thoughts, feel the environment. You are

consciously creating a virtual reality for you and the universe trusts you and it is the responsibility of the universe to return you back the energy you left for it. Start to visualize the activities you are looking for. Visualize not as an observer, but as a participant in the process.

See yourself, feel yourself enjoying on the things / situations you want to be in. After sometime you, your-self will have the sense of satisfaction. This is the time when the universe has started responding you. Keep on practicing with full faith and believe regularly. Remember, the universe is always perfect. Thus it depends on your concentration and wish. Ultimately you will realize that you and only you are the architect of your life in the bigger pictureH “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.” - Swami Vivekananda.

- Mr. Supratim Kundu, PGDM-II, KIAMS

"Don’t be fooled by the calendar.

There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.

One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week."

- Charles Richards

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BIZ QUEST 1) What is the name of the Internal Body that tries to persuade Governments to be more Business Friendly?

buy the London Metal Exchange?

14) Which Asset Management Company runs the biggest Agri Commodity Fund in the World today with Assets under management of $ 4.5 Billion?

2) Recently, which Real Estate major was replaced by Dr. Reddy's Lab from the BSE 30scrip index SENSEX?

15) 3) Name the Sportswear Brand which is first to be associated with Force India Formula One?

16) Presently what is the limit for Television Advertisements per Hour in India?

4) Which Company has acquired Pantaloon Retail's apparel Business?

5)

17) Which is India's leading Luxury Brand Watch Store by “Titan”?

Who is the newly appointed Chairman of TRAI? 18) NAM summit is going to be held in which country on August, 2012?

6) Who is the author of the Book” Brandwashed”, which predicted way back in 1994 that Brand Building would happen almost entirely online?

19) Which E-Commerce company recently won the IDMA Digital Start-up of the year award?

7) Which “Virus” is supposed to be the most powerful Virus to ever strike in the Cyber world?

8)

FTWZ stands for?

20) RBI has given in principal approval for a banking license in India to which global bank in May 2012?

Which agency handles the creative duties of Dell?

21) Which two-wheeler company has launched low cost mass motorcycle “Dream Yuga” in May 2012?

9) Which Global network Infrastructure major has the World's largest global submarine cable network?

22) Which Airlines company has become the world's first airlines to produce own fuel?

10) Which IT Services company recently launched a unique Vendor Collaboration Suite (VCS) for the retail industry?

23) Who won the prestigious Ondaatje Prize 2012 for his book “The Sly Company of People Who Care”?

11) Which Luxury Home Furnishings & Décor site has launched a new concept of Flash Sale where in the consumers can request items they would like to purchase at a discounted price on its social media platforms?

24) Which Company has secured no. 1 rank in the list of Fortune 500 companies for 2012?

12) Who introduced the concept of “Viral Marketing”?

25) The tagline of which company is “How Communication happens”?H

13) Which Exchanges and Clearing has agreed a £ 1.4 Billion to

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Brand Update - Mr. Vivek Goyal

SAMSUNG GALAXY S-III Samsung has finally launched the much awaited highly aspired phone GALAXY S-III. The tagline says it all “designed for humans, Inspired by nature”. The colour and the feel of the phone have the nature inspired instinct in it.

It comes in two variants namely “Marble White and Pebble Blue”. Samsung has come up with great innovative features.

S Voice: Using this feature you give command to your phone orally and it will process accordingly. E.g.: You can orally give a command to snooze the alarm for 15 minutes when it starts to beep.

S Beam: This feature lets you share all types of files in your phone with another connecting device just by putting the backs of both the devices together.

TECH SPEC:It is a 2G, 3G & 4G compatible phone with a dual camera.

Primary camera is 8 MP & Secondary Camera is 1.9 MP. It has an internal memory of 16/32/64 GB and a 1GB RAM.

LG WATER PURIFIER LG Electronics has entered Rs. 2000 Crore water purifier market which is growing at 18% by launching 2 variants.

One is hot and cold water variant priced at Rs. 39,990 and the other variant i.e. normal and cold water variant at Rs. 34,490. LG has entered this market targeting niche segment. This launch seems to be audacious looking at the habits of Indian population, where only 2% of population purify their water before drinking and among the 2% there are very few who would go for such expensive product. Tata Chemicals & Hindustan Unilever is offering purifying products from the range of Rs.700 & Rs. 900 respectivelyl - Mr. Vivek Goyal PGDM-II, KIAMS.

References: 1.) http://www.lg.com/in/home-appliances/water-purifier/waterpurifier.jsp 2.) http://www.livemint.com/2011/04/11204644/LG-enters-waterpurifier-marke.html 3.) www.cardekho.com/carmodels/Maruti/Maruti_Ertiga 4.) http://www.marutisuzuki.com/Maruti-Suzuki-unveils-Indiasfirst-Life-Utility-Vehicle-Ertiga.aspx 5.) http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9300_galaxy_s_iii4238.php

ERTIGA: Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. has come up with its “big car” in competition to Toyota Innova and Mahindra XYLO. It is the first “life utility vehicle” of India. It has a flexiseating style of 5+2. The price tag ranges from 5.88 - 8.44 lacs. Maruti has unveiled K14B engine which flaunts features like light weightedness, high fuel efficiency, Excellent power, low running and maintenance cost, low noise and vibration. It has both diesel (20.77 Kmpl) and petrol (16.02 Kmpl) engine. The general response for this car has been positive and the car seems to be promising.

"The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work."

- Agha Hasan Abedi 22

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KIAMS: “A home away from home”

Remember that first day Dad, when you left me, Then you just walked away after you released me, I was all alone, And I missed my sweet home, I told good bye to that old life, Suddenly I was confronted with the mystic new life..

The fire burning within my heart, Causing within me a desire for a new start, With the passing day and night, Our friendship became like birds in flight.

Our friendship now fills our lives with beauty, joy and grace, And makes the world we live in, a better and happier place, Sometimes life here is purely fun, Joy and happiness all around, We know to laugh and never cry, Our tears glands are always dry, Sometimes life seems too hard we all want to run away, Sometimes pressures gets us down that we want to fly away.

Some days we feel like packing our bags, And say goodbye to all that's weighing on us.

Now with all the new experiences we don't say "Why Me? Instead we have learnt to say "Try Me”, Here teachers are like mentor, Apart from so many difficulties outside, They keep the students comfortable, As a warm and helpful guide.

Dear dad don't you worry now I am fit, am fine, am healthy and warm, As I finally found “A home away from home”H

-Ms. Neha Nautiyal PGDM-II, KIAMS.

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BIZ NEWS - Mr. Ayush Agarwal

1. Taliban has come out with a rare praise of India for reportedly standing up to US over the Afghan situation and promised that Afghanistan would not be used to hurt Indian interests.

capitalization of banks like Dhanlaxmi, Punjab & Sind, Development Credit Ban and Laxmi Vilas Bank. The company is tracking Rs 650 crore in revenue up from Rs 240 crore 2 years ago.

2. Indian Navy is all set to boost its under water survey capabilities with state-of-the-art indigenous vessels capable of exploring the depths of the maritime economic zone and the extended continental shelf of the country. The navy has initiated the process of procuring four survey vessels from indigenous shipyard and as per plans the first ship will be commissioned into service by 2017-2018.

6. Nokia would slash 10,000 jobs or 19% of its workforce, by the end of 2013 as part of an emergency overhaul that includes closing research centre and a factory in Germany, Canada and Finland and the departures of three senior executives. 3700 of the 10,000 job cut would take place in Finland. The handset factory in Salo to be closed is Nokia's largest in the country and about 850 employees will be affected there by reductions. Nokia based in Espoo, Finland posted a loss of $ 1.2 billion in the first quarter as sales plummeted 29%.

Once the undisputed leader in mobile phone has been outcompeted

by Apple, Samsung and other makers of handset running on Google's Android operating system.

3. The centre has decided to allow Maoist hit states to hire helicopters on their own from private firms to use them for anti naxal operations till it acquires eight Mi-17V-5 chopper. The central government will reimburse all the expenses to be incurred and will primarily be used for casualty evacuation, emergency reinforcement of forces and transportation of medicines and other supplies.

7. Signalling an end to a five-year-old partnership with the Godrej Group, US chocolate maker The Hershey Company is planning a solo to ride in India with a 100% subsidiary, Hershey Confectionary India. Last month the makers of house hold brands like Kisses, Reese's, Kit Kat, Almond Joy, York, Jolly Rancher, and Twizzlers, registered the new company with the Registrar of Companies.

4. Sending financial assistance for students belonging to scheduled caste communities, Government approved a new pre-matric scholarship children studying in classes IX and X. While the day scholars will be given a scholarship of Rs 150 per month, the hostellers will be given an assistance of Rs. 350. The disabled students will be provided the assistance under various heads such as reader allowances to blind students, transport, escort and helper allowance.

8. Srei group promoted Quippo has made a nearly Rs 3,000 crore bid for the tower business of Bangaladesh's second-largest mobile operator, Bangalink. Bangalink, a subsidiary of Egypt-based Orascom Telecom, owns about 5,200 towers. Acquisition of Banagalink's towers can help increase cash flow at Viom Networks, majority owned by Tata Teleservices and managed by Srei group. It owns and manages 38,500 towers in Indial

5. Managing Automated Teller Machines (ATM) is turning out to be a big business with companies that have taken over the outsourced functions commanding valuations of smaller nationalized banks.

One of the leading Chennai based company in this space , Financial Software & System(FSS) is clinching fresh investments at about $350 million (more than 1900 crore) valuation, topping the market

- Mr. Ayush Agarwal, PGDM-II, KIAMS.

ANSWERS OF BIZ QUEST 1) B20

14) DEUTSCHE ASSET MANAGEMENT

2) DLF

15) FREE TRADE & WAREHOUSING ZONE

3) REEBOK

16) 12 MINUTES

4) ADITYA BIRLA NUVO LIMITED (ABNL)

17) HELIOS

5) RAHUL KHULLAR

18) TEHRAN

6) MARTIN LINDSTROM

19) ALLSCHOOLSTUFF.COM

7) FLAME

20) MORGAN STANLEY

8) GREY

21) HONDA

9) TATA COMMUNICATIONS

22) DELTA AIRLINES

10) FUJITSU

23) RAHUL BHATTACHARYA

11) LUXE YARD 24) EXXON MOBIL

12) STEVE JURVETSON & TIM DRAPER 13) HONGKONG

25) AGERE SYSTEMS

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CROSSWORD

Across 1.

4.

6.

8.

11.

The first "Life utility vehicle (LUV) of India.

This powder hair colour was introduced from India to Africa as a platform strategy A branch of NCDEX which deals with the spot exchange of commodities You cannot solve a problem with the thinking that created it- First name of a genius who said this Customers in global markets are increasingly using these "labels" to differentiate between brands.

Down 2.

3.

5.

7.

9.

10.

Textile engineering exhibition in India and one of the renowned exhibitions in the world showcasing Textile Technology.

This is frequently adopted strategy by companies seeking to add value at the regional level while serving a cluster of countries.

Company benifitting from Zuckerberg's shrewedness This act is described as the toughest anti-corruption legislation in the world.

MD of Sierra Ventures Why is it that EU regulation imposed carbon taxes on airlines that fly into thier atmosphere

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CAMPUS NEWS r

Convocation program was held for B-13 students on 27th March 2012. This marked an important day in their lives and a significant milestone in their life's journey. The chief guests of the ceremony were Dr. Naushad Forbes, Director of Forbes Marshall, and Rahul Kirloskar, Executive Chairman, Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Limited,

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B-14 students had undergone their Summer Internship training for 6 to 8 weeks from June first week. It provided the students with on-the-job training with the corporate houses and gave them experiential training at an early stage.

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KIAMS will miss one of its most distinguished faculty and most lovable family member, as Prof. RNV decided to retire from teaching profession on 30th April 2012.

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Boot Camp was organized for 2 weeks in the month of April for K-Group Executives in both the campuses.

r The class of 2012-14 of KIAMS started its journey of management education with a grand Inaugural function at the Harihar campus on 20th June 2012.

Team Chanakya gives special thanks to our Director Dr. Gopal Iyengar, Ms. Bhavani Devi, Mr. Suryateja Rallapalli, Mr. Ritesh Kothari, Ms. Khushboo Vijayvargiya for their valuable contributions in the January, 2012 issue of The Chanakya.

We invite you to send in your feedback to help us bring out the best in 'The Chanakya'.

Student Editorial Team Ms. Ekta Maheshwari, Ms. Tulika Raj, Mr. Siddhartha Sarma Modukuri, Mr. Manindar Kumar Nayak (PGDM-II)

chanakya@kiams.ac.in thechanakya.kiams@gmail.com Next Issue : Focus - 'Finance'

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