Enthusiasm and the world around you.

Depravity, egregiously defying behavior, parasite mentality, creepy Soviet socialism, fascism, anti-Semitism, Left vs Right wing, glamour, and not to be named here enticing things, if these things come to your mind now and then, you too are a 'victim' of a neo-world, remember 'Neo' from Matrix series? I think now you know what kind of things I am talking about, mind boggling things.

An eminent civil servant and a former senior officer with Govt. of India, while addressing the MISB class, asked the class what is the one thing that worries them, the one thing they think about and worry when they wake up early in the morning. Stunned by a such a innocuous yet an amazingly heart wrenching and close to heart question, a student answered it's about his country, the corruption and the depravity that worries him. Cliched that it may sound, it is true. Delving deep into the issues and trying to resolve them are truly, the characteristics of an 'Argumentative Indian'.

Scraping through these random and  abstract thoughts, I wish my professors, fellow mates at MISB a very Happy and prosperous Diwali, Goverdhan Puja and Bhaiya Dooj !

Have Fun


Anurag Singhal
MISB Bocconi
Class of 2012-2014
anurag.singhal@misbbocconi.com

OB & HRM - Prof. Massimo Magni

The idea of talking about subjects such as Human Resource & Organization Behavior in most of the B-schools might make many uninterested, turned heads. Though these subjects form the pillars of any large organization that we see today, but ironically seem to instigate only a few minds in these schools, where top priorities are landing with other more challenging (so called) job profiles.

We, 2 weeks ago at MISB Bocconi were getting ourselves ready for a similar, expected experience. Apart from a short introduction of the subject and the professor’s background, the first lecture consisted of a slide-set containing a few picture strips showing the importance of OB & HR. It also contained learnings on ‘teams’ from New York Mets baseball team, ‘coaching’ from UF Gators, ‘failures’ from Space Shuttle “Challenger”, ‘success’ from the Chile Mine Rescue mission, ‘teaming’ concepts from the Water Cube of Beijing Olympics and ‘daredevilry’ from the diver, Felix Baumgartner. The following lectures were a mix of daily simulations, healthy discussions and some interesting theoretical concepts. All our apprehensions regarding the subject’s appeal started to blow away.

The daily simulation sessions covered a large array of organizational behavior and HR topics. In one such limited time computer based simulation, all the existing groups were divided into “Buyers” and “Sellers” negotiating a deal for a plot of land. The groups finished the exercise by selling the land after several rounds of negotiations. Through this exercise, the important roles of Mutuality, Believability, Bandwagon, Framing and Anchoring in a negotiation were stressed upon. In other such team based exercise, Prisoner’s Dilemma was simulated. The end result conformed to the typical human behavior as concluded by the theory itself.

The famous Zimbardo prison experiment of Stanford University with the repercussions on the volunteer attitudes was also discussed. Other exercises covered areas such as Decision Making (Carter Racing Simulation) and various Traps that we fall pray to in our decision making process not only in an organization but also in our daily lives. McClelland’s Self-Assessment and NASA Survival exercises comprised other group simulations.

For our graded assignment ‘Recruitment of a Star’, we had been given a task to recruit an analyst for a firm, which has just lost its star performer to a rival, from a pool of deserving candidates.

We never realized when the subject sessions finally concluded. HR, a theory-intense subject traditionally, turned out to be a joyride for us. 

Rahul Hisaria

MISB Bocconi
Class of 2012-2014
rahul.hisaria@misbbocconi.com

Entrepreneurship Lecture Series -II

19 October, 2012

The eagerly awaited entrepreneurship classes have started and we have been juggling with a variety of concepts starting from business plans to venture capital funds, private equity etc.

Our Professor, Mr Mikkel, was gracious enough to invite entrepreneurs and investors to hold discussions with us about the various issues that entrepreneurs have to face in the real world and also to throw light on the huge number of opportunities that the market offers.

Mr Jiten Apte, CEO of Wizarth Advisors and highly successful angel investor gave us some useful insight into the world of angel investments. We learnt about the various kinds of entrepreneurs and the types of ideas preferred by the angel investors. He told us about how the network works and the various key points to keep in mind when approaching a prospective investor.

Our belief in the importance of the much used and clichéd ‘elevator pitch’ was reinforced and we also did learn about the due diligence expected by the investors and the various ways to undertake it.

At the end of his session, interestingly, he asked us for our opinion on his next business venture where he had options ranging from solar panel research to an online education initiative and also welcomed interested students to join the India Angels network of which he is a part.

Overall, It was a great experience to learn about how investors think and to get a peek into the exciting world of seed funds. 

Sivanand Mahapatra

MISB Bocconi

Class of 2012-2014

sivanand.mahapatra@misbbocconi.com

Entrepreneurship Lecture Series-I

18 October, 2012

“We want to be the biggest web to print solution in India by 2014”.

These are the words of Saurabh Mehta, owner and founder of Gingko.in, who came to  MISB Bocconi campus to share his entrepreneurial journey and experiences. Set up in 2010, his  business is already churning money. 

Saurabh Mehta, who has got razor sharp clarity about the business, always knew that he would become an entrepreneur.

He said that an MBA from SDA Bocconi helped him a lot. After completing his MBA, he worked for a VC firm in India for a few years. But then as usual, something unusual happened. He struck on an  idea  and plunged into the ocean of entrepreneurship in 2011.

Saurabh Mehta flew down from Bangalore to share his perspective on  entrepreneurship. Prof. Mikkel Draebye who taught Saurabh back in 2006 in his Entrepreneurship class, invited him to share his experiences.

Prof. Draebye is an entrepreneur and Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship in SDA Bocconi.

He definitely helped us clear some myths around entrepreneurship. He said that  its not only the idea but also a strong team which is important for a startup to be successful. ' Choose your people carefully whether its partners or employees', he said.

About the idea he said that it need not be a wonderful idea  but execution of idea is what that matters.

Idea must fail quick and fail cheap, is at all it fails.

 He stressed on the fact that vision is very a important factor for a successful startup. It comes in handy when the company is growing.

We asked him if  he had, at any time of the project, any exit strategy in mind. He said that for any start up,  it is imperative to have exit strategy planned out well.

It was wonderful to meet such 'dare-to-do' guys who are ready to take pains and create rainbows of life.

Manish Pathak
MISB Bocconi
Class of 2012-2014
manish.pathak@misbbocconi.com

Industrial Visit @ ABSTC

11 October,2012

A visit to the Aditya Birla Science & Technology Company on Thursday, accompanied by Prof. Massimo Magni, Professor for OB & HRM, MISB.

The Aditya Birla Science and Technology Company (ABSTC) is the corporate research and development centre for the Aditya Birla Group. Located in Taloja, just outside of Mumbai in India, ABSTC supports the broad diversity of the Group's businesses through multi-disciplinary teams of expert scientists and engineers who lead fundamental and applied research projects.

ABSTC is the corporate R&D centre for Aditya Birla Group and an example of Indian businesses' increasing focus on  R&D, as Indian corporations spreads out globally. Interesting to note that till now only TATA group has invested in similar R&D centers.

Choosing to open up a corporate (centralized) R&D centre vis-a-vis small business R&D centres for a business conglomerate like Aditya Birla Group, brings together the expertise and innovation under one roof at its centre at Mumbai. It now looks after every need for the group including but not limited to 

• Developing in-house technologies to stop reliance on licensed technologies.
• Short term business needs for group companies ranging form fertilizer,cement,textiles etc.
• Rescaling and expanding businesses.
• Catering to long term business propositions and solutions.
• Benchmarking the products for quality assurance.
• Contract research work for other companies.

The centre has already filed 30 patents since its inception in 2006.

Learning the business application and marketing principles from the legendary CTO Mr. Luca Fountana, we looked at the business model, the organizational structure along with some of the cutting edge research work going on in the company. Some interesting take-aways :

• A corporate R&D centre as opposed to business R&D centers as in Dupont and Honeywell has its advantages, specially for long term growth.
• Dedicated in-house R&D unit for the group has financial advantages as well...tax breaks.
• Open innovation partnerships with universities help in developing fundamentally superior technologies at low cost.
• It undertakes research work for the outside non competing companies as well, thus capitalizing on it s superior facilities.

Anurag Singhal

MISB Bocconi

Class of 2012-2014

anurag.singhal@misbbocconi.com

Leaders @ MISB Bocconi - II

Peter Ohnemus, Entrepreneur

Thursday, September 6.

Peter Ohnemus, the Swiss based entrepreneur, is as jovial as he is dynamic.  The IMD graduate paid a visit to the campus and gave us a talk on the trials and tribulations associated with entrepreneurship.

Regaling us with tales from his broad experience in companies like Sybase, LogicWorks, COS, Asset4 and more recently QuentiQ, he taught us about the importance of certain concepts like the art of selling, the significance of the roles hard work and luck play in the life of an entrepreneur, and most importantly, about how it is important to maintain the balance between the professional and personal life.

“It’s not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get it and then stand again.”

This quote from the movie Rocky, was what came to my mind when he spoke at length about the difficulties he faced at different points of his life. The important thing is not to get bogged down by these failures, but to move ahead with even greater determination.

We are thankful that he could take time off his busy schedule to address us and speak to us at length and hope to have more interactions with him in the future!!

Contributed by

Sivanand Mahapatra

Student,2012-2014 Batch

MISB Bocconi

Leaders @ MISB Bocconi - I

K Ramkumar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank

Friday, August 31, 2012.

We, at MISB, had the opportunity to interact with Mr. K. Ramkumar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, as a part of Leaders @ MISB Bocconi series. He shared his valuable insights into strategy formulation and what it takes to manage an organization as huge as ICICI. Mr. Ramkumar, a die-hard sports fan, also explained how closed boardroom strategy makers in companies can take cues from Real Madrid and Manchester United team playing strategies.

We would like to present some thoughts shared by our esteemed guest :

• Taking the example of ICICI having to make a decision to chase market share vs profitability after 2008, he explained how strategy is always a tradeoff between the perceived goal and achievable target.
• Resource allocation is a very important factor for the successful execution of a strategy.
• Organizational and HR changes take time to percolate through the organization, normally 3-5 years, but common goal is what drives the organization forward.
• Citing several examples from history of Napoleon, Alexander to the soccer teams, he said there is always a choice of deployment of resources in a right way. 

We gained several insights into the art of strategy making straight from the man himself who have executed several organizational restructures throughout ICICI.

We look forward to attending such lectures ahead in our course.

Anurag Singhal
Student, 2012-2014
MISB Bocconi