auf Wiedersehen MDI and Gurgaon !

Unforgettable View of Dining at MDI

Yesterday was the last day for many NMPians like me on this amazingly green campus. Walking down from this heavily guarded and iron gated area alone was not that easy this time. I realized how can one fall in love with every small bit in this campus - be it flowers, lush green playing fields,  long lasting gossips over a cup of coffee at Sharmaji, sleeping in classrooms, late night badminton sessions, informative guest talk sessions and walking across bricked walls discussing potential entrepreneurial opportunities etc. The list goes on and it is difficult to express all in this one blog write up. For the last few days, I have witnessed those 100’s of nostalgic pictures loaded everywhere on facebook, status message changes on WhatsApp and friends hugging together time and again while carrying their luggage and seeing them off. 

I look at the empty corridors and common room where we used to celebrate getting-to know-each-other ice-breakers in the beginning, birthday parties amid music, dancing and cake cutting. Done with my academic courses, projects, exams and pretty much everything expected of me (not to forget about the still pending dissertation !), I walk around reminding myself that it is going to be the last time for many months/years perhaps before I come back for a visit. The lone thoughts of losing pretty much all building permissions, handing over the room keys and other privileges that come with being a student was very weird. I wonder why they need to do that – taking away something that is arguably the most valuable thing during our college days. But at the end, this is what the truth is and each of us has to live with it. 

Meethi Meethi Yaadien

It doesn't end here but the inexpressible feel of interacting with the anxious incoming batch juniors while sharing your experiences in terms of course rigor and learning is unmatched. I will miss those discussions at cafe/ telephone about latent highlights of investing time in this amazing 1-year stint. I always feel amazed that the constitution of the batch which looks so awkward in the beginning (due to huge range and variety in terms of enriching experience) later becomes your strongest learning source.  It reminds me of the cycle which has continued from the past and will continue in future making this program even stronger with every passing year.

Guest Talk Sessions @ MDI by Experts

Though I did not get the time and courage to express my explicit thanks to each one of you, but I cannot run away from the fact that I had the honor of learning something unique from each of my 65 fellow colleagues - their diverse thoughts and experiences. I thank you all and MDI faculty for your kind support extended to me over this period. I may have been involved into arguments with many of you over the past 12 months but that doesn't mean anything personal. All of us will be achieving greater heights in career and personal life in the years to come and let us stay connected whenever we find a chance to meet by taking out some moments from our busy lives. I am sure we will start feeling the voids of missing our colleagues in the days to come.

Good Bye Millennium City

Yet, there is sadness. I have learnt a lot just being on campus at MDI and brushed my shoulders with some great minds. One year there and I have come out a really different person. Though most of us may not realize now but will surely do so in the days ahead. Leaving MDI and of course Gurgaon is something which I may take a while to even describe to myself, a sadness that is intensely personal, one that has little to do with people out there. On balance though, I now know it’s possible to be immensely happy and equally sad at the same time in a way that does not add up to zero. This is that one moment. !!

Abishek Mittal

NMP XXVI - Class of 2014

MDI, Gurgaon

What did i learn from Strategy Course?

Strategy was one of the courses I was excited about before joining MBA. I was always amazed and eager to learn the basics behind how firms like Intel try to stay ahead of time, how has technology changed business ecosystem in firms like Yahoo, how are firms thinking of creating shared value and how much is the consumer important in the overall value chain? How do firms strategy vary in highly complex globalized environments? This course was finally able to answer most of these thoughts with conviction.

The key learning out of this course may not have come directly out of books but it was very important to understand the core basics of strategy. The first and foremost take away was that we must build our own perspective and think differently, rather than simply getting carried away with the voice of the system. The whole new concept of dissecting a case to generate viewpoints from diverse people in the batch took discussions to entirely different level. Simply going through the facts/numbers in the case may not be enough to arrive at a solution but interlinking the numbers with the situation and thinking on the background for those numbers is what is actually more important.  

It was indeed very exciting to analyze the business case with the protagonist of case, wherein he presents his viewpoint on how he felt when he took an important decision when he was in a troublesome situation. Timely, there were other key speakers who helped to relate concepts by focusing on live examples. For e.g. Mr. Sanjay Goyal (CEO, Ericsson India) reinforced the differences that lie between operational effectiveness and strategy, Mr. Nagarajan (MD, Mother Dairy) discussed about the importance of customer and supply chain in the business of milk distribution in NCR, Mr. Navi Radjou discussed the fine difference that lies between wisdom and smartness, Mr. Sachin Garg (Founder & CEO, Grapewine Publishing) highlighted the hindrances that comes in the path of a successful entrepreneur and laid the importance of understanding your customer etc. 

Change is one thing which each one of us likes to resist but firms cannot survive if they do not adapt to change. Porter’s Five Forces Model, 4C, McKinsey 7S models talk of ways firms can create a unique differentiating position and fit for their products/services by analyzing their internal and external business environments. Companies focus on strategies to create sustainability for themselves. They target their efforts in creating a fit that would set them apart from their competitors.

Finally, towards the end, all my learning’s throughout the course culminated into building Market Strategy during MarkStrat simulation exercise. This daylong live session gave me hands on experience on the concepts and some specific highlights i captured in this session were:

• Position your product uniquely differentiating from competitors.
• Budgeting and investing in R&D every year is very important to sustain.
• Timely calling off a product and launching a new one are equally important.
• Blind following of competitors move can be detrimental to business.
• Leverage only to the extent you are in a position to pay your debts. 

There were additional insights on LIPS and HIPS category of products and how to align value chain to generate value for your customers. They need to strategize and constantly work on transforming the product from LIP to High Involvement product category. We all live in a cut-throat competitive world, where the mind of corporate is ruled by capitalist ideas. To sustain in this scenario, and to maintain profits, the products or services needs to be constantly updated. Companies need to create differentiation as a perception or create value for the consumer to stay ahead.

Abishek Mittal

NMP XXVI - Class of 2014

MDI, Gurgaon

Firm Focus = Shared Value + Value Proposition

Value proposition is nothing more than a believable collection of most persuasive reasons that your customer notices you and takes the action you are asking for. Focusing on the prime needs of your customer is how the businesses try to create value in the ecosystem. Each customer has the tendency to search 4-5 different options before arriving at the final selection. Firms try to stay ahead by uniquely positioning its product/service offerings different from its competitors. Regardless of whatever one firm does, it always has a competitor who is doing better (barring the one who is leader).  There will always be existence of companies whose brand sells more than yours, people whose blogs have more readers than yours, there will be websites which will have more per day hits than yours and the list is endless. We can find innumerable comparisons from our daily interactions as a customer with different firms. But is it that staying focused only on the value proposition front means that it is also serving the larger purpose of creating value for the society? Businesses need to extend their thought process further, reinvent their strategies and must evolve towards creating shared value.

The society in which the businesses operate cannot be completely ignored. Firms need to look for opportunities in the manner they can uplift the society. Apart from creating employment opportunities for the individuals living in the peripheral areas, firms need to think on formulating clear business strategy to create shared value. They have to unleash their power to create a strong impact on the society and work on tackling the common global issues. Opportunities do not remain static but constantly keeps on changing with the advancement of technology and with the changing dynamics of the highly interlinked economies. It must be a win-win situation for both - firm and stakeholder and not the win-lose relationship. 

Over exploitation of natural resource by the firms is a major topic in discussion these days. Especially the companies which are into direct association with the use of environmental resources like mining firms (which leave a major impact on the environment in the areas of their operation) have to work substantially on creating value for the society at large. The leadership in these industries have to engage their employees by providing clear direction in achieving ethical & sustainable objectives along with the core business activities. A good example of creating shared value can be Rio Tinto (a British-Australian firm active in mining business), which defines a parallel target of creating project positive impact for every project it works on. It tries to identify the opportunities available on the social-economic front before proceeding for the project and holistically works on the same.

Measuring the impact of firm's actions becomes an important parameter in evaluating the impact of shared value. As the concept of creating shared value is still its infancy, the complete framework for measurement of social impact on the economic business is evolving. But firms have started accepting the ideology that there lies a congruence between the improvement in productivity of the firms and creating shared value for the society. More the firms start thinking of the innovative ways to make the societies progress, the more they benefit and thus, the more they become more productive in the value chain. Sustainability standards have also increased awareness among the corporates of their impact on society and thus have triggered meaningful improvements in social and environmental performance. For eg.: Recent energy price spikes have challenged everyone to think in terms of higher efficiencies in energy utilization and has thus brought a wave of revolution in this energy efficiency market. It has helped the companies reduce their energy costs and also created new employment opportunities for the society. 

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has laid down voluntary reporting standards on ESG (environment, society and governance) and many Fortune-500 organizations are already part of this reporting network. Many corporates like Siemens are already working proactively on sustainability front and are promoting same by conducting sustainability awareness programmes. The success of companies in future shall be linked to their evaluation on social, environmental performance along with the financial aspects. These firms will have an integrated strategy to target financial goals and simultaneously create value for the society and its stakeholders. Taking consistent, persistent and focused action is always easier said than done. The challenge that still remains is daunting and task is tough and the firms have to really delve into it to make it a success !

Abishek Mittal

NMP XXVI - Class of 2014

MDI, Gurgaon

Building a Perspective

Perspective is simply the state of one's own ideas. How come that this term has garnered so much importance these days? Why is it insisted time and again to have your own perspective? Be it a business place, home, educational institute or anywhere else, having your own perspective on an issue is important and is deeply stressed upon. It is distinctly visible that perspective does play a major role in B-School these days during the lively group discussions. People who have developed this habit excel in thinking and are good in communicating their thoughts with clarity and precision.

The world has become really a complex and smaller place with the penetration of technology and round the clock availability of cheap transport. Humans are being bombarded with loads of information everyday from various channels. Each one of us is hooked to internet day in and day out via WiFi hotspots, Smartphone, laptops, tablets etc where we regularly come across many current hot issues. It is solely for us to decide when to keep hold of the information, when to agree to the viewpoints presented, when to differ from what is said and when to let it pass freely. But, after going through the issue, sitting back and pouring in your thoughts is what matters the most. This is where the originality plays its role and can lead to a change. It is a beauty of human ecosystem that each one of us have our unique way of living, unique way of thinking and unique way of viewing the things. This is because all of us have come across different experiences in our lives and represent different cultures of shrinking global village.

Building a perspective imparts overall clarity to ones thought process. We must not develop the habit of passively believing and uncritically accepting whatever we have learned over the past years. Rather, we should start raising questions and rejuvenate our thoughts to find a reason whether our viewpoint is well deserved or not. There will be many times when we may not be accurate but the fear of being rejected should never deter our thought process. On the other hand, holding a perspective without any valid reasons (solely on ones intuition) can be negative and must be avoided. Once we have reached this level of clarity and purpose, it will help us to overcome the existing challenges, thus leading to achievement of our goals. 

So, i will close today's blog by stating that we must "Think Original, Think Different !"

Abishek Mittal

NMP XXVI - Class of 2014
MDI, Gurgaon

Is B really for Business?

NMP XXVI Participants Enjoying Sports

Things started settling down post the induction week and after enjoying a very peaceful weekend, I geared up for the regular courses in the coming week. Having a quick glance through faculty teaching pedagogy in this world class institute (MDI currently has tie ups with around 50 Top Global B-Schools), core courses began with a full bang, with loads of assignments, pre-reading material and group case studies to discuss. Unknowingly, many parallel activities started to pool in my daily chores. I had the opportunity to express my views in the Group Discussion event @ SharmaJi hosted by Daksh Creative Solutions in collaboration with Samsung on the "Role of Technology in Future Education in India". In the meantime, I was also invited to join the NMP26-Badminton Group on facebook and there I found my badminton partner who was unknowingly staying just opposite my room. Ashish Thakur, you have extended my nights and deprived me of my sleep in these past two weeks but I am really enjoying every moment of my stay at this place, learning to manage things practically. The creation of fear of surprise quizzes and CP marks (class participation) by each faculty member, insight into "Darna Mana Hai" type questions in Accounting class and brief guidelines by the Startegy Prof. Dr. Amit Kapoor at the fag end all made this week very happening.

Ice Breaker Party NMP XXVI Batch

With sense of formality still prevailing in the batch, and participants not knowing much about each other, my colleague Harleen and her friends took the bold initiative to organize an ice breaker party @ Takashila Wing-B. For the first time, EPGPM batchmates came together to meet informally at this event and exchanged their interests with everyone. Many talented colleagues finally got the stage to showcase their hidden talent openly and generate huge fan following among batchmates on facebook. The ball was kept rolling in the coming week and there was another pleasant surprise birthday party of Amit Gupta hosted by Wing-A mates. There were many live performances but the party ended with late night wild dancing on Punjabi hits.

Myself, being in consistent touch with the senior batch guys right from the beginning collected information on different hosts of activities undertaken by the previous batches. After discussions, I invited nominations for the formation of official Corporate Communications team and Alumni Relations team. With the batch support, the team was successfully elected within stipulated deadlines and officially put in place before the end of April '13. Along with these activities, the course silently kept picking its pace day by day. Asst. Prof. Rupamanjari Sinha (Microeconomics) was the first one to turn our fears into reality on coming lazy Monday morning; surprise quiz leaving each one of us with our eyes wide open after the class.  

Participants with Dr. Bhagwan Khanna

During the past week, I personally attended my first ever Book Launch event @ India Habitat Centre, New Delhi where Mr. Vineet Nayar (Vice Chairman, HCL) launched "From Smart to Wise by Prasad Kaipa & Navi Rajdou" . A couple of days later, Kevin Stolarick, Research Director, Martin Prosperity Institute (Rottman School of Management, Canada) delivered an influential guest lecture on "Importance of Creativity & Innovation". To introduce us to International Accounting, Dr. Bhagwan Khanna - an eminent faculty in the field of accounting (Ball State University, USA), delivered an interesting 5-lecture series citing beautiful examples from our daily lives. 

With so much happening each day and gaining knowledge from experienced international faculty has turned this course (National Management Programme @ MDI) Truly Global sitting here in India. Lengthy group discussions on HBR cases of Strategy, trying to convince every other folk of your group, has already started conquering my pleasant evenings. To be very frank, 24 hours in a day has really started seemingly so less to me for the first time that i am daily longing for few more hours.

Abishek Mittal
NMP XXVI - Class of 2014
MDI, Gurgaon

Kickstart to My 15 month MBA Journey

MDI, Gurgaon

It was a cool Sunday morning on 07-April-2013. Usually, my Sunday's were filled with laziness but today it was altogether a different day as I was finally about to vacate 1546, First Floor, Sector-17C, Gurgaon i.e. the place where I have been staying for the past almost six years. On the one side, I was nostalgic to leave the place and my friends whereas on the other hand I was all together excited to be a student once again. 

My dream of attending oldest Full Time MBA programme (NMP) at one of premier B-Schools in India @ MDI Gurgaon, was getting realized. Though I have visited this campus many times earlier (used to stay just approx. 200 meter from campus gate), but this time I was here with some clearly defined future goals in mind. I assure you that taking a call to attend Executive MBA Programme after resigning from well settled MNC job was not that easy.

EPGPM Batch Inauguration Banner

Once I landed in the campus, I was having the feel of hitting an oasis in the so called corporate desert. The lush green fields for recreational activities, lots of open spaces dotted with trees and specially designed Red Brick buildings gave me initial comfort that future is definitely going to be better. On payment of fees, I was directed towards the Parthenon building for Room Allocation @ Takashila Hostel. Immediately after shifting luggage to my room, I started with brief introductions to whomsoever I was meeting in the corridors, at the dining table etc. The next morning was the NMP-26th Batch Formal Inauguration Ceremony wherein Chief Guest of Honor - Shri S.P. Singh, Director-HR, NTPC, officially lit the flame along with batch participants and declared the programme Open by delivering an inspiring speech on ethics and integrity. 

Participants at Business Lunch

For the next four days right from 8:30AM to 5:30PM, I was exposed to Expert Faculties @ MDI briefing our batch about their respective field subjects that we will be studying in the forthcoming year. They made us walkthrough of case method teaching pedagogy followed in this institute and importance of business education these days in the complex corporate world. Apart from this, each of us was allotted a formal identity i.e. the roll numbers, pigeon box numbers (something which was new for me) and email-IDs (something which gives you good feel in the beginning but usually it comes with loads of tensions each day). Though sitting at a stretch for 90 minutes lecture was something I have to learn fast but a cup of coffee at the end of each lecture (Mind it, only for Executive programme participants) was something very exciting at this institute. And to conclude the Induction week on Friday afternoon, Mrs. Neera Jain (Faculty) organized a complete 4 course business lunch for us to demonstrate the dining etiquette's which finally ended with raising a toast for the 26th batch. 

Presently having stayed here for only one week, I will continue posting my experiences in the days to come. But really the first week was full of events and exciting one with lots of new friends in the making. All this ingrained in me the urge to do something bigger and better in life that can have a long lasting impact on society and to make the best out of my stay at the campus.

Abishek Mittal
NMP XXVI - Class of 2014
MDI Gurgaon