tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9756916669429649182024-03-13T03:03:10.650-07:00Wharton Executive MBA BlogJoannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10458234715219292451noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-64942759757881238802012-06-14T05:54:00.002-07:002012-06-14T05:54:44.047-07:00New location for postsSince taking the year off, I've been blogging regularly on my <a href="http://raghavananand.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">personal blog.</a> Going forward, you can find updates about my time back at Wharton on that location as well. Its been great contributing to this site and look forward to doing that for another year as we progress through the program!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-55744663026730055352012-05-29T06:34:00.003-07:002012-05-29T13:50:38.109-07:00Data-driven corporate strategyThat title could pretty well summarize the previous session we had in school. It was a three-day weekend packed with classes and events. In the New Product Development class, we went into the details of conjoint analysis and how that can help derive insights about consumer interests in product choices. In the Competitive Strategy class, through case discussions around experience curves in the semiconductor industry, financial analysis for a new entrant in the carbonated soft drink market and profitability analysis of the airline industry, we delved into the depths of how useful data and analysis can drive good corporate strategy.<br />
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In our first exposure to International Corporate Finance, we learnt what a pain spot rates and forward contracts and "American terms" and "European terms" are, and why its best to just stay domestic - well, maybe that wasn't the lecture, but that's how it felt :). Prof. Bodnar seems to be a great combination of Prof. Smetters' irreverence with Prof. Abel's dry wit and cerebral humor - all for the best. Looking forward to a lot of laughs in this class. Looks like Wharton Finance department does seem to have humor as a requirement for qualification, maybe to keep the subject matter more interesting.<br />
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The weekend was pretty eventful outside of classes as well. We had the CFO of Nordstrom, Mike Koppel visit us and talk to us about Nordstrom and their vision for the future. We barely let him get through the first half of his slides with all of our questions about the company and their plans. Moreover, the class itself seemed to have several loyal customers. We also had Bain and Company present to the class about opportunities at Bain. Two Wharton alums and current Bain employees, Unmesh and Amit were present as well.<br />
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The three-day weekend also gave me two nights at the Pub to chat with my new classmates and get to know some of them better. It was pretty amazing to see the number of folks with years of experience and interest in nonprofits in this class. So it was with entrepreneurship and class 37ers that have decided to start their own companies. Maybe these merit more detailed posts at a future date.<br />
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For now, we're bracing ourselves for the first busy weekend of this term - one midterm, class project, two homework assignments, one case report, three case readings and several other assigned reading chapters - all due in a short two-day session. Lets see how that goes!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-80009878754956400962012-05-08T23:01:00.000-07:002012-05-08T23:10:36.206-07:00Class 36 GraduationGiven the importance and grandeur of the event, I didn't want to dilute it with any other title. Last Sunday I had the pleasure of rushing up to Herbst Theater after a weekend in school to watch all my friends from class 36 graduate officially from the program. Out of the initial cohort, 84 made it all the way to the end. My heartfelt congratulations to these brave souls for having weathered the storms and seen each other through to the end. An even bigger pat on the back to all their supportive families for having tolerated their impossible schedules for two years to make this day come true.<br />
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This day would not have been possible but for the incredible amount of work put in by the Wharton SF leadership and staff. We might be a small outfit out here in the Bay area for now, but watch us grow! It was an evening mixed with happiness and some regret - that I have another year to go as my erstwhile classmates are on their way out. But there's a right time for everything, and so it shall be.<br />
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It was also wonderful to see Prof. MacDuffie and Prof. Ziv Katalan at the event. Its a testament to both the size of cohorts and the individual attention we get from our faculty, as well as to the incredible memories and passion for teaching from these professors, that they still remember our names and backgrounds. There were several other faculty on the dias as well who I did not get to meet in person at the dinner, so all-in-all it was a special evening indeed!<br />
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My classmate, Howard Willson, or Howie (or Doc) as we call him, spoke eloquently to the class about their journey so far, so I can but be a cheap imitiation. What I find amazing about this class is the following. Even in the midst of busy careers and a demanding MBA schedule, there were 15 babies born to this cohort and 4 weddings. At least half a dozen companies started during these two years, while several others changed jobs or are in the process of doing so, some making moves to other countries. The Career Management Services at SF is growing slowly but surely in the able hands of Steve Hernandez and quite a few of my classmates were able to benefit from interactions with him and the CMS team. Having watched class 36 from the sidelines in year 2, what was incredible to me was that several of these folks ended up accomplishing what they used to state as their goals from the MBA program at the start of the program. <br />
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After the graduation ceremony at Herbst Theater, the class went across the street to City Hall where we all had dinner with friends, families and faculty. In most of the faces, you could see relief, happiness and some remorse that the program was over and they all go their separate ways, for now. <br />
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Given that the program is in the SiliconValley, I wanted to end on a note about entrepreneurship. Both class 36 and 37 have an amazing number of students interested in starting companies, or ones that already have started companies. The administration is consciously helping steep the students in this culture as well, through programs such as the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, workshops, Venture Initiation Program, and a host of electives in the second year focused around entrepreneurship. What is also interesting that many of these startups came out of a combination of personal pain-points in the life of the founder(s) and some insight they gained out of the program itself, or a co-founder that they found through Wharton. You can either talk about entrepreneurship, which people like me do pretty well, or actually go do something about it, like these classmates of mine have shown. In the words of Emily Dickinson:<br />
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<em>“Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.<br />For the one ship that struts the shore<br />Many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature<br />Nodding in navies nevermore.”</em><br />
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Hope to see that spirit running high in all the cohorts to come!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-9779239251712302452012-05-05T23:03:00.002-07:002012-05-05T23:03:39.648-07:00Second Wind..The last time I sat through a full weekend session at Wharton was a year ago. For several reasons I had decided to take a year off. So it was with a good amount of excitement and nervousness that I landed up on campus yesterday. It took a full ten minutes to peel my eyes off of the gorgeous view from the dining area and focus on my new class cohort. Warm welcomes from Doug, Bernie, Len Lodish and others almost made me think I had never taken the break. <br />
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It is an interesting and disconcerting experience to take a year off and find yourself on a new campus, with new classmates, new lecture rooms, and new everything else, while the folks running the place are all the same and recognize you. Had to sheepishly get directions several times yesterday from them while I tried to settle into the new campus. Watching my classmates meet and greet each other after a well deserved three-week break brought back faint memories of how relieved class 36 was after Term 3 was done.<br />
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In keeping with running analogies, this experience felt like trying to rejoin a marathon race after taking a break halfway due to muscle cramps. You were in your stride, feeling great and just hitting that tempo that would have seen you through to 20 miles when suddenly you had to stop due to cramps. As your breathing slows down and sweat makes your shirt cling to your body, you suddenly start feeling cold and missing the pace of the race. Soon enough you acclimate yourself to the stall and enjoy the beautiful day outside as others run past. When you feel ready to run again, you see the new cohort of runners going past you at a trot, while you huff and puff and try to warm yourself up again and get into rhythm. You wonder how you'd made it that far and whether it was worth it to do the second half or just call it quits. <br />
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Nevertheless, I must say that class 37 made me feel a lot better of getting back into another year of a stomach-churningly crazy ride. This term seems to be backloaded for me given my choice of electives, so it was great to ease into it with fewer classes than on an average weekend. We had Strategic Management by Prof. Dyer and New Product Development, which is a mini-Conjoint-Analysis class by Prof. Seenu Srinivasan from Stanford, who was one of the key players behind the research that spawned the amazing field of conjoint analysis based market research. So far it promises to be a lot of work, but looks like it might be worth the work. <br />
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Being the start of the second year, all classes have study teams for assignments and these can be formed randomly outside of the learning teams from Year 1, so this gives me a great opportunity to get to know my new classmates. I'm signed up on three non-overlapping teams for three classes - lets see how that goes!<br />
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The only downside I've seen so far with the postponement is that for reasons not clear to me, this class seems to have voted out a core marketing elective, because of which no one in the class can major in marketing, unless they fly out to Philly in Term 5 to do the course. It seems a bit heavy handed to me and I'm not sure if the class understood the gravity of their vote. But more on that gripe on <a href="http://raghavananand.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/democracy-and-the-freedom-of-choice/" target="_blank">my personal blog</a>. To be fair, I did reach out to Prof. Anjani Jain and he tried to give this a second look, but at this point it seems to be too late to make any changes, which is unfortunate - both because I believe that market research is an important class for any person interesting in marketing, and to a lesser extent, the fact that this is a requirement for the major makes it important as well.<br />
<br />Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-19266112125207404532012-04-05T23:11:00.001-07:002012-04-05T23:11:31.432-07:00Wharton Social Impact welcomed at Wharton SF!Today marked another landmark event in the annals of Wharton's presence in SF. In conjunction with the the <a href="http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/bakerretail/">Baker Retailing Center</a>, and the <a href="http://environment.wharton.upenn.edu/">Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership</a> (IGEL), the <a href="http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/socialimpact/index.cfm">Wharton Program for Social Impact</a> hosted a wonderful half-day event - <a href="http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/socialimpact/conference_creating_lasting_change.cfm" target="_blank">"Creating Lasting Change: From Social Entrepreneurship to Sustainability in Retail"</a>.<br />
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The event featured two panels - one on social entrepreneurship and innovation and the second one on sustainability and CSR in the retail industry. It was attended by over 100 Wharton students and alums, a first in the history of Wharton at SF, to match the one-day Social Impact Conference held back East. We look forward to doing one better than the East Coast conference in the coming years!<br />
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The first panel had an amazing array of panelists - two entrepreneurs from vastly different industries and two representatives from the venture capital industry to give their perspectives on what they look for while investing in companies that build great products while at the same time keeping their employees, customers and the planet on top of their minds. The panel also briefly touched upon Flexible Purpose and Benefit Corporations and also GIIRS and measuring impact of impact investments. <br />
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The sustainability and CSR in retail industry also had great presentations - from Safeway, eBay, Levi Strauss and Annie's. While Safeway and eBay focused on how they were embracing social responsibility in several ways, Phil from Levi Strauss spoke about how they went about reducing water consumption in their product lifecycle - all the way from cotton manufacturers, to influencing customers to use less water to wash their jeans and also to remind them to donate to Goodwill when they were done with their jeans. Shauna from Annie's closed the panel with an insightful view into how they source the organically grown ingredients that made their way into Annie's food products. <br />
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After the sessions, the attendees had a great time networking with other attendees and the panelists. It was a beautiful day in SF and the views from the new campus provided a wonderful backdrop against which the event was held. We looked forward to many more events like this in future where Wharton can establish itself as a thought leader in the Bay Area on the social impact and impact investing front as well.<br />Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-84251182943004439422011-07-09T01:41:00.000-07:002011-07-12T15:12:43.028-07:00WEMBA 36 - San Francisco: China Trek 2011<span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:85%;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc9EExVja63oiwhNpYlkE1XlDsWuDzI43Hk2ODxxVdhi-nloiqBY2f_FrLfIo0VWtVZd4OJCHWiR5IYhmMBvkjv34hR5W-7-cHfHlRNepRysyobmqpGZQPtOxsdDOoCvc_5D0IRMbyq-F/s1600/IMG_2986.JPG"><span style="font-family:helvetica;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627281817899005138" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc9EExVja63oiwhNpYlkE1XlDsWuDzI43Hk2ODxxVdhi-nloiqBY2f_FrLfIo0VWtVZd4OJCHWiR5IYhmMBvkjv34hR5W-7-cHfHlRNepRysyobmqpGZQPtOxsdDOoCvc_5D0IRMbyq-F/s400/IMG_2986.JPG" /></span></a><span style="font-family:helvetica;">
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<br />As Prof Percival would say “Chinaaaa…” This was one fantastic trip, a truly unique experience in the medley of new and old that makes up today’s China. In 10 days, we (21 students and 4 guests) visited 14 organizations in the areas of technology, government, media, energy and venture financing, discovered the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, saw a glimpse of 5000 years of history, and most importantly partied at least at a dozen clubs.
<br />China’s demographic statistics are mind numbing. There are 200+ cities with over 1M people - contrast that with US-7 and Europe-35. There are over 700M cell phones subscribers satisfied primarily by one company – China Mobile and over 500M Internet users in the country. China leads the rest of the world in the amount of hydroelectric power production at an astounding 652 TWh and is the second largest consumer of primary energy in the world. The GDP is 5.8 Trillion USD a year and increasing at 9.7% per annum. It is no wonder that China is the third most visited country in the world with over 60M visitors per year and growing (that is the half the population of Japan).
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<br /><em><strong>June 25th, Saturday: Beijing (Arrival and Dinner)</strong></em>
<br />With Michelle O (Marla), and her patented arm wave, on our side, we had ensured dignitary status for the trip – we knew we would not have to stand in queues or follow the line or anything close to conformance. Most of us arrived on Beijing on the 25th (10 of us were on the same plane – ask Harshit Scotsman for the details). The thunderstorms from the past week had cooled the city considerably.
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<br />The Beijing Airport has an impressive architecture – shaped like a dragon with a turtle holding it down to ensure planes would land safely! We were greeted at the airport by FangFang, our guide at Beijing who arranged a ride for us to the Novotel Peace Hotel – our place of residence for the next 4 days. LanLan had arranged a luxurious 40 course dinner – imperial style, at Wu Ju Tai Nei Fu Cai, one of the highlights of the trip. From the exotic to the delicate the dinner spread was simply amazing and lasted over 3 hours. FangFang had arranged a local tailor who was waiting for us back at the hotel; many of us ordered hand-stitched shirts and suits. We headed out clubbing for the night, as was the case on most nights. There was a special guest at the club scene – for details contact Stacy.
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<br /><em><strong>June 26th, Sunday: Beijing (Guided Tour)</strong></em>
<br />After breakfast, we headed out on a guided tour of the city. FangFang was at once engaging, knowledgeable and helpful. Our first stop was the Tiananmen Square – the largest public square in the world.
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<br />Located in the heart of the city it is surrounded on one side by the Beijing museum, shopping on the second side, the major street on the third side and the entrance to the Forbidden City on the fourth. FangFang gave us a glimpse of the local history and highlighted the disconnect between the previous generation and the contemporary youth. The Mao memorial is right at the square and the queue was over 2 hours long. The 60-ton granite obelisk at the T-square honored the heroes who fought imperialism both within and outside.
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<br />Forbidden City was next and it was magnificent. Forbidden City or Gugong was so called because it was out of bounds for ordinary people for 500 years. Within the outer wall are over 800 structures, with a total of 9999 rooms, just one short of the perfection appropriate only to the gods. The wooden walls are elegantly decked with exquisite art and handwork – ranging from allegorical scenes to fierce dragons in multi-colors. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the largest building in the Forbidden City and was the setting for Imperial Coronations and other royal events. There is an expanse within the Gate of Supreme Harmony that could accommodate the whole imperial court – over 100,000 people. The inner enclosure housed the imperial concubines, the Emperor’s bed chambers and the Imperial Garden. We spent about an hour and half just catching a glimpse of the Palace Museum and left amazed, awed and mostly hungry.
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<br />Next stop was Spicy Hut (I think...). The food was so hot and spicy, DiBarnaba (or Sueshni as he is now known) was soaked in sweat, but it was so tasty he could not stop. After lunch we leisure strolled the back alley shopping area and then an hour bus ride took us to the Great Wall.
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<br />Mutianyu is a short section of the 3000-mile Great wall restored to its original form with its imposing guard towers about 90KM north of the city. Set in rolling hills covered in green this time of the year, it is a spectacular and awe-inspiring sight. We took a gondola ride up to the wall and spent over an hour and a half scaling the wall, taking it all in and generally wondering the how, why and what of the Wall. We met General Tso selling beer on the wall – a refreshing quencher on hot summer day. A few photographs later we came down a narrow chute, riding on a small plastic trolley – quite an interesting thrill. Fortunately, there were no major casualties though Monica rear bumped Vidya coming down at what seemed to be 40 Miles/Hr. The ride back was quiet - most taking a small nap.
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<br />The last planned event was at Candy TV, a local Karaoke hangout. Leo had arranged for us to meet students from the reputed Peking University – over 20 students showed up. After cursory introductions, exchange of business cards and discussions around job opportunities, the so-called singing ensued. There is a video of Elango dancing to the tunes of Michael Jackson that is hilarious. We headed back to the hotel where some of us retired others went clubbing again. “I will rest in my grave”.
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<br /><em><strong>June 27th, Monday: Beijing (Company Visits, Bell event)</strong></em>
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<br />Deborah, Bo, Vidya, Susan and Lauren decided to explore the city and planned to visit local shops, the Temple of Heaven and other touristy stuff over the next couple of days. For the entire trip we often saw Lauren treated as a rock star and she picked up more Chinese than can be learned in 30 days with Rosetta Stone. She even got the accent down pat!
<br />An early breakfast, liters of coffee and Aspirin for the needy prepared us for the company visits. It was probably the first time I had seen everyone come in suits and I hesitate to say this, but together we did look quite striking.
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<br /><span style="font-family:helvetica;"><strong><em>Tencent: Victoria Wu (Director of Business Development, Brent Irvin, Corporate Counsel)</em></strong>
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<br /><ul><li>Established 1998, $45B Mkt. Cap, listed in HSE 2004
<br /><li>Largest online user database. 500M internet users in China today, over 80% using Tencent.
<br /><li>90% of users between the ages of 18-35 use Tencent, cultivated when they were young, now network externalities. Highest PCU (peak concurrent users)
<br /><li>10K employees, average age of 27.5. Hiring – globalmba@tencent.com
<br /><li>Features: Provides a unified platform (Communication, information, entertainment, e-commerce), users stay because of integrated features. Superior in offering to any platform in US today in terms of raw features.
<br /><li>Only 4 major players (Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, NetEase)
<br /><li>eCommerce Transaction value = $162.4B
<br /><li>Visit http://web2.qq.com for a tour – has over 20 apps and more coming
<br /><li>35% owned South African Company (Mesberger – other interesting investments, also DST)
<br /><li>Strategy: 4 things needed to win in the market place (Content, Knowledge of local culture, Continuous Innovation and User Retention)
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<br /><strong><em>Baidu: Kaiser Kuo (Director of International Communication)</em></strong>
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<br /><ul><li>Baidu, literal meaning is “hundreds of times”, represents a persistent search for the ideal. The name is derived from a Song dynasty poem written more than 800 years ago. The logo is shaped like the paw leaving footprints and thereby a trail.
<br /><li>Impressive building, aerial view like a search box
<br /><li>Own 83% of search in China, 17% by Google, the rest are cumulatively less than 1%. Over 1Billion queries every day.
<br /><li>Baidu succeeded because they really understand what the local people want, did not impose American product on Chinese customer, more successful page ranks, and followed the guidelines of the government.
<br /><li>Kaiser used the term – high tolerance for cognitive dissonance. Referred to the general opening up of China in some aspects while tightening in other aspects.What happened in Libya has potentially increased scrutiny.
<br /><li>The Government views stability to be more valuable than complete freedom. It would seem that the Chinese Government Is opposed to congregation of any form and that is at the heart of the Great Firewall of China. There are over 20 bodies local, state and government who impose rules and restrictions on what content is allowed – and in many cases there is some latitude in how companies work within those guidelines. If a slip up happens, it is the willingness of the company to do a retraction. The government wants to be assured that it has that power over the company.
<br /><li>Filtering can be done in two ways – do it yourself (steep learning curve, high costs, but some control over time) or outsource it back to the filtering agencies (lower cost, but no control). Baidu does it itself, Google outsources.
<br />Baidu calls its search history the database of intention. They use past searches to predict what may become hot and use that information to better serve queries.
<br />Another strategy is to develop actionable insight from mining people’s search – which they feel provides them with competitive advantage.
<br /><li>Built an open API platform that provides apps from within the search window (box computing)
<br /><li>Today has thousands of apps available straight from search box - most developed by others
<br /><li>Growth in foreign markets. Specifically targeting areas where the competition has no natural advantage. Google has won some languages but there are many where it is still open season.
<br /><li>Advertising still the primary form of revenue.
<br /><li>Hiring all the time.</li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>Bain Capital: (Gome Investor)</em></strong>
<br /><ul>
<br /><li>Capital investments and operational expertise provided together. Focus on EBITDA growth.
<br /><li>60 employees, consulting and operations. Two teams (Portfolio and operations)
<br /><li>Consumers in China are different in 3 ways (Education, Price Sensitivity, Disparate needs). To succeed one needs to understand the local people and the local business customs.
<br /><li>If you are not here already then you are late. Not just a destination for sourcing but rather a real market for consumption.
<br /><li>Expertise in Retail, Industrial and TMT. Focus on due diligence during deal time becomes a capability and pays of during operations.
<br /><li>General Strategy at Gome:
<br /><ul>
<br /><li>Create KPI, measure, monitor, adapt.
<br /><li>Continuous focus on relative market share appreciation.
<br /><li>Used a strategy similar to Walmart in US for beating Best Buy in China. In addition, leveraged vendor financing for building large number of stores throughout the country. Best Buy just built 5 stores. Gome started later and had 70 stores in the first year. Had information on which stores succeed and why and used it to build better stores.
<br /><li>Focused on Supply chain and inventory management. Implemented a sophisticated ERP system (with SAP).
<br /></li></ul>
<br /><li>How does Bain exit: mostly by divesting. Leave behind a stronger company then when they acquired. Do not look for controlling interest – insist on board seats.
<br /><li>3 ways to make money (Accessories, Warranty, Credit). Product Margins are always thin.</li></ul>
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<br />The business visits for the day concluded and we left discussing the day’s takeaways. It was obvious that China was thriving in this new age of change. There was a quiet confidence in the way our hosts all spoke about their past successes and their voice eagerly anticipated the next set of challenges. They were all young and hardworking, smart and savvy. They had figured out a way to beat Google, Facebook and BestBuy in China – not an easy feat. It would be too simplistic to assume that these companies enjoyed favorable conditions – the reality is that they figured out how to play the game before anyone else and had built Guanxi with all the key stake holders, including the government. They thrived because they realized an American product and business model will not directly translate to success in China and had adapted it just enough to create a competitive advantage.
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvWHpxpphzoNJH9Yu9D5xXvTkWl4iYPY7cZLV4m5Q5yMz6G9pUDGBzCP4cBoQcFh4EJNsqBEWNoOLRrS295sfLXlJyblKiBAu9VCz06u86b6vyieZIHfiLjgcUrRsitTLyOBoikUXN4SgS/s1600/IMG_6676.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627294072017648770" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvWHpxpphzoNJH9Yu9D5xXvTkWl4iYPY7cZLV4m5Q5yMz6G9pUDGBzCP4cBoQcFh4EJNsqBEWNoOLRrS295sfLXlJyblKiBAu9VCz06u86b6vyieZIHfiLjgcUrRsitTLyOBoikUXN4SgS/s320/IMG_6676.JPG" /></a>
<br />Built right opposite the Bird’s nest and the Water cube, Pangu, China’s only 7-star hotel, was the location for the next event. Our evening affair was hosted by Wharton Executive Education and featured a talk by Prof. David Bell on success strategies for the Internet market. We had a chance to meet local Wharton Alumni at the event and after wine and hors d’oeuvres we headed back to the hotel. While some retired after the heavy day, there was some serious partying afterwards with most folks coming back only at sunrise. Instead of a short nap, Elango and Sueshni went on a run to T-square and got back just in time for the visits next day morning. Earl probably has the best stories – though Sanju was in prime form as usual (he can dance!).
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<br /><em><strong>June 28th, Tuesday: Company Visits</strong></em>
<br />The evening’s festivities had taken a toll - the breakfast table had blood-shot eyes, dark circles, poor silverware handling and large doses of coffee/tea. The bus left promptly but we were a few people short – much to the chagrin of Papa Leo. There were 3 visits planned for the day.
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<br /><strong><em>China Huaneng Group (CHG, Dr Jiang and Dr Xu)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Dr Jiang( Assistant President, CHG) was a government appointee at CHG, the largest state-owned energy enterprise in China. He greeted us and gave us an overview on China’s Energy situation and the general outlook of CHG. Most famously he said that CHG was governed by 3 colors:
<br /><ul><li>Red: Serving the society (centrally owned)
<br /><li>Green: Care for the environment and to develop clean technology
<br /><li>Blue: Embracing an open attitude and continuous learning
<br /></li></ul>
<br /><li>The most powerful country is the country with the most power.
<br /><li>Dr. Xu Shisen leads the research organization at CHG. He highlighted that the costs of setting up research in China is comparable to most other developed countries.
<br /><li>China’s power generation capacity reached 960 gigawatts at the end of 2010, including 700 gigawatts of thermal power capacity, 210 gigawatts of hydropower, 10.8 gigawatts of nuclear power and 31.07 gigawatts of wind power and is second only to US. By end of 2011, China is expected to be the number one power generator in the world.
<br /><li>Rate of annual production growth at nearly 10% includes 8.44% growth in Hydro, 8.3% in coal, 19.16% in Nuclear and 92.6% in Wind.
<br /><li>Average coal consumption rate at 335g/KWh is low by international standards.
<br /><li>Technology development in multiple parts:
<br /><ul><li>Develop large scale generation units (soon to have a 1GWatt single unit)
<br /><li>Pollutant Control Technologies (FGD, PM removal, NOx Emission Control)
<br /><li>System Optimization and Energy Saving
<br /><li>Post Combustion Carbon Capture technology.
<br /></li></ul><li>All plants equipped with detox capacity – in next 5 years all facilities will have NOx removal.
<br /><li>From 2006-2010, 6.7GW of old units replaced with more efficient and cleaner units.
<br /><li>Even within China, CHG leads the way at 3222g/kWh.
<br /><li>Huaneng HaiMen Power Plant will produce 1030MW at 292g/kWh – most efficient.
<br /><li>Recent worlds events (Beijing Olympics, Shanghai World Expo) accelerated CO2 Capture projects
<br /><li>China Government will impose the highest emission standards in the next few years
<br /><ul><li>China -> 50mg/m3 of emission, USA -> 100mg/m3 of emission
<br /></li></ul><li>Realistic expectations (by 2015, 25% will be from renewable sources)
<br /><li>Technology cooperation and IP sharing via license with Ember Clear and Duke Energy
<br /><li>Power Distribution and Power Generation in China are two different entities – opportunities exist to further enhance collaboration.
<br /><li>The Coal is in abundance but not geographically proximate to areas of consumption. Energy plants are primarily built close to the coast and transportation is inefficient. Gasification technologies are a viable alternative and are increasingly being deployed.
<br /><li>Global (Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Netherlands, Mexico, UK) and hiring</li></ul>
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<br /><strong><em>Innovation Works (Chris, Kai-Fu Lee)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Y-incubator and investor built by ex-Google China VP and ex-head of Microsoft China, Kai-Fu Lee who is revered in China as perhaps the most prominent technologist.
<br /><li>“The Chinese entrepreneurial environment is still in its formative stage, with significant barriers for the early-stage entrepreneur: the lack of management experience and coaching, the reluctance of venture capitalists to invest in companies in the formation stage, and the lack of networking and experience to pull a company together. These barriers all contribute to a dearth of high-tech start-ups in China. Innovation Works is matching entrepreneurs, engineers, ideas, and capital with a unique business model that improves success rates and speeds time-to-market.” – From their website.
<br /><li>3 investment programs (seed financing, Y-combinator, Entrepreneur-In-Residence)
<br /><li>Things they look for:
<br /><ul><li>Strong Background, entrepreneurial experience, some functional prototype
<br /><li>Does not look for controlling interest, divest at every round.
<br /><li>Experienced entrepreneurs tend to be more successful, reduce investor risk and require less hand-holding. Most companies find it hard to form teams – sales teams are especially hard.
<br /></li></ul>
<br /><li>In the last 18 months IW has created fair bit of value – USD$500M valuation
<br /><li>How to approach them: Use networking, develop an understanding of your customer base, ride on trends, have a complementary cofounder and use simple ideas.
<br /><li>The internet model is littered with good products with poor monetization. IW provides most help in this space.
<br /><li>Two success models:
<br /><ul><li>Companies enjoying significant competitive advantage & technology barriers can enter and succeed on their own.
<br /><li>If only moderate advantage then use local team, run locally
<br /></li></ul></li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>Beijing Information Exchange</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>An integrated news and information trading platform still in its initial stages
<br /><li>Will provide features similar to Reuters and Bloomberg with particular emphasis in China
<br /><li>Information access is free, however subscription required to participate in trading.
<br /><li>Over 200 subscribers already and growing.
<br /><li>Business models still being defined.</li></ul>
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<br />End of day two further solidified in our minds that the new China was built to succeed. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRiePaRN0riI-6TzJMhHq4rHaQ1SvUIYbHVM9cIf4zJ0caVDDF7GLZpAUGavGIs78Z1dtcuqnteGd4CKQYjsZBMyrphfO42hJNOljB7GHsBvr2cdfqhB8jFtf0yNezxSM0TRPvQuTnys20/s1600/beijing_night%255B1%255D.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 229px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627319066653989346" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRiePaRN0riI-6TzJMhHq4rHaQ1SvUIYbHVM9cIf4zJ0caVDDF7GLZpAUGavGIs78Z1dtcuqnteGd4CKQYjsZBMyrphfO42hJNOljB7GHsBvr2cdfqhB8jFtf0yNezxSM0TRPvQuTnys20/s320/beijing_night%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a>
<br />There could not have been more contrast between CHG and IW. CHG was a high rise designed by an American architect that housed a state owned enterprise fairly rolling in money. We were hosted in a conference room with a 30 foot ceiling, a 25-seat rosewood table, comfy leather seats best spoiled by dignitaries, walls decked with marble and oak, and windows adorned with tinted glass. The tea served was exquisite, probably the best in China, and there were designated servers who attended to us. It was elegant, royal and seriously imposing. Innovation Works on the other hand was two floors of a non-descript building, random work spaces, clumsy and yet energetic and happening. The conference room where we sat in plastic chairs was marginally more than a make-do and at one time supposedly had bunker beds for the entrepreneurs. Yet both places had one thing in common – they both housed innovators and were powerful agents of the change sweeping China.
<br />Dinner was at a Peking Duck restaurant, one of the oldest in Beijing. After dinner most people went for a massage and later we hung around at the lobby to toast Zander’s birthday. For a change, folks retired early around 2:00 am.
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<br /><em><strong>June 29th, Wednesday, Beijing (and off to Shanghai)</em></strong>
<br />There were two visits planned for the day. The first was a meeting with Northern Light Ventures, established by an ex-Whartonite with an entrepreneurial background who had sold a technology company to Juniper. It was followed by a visit to the Foreign Affair Office of the Zhongguancun Science Park. Some folks decided to use the day instead to do more sight-seeing and shopping as it was our last day in Beijing.
<br />Badaling Pass is the most visited section of the Great Wall and is only 70 KM North West of Beijing. Unlike Mutianyu, this section of the pass was more touristy, with souvenir shops and restaurants lining the access road. The Wall was a short walk up from the drop off point and was the lowest point in that section. The views were amazing and with the slight fog, it resembled scenes from old-style Chinese flicks. The construction was obviously different at Badaling– most strikingly, the shelters were built inside the Wall at the former, while it was on the Wall at the latter, the patterns, bricks and steps were all different and Badaling distinctly had night lighting.
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR5cF_MO1kj1-S8ZTea21bVmZpGUaqCaQ-5uaHtbPfv7DSZ81xJozLbItwF_uMVSuf_GPzaCyTYJLjiKj8vjWa4db4sEDXBG4SIIa1559a-aDta7fGIc3DxseMcHhyZYsMJFWFe3eyUvku/s1600/IMG_6850.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627307427003818674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR5cF_MO1kj1-S8ZTea21bVmZpGUaqCaQ-5uaHtbPfv7DSZ81xJozLbItwF_uMVSuf_GPzaCyTYJLjiKj8vjWa4db4sEDXBG4SIIa1559a-aDta7fGIc3DxseMcHhyZYsMJFWFe3eyUvku/s320/IMG_6850.JPG" /></a>
<br />Michael Lee had suggested that we visit Summer Palace and we decided to follow up on it. The 700 acres recreation area had 25000+ visitors on that day and yet we did not feel the crowd. The landscaped park with a large boating lake, pavilions, temples, theatres, bridges and fountains are a welcome escape from the bustling city of Beijing. The palace was built in 1880 for Empress Cixi (or Dragon Lady).
<br />We all congregated at the Pearl Market in Beijing for shopping and then headed to the train station to catch our train to Shanghai. The train ride was a party that went on all night. Suffice to say that it included music, dancing, intoxication, finger-food, cards, gossip and more. There is a whole lot of stuff in the middle of China – we passed through populated cities and what looked like Ghost Towns, arriving in Shanghai comfortably but less than rested.
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<br /><em><strong>June 30th, Thursday, Shanghai</strong></em>
<br />Shanghai city is a true metropolis, inspired by western cities yet distinctly local. Vicky, our local guide, ensured that we reached our hotel (Howard Johnson) safely despite the revelry en route. We only had an hour to freshen up as we had an aggressive schedule for the day.
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<br /><strong><em>Coca Cola China – Thiery Roques (CFO)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Nearly 1.7B servings of Coke products a day in China and continuously growing
<br /><li>Vol = Population x Incidence x Times x Average Consumption. Goal = Increase all four.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltUHSGxk5HqBu104omUKIqqylKVrcNl-hwkWScYrI6qw9qi5chxo95_f-bIZu4V9VYjGVdjg2e1OIBGx7nxAt0SoVT9GBL9k7tSgCsdC9wi1fjX-b2F7t-QXPzOrDZyVloQFtAgtOdC6R/s1600/Coke.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627319885521879138" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltUHSGxk5HqBu104omUKIqqylKVrcNl-hwkWScYrI6qw9qi5chxo95_f-bIZu4V9VYjGVdjg2e1OIBGx7nxAt0SoVT9GBL9k7tSgCsdC9wi1fjX-b2F7t-QXPzOrDZyVloQFtAgtOdC6R/s320/Coke.JPG" /></a>
<br /><li>Consumption primarily in developed cities, distribution partners focusing on efficiency
<br /><ul><li>Cofco and Swire are primary partners in China
<br /></li></ul><li>Traditional business model: They own the IP and leverage bottlers and distributors to make the product accessible at all locations.
<br /><li>Expanded portfolio of products (has introduced new products primarily targeting the Chinese market that has received initial success)
<br /><li>Increase brand loyalty through events and marketing
<br /><li>E.g.: Mongolia: only 2.5 M people, but huge per capita consumption results in high profits.
<br /><li>Continue to enjoy high margins – are systemically developing brand loyalty
<br /><li>KOlab is their innovation lab where they focus on creating the right products and enabling partners to distribute the product effectively.
<br /><li>Coke directly employs 15,000 and indirectly supports the jobs of another 400,000 suppliers, wholesalers and retailers. Coke has helped ensure better quality control along the supply chain and increased the refinement of the beverage industry as a whole. </li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>China Business News – Qin Shuo, Chief Editor</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Inspired by world news agencies and provides the same level of sophisticated news delivery in China.
<br /><li>Provides coverage in international business, finance, industries, services and tourism.</li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>Dianping.com – Michael Jiang, VP of Product</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Chinese version of Yelp + Groupon, been around for 7+ years, 40M monthly unique visitors
<br /><li>Customers come to dianping to seek information, stay loyal because of coupons
<br /><li>Provides reviews by food item, ranks and rates restaurants and other services (KTV, salons, hotels)
<br /><li>Provides coupons in the form of a flyer that can be downloaded or printed or web-shared on social networking platforms – to cater to the Chinese model
<br /><li>Provides a unique service – a text message with 70 characters that includes restaurant, favorite dishes location etc.
<br /><li>Chinese users prefer to click than search
<br /><li>A sales intensive process today as the sales team also needs to provide consulting service
<br /><li>It takes almost 6 months of sales to be successful in any city – needs to reach critical mass
<br /><li>Revenue Streams (coupon + group buy transaction revenue)
<br /><li>Have a check-in feature – yet to monetize as is the case across other platforms
<br /><li>Looking at strategies to reduce workforce requirement
<br /><li>Largest PoI database – do not consider PoI to have sustainable revenue, provides hidden benefits. Location based services have become very popular.
<br /><li>Incentivizes with virtual currency</li></ul></span></span>
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<br />The Coke visit was really an eye opener – here was a multi-national that had successfully adapted in the Chinese market unlike other bigwigs. The Coke experience introduced to us the CPG mindset in China – their marketing, partnerships and most interestingly the Bar made it a very special visit. We created a custom cocktail using an advanced user interaction system at the bar – one of the many innovations that Coke provides its customers. One of the most interesting insights was that of the Little Emperor. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqV_exJya7upjiHBZTSSM1p-kE920R1LA_aTGxgpc5eP9aNcCiQdeKqgeyclcm8I6VYSig7gIRwKCt0HJMp5LYNsLx911NDMTuP_buptoeLPN4E7fVr-miBrhG_3j6UEM9U15MgVqX1OJ0/s1600/IMG_3012.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627320787268639778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqV_exJya7upjiHBZTSSM1p-kE920R1LA_aTGxgpc5eP9aNcCiQdeKqgeyclcm8I6VYSig7gIRwKCt0HJMp5LYNsLx911NDMTuP_buptoeLPN4E7fVr-miBrhG_3j6UEM9U15MgVqX1OJ0/s320/IMG_3012.JPG" /></a> China’s one-child program and the rapid economy growth has created an entire generation of young kids and adults who have 6 people (parents and grandparents) catering to their whims and spoiling them with goodies that previously may have been out of reach. Hats off to Tania for pulling off the visit. At CBN, almost everybody took a photo in front of the TV camera as a newscaster though Suncheth was perfect as the sports anchor. Dianping.com had a good operational model and had figured out a successful monetization strategy.
<br />Dinner was at the Crystal Jade Restaurant, a Shanghai-nese style restaurant with good food and great company. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8T-ic9O0oPRev7strKT5WHyWlYT4i9QNCeX9kS5nVBKS_68wGS7J2ySPkaAsBVxNgiMS2uwPOxzJ4eFKEbsWCO1wKZJqfA03Pw2nNVPi4_OVnuD8BmKvGrsFzqsu0A3cyf2zvA7sAjwW/s1600/IMG_3035.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627321288732192290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8T-ic9O0oPRev7strKT5WHyWlYT4i9QNCeX9kS5nVBKS_68wGS7J2ySPkaAsBVxNgiMS2uwPOxzJ4eFKEbsWCO1wKZJqfA03Pw2nNVPi4_OVnuD8BmKvGrsFzqsu0A3cyf2zvA7sAjwW/s320/IMG_3035.JPG" /></a> Charles had joined us for the evening and it was great to catch up with him. Eric and Lan had ensured that there was enough food and drinks for all of us and then some. Later most of us went to Xin Tian Di, a local hangout with breath-taking views of the Shanghai city-line and the Huangpu River. The Bund area is full of restaurants, clubs and people and was happening. The night ended late, we were famished and some of us retired to our quarters. For others it was massages and clubbing as usual.
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<br /><em><strong>July 1st, Friday, Shanghai</strong></em>
<br />We had 4 company visits planned for the day - a quick breakfast, some tea and we were on our way to the one thing that Lebron and Kobe share.
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<br /><strong><em>Nike – Laurent Payre(Running), Andrew Wong(Inline Stores), Aaron Cain(Athletic Training)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>The average number of sneakers for an 18 year old in America = 6. The average in China is 1.
<br /><li>The targeted age is slightly older, 20 as opposed to 14. Primarily due to affordability.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyfbF5FqsIOm6gAhaf3Nr2KvHGXGFw9Wh8kq_N6GCBA5dtvCMZSywTEKo3bIFKZN4SxfU2HVtK-DX5m0CBt194zTlukz0Zst33YwU-bcidLtp1W6znlHTxcN14VNe6e7OCovn8W0UZNbC/s1600/IMG_3058.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627321886688414866" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyfbF5FqsIOm6gAhaf3Nr2KvHGXGFw9Wh8kq_N6GCBA5dtvCMZSywTEKo3bIFKZN4SxfU2HVtK-DX5m0CBt194zTlukz0Zst33YwU-bcidLtp1W6znlHTxcN14VNe6e7OCovn8W0UZNbC/s320/IMG_3058.JPG" /></a>
<br /><li>6 geographies worldwide, 7 categories. China itself is a geography today. Global strategy adapted locally. Future is digital. Basketball is the most influential – Kobe is the big name.
<br /><li>Chinese youth are highly individualistic and the market is fairly sophisticated requiring investment in R&D and not just marketing. In China, Of China, For China.
<br /><li>Chinese youth carry more practical values and are fairly status conscious.
<br /><li>In the last few years there is heightened fashion consciousness with people accessorizing and personalizing their outward appearance. Acceleration of consumer evolution.
<br /><li>Knockoffs in general are not a major issue since often that is not the catered market. The real competition are local shoe companies that tend to spend more in marketing and are inflating the cost of acquiring ambassadors. Often throwing money at athletes is not the answer. Nike differentiates itself as a partner in the quest for athlete success. (Sports medicine, training, physiological and psychological assistance)
<br /><li>There are over 7000 Nike stores in China. Often times people walk in and ask “what is the most expensive stuff you got?” People want access to the Nike brand.
<br /><li>National TV advertising in China is expensive – takes away margins.
<br /><li>Hong Kong today is no longer the style leader for China.
<br /><li>Nike and the Government have shared objectives: They both want athletes to perform better. For the Government it is about pride.
<br /><li>The “Never give up” and the 1288 campaigns really won over the hearts of the Chinese.
<br /><li>Their mission: Inspire 1 Billion athletes, Get people moving!!</li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange (Wu Hongbing)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Today here are 60 Assets and Equity exchanges in China – will be collapsed to 3-4 in the next 10 years. Only 4 trade internationally – Shanghai and Beijing participate in international trade and are premier markets for local trade.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMhPzOOyY2QqPPExrbtIokRjAa8MrVM2yQWJSzNiQv_Rs549bjFz1UKV5S8fGkT2Od4qVXoz4QhJ9eCeqfrIl8hkXaY7hGSrTbTQSW9CufiwZtUKUJt09BI3rxCPw4a4LiV9L6Dez6htP/s1600/IMG_3062.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627322414300667746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMhPzOOyY2QqPPExrbtIokRjAa8MrVM2yQWJSzNiQv_Rs549bjFz1UKV5S8fGkT2Od4qVXoz4QhJ9eCeqfrIl8hkXaY7hGSrTbTQSW9CufiwZtUKUJt09BI3rxCPw4a4LiV9L6Dez6htP/s320/IMG_3062.JPG" /></a>
<br /><li>The exchange provides a platform for trading stock rights (equity), asset rights, creditors rights and intellectual rights for state owned enterprises.
<br /><li>The Equity market is the largest with over 60% share of trade at UAE
<br /><li>UAE also has the largest trading volume at 250B out of the 600B for all China. Over 10K trades a year.
<br /><li>Property rights trading platform for transactions between state-owned local and foreign assets. Services platform for M&A activity between private and public assets.
<br /><li>Financing services for small and medium enterprises – funding from pre-revenue to growth stage. VC’s and Angel investors participate in this market.
<br /><li>Private investors may be allowed to exit in secondary markets.
<br /><li>Also provides a platform for the trade of energy, environment, technology, cultural property, agricultural products. In the future will be the platform for carbon trading.
<br /><li>Asset mix is changing with more and more private trading
<br /><li>50% of trade is from public to private – roughly privatization at 300B a year, 15% annualized growth.
<br /><li>Trading floor is competitive. 85% of trades get competitive offers & over 20% has more than 2 bids.
<br /><li>No derivatives or license trading at the moment.
<br /><li>The real job is to ensure that there are investors – not to be an I-banking institution.
<br /><li>Revenue through transaction fees. </li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>SHSTI (Shanghai Technology Investment)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Funded by government in 1982 to promote commercialization of tech breakthrough in China as a replacement for previously existing grants programs. The fund is tasked to make equity investments to sponsor commercial breakthroughs. Government does not set investment strategy.
<br /><li>Key events
<br /><ul><li>1992 first batch of VCs <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_fGS-9YO7Oxc0nwBPwpiQLaLSgd3yIsuvXXh-ga0m-YQ4yAUPtC7Xkk5RaQjz_TtLM95_m9nL5LQzGoTcstOK7onLlRAulAO6SzC5o44cV2eYP7EhrlHVg8lNDwyn0rP_TumXiPa3-Cv/s1600/IMG_3073.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627323225527066754" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_fGS-9YO7Oxc0nwBPwpiQLaLSgd3yIsuvXXh-ga0m-YQ4yAUPtC7Xkk5RaQjz_TtLM95_m9nL5LQzGoTcstOK7onLlRAulAO6SzC5o44cV2eYP7EhrlHVg8lNDwyn0rP_TumXiPa3-Cv/s320/IMG_3073.JPG" /></a>
<br /><li>1993 first fund with 5 state owned banks to attract capital from private sector
<br /><li>1998 second batch
<br /><li>2002 first company in Hong Kong exchange
<br /><li>2004 first Joint Venture
<br /></li></ul><li>Multiple Functions
<br /><ul><li>Banking venture investment
<br /><li>Equity (At all stages of the Company)
<br /><li>Incubation
<br /><li>Investment and value added service
<br /><li>Combining investments from all subsidiaries
<br /><li>National strategic alignment
<br /></li></ul><li>Today manage 14 funds with over a 100 investments, Average IRR of 10%. Over 90 employees: advisory and professional (57 seed, 20 early, 23 strategic). 50 companies have had equity trade sale, 30 public listed, 40 companies on the way
<br /><li>Capital market is hot with majority Private Equity investment
<br /><ul><li>Target key companies in specific industry
<br /><li>Overseas collaboration, capital and expertise
<br /><li>Acquisition up and down the value chain
<br /></li></ul><li>Initiative and funding used to be from government. Now fund is encouraging participation and that is converting this from a Government-lead to market-driven investment organization.
<br /><li>Criteria for investment
<br /><ul><li>Technology ideally proprietary or substitutes for inefficient existing technology
<br /><li>Team composition.
<br /><li>How big is market?
<br /></li></ul><li>Two reasons to fail:
<br /><ul><li>Academicians with not enough business exposure leads to low success rate
<br /><li>Management team can't handle change or growth
<br /></li></ul><li>Failure rate is only 5%. Failure is defined as bankruptcy, poor products or no growth
<br /><li>To incorporate a company it takes a month, to declare bankruptcy takes a year.
<br /><li>Clean-technology, financial, service and consumer are primary areas of focus.
<br /><li>Willing to invest in Asia, Europe and America
<br /><li>Strategy: Spend time up front to set up good companies, Help companies grow bigger, Invest up and down value chain, Leverage government relationship. Very hands on in operations.
<br /><li>Hiring: Care about 5 years work experience. Education not so critical.</li></ul>
<br /><strong><em>AdChina (Phillip Kuai, General Manager, Mobile Ad Platform)</em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>Established 2007, fastest growing Internet startup in China.
<br /><li>450 people, Integrated advertising platform, 45% sales people, 4 cities
<br /><li>Primary objective is to connect demand and supply of Online and Mobile Advertising
<br /><li>Provide platform for demand side advertisers <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmm6WElV1ZqJizc9_Tx99B73a2cjMDPVO2rk3UmKULGuzituRwaUSQtpL6Fy55WyzBubU92nyGQi1vmqTxrKa5ejMwfcTftztbiUViNh_1SNT7r-ecsQqdfL-bX5pJ0IJASK2yIjDrgKU/s1600/IMG_3078.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627323870074490658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGmm6WElV1ZqJizc9_Tx99B73a2cjMDPVO2rk3UmKULGuzituRwaUSQtpL6Fy55WyzBubU92nyGQi1vmqTxrKa5ejMwfcTftztbiUViNh_1SNT7r-ecsQqdfL-bX5pJ0IJASK2yIjDrgKU/s320/IMG_3078.JPG" /></a>
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<br /><ul><li>Manage ad campaigns
<br /><li>Create categories for targeting
<br /><li>Pay influential opinion leaders
<br /><li>Plant viral communication
<br /></li></ul><li>Publishers are suppliers
<br /><ul><li>Worked with over 1000 advertisers on 3000 campaigns
<br /><li>Information is really what is driving the internet
<br /><li>Coverage at an individual website not enough
<br /><li>By working with different publishers AdChina has wider reach
<br /><li>Avoids overlap, helps advertising be more targeted. 400 publishers
<br /><li>China online advertising is time based so frequency capping is new
<br /></li></ul><li>Advertisers want security so pay for time, instead of frequency
<br /><li>Objective is to reach sufficient people to create impact on revenue
<br /><li>Mobile grew rapidly. Very big share of people’s time. Android is the biggest
<br /><li>Features
<br /><ul><li>Tracking code in the posting tracks user behavior and helps reach the right people
<br /><li>Allows Content to follow Behavior
<br /><li>Allows Location based targeting
<br /><li>Re-targeting people who clicked on ad but didn't buy
<br /><li>Mobile Device targeting, Keyword, System Device, operating system, Time-based targeting
<br /></li></ul><li>Publishers like CPM though CPC is better (Brand advertising vs Banner ad)
<br /><li>People are bored on the mobile (Name and cell phone number known on the app – send text link ad)
<br /><li>Privacy: Looser definition of privacy laws in China
<br /><li>MicroBlog platform for partnership and distribution of advertisement for WOM
<br /><li>Limited Optimization help – not providing metrics or customization help.
<br /><li>Provide segmentation and targeting through surveys
<br /><li>Limited TV spots so people are spending advertising budget on the Internet
<br /><li>Move away from sites to apps trend is consistent
<br /><li>Self service is not as relevant in China, relationship based (Quanxi)
<br /><li>Pricing pressure is not as much. Sales turnover is a concern. Bundling products helps.
<br /><li>Copycat environment, so need to run very fast to have advantage. Need to integrate across all social media platforms
<br /><li>User behavior on Internet is different from mobile. People are more mobile. Ads are more entertaining than waiting for a bus! Webpage is crowded, Mobile is less cluttered and ads draw more attention.
<br /><li>Opinion: Admob won't work in China
<br /><ul><li>People don't pay for ads, pricing is not relevant
<br /><li>Rev share model does not exist
<br /><li>Any reliance in self service is a tough sell
<br /><li>Discount is not sustainable, since margins are thin
<br /></li></ul></li></ul>
<br /></span><span style="font-family:helvetica;">
<br />What a busy day! The Nike experience was probably the most stimulating; here was a company that makes money inspiring people. The advertisements and vignettes were very compelling and so was the Nike/Liu Xiang story. There were videos of how students in China have compulsory Physical Education and how it is a barrier to getting admissions in good schools/colleges which was funny and touchy at the same time. Nike formulated a strategy to address this need by introducing a training program for students to learn running and to enjoy sport instead of considering it a chore. Tina shared with us her story of getting her first pair of running shoes, improving her speed to make it to the school of her choice and how much she coveted the same- it got pretty darn emotional in the room. Later we went to a Nike store – and all got 40% discount on everything in the store, always great marketing. Tina was also the designated translator at SHSTI and UAE and she did a great job! AdChina was our last visit and it was apparent that we were eager to be done.
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<br />The next 36-hours included momentous partying <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3kQuGGWCakhZL0arkOy-GFP1fktAc1BJIAeJ0bKd6x-y-obo7tRx9CsgMpMjYOcadZqiy_nu8MYJPKGc4iji8gfU8oxoQ8C7z7Ufw4JZo1MqTgViSfTvMLZ5YsAvSxDUDRj28gM_IT4QU/s1600/IMG_3176.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627324676421281186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3kQuGGWCakhZL0arkOy-GFP1fktAc1BJIAeJ0bKd6x-y-obo7tRx9CsgMpMjYOcadZqiy_nu8MYJPKGc4iji8gfU8oxoQ8C7z7Ufw4JZo1MqTgViSfTvMLZ5YsAvSxDUDRj28gM_IT4QU/s320/IMG_3176.JPG" /></a>(Kuperman taught us how to dance and sleep at the same time, and Nathan has some rad bar skills), shopping like it was going out of style, food and bargaining as a competitive sport (you want Eunsoo and Cheng on your team anytime you are negotiating), and generally hanging out till it was almost a crime. The only sober moments were a short visit to the Jade Buddha temple and the world famous Chinese acrobatic show. Most folks started heading out, but for some the party continued to Hong Kong.
<br />
<br />Our hosts (Leo, Tina, Lan, Eric) really made this an unforgettable experience. While for most of us this was a first trip, it certainly won’t be the last for any of us!
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<br /><em><strong>Some Key Takeaways </em></strong>
<br /><ul><li>China continues to be a premier sourcing destination for manufacturing, though technology talent and services are increasingly being sought for by multi-nationals and locals alike.
<br /><li>The Little Emperor phenomenon and the high individualism in today’s youth is making China an ideal location for luxury goods and premier services accelerating the consumer evolution.
<br /><li>There is a high degree of adaption required for foreign goods and services to be successful in China for two reasons. Local customs and culture and Government/Society imposed rules and regulations.
<br /><li>Knowledge of local language is essential to succeed in China
<br /><li>Digital and mobile are very important to succeed in China. People spend enormous time on mobile/Internet and China being a vast country, this provides a mechanism to rapidly make products and services available to the whole geography.
<br /><li>Consumption patterns are not uniform across the country- the South East coast is much more developed then the interior and the west inlands.
<br /><li>Funding for new ventures in plenty, though bulk of it is late stage funding by VCs and PEs and Government sponsored funds. There are opportunities to invest in the seed stage.
<br /><li>The general privatization of the country and the large amounts of transfer of wealth between the public and private sector maybe creating opportunities for investors to turn around and make profit.
<br /><li>Operational prudence and strategy are highly sought for in China across businesses and investment arms.
<br /><li>China is making a big push for energy self-reliance which opens up many opportunities in the areas of efficiency, pollution control, energy saving, and other clean technologies. Coal will continue to be a major provider of energy but there are opportunities in renewables.
<br /><li>Our batch is extremely well connected in China!
<br /><li>Urban China is happening and a lot of fun!
<br /></li></ul>
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<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>Harihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16669793093437665174noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-37862426907760138762011-04-22T23:04:00.000-07:002011-04-23T13:01:05.455-07:00Crossroads ...Growing up in a small town in South India, traveling by train was the affordable and preferred means of long distance travel. Since the town itself only had trains to a few larger cities, one typically had to take a train to one of the larger cities that was a hub and then transfer over to another that took one to the desired destination. It was an interesting experience traveling with people planning to go North, West and East on the same train, all waiting to reach the hub. On getting there, people took breaks, stretched out, exchanged contact information with newly formed friends and moved on to the next train. <br />
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The first year at Wharton felt a lot like that. We came into class 36 with several destinations in mind – investment banking, consulting, marketing, entrepreneurship – and traveled this journey together to the end of year one; getting to know a bit more about other destinations that you may not travel to on this journey, listening to the excited voices of other passengers talk about the exciting vistas they plan to travel to and wonder if your destination sounded too ordinary in the face of that. <br />
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Having reached the crossroads now, it is time to pick one’s destination. And catch the right train. Some of the passengers who came with you so far will follow you through to your electives, new learning teams will be formed and new seating preferences sealed. But all that's for another day. Now's the time to rejoice over the journey behind us, for the year that whizzed past in a crazy stream of hyperstimulated consciousness. What better way to do that than a class toast to seal the deal?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu6O0b2tG7WFjGtCGheW67NSdKvnWCNLK8Pa6HEQ72VnCWAQBP1lPqwsyfAIstO4U2E-AdyDrHmKcjOhx36Ze241Ta2NpDhZ2lccp6ZmU-GHpNcbwtzF7DyLqdYp2PeIbOE6pEh4WN7xr/s1600/IMG_1551.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu6O0b2tG7WFjGtCGheW67NSdKvnWCNLK8Pa6HEQ72VnCWAQBP1lPqwsyfAIstO4U2E-AdyDrHmKcjOhx36Ze241Ta2NpDhZ2lccp6ZmU-GHpNcbwtzF7DyLqdYp2PeIbOE6pEh4WN7xr/s640/IMG_1551.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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We had corporate finance finals as well as marketing strategy finals to close the term. We had an exciting farewell to SABRE as the winners were announced to an Oscar-like suspense-filled crowd. The winners won the adulation and cheers of the cognoscenti that knew what it took to win the crown. The losers trash-talked each other in jest about how badly they performed. It was a fun exercise that will definitely be missed. Relief was writ large on every face on Saturday, as a grueling Term 3 came to an end. Congratulations to all class 36ers for staying the course and fighting it out to the end - its an amazing achievement that I'm sure all our predecessors would be proud of as well!<br />
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Meanwhile class 37 is ramping up to make its history. We're all meeting with different subsets of them and responding to their questions and concerns and helping them make the right decision about which MBA program to join in case they are undecided. Good luck to all of you as you start your journey! I look forward to a few of you stepping up to share your thoughts on this blog.<br />
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The Bard said "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly". But alas one can only wish for speed and there are always consequences to the choices one makes to apportion time between life's commitments. Henceforth, you would be hearing less from me on this blog for a while, and I look forward to hearing the voices of other members of class 36 that will lend more color, excitement and perspective to this blog.<br />
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It has been a wonderful year, and thank you all for sharing the journey!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-68757045150254566212011-04-22T15:15:00.000-07:002011-04-22T15:15:35.282-07:00Welcome Class 37!I just wanted to say a huge WELCOME to Class 37. We got to meet some of your during your visits and hope that we meet the rest of you soon.<br />
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You're in for a whirlwind adventure of pushing yourself and the concept of time management beyond what you knew before. Prepare to be surrounded by brilliant people (seriously humbling) just as excited about your future as you are.<br />
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It's a special time, that first term, enjoy it and welcome to the family.Joannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10458234715219292451noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-43827568075349518372011-04-07T21:40:00.000-07:002011-04-07T21:40:44.217-07:00Heartbreak hill ...The end was almost in sight .. that's when the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon#Heartbreak_Hill">Heartbreak Hill</a> showed up last weekend. Having survived that, we are getting ready for the final stretch towards the finish line next weekend!<br />
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Last session can be described in a succession of V's - V for victory, V for Veeraraghavan, V for vagaries V for Viagra, and V for VC.<br />
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Veeraraghavan - last weekend was OPIM finals. It was definitely a challenging exercise, so it remains to be seen what the outcome is for the class. Last session was also interesting from the point of view of the class discussion in Patti's class on Viagra vs. Cialis. As she said in class, this is not a topic on which you can research market share on Google - for obvious reasons :). After the class got done with the usual set of jokes around this, we had a good discussion around how Cialis was able to position itself in a market that already had a clear leader. We followed that up with a second session around Dove and the campaign around real beauty and its repercussions. The classes seem interesting so far, but in terms of preparing for the finals, the materials seem quite haphazard and all over the place, so it will be interesting to see how we can bring all of it together in our minds in a week in time for the exam.<br />
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Victory - after a long wait of 28 years, India finally brought home the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/04/02/cricket.india.sri.lanka.dhoni/index.html">cricket world cup</a>, beating Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium last weekend. All the Indians in our class have waited for this moment for decades, from the time we were kids that watched Kapil Dev and his team win this in 1983. Sadly though, after all this wait, we had to be stuck taking our OPIM finals while the game ended. We made up for that by watching the replays after the exam, during lunch break. Many others in class were intrigued by all the excitement that this generated and were trying to follow what was happening as well. All in all, definitely the highlight of the session, if not the year, for me.<br />
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Vagaries - this was also a session where the fire alarm on campus went off, right before the OPIM final, as people were trickling in for the test, following their time-tested rituals before taking an exam. It was fascinating to see how the crowd dynamics evolved as folks were asked to vacate the building and wait outside in a plaza behind campus. Imagine race-day when you are at the start line, doing your stretches, obligatory porta-potty visits, checking your gel packs, and getting your mind ready for the start of the race. If they had announced that the race would be postponed even by an hour, that would throw your plans off quite significantly. It was something similar last Saturday as well, as folks didn't have time to eat breakfast, or print their last minute cheat-sheet printouts. Instead we suddenly had this free-time on a morning outside campus to just chill and kid around about the test and the cricket finals - was quite interesting to observe the interactions from a distance and see how different people responded to a change in schedule on a day where they were probably not used to that happening. <br />
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VC - We had Anu Nigam from the Sand Hill Angels come talk to us about what venture capitalists and angel investors look for when they look at startup pitches. Had quite a few interesting nuggets to learn from. I must also add a shout-out to my classmate Sanju here for bringing so many interesting speakers to talk to us. We also had the CEO of Equilar come talk to us about executive compensations.<br />
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As the class 37 students are making up their minds between Wharton and other options, many of us met with or spoke with them as well, to help them through the process. I met with four of the candidates that I had spoken with for lunch to celebrate their admission into the program and answer any questions they might have. The admissions reception is scheduled for this Saturday on campus, so I hope all the folks who got admitted attend it and make the right choice ;). If you have any questions to help you with your decision making, feel free to reach out to us any time.<br />
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Lot more to write about the CFA GIRC competition at Omaha, but I shall reserve that for another post. We're on our way back to the Bay area from the event and our flight out of Phoenix should be boarding any time, so that's it for now folks! Good luck to everyone on next week's finals!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-33646617096159118322011-03-27T00:17:00.000-07:002011-03-27T13:37:36.110-07:00Once a runner ...<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">[In keeping with the running theme about running, today's title is inspired by one of my favorite books on running - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416597891?ie=UTF8&tag=tips4runningc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1416597891">"Once a Runner"</a>.]</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The highlight of the past session was the talk by the SVP and CIO of the SF Giants, Bill Schlough who's also a Wharton alum. Despite being the busiest session in the year so far, the talk was well attended and appreciated. Friday night gave a chance for classmates to mingle with the families of the rest of the class at a dinner at Thirsty Bear Restaurant. As expected, nothing can dampen the spirits (both the spiritual and bacchanalian kind) of Whartonites. Sleepless nights spent partying or working on assignments (or both) followed by full days of lectures and cases whizzed past and before one knew it, the three-day weekend was over.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This weekend was an occasion to get to know Senthil from OPIM 632 better. I haven’t heard anyone mention Silvia Plath and William Feller in the same breath – he does seem to have an interesting breath of taste in books. A quick summary of sustainability and carbon footprint considerations in the supply chain was fascinating as well – brought out several facts that I had not heard of before. The other interesting class related event of course was the MKTG 621 final – was interesting to take a closed book, no-cheat-sheet test after a long time. The class itself was one of my favorites so far in the program and it will be missed. We got exposed to marketing strategy discussions with Prof. Patti Williams through the Medicines and Aqualisa case - was interesting to learn formally what we were trying to wing our way through in SABRE so far. Many of us stayed up late on one of the nights, debating over cost of capital, corporate capital structures, asset, debt and equity betas and a whole bunch of other things as the night progressed, for the Teletech case in Finance. </div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">This term underscored more than anything else my feeling of being a participant in a race that I probably qualified for by mistake, like the other academic sojourns of mine where I've felt equally out of place in the midst of a sea of talent. I have friends that recounted the experience of running the <a href="http://www.ws100.com/">Western States 100</a> to me, and at some level the WEMBA program itself can be abstracted to that race. Only those that have the endurance and will to qualify for it would even consider applying. Once you’re in the race, your vitals are checked at every aid-station to ensure that you have what it takes to reach the next one. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It’s been an honor so far to witness the races run by my fellow classmates, even as I huff and puff along from one aid-station to the next, willing one leg in front of the next. The effortless cadence of the elite runners to whom this is just another race to be done perfectly, the flair and gregariousness of the social runners, cheering on the slower ones and chitchatting with the aid-station staff, the methodical approach of the personal-record hunters as they watch their time and vitals at every step, the tired visages of the few having a bad day as they trudge towards their next stop, unsure whether to call it a day and race another day or not. As the year almost draws to a close, it’s been amazing to look back and see the hills and valleys we’ve conquered so far in our quest for that elusive belt buckle that the finishers get to keep. </div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The nostalgia stems also from hearing back from applicants who I had interacted with during the admissions process – their happiness at getting in brought back pleasant memories from last year, and my exchanges with my own mentors who helped me through the process –Miri (class 34), Ashish (class 31), Laura (class 31) and Venk (class 27). Congratulations to all the newly minted members to the WEMBA family and wish you all the very best! </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">To continue with the running analogy in this context, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLg4j4gMzqA">Anbessa</a> song comes to mind – we’ve done our part keeping the WEMBA flag flying high in the first year, and now it’s your turn to get into your stride and power ahead of us. </div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span>Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-15326750827411056902011-03-21T19:16:00.000-07:002011-03-21T19:16:52.984-07:00Term 1-3 speed-round update from Joanne<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Okay. It's been awhile, I know. Sorry for the blog-silence (and thanks to Anand for carrying the blogging torch!). We're rounding out our first year (completion of Term 3) and I'll give you the quick update from my side.</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Wharton:</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Term 1 I studied a lot, maybe close to 25-30 hours per week. The content was interesting, yes, but also there was a part of me that wanted to prove that I'm smart enough to be there. I guess everyone (well, me at least) thought just maybe I was the admissions mistake. I wanted to "keep up" in regards to test scores, etc. What I gave up was time with my husband and friends. I found that there is such a thing as too much studying. Still managed to squeeze in my first triathlon (yay!), which was a super fun activity to do with my husband and cousins.</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Term 2 Cut back significantly on the studying, down to about 10 hours a week or so. In hindsight, this was an overcorrection from the first term. Grades went down (which is okay) but maybe flirted with disaster a bit. On the bright side I was able to spend more time with Tim (husband) and Fuzz (dog). Still managed to stay out of the lowest 10% (number of "LT"s are tracked by the school) but probably just barely. I'm sure my poor showing in statistics will come back to haunt me in electives. Alas, my mother's statistics-gift (her Masters) was not transferred to me.</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Term 3 (mid-way through) brought more interesting professors (in a good way) and butt-loads of classes. I've ramped up the studying again somewhere between where I was Term 1 and 2. Classes, which started in Term 1 as full-term classes, are now half term (most of them) that overlap at an alarming rate. They still remain interesting and engaging (operations/supply chain optimization, marketing, finance) and I find myself furiously scribbling notes for my startup (you know, business principles I never knew I was supposed to do when starting a venture - oops, better late than never).</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Because I thought I was hot-stuff, I also allowed myself to get drafted into the Global Consulting Practicum course this term (yes, all those words have been selected carefully). GCP partners a Wharton team with a team from an international business school, in our case Instituto de Empreza in Madrid, to create a US market entry strategy. I'll have to reflect/write more on it when it's done. So far, it's had it's ups and downs. Adding this to the workload has definitely taught me my limits.</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Life/Career Update!</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Well, thanks to everyone for listening to my rants last year about entrepreneurship and my corporate job. :) With the blog-radio silence, trust me, I saved you from months of my agonizing over whether or not to leave my job and pursue the startup full time. Ultimately, it was the wise words of our backyard landscaper that led me stop the on-the-fence BS which was causing my suffering, and just make a decision already. So I did. </div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">On January 6th, I said farewell to my gray cubicle and hello to full-time startup life. </div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">I. absolutely. love. my. career. now. (yes, all the periods are necessary)</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Things I love about it: creativity, variety in work, and the feeling that I'm building something fantastic. I realize that I belong in this world and am enjoying every minute of it. </div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em;">Wharton has been a huge supporter of our startup - from the professors, to my fellow classmates, and the awesome staff. Coming from a non-business background, the benefits from learning all the business fundamentals has helped me tremendously and I'm truly grateful for all the amazing things in my life.</div>Joannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10458234715219292451noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-43607861924800485872011-03-14T07:17:00.000-07:002011-03-14T07:23:56.089-07:00Discovering limits ...A lot of data that get sent across the web gets sent using a protocol called TCP. How does one send data as efficiently as possible across a channel whose capacity one doesn't know? TCP does this by increasing the window size of data sent for every acknowledgement it receives for receipt of data. It does this until it starts to see packets lost, at which point it throttles down to the bandwidth that it just observed and tries to maintain that data rate for transmission, fluctuating around that mean value using the same mechanism.<br />
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What's the place for a networking lesson on a Wharton blog, you ask? The Wharton Executive MBA program topped rankings yet again <a href="http://poetsandquants.com/2011/03/01/wharton-tops-new-ranking-of-emba-programs/">recently</a>. One of the reasons of this other than the usual that you hear, is how the program manages to extend your capacity for work, slowly but surely. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun while you are in the middle of it facing time crunches, but looking back at some of the busier sessions, it has been amazing to see the amount of work that got done between sessions with minimal time and additional commitments. <br />
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Which brings me to the TCP analogy. This session promises to be one where most of the class will hit our capacity ceiling. And as if they knew it, the load for the session after the one this weekend seems to be lighter too, as if to give us a breather. In the upcoming session, we have Bell's MKTG 621 final, in MKTG 622 we have a Medicines case assignment due to be submitted, SABRE decisions due, and an Aqualisa case due to be read for discussion. In OPIM 632 we have an assignment due, and three (yes you read that right) cases to be read for in class discussion. In FNCE 601 we have a Teletech case on cost of capital and hurdle rates due, and in WHCP 614 there is a lot of reading that needs to get reflected into a five-minute presentation on communicating change.<br />
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Now one thing I know for sure - this too shall pass. But during the time that it hasn't, it has been a scramble trying to identify all the different things that need to get done, and re-prioritizing them based on urgency or learning team conference call coordination. Last session itself was an exercise in juggling tasks and this one promises to do one better on that. <br />
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What else happened last session? Two of my classmates, along with two from class 35 represented Wharton at the Hult Case Challenge and just missed getting selected to the next round. We're proud of you anyway, Chris and Brian! Five of us represented Wharton at the CFA Institute Global Investment Research Challenge Western Regional Finals (that's a mouthful!) last weekend, and <a href="http://twitter.com/raghavan_anand">won</a>. We now move on to Omaha to represent Wharton at the Americas finals. A big shout-out to Arif and Tao, the two classmates that were instrumental in making this happen!<br />
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As an earlier post alluded to, a few of us 36ers, a couple of Harvard alums, Prof. Smetters and Dr. Harvey Rubin from the Penn School of Medicine started a nonprofit recently called <a href="http://www.energizethechain.org/">Energize the Chain</a> to eradicate vaccine preventable diseases in the developing world through an innovative use of cell phone towers for off-grid power for vaccine storage. We have submitted grant proposals to Gates Foundation as well as USAID. The reason it gets a mention on my blog today is that one of our team members, Alice, at Harvey Mudd, got one-on-one time with Mr. Gates himself to present the idea and hear his feedback - way to go Alice! We are hoping that exciting things come out of this project and hope to launch a project in India and/or Kenya soon. Couple of our team members are in Kenya right now attending a GSMA conference to learn more.<br />
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Stay tuned for how this three-day marathon session pans out. I expect sleepless nights, caffeine-filled days and a lot of fun!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-50952978341393241122011-02-26T23:58:00.000-08:002011-02-26T23:58:24.782-08:00Be careful what you wish for ...A facebook post by Michael, my classmate, inspired the title for this week's post. As the saying goes, you should be careful what you wish for, for you might get it. All of us that got into Wharton were made aware of how busy Term 3 could get, and yet it feels like we weren't prepared enough for it. As a hectic fortnight whizzed past before the previous session and we're midway through another one, it seems nostalgic to remember the time from a year ago when this was a distant possibility. Don't get me wrong. I love what I'm learning this term. Its a confluence of work, school and personal schedules that makes this term hard for me, whereas for some others its taking on GCP over and above Term 3 schedule that makes it harder. <br />
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Last session whizzed past tamely given all the excitement leading into it. Many of us were up late doing (or re-doing) the Webvan case for David Bell's class, and then doing (and re-doing) the discounted cash flows for the finance case. Sabre period 1 decisions had been submitted and we had different teams trash talking each other in good spirits. I believe that one of the milestones that went relatively unnoticed is that the Webvan case was probably the last assignment that we get to do together as the original learning teams put together when we joined. I'm sure everyone one in my class has something to say about how awesome their team is as well as about how badly their team sucked on other attributes. I actually went back and read what I wrote in my Wharton admission essays about learning teams and what skills I bring to the table. It helps to have that thought out well and observe yourself as you interact with your learning teams and see how true your assessment of your skills were. This is a classic case of a constrained optimization problem where each team member has to optimize their time distribution over individual assignments where they are graded individually and team assignments where the team gets the same grade and everyone pitches in towards the work. People's perception of how good/bad their learning team members are, is often linked to where along this continuum those members chose their optimal distributions. <br />
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As we form newer teams to cooperate on projects like SABRE and GCP, its refreshing to work closely with other classmates and see the differences and similarities in their modes of operation. At the same time, terms like this where everyone is so busy highlights those in the class who make it worth the while to spend time at Wharton. There are several of these, but I shall just pick one to illustrate, while leaving his name out since he might prefer it that way. Not only does he take leadership in most of his learning team assignments, he always goes out of his way to help classmates with difficult concepts. His attention to detail is as good as his ability to make a jazzy presentation of the material he wishes to present. With a busy career and a busy personal life, its just incredible to see how he manages his time and manages to stay on top of so many things - definitely it has been a great learning experience for me. This post (like others by me) is influenced by what limited set of observations I get to make of my class, but I'm certain that there are several stars like this in my class, which makes school fun and inspirational. <br />
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Speaking of inspirational, as part of homework for these two weeks, we were required to record a 3 minute video as part of our Management Communication class based on the iPremier case where we needed to role play and convince the executive team at iPremier on what future course of action to take. Given that most of us did not prepare for it in time to use the recording resources back in school, it was interesting to watch the hodge-podge of video qualities, backgrounds, presentation templates and approaches from different classmates for this assignment. We were required to "create" a chart to aid us with our explanation, and this required that we invent some data and plot it the way we wanted to, to make our case. I didn't realize that inventing data to plot it in Excel to fit what I had in mind was so much harder than it sounded. Recording without an audience and pretending that there was one in front was not easy either. I've always had a hard time rehearsing for any presentations that I make, and sure enough that came back to hurt me this time as well. Its been interesting to read the materials for this class and learn formally how to be a better speaker. <br />
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As we hit home stretch for next session, the finance midterm looms ahead. Before that, we have our SABRE Period 1 decisions due tomorrow. Teams that did well need to remember to keep their eyes on the ball, and the teams that didn't .. well, need to get their act together and reverse their fortunes. The CFA GIRC team had our report for the Western regional finals due last week and the presentation happens in a few days time, so its been crazy scheduling that in the middle of other deliverables for school. It was a great learning experience about the semiconductor industry, performing public comparable valuation, DCF analysis etc. to the extent one could given the time constraints. Another illustration of the importance of being careful in what one wishes for, and being prepared to handle the consequences of realizing that wish.Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-74922089537516832502011-02-16T00:08:00.000-08:002011-02-16T06:28:33.526-08:00Missing the forest for the trees...This has been the longest lag so far between a session and an update about it. And rightfully so. This is probably the busiest two weeks in the program so far, without a single exam at the end of it. <br />
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Last session was over even before it began. We had our marketing case reports due for the elBulli case. In addition to coming up with interesting business ideas for Adria to ponder over, creative classmates such as my learning team buddy and superstar Arif used Adobe After Effects to create ads for a new restaurant that Adria could start in Barcelona. The fact that the ad was excellent could be summarized by the response from one classmate who thought that we had just downloaded that ad from the elBulli website! Thanks to our classmate Leo, we had two really engaging and inspiring speakers last session, the CEO of EmberClear and a parter from KPCB. Albert, the CEO of EmberClear, was amazingly articulate about the business case behind gasification of coal as the next incremental technology innovation in energy that will drive billions of dollars of business. He recommended that all of us look at incremental changes rather than totally radical ideas such as "cleantech". <br />
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Did I mention that we also had our first final for the Term? OPIM got done with a crisp, two-hour final exam from Christian. We also had our first session of MKTG 622, which is the marketing management strategy class. Patti Williams will be spending the next few sessions with us as we rattle our SABREs and learn the material by building a company. All the Wharton MBAs are divided into several worlds of 6 companies each. Each company is a team of 5 people and sells two brands of a particular product in its own world. Given a lot of market reserarch, production planning, sales, distribution, forecasting and other data, each team has to decide what its best strategy for growth is. The game is played over 6 periods of decision making where one uses a software called SABRE to fight it out. May the best team win!<br />
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Coming back to why these two weeks are hard. We had the first set of SABRE decisions due a few days ago. There are two cases due in David Bell's marketing management class and one due in the finance class. For the communications class we are supposed to read a case and record a video presenting a defense to the media about the situation presented. We are supposed to do this as teams of two, critiquing each others work, which is due for recording this weekend as well. Oh and did I mention that those of us that are participating in the GIRC investment research challenge have our reports due this weekend? And GCP folks have their Devil's Advocate round coming up soon as well. Those of us with busy jobs or kids at home can also bid goodbye to sleep for these two weeks. Would this explain the record turnout for our weekly lunch meeting in South Bay today where 10 of us showed up to commiserate over each others' predicaments.<br />
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In the middle of all this, it is easy to get bogged down in the details of the case materials presented. Be it SABRE, or the Webvan case in marketing or the New Heritage Doll case in Finance, there is much more data that what someone could potentially use in their analysis. In fact without getting some perspective from the conjoint study data and perceptual maps in SABRE, one can get lost navigating all the other pieces of information there. As part of the Webvan case, Prof. Bell uploaded a few of his interesting research papers for reference. For the engineer in me, it was fascinating to see how Bayesian spatiotemporal models and discrete time hazard models were being used to analyze how an online retailer such as Netgrocer could have increased their customer base. Again, lots of data, lots of math, but a few key intuitions that guide the analysis. <br />
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So term 3, at its midpoint, seems to be about sifting through the muddy waters of detail to arrive at key insights. About not missing the forest for the trees. For data obsessed engineers such as myself, it seems to be about seeing data as a means to an end, not an end in itself. At a more philosophical level, it is about seeing where the trees of coursework and homework fit within the larger, more beautiful forest of life filled with the cheer of near and dear ones, Valentine's Days, chasing toddlers and smiling newborns.Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-53481815749444509002011-01-29T15:58:00.000-08:002011-01-29T16:03:36.820-08:00The Batmobile and race carsIt took a few days after a marathon 4-day session last week to sit down and post a summary of events. So here it goes.<br />
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We had a full-day corporate valuation training on Wednesday attended by a good number of class 36 and a few class 35 folks. Classmates who are looking at investment banking internships were quite happy with the session that would help them with their interviews. Continuing with the Impact Investing speaker series, we had a speaker over lunch to talk to us about different ways of looking at metrics for analyzing social impact from a market perspective. The Brazil committee met to discuss more about how to plan the visit, and solicit wider participation. The Wharton Business Plan Competition Phase II deadline was yesterday, so teams that wanted to meet face-to-face and discuss their submissions met and spoke about it. Folks neck-deep in their GCP work had separate meetings with their teams, chipping away at their tasks, one hour at a time. Few of us that are participating in the Global Investment Research Challenge had a quick pow-wow with our mentor Prof. Percival to get his advice on how we should proceed. We had two speakers come and talk to us about networking and how to go about doing it successfully. We had another speaker talk to us about charisma and how to make a good first impression. <br />
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Then of course there were the lectures - the reason why we were there in the first place. Percival gave us an extended session on discounted cash flows, with enough theater and script mixed in so we will remember what we were taught through all the drama. We had a couple of really interesting marketing classes where Bell and our TA Eric discussed Unilever's entry into the north-eastern Brazil market with a new low-cost detergent. Christian spoke to us about call arrival process modeling and how to estimate wait times and service times in a multi-server Poisson arrival model. We also started discussions on the Toyota Production System with a really cool French video about Citroen and their adoption of TPS.<br />
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We also had a flurry of applicants show up and attend sessions. This is the final stretch now, so I hope everyone has submitted their applications, or are close to doing so. It has been a busy month for me as well on this front. I have interacted with about 11 applicants so far, reviewing essays where asked to, responding to questions and in general providing them the same level of approachability and guidance that class 34 gave me when I visited Wharton last year and asked for help. So many of them are strong applicants and I hope they all make it in - class 37 promises to be one amazing class already!<br />
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Last weekend was also the deadline for my classmates to send in their applications for the Wharton Non-Profit Board Leadership Program. We had several classmates submit their applications already and are in the process of reviewing them. It was amazing to read about a completely different part of their lives that we seldom get to see in school and see how that motivated them to volunteer their time to help others. We hope to find the right set of nonprofits to match them with that can utilize their skills and interests the most, and from whom they can learn and benefit the most as well. We have a one day training program for all applicants planned for mid-Feb. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks!<br />
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As I read these essays from classmates, the essays of the new applicants to WEMBA and interact with my classmates looking into internships and career transitions, I cannot but help think about the Batmobile and race cars. Race cars are built to win - on race tracks. Every piece of their being is fine-tuned for that one act, to extract the last ounce of performance from them under challenging circumstances. The Batmobile on the other hand - a pure work of genius. Driving fast is only one of the things it can do. If you saw it parked outside your local supermarket while someone did grocery shopping, you might notice it because it looks different. But if it didn't, one would never know the things it was capable of.<br />
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Corporate life, to a great extent, seems to be similar. Through our undergraduate and graduate years, we are trained to excel at one specialized area. We get into jobs in that area of specialization, and before we know it, we're being fine tuned to excel at that one thing inside the corporation. Within a few years, we are all race cars ready to win races for our companies in that one area of specialization. But what if there were a few Batmobiles in there, that appear the same as race cars, but in terms of potential were vastly different? Where in the corporate world are there Batmobile detectors that beep when those exceptional employees walk past them and indicate to the management - behold! This is someone that you need to cherish and whose work scope needs to be expanded wider. In other words, how does a Batmobile - so used to its daily routine of winning races that it finds it as interesting as grocery shopping - signal to the outside world that it has potential that they cannot see? What in our corporate HR structure is made to detect these signals? One can learn about Hackman and skill variety and job design, but how does this get integrated into corporate business unit structures and career growth paths? How does one taken a specialist out of their "competency trap" and redeploy them into something else where they are untested but claim potential, or interest, or both?<br />
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All interesting questions ... and as many of us navigate the paths of career transitions, something to ponder about as we think about starting our own enterprises. Where would a Batmobile fit within your organization were you to build one?Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-30879672109079651212011-01-08T22:39:00.000-08:002011-01-08T22:46:14.997-08:00TimingAfter three weeks of rest and recovery, Term 3 started for me this weekend. Many of my classmates took the Global Modular Courses offered locally as well as overseas in India and other countries. I heard from a few of them that the marketing class in India, as well as the product development class out here in San Francisco were quite interesting. Some of us had other commitments during the break and hence could not sign up for these – there is always next December to catch up. <br />
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Friday started early for some of us that are participating in the Global Investment Research Challenge – we met on campus early before classes to strategize and divide up work for the fun ride ahead dissecting a firm’s financials. After two terms, the starting of a term feels like meeting long-lost friends after a while – was awesome to meet everyone again and get back into the cauldron that is the WEMBA program. This session we started with Terwiesch for OPIM, Percival for Corp. Finance, and several instructors led by Carl Maugeri on Management Communication. In two OPIM sessions we play-worked on two production lines – first a small assignment approving/rejecting mortgage applications as a line of 5 people, and then as a longer assignment bidding for contracts to build a circuit board that beeps and blinks based on how quickly a line of 5 employees can churn these out. Competitive juices were out in full flow as teams practiced how quickly they could insert the different components and move the product down the line to reach the tester at the end and be validated to be defect-free. Based on activity times we had to make bids on how low our selling price could be. The winning team in my section made 31 of these in 10 minutes with zero defects – hello, China, here they come!<br />
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The revelation to me for this term so far has been Prof. Percival. Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined that analyzing and contrasting the financials of FedEx and UPS over the past two decades would be presented as interestingly as a suspense thriller. The man should definitely go into theater. It was just fabulous sitting back and soaking it in – seeing how the numbers were just one piece in a larger context in which they were set. The focus of the course is value creation – and from the session we had, it looks like it is not just about the value creation happening in firms, but also within our minds about rethinking the rights and wrongs of earnings management and other shady but legal accounting practices. I’m sure I will spend more space on this course in the coming weeks, so will postpone further analysis. The Management Communication class promises to be engaging as well. It was great fun to be broken up into teams of seven and have an opportunity to address the team on a topic provided to us and speak for 3 minutes about it. We were videotaped and are to get a detailed analysis of how we did and recommendations for improvement during a 30-minute one-on-one meeting next session.<br />
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As if all this action wasn’t sufficient, we had two lunchtime speakers come talk to us about their work – one on impact investing and the other on issues that companies face as they go global. This was also the first session in the MBA program so far that one of the sections had a class as late as 7.15-9.15 pm. <br />
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Some classmates came with their significant others, some with their kids. It was great to see everyone relaxed after a good break and after having spent time with their families. It is difficult to get enough time during the term to do justice to all the relationships in our lives. It reminds me of stuff learnt during undergrad actually, if you will humor me – the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. It states that if you sample a process often enough, you will be able to reconstruct it fully without any loss of quality even though you did not get to witness the entire process. Life during the MBA program seems like an experiment at disproving this. In the recent past theories, like compressive sampling have actually extended this further to say that for sparse signals (that have very little information in them over long durations) one can actually time the sampling at appropriate times, less frequently than the Nyquist rate, and still reconstruct with full fidelity. But unfortunately, not everything in life is a sparse signal. Catching up with friends during breaks might suffice based on how well one knows them, but time not spent with kids is memories that cannot be reconstructed with any other samples from life. One can only try to sample more frequently during breaks and see if one gets back any signal from times that one did not witness. <br />
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Timing seems to be a culprit in corporate behavior as well. As we are learning in the finance class, the artificial segmenting caused in a company’s life through splitting earnings reports into quarters causes the firms to move numbers across the divide to achieve their earnings estimates and manipulate public perception of performance. Clearly a 3-month sampling period seems to be insufficient to gauge how well a firm is doing. It will be interesting to see if the FASB comes up with stricter regulations around these earnings management tricks. OPIM opened our eyes to a different sort of timing – within production lines. For maximal performance of a team, the members need to work in lock-step, or achieve “line balance” as we were told. The takt time needs to be regular. It was also interesting to hear a professor use variance in VO2Max between students as an example for variance between people, just like variance in productivity. Terwiesch's got to be a long-distance runner.<br />
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In life, timing is everything. For those of you that are applying to the program, this is something to keep in mind. As you work on your essays and schedule your interviews, think about why you are doing an MBA, as well as why you are doing it now.Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-42624804421644557532011-01-07T20:14:00.000-08:002011-01-07T20:16:29.187-08:00Global Consulting Practicum - SoyPro in Israel<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who have not heard about GCP, here is the official </span><a href="http://mktgweb.wharton.upenn.edu/gcpcourse/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">home page</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. And below is my unofficial story...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>What people have told me about GCP:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most valuable experiences at Wharton, but it is a LOT of work, really a LOT. Think three times before signing up for it, think ten times before signing up for it during the first year. Since term three is the busiest term, adding GCP to it does not really help. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>What I thought when I heard what people said:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No problem, it is only one term’s hard work. Of course I can handle it during term 3. Let me do it during the first year so that I can focus more on my career second year …</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, the reality is: GCP spans two terms (not one!). During term two, we have to start building a team, writing up project application, bidding for projects, worrying about whether we will get a project, and finally, working on the engagement proposal before flying to Israel after Christmas. AND we are doing all these while preparing for three final exams for term two… Every week, we have a team meeting with the Israel student team, a team meeting with our project faculty (PF) and TA, and an internal team meeting; every three weeks, we report our progress to GCP office; of course, every day, we are searching for data for an unfamiliar industry, building the work plan and dealing with travel logistics to Israel. Wow, I really did not sign up for so much work before term three even started!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You do not think I am writing this to convince everyone not to do GCP, right? Of course not! Even though the work came much earlier and was a lot more than I predicated, every piece of work is accompanied with ten times more fun. Did I mention that I love Israel?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Project:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Israel SoyPro project was not our team’s first pick, but I have to say that I felt really lucky that we did not get our first pick! Now, I realized that GCP is not about the nature of the project, it is about the people and the consulting process. I am not deeply passionate about soy beans but later I found myself laughing with our teammates, each holding an Edamame (immature soybeans in the pod) in hand taking a picture in a Japanese restaurant in Israel. All I have to say is that accept any project you get, surprises will come during your journey, especially from the people you are about to meet and the country you are about to experience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Israel:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Winter might not be a good time to travel to Europe or Asia, but winter is great in Israel. It was in the 70-80’s when I floated in the Dead Sea and soaked myself in the mud. The beaches in the Dead Sea or Tele Aviv are just amazing: blue in color and quiet with healing power. Masada and Jerusalem are about the culture and history of this amazing country. Even though I am not religious, it was just fun to listen to the ancient stories, walking the old city and taking pictures of art, food and architecture. I had the best hummus, kebab and falafel in the world, the best. The coffee, wine, fine dining, and sleepless energy made Israel a lively city. Wow, food is really just yummy: lamb spareribs, chicken pate, gnocchi, bread, pomegranate juice and dessert. Of course, it also gifted me with several lbs in weight – it certainly did not help to watch “eat, love, pray” on the way to Israel. I constantly asked myself: when did I start to feel guilty of enjoying life (aka food)?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Work:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of work. I arrived two days early for sightseeing knowing that once work starts, there will be no time for break. We worked from 9am to 10/11pm every day. But of course after work, we ate together, took a taxi to hotel and fell right to sleep. Exciting discussions happen every day – it is so much more existing to argue in person than on the phone-, but we are making rapid decisions. Many stakeholders gave us many feedbacks towards different directions, but we have 100% liberty to decide whether to incorporate their feedbacks. We are perfectionist when it comes to work. The biggest satisfaction is when the client said “I am very positively impressed by your proposal” with a big smile. It was only the first victory, but it meant so much to all of us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>People: </u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I cannot remember how many times our Israeli team members or our Wharton team members told me during the week in Israel: “I feel so lucky that I am on this team (and not on the other team ).” We first met on the phone every week for more than a month and we became friends; we then spent a whole week together under one roof and we became best friends. We are also very lucky to have no-nonsense project faculties (PF). Our PFs taught us so much about consulting in real life and shared so much of their personal experiences with us that we really felt connected with them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>The road ahead:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While we still have 4 months’ work in front of us and I might change my perception about GCP during the tough journey, I felt confident that I will be back to Israel one day to visit my dear friends there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Pardon any typos or grammar errors. Jetlag is my excuse. :)</span>Lanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13608738308855916632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-11270427286705977172011-01-02T15:20:00.000-08:002011-01-02T15:37:54.806-08:00A new year, a new term<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Its hard to believe but we are 1/3rd of the way through! This week, we start term 3, and it is going to be </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">one</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> hectic term. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It was a good break between terms; for some of us, it was a chance to spend some good time with family; for others, it was GCP travel; for some, its going to be week long modular courses. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some of us spent time doing investment research on a company as part of the CFA Institute's Investment Research Challenge. While the report is not due for another seven weeks, the break offered a good opportunity to do some background data mining. Personally, it provided me an opportunity to get to know the Lippincott library better. While we are based in San Francisco, and don't have physical access to the library, the online access more than makes up for it. In a span of days, I was able to collect 100s of articles, forecasts and research reports. When I couldn't find something I needed, I just emailed the librarians, who actually ran queries for me, and returned some very interesting search data. Amazing!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Lan mentioned in her post about the last minute dash to get the PRiSM assignment done. She got done before our group :) Some of us sat past closing time (and convinced Larry to keep the campus open) so that we could have a shot at submitting our assignment. The assignments are tough by themselves; working with study team dynamics adds another dimension to the assignment. (For the non-WEMBA reader: the PRiSM assignment requires us to model the ability of individuals to repay their loans, based on multiple parameters that could impact credit-worthiness. Its a huge multiple regression for the statistically inclined).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If the past is any predictor of the future, the professors will keep us on our toes, the discussions ought to be just as mentally stimulating, and the classroom interaction just as fun. </span></div></div>Arifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794262688053234088noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-54701964042014683042010-12-20T06:18:00.000-08:002010-12-20T06:18:18.317-08:00How did I miss the class photo?I have not posted for such a long time and I forgot my password on blogspot... Or, maybe I am just getting old with each term?<div><br />
<div>It is hard to post after Anand's philosophical writing, but I thought I would put down some simple words to end my 2nd term.</div><div><br />
</div><div>So, how did I miss the class photo? Simply put, I had too many things going on during the last day. Right after the Stats final, I run down to the 4th floor to finish up the PRiSM case, knowing that a career service appointment is coming up at 12pm and GCP team meeting at 1pm (which last for the rest of the afternoon). Most of my learning teammates joined me before noon with wine/beer in hand. Since classmates promised to call us before the photo session starts, we focused on the case. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Even though the 4th floor study room is not at all where you want to be with a glass of wine, we were surprised that there is actually cell signal. We got the photo call, then hurried to the elevator. Elevator rose to the 5th floor but the door did not open. In a panic, we started pressing other floors and the elevator started going down slowly, a little faster than the snail. We can see a little light coming through whenever we passed a floor. Finally, we reached the first floor and attempted to break the door without any sign of success. So we started pressing the emergency button, calling classmates on cell phone... It was really warm inside the elevator, which made me more anxious... I cannot remember how we got out but I remember the relief I felt when the door opened and when I saw Larry's big smile. And the photo was done.</div></div><div><br />
</div><div>The silver lining is that we are moving to a new building next year so the new students probably will not encounter the elevator episode. But the lesson to myself is "do not end the semester with three hard deadlines in a row". While we did complete all the tasks on time, I had no wine, no fun, not even a chance to say congrats or goodbye to my classmates. I wish I have learned the important lessons Anand learned - not to get bogged down in the homeworks and deadlines, but training your mind to cut down to the chase by distilling the situation down to its basics - which is to enjoy life and be happy.</div>Lanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13608738308855916632noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-28393138670004501942010-12-19T17:21:00.000-08:002010-12-19T17:37:29.730-08:00Penchant for parsimonyAs Term 2 wraps up and we head towards the holidays, one lesson that stays in mind from the term is the importance of being concise and precise in what we say by getting to the heart of the issue quickly and efficiently. Abel called it "nuanced observations", Ziv called it "nuggets", while Waterman taught us that we should always be parsimonious in our choice of regression models. So a penchant for parsimony was indeed what we tried to develop in the last four months. Ittner distilled down complicated cost accounting scenarios to the basics of activity based costing and allocation bases. Abel taught us how to simplify interactions between international economies through the IS-LM, AD-AS models and the asset, goods and labor markets. Useem made us focus on leading people by "saying it so it sticks" and providing us with a leadership template that summarizes the essentials of how to lead effectively. Waterman, through the PRiSM credit risk modeling gave us a sneak-peek into getting comfortable with volumes of data and analyzing and finding a signal within noisy, discontinuous, real-world data. Finally, Ziv made us realize how complex the issue of insurance hedges against oil price shocks could be, and gave us a taste of how we could navigate those waters by just focusing on the essentials and simulating and analyzing different risk environments. In essence, Term 2, for me, was all about learning not to get bogged down in the details of the data or the business situation that you are in, but training your mind to cut down to the chase by distilling the situation down to its basics, getting a laser focus on the key issues that need to be addressed, and finding appropriate solutions for them.<br />
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This post, however, clearly does not attempt to do what its title suggests. There's a lot to talk about, given that we're done with Term 2. Just a year ago, we were all busy with our admissions essays, talking to alums and students, figuring out the best time to interview with John and Barbara, deciding on where else to apply, supporting friends who were going through the same process ... fond memories of a time apparently from the distant past. The year just flew by, and boy what a journey it has been. Many of us in our class had significant events happen in our lives. Shane got married on the week school started, soon to be followed by Chad and more recently by Tao. Chandra kicked off the class 36 baby series soon after we got our admissions calls, and we've had Sonny and Harshit adding to their families as well. Mohit is leading the pack among the liberated ones to have taken the decision to submit themselves to a lifelong overlordship by getting engaged. Congratulations to all of you and welcome to the new additions to the class 36 family!<br />
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The last session was over before it began. We had two finals, and a credit risk homework due in Waterman's class. It was a welcome change to sit in Ziv's exam and not have time pressure to complete the test. One had time to admire the surroundings, wonder what the answers might be to problems that one didn't have a clue about, and in general ponder about existence and other matters of consequence. Waterman rounded up the term with a multiple choice final where one ended up with different answers for the same questions depending on how many trials one attempted on the problem. Now if only they converged to the right choice ...<br />
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We celebrated the end of the term with a toast - yes, beer and wine before noon! Here's a picture of the class looking relieved to be one-third done with our MBAs.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTSLepKChffgg6hKkvinmUyCgDSDZADb9YcaKhoar-8TNCFkp_cpc-cxJawh7Miaf6xg0VWaHpRruEvcVaPnBwEqH4T2rWwOADVcNJe22lYje1CFzYduAtH5EZmhtNx1EGGNmgxjHGq9WD/s1600/069.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTSLepKChffgg6hKkvinmUyCgDSDZADb9YcaKhoar-8TNCFkp_cpc-cxJawh7Miaf6xg0VWaHpRruEvcVaPnBwEqH4T2rWwOADVcNJe22lYje1CFzYduAtH5EZmhtNx1EGGNmgxjHGq9WD/s1600/069.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Well, not really. The term was not quite over for many of us. We had postponed completing our credit risk analysis project for Waterman (called PRiSM2) until the weekend, so many of us were in the building until late evening. Thank you Larry for staying past your usual 7 pm closing time just to accommodate us poor souls cranking out a report and predictions before the 9 pm deadline. We owe you big time!<br />
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As the year draws to a close, many of us are also beginning our journey towards the goals that we have set for ourselves post-MBA. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many classmates start their companies in the past few months - first steps towards what I'm sure will be great efforts and at least a few big successes. Kudos to you all! Thanks to the dedication of classmates like Satish and Abhishek, the class had several informational treks to companies in the Bay area, forging relationships with them and paving the path for future classes to benefit from these interactions. For those that intend to apply to Wharton, look forward to several key announcements coming up early next year, about the new campus, new career management services locally, and the laying of foundations for relationships with firms in cleantech, finance, consulting and other key Bay area industries. Doug has been hard at work in making a lot of this happen, assisted by folks like Eswar from class 35 and Satish and others from my class. <br />
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That's it for now. Happy Holidays everyone and hope all of you have a wonderful new year ahead!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-42401012732735547052010-12-13T22:18:00.000-08:002010-12-14T20:16:52.128-08:00Refueling ...Many of you would be aware of the interesting problem of a truck traveling in the desert. The truck gets 10 mpg, and starts next to N 50 gallon gas drums. Its tank can hold 10 gallons and is empty, and it can only carry one 50-gallon drum. You're asked to figure out how far the truck can go in the desert.<br />
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Why is this interesting, apart from its mathematical challenge? As several of you heard, the Wharton full-time program has made an announcement opening up executive-education classes for free (a limited number every so many years) for its alums. This is definitely a step in the right direction.<br />
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What is less known, but more significant for WEMBA students, alums and applicants, is that WEMBA classes are open to alums to audit, subject to approval by the faculty. This is a really cool part of the program for those that feel that they need to refresh their knowledge on something they learnt several years ago, or for auditing a class that was not offered at the time they were in school.<br />
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Reaching one's destination often involves several constrained optimization problems. Those that plan ahead and stow away refueling and recharging material for use when needed often end up reaching farther along the path to their destinations than those that don't. In this journey, it is heartening to note that Wharton helps by stowing away some of those refueling materials for us along the way, to stop, refuel and charge ahead. <br />
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Just thought I should highlight this at a time when Wharton and the revamp of the fulltime curriculum is being discussed. One more reason to join the program!<br />
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Updates: <br />
1. You can read about the curriculum overhaul <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/dec2010/bs2010123_828086.htm">here</a>.<br />
2. The curriculum overhaul is going to reflect into the WEMBA program as well, probably starting 2012.<br />
3. WEMBA class audits are free once you graduate from the program, East or West.Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-31664904985216503132010-12-07T22:27:00.000-08:002010-12-07T22:30:47.523-08:00On apples, consumption, and giving back ...Another weekend, another final. Term two comes to a close 11 days from now, bringing us a third of our way towards our destination. Last weekend we got done with our macroecon finals. As expected we had really interesting questions on the final, including Abel's trademark two-period apple consumption/allocation problem. Speaking with him over lunch, I learnt that multi-period consumption models are an area of research of his, which is probably the reason we get to consume apples at all his exams. Its pretty awesome how one "toy problem" (as Ziv calls these) can highlight so many aspects of real life macroeconomic issues such as tax rates, interest rates, binding borrowing constraints and social security. On being asked about his other areas of research, he tried to dumb down and explain one of the other topics he was working on - "optimal inattention to the stock market" which seemed quite fascinating as well. It would have been great if we got more time to interact with our faculty to learn about their areas of research and how that applies towards real-world problems. Zander from our class got a tshirt designed for Abel with apples in front and "Extreme Consumption Smoother" at the back, and we gifted it to him at the final lecture - was pretty cool! As Kent mentioned to me tonight, Abel should be glad that we didn't give him the parting gift that we gave Kent - classrooms plastered with posters that deify all the "demons" that he made fun of in class. <br />
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The two-period consumption/allocation model serves as a good metaphor for the two years at Wharton for all of us as well. How we allocate our time across the two years - when to get burnt out, when to conserve energy, when to accumulate "brownie points" at home to use efficiently when needed, how to partition workload at work between the two years .. it is actually not a bad approximation, coming to think of it. Speaking of multi-period models, we had, in my view, one of the most interesting sessions in the program so far in Ziv's class over the weekend where we discussed a risk management case for hedging against oil price shocks through different insurance contracts. That was followed by a lightning drive-thru through PERT and CPM time-to-completion analysis and job completion times. It would have been interesting to have this as a full-credit class spread through the term so we got a better opportunity to internalize and learn more about these fascinating topics.<br />
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After that cerebral weekend in school, I ended the Saturday at a class 34 alum's house party with many class 34 students. Was great to see them again after the holiday party last year and their subsequent graduation. It was interesting to see that it was better attended this year - now that the class had graduated and had fewer opportunities to meet. It was also interesting to see how many of their careers had evolved in the past two years. Can't wait to see how the paths of class 36ers course-correct and accelerate over the next 16 months. <br />
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Though a good chunk of this post focused on academics, we're hardly all about classroom experiences. Here's a sneak peek at some of the cool stuff my rock-star classmates have been upto. After the gruelling weekend, some of them had international flights to catch, to travel to their first client meetings as part of the <a href="http://mktgweb.wharton.upenn.edu/gcpcourse/">Global Consulting Practicum</a> - one of the great experiences of the Wharton program for those that are interested. On top of the insane hours we need to put in into Term 3, these troopers like Monica have signed on to work with an international client, and students from an international MBA program to advise the firm on a consulting project. Hats off to them, and good luck!<br />
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Continuing the tradition of the earlier classes, class 36, under the leadership of Wendy are planning to extend and expand on the <a href="http://wlp.wharton.upenn.edu/MBA/nonprofit-board-leadership-pro.cfm">NonProfit Board Leadership Program</a> in its West Coast incarnation. Call for applications has gone out and we will have training sessions coming up next term for the individuals who will join the Boards of different local nonprofits starting next June. Another project that's progressing pretty well with serious involvement from classmates like Chandan is <a href="http://energizethechain.org/">Energize The Chain</a> - an awesome project that aims to solve cold-chain issues in vaccine storage in developing nations by innovatively using cell towers. Its amazing to see folks devoting time towards giving back to the world around us through initiatives such as these even in the midst of their busy lives juggling work, home and school. Kudos to you!<br />
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Many of you might have read about Wharton's overhaul of its curriculum as <a href="http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/news/4080.cfm">announced</a> earlier this week. Watch this space (or the <a href="http://www.whartonexecutivemba.com/">official EMBA blog</a>) for updates on the implications of this for the EMBA program. Thats it for the penultimate update for 2010! Roundup of term 2 and the year coming up in two weeks!Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-74043893039378089762010-11-20T23:27:00.000-08:002010-11-21T13:57:59.123-08:00Mind over matter ...<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It feels good to be back home, a day after possibly the longest day we will have in the program. For most of us, yesterday began really early (for some the night before ended very late). We had classes from 9.30-12.30, 1.30-4.30, 4.45-6.45 and to top it all, a two-hour exam on leadership from 7.30-9.30 where we had to write essays on leadership related issues based on cases we had learnt. Did I mention that we had two homeworks assignments due as well?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> Hats off to fellow 36ers who survived the day and came out unscathed. Many of us went back and celebrated at the Wharton Pub at the end of it all. The day started with Bretton Woods and the Big Mac Index, gained momentum with Monte Carlo simulations and exotic option pricing, and led us into dinner with volatility smiles and Mahalanobis distances. If you didn't follow me through the end of that sentence, not to worry. I didn't either - now the lecture notes would have to rescue me. After all that, we got time to hurry and huddle together for a quick dinner and then take the test of our lives. I don't think I've written so much since my English exam in 12th grade, where I had to critique Pygmalion, Lord of the Flies and Macbeth over three hours. Since then, laptops arrived and the clickety-clack of the keyboard has replaced writing for most of us. Getting my fingers and shoulder used to writing for that long again was definitely an interesting experience. Studying for the test was a worthwhile exercise as well, tying together the different concepts we learnt in the leadership class.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the middle of all this, several of my classmates were busy preparing to deliver their presentations for the International Study Tour choices. This year the top three contenders were Turkey, China and Brazil. The extent of research done by the teams and the quality of their presentations was just remarkable! These guys should work the tourism departments of those countries. Thank you guys for giving us a quick crash course on the business potential and party potential of all these countries. Whichever we end up picking, I'm sure that many of us would visit the other options as well in the future, so we will rely on your expertise and contacts to guide us then.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And just when I thought that class 36ers (yours truly included) had minds of steel that could conquer it all, today put things in perspective. Unfortunately, the day began with one of our faculty having a medical emergency and canceling his session in the morning. While we had a joint session for the other class in the morning, we waited to hear that he was well and was going to be taking time off to rest and recover while we figure out how to reschedule the class. But he had other ideas. He rushed out of the hospital at the first chance he got back to campus, so he could teach us what would be one of the most interesting topics we have covered in the class so far. Despite appearing to be tired, it was clear how excited he was to teach the same topic that he has probably taught to Wharton students for decades. The commitment, dedication, and pure mastery over the subject were just inspiring to watch and an experience to be part of. We all wish him the best of health and speedy recovery! </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In journeys like this one, it is often the quality of the minds (like the one above) that you encounter that matter. The nuances of their commentary, the sophistication of their world view on their subject matter, their keen senses of humor - these are experiencies that will get etched in our memories forever. For that, I'm glad to be back in school, and to be back at a place like this where one sees the mind transcending physical limits and achieving what one would think was not possible.</div>Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-14744529127358046912010-11-16T21:22:00.000-08:002010-11-21T13:57:59.123-08:00The road less traveled ...Thanks to the leadership and efforts of our Vice Dean, Doug Collom, Wharton San Francisco in conjunction with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati launched the first session of a series of workshops focused on entrepreneurship. This first episode of the Wharton Entrepreneurs Workshop got oversubscribed in a few hours after it was offered, which is a great indicator of how many among the Wharton community (students and alumni) are interested in starting companies, or are currently doing so. I was not surprised to have this validated at the event either. I met a few alums and current students who left their jobs a year ago and are in the early prototype stages of their startups that they bootstrapped so far. <br />
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Class 36ers were of course, the largest contingent, given that we're already in school and this felt like another lecture we could go to. The speaker today was Rob Coneybeer, co-founder and general partner at Shasta Ventures. The discussion was around what the focus should be while starting a company - how much of a focus on the product vs. team and other things. He had a few interesting observations to make and experiences and anecdotes to share. Can't wait for future episodes of this series. Doug is also trying to get these archived so that folks who could not make it can watch them offline.<br />
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Why is this the update for the week? When interviewing at Wharton I used to compare what resources are available here with the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs at Philly, and wonder how much of it we were missing here. Though we still probably aren't there at that level of operation, efforts like this are unique to our geography that no other region in the US could do as well. We are at an amazing confluence of technology, capital, talent and entrepreneurial bent, and programs like this are ideally positioned to leverage all of these and fashion the big successes of tomorrow.<br />
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So if you thought Wharton in SF and entreneurship did not gel well, think again. And keep watching this space for more updates on such programs. The road to entrepreneurial success is a long and lonely one, and events like this help solidify connections that go a long way towards making that journey quicker, livelier and more memorable.Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-975691666942964918.post-17026991003401943822010-11-08T22:39:00.000-08:002010-11-21T13:57:59.123-08:00Pedal to the metal ...Last week was probably the toughest so far in the program. Two midterms, one homework submission, one team-project simulation and a lot of required reading for OPIM that started last session. It felt great to survive that and forge ahead ... albeit from the frying pain into a rapidly forming fire. We were supposed to have a final in the leadership class as well this session, but we managed to get that postponed so that things were more manageable.<br />
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Having said that, some of the experiences were just surreal. It is not everyday that one has the opportunity to look at a headline news item on the Fed and their actions to get us out of the financial mess and hear one's Professor explain in class "Ben must have done that because ...". For those that think that this sounds like PR for Wharton, let me add that other top programs would rightfully have similar claims to make as well. My experience is at Wharton, hence the description. In Abel's class we also had a simulation where we got to run economies as a fiscal team or a monetary team and wreck them through our badly chosen interest rates and taxes. There were a select few that won the tournament of course, through judicious and prudent policies. But it was fun to wreck an economy nevertheless, something one might never get a chance to do again ...<br />
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Speaking of other programs, we had a get-together of MBA students and alums from the Berkeley-Columbia, UCLA and Wharton programs on Friday night at the Meridien. Was interesting to chat with students and alums from other programs and compare notes. Many of us class 36ers were spent after two days of exams and homeworks, so we might have sounded a bit brain-dead to the rest of you ... accept our apologies for that :).<br />
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It was also great to meet with prospective applicants who attended our sessions. Looking at their backgrounds and accomplishments, I think class 37 is going to be an amazing class .. just as ours ;). Its getting time for you guys to narrow down your choices in terms of programs, as well as what to put on your resumes and essays. If you haven't scheduled your interview at Wharton already, you might want to get on the phone and get started soon. John and Barbara are amazing people to talk to, and let us assure you that they don't bite, so come soon! If class 36 is in session, I do hope to meet with all of you while you're in as well.<br />
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The other highlight of the weekend was Ziv's OPIM opening session. It is kind of surprising, spooky and brilliant all at the same time when your Professor walks into the room knowing all your names and employers and looks at you at appropriate parts of the lecture to point out to you how it relates to your job, or asks for your input based on your direct background. The material seems heavy on math but the treatment in class was more to stimulate intuition and teach the correct thought process for making business decisions, so it would be interesting to see how these two paths converge as the course progresses.<br />
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It was also great to see so many spouses, partners and children show up for this session. We also had Doug speaking to us about his plans for WEMBA West in the months to come and details about the announcement about the new campus. Given all the activities that we had, there were no speakers scheduled this time, which was great as it gave us time to catch our breath during the hectic sessions. <br />
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Post-session, it felt great to see that diapers.com, which was started by a couple of WEMBA West alums, got acquired by Amazon for a good chunk of Benjamins. Of course, as Waterman told us this time, "correlation is not causation". But hey, it feels good to think that it might be. Given the interest level and experience that my class has in entrepreneurship, I wouldn't be surprised if 5-7 years down the line it was one of their names that I find on a similar news article. On that note, its time to post this and call it a night ...Anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12913849369708583471noreply@blogger.com1