Seeding the UK Business Schools network

On Saturday (16th) a few of us from Judge Business School, Said Business School, London Business School, Warwick Business School and Manchester Business School met in Oxford to explore avenues of better interaction and networking among the various UK business schools.

As an outcome of this meeting, we plan to increase the interaction between the schools and have a lot of inter-school competition.

Daniel from SBS hosted this event at his school. He was a wonderful host and took us around to some of the wonderful places (pubs, monuments, colleges et al.,) in Oxford. It is really an impressive place (just as Cambridge is); with a lot of history and tradition.

Leadership seminar with Sunil Mittal

Today we had a leadership seminar with Sunil Mittal. He talked about how India has developed over the years from a socialistic economy to a more liberalized economy. In 1992 the country had only 7 days worth of foreign-exchange reserves and had to mortgage its gold with the Bank of England to borrow $500 million. India was even thinking of selling its prime-property around the world to raise money (e.g., the Prime real-estate where the Indian embassy in Tokyo is located). This is really what drove India into liberalization along with a lot of pressure from the World Bank and IMF.

It was in this liberalized economy starting in 1992 that Sunil Mittal build Bharati Enterprise to become one of India's premier business houses. Bharati's flagship company Airtel now has a market capitalization of over $35 billion. His story resonates like the story of many of the Indian businesses that were started by entrepreneurs in the 1990's.

His view is that India is at a cross-road with a lot of potential and is growing rapidly. The next two decades will make or break India. He feels that the areas that needs the most development and support in India are education, agriculture and research in pure-sciences.

I liked the way he explained complex things in very simple terms. What I liked even more was that he used numbers to make his point across rather than using casual rhetoric.

Chinese New Year

We welcomed the Chinese New Year (The Year of the Rat) with a big-bang party on the 9th. Our Chinese friends made every-effort to dish out some real nice cuisine and festivities. We sang and danced through the night. The 'God of Fortune' came around and gave us gifts. The person dressed as the God was none other than the great Tao from my previous study-group. Here are a few pictures from that eventful night.

How do we learn?

This term has been a killer one with too many assignment and so much ready. However, I like it as we are learning newer things every day and learning to manage our time in a better way. The learning methodology is also quite different. For each of the case study we do in clasee, we get industry experts come in and give us their view points.

Example : We had a case on strategy case on Google and we had someone from Google to talk more about the case. So was the case with cases about Patents, Innovation and People Management. I'm really enjoying the learning part of it and tired of the incessant reading.

Looking forward for the results of the Technology Enabled Enterprise Transformation contest we had today.

MBA Rankings

The FT rankings were out yesterday and it was cool to see JBS leap in to league of the Top 10 MBAs in the world. Pretty cool for us.

I hope this influences employer perceptions and rake in more opportunities and moolah for the JBS students/alumni :).

Here is a list of recent international MBA rankings :

FT 2008- (JBS rank - 10)
Economist 2007- (JBS rank -7)
Forbes 2007 - (JBS Rank - 3, among 1 year non-US schools)

It is now time to hit the bed. Today, as part of the Operations Management course, a few of us went to the Leyland Truck factory to view their production process and operations. It was a great learning exercise. I will post more about this visit later in the week.

The new learning group

The new term started out with a few reading marathons. There is so much pre and post session reading to do. Not that I'm complaining, just imagine reading about 100 odd pages every day before and after class (on top of all the other activities). Wow !!! Hope I can keep up with the reading.

This term seems much more interesting and engaging than the last term. The first term was more of a foundation and basic reinforcement term, this term is more about practice and current market learning(s).

I'm now part of a new learning group. We have a great diverse group.

1) Sandie from Singapore - she was a Tax consultant at E&Y
2) Will from UK - he was a Plastic Surgeon
3) Natalie from Russia - she was working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
4) Johnny from China - he was working in the advertisement industry and was a presenter on MTV

I believe I can learn a lot from the experiences of the people in my learning group.

By the by, I'm back on my Salsa classes and enjoying the vibe.

The beginning of a new term (Lent Term)

We had the Michaelmas term final exams during the last week. The final exams are old fashioned closed book exams (quite an effort to write pages on pages of what is on our mind). Starting from Monday, we step in to the Lent term.

After the long Christmas break, I'm looking forward to be in class again and enjoy the company of my friends. By the by, the first round of interviews for this years MBA class will start on Monday. There are about 30 prospective students who will be interviewed on Monday in Cambridge.

From a careers perspective, this term will focus more on careers in consulting. As of now, we know that McKinsey, Bain, ATKearney, Accenture and Oliver Wyman are coming to the school for recruitment.

The holiday season

This holiday season was a wonderful one for Aidah and I. We had a great time with our new friends in Cambridge (especially Christmas and New Year's eve). Here are a few pictures from the Christmas day and New Year party.

The Christmas Party at Sir Paul Judge's house

We had a bash of a Christmas party at Sir Paul Judge's house in London. It was a great place (a penthouse overlooking the Thames river). Almost everyone from the MBA class was there for the party.

A few pictures from that event.

Leadership seminar with Lord Swaraj Paul

Lord Swaraj Paul did a talk about Leadership and Innovation at JBS on the 5th of December. He was more of an old style speaker and read most of his speech. However, it was a very punchy and influential talk. It was about the lessons he learnt on his journey establishing a company that has a revenue of over £600 million. He started his first company in Cambridge with a sum of £5,000, which he had borrowed.

One of the important things he did (and the best in his 16 years in his business career) was the de-listing of his company from the stock-exchanges. His view is that once the company is listed, it becomes essential to please the city and the short-term goals of the business takes priority. It is much easier to borrow money from the banks and the borrowing also ensures that you get a free consultant on board who gives free advice and ensures that money is efficiently spent. His company is going gaga about India and China and are setting up a number of plants in both countries.