21 posts tagged “mymbajourney”

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be. That's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better.

 

There are times when people disappoint you and let you down, but those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself and all that you are capable of.

 

There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them. Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are, So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be, because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

Finally wait is over…sigh! I can confirm for myself now that I’ll not be going to B-school this year!

Alas! as per the results list,  my name was missing! It dethroned my fate of MBA admission into the Top 6^th best B-school in India… at least for this year but I’m not regretful for that.

Definitely, it doesn’t sent me into fits of despondency!..seriously thats not the school i aimed at...but I was aspired for the Best School : IIMA or IIMC…certainly not for this…YES, I feel I’m a capable  guy to get into these two institutes.. But again for that I have to cross the big hurdle called …CAT (it’s a likely Tiger mind you!)   That's exactly am gonna do it:)

 

Right now, i'm recalling Walter D. Wintle's inspirational poem …absolutely awe-inspiring!

The Man Who Thinks He Can

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you like to win, but you think you can’t.

 It is almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world we find success begins with a fellow's will.

It's all in the state of mind. If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before you can even win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man
But soon or late the man who wins is the man who thinks he can
-Walter D. Wintle

 

Nevertheless, my task is cutout…like The Conquistador Hernando Cortés in the past…where in order to eliminate any ideas of retreat, Cortés burned his own troop’s ships….Man…He did have balls! (no punK)….well, anyway that’s shows the hungry for a WIN over enemy that clearly depicts in his every instinct… absolutely when you know what you really worth then its you the one who got to go there and get what you deserve!

No Question about it….YOU GOT TO WIN! badly....YES, VOUS AVEZ à GAGNER!

Oops!...you know I was missing my French lesson from many days…L but again I was seriously busy in the office with presentations stuff!

 

It seems like I’ll continue French whenever I find little time and moreover I’ll make it as my relaxation stopJ

 

Au revoir!

 

The Extra Effort…! Absolutely, I just need little more extra effort which definitely ensures my dream for sureJ . Thanks to my buddy for sending this excellent link which I posted here.  I’m recharged! I know my goal is very hard but you know it’s completely ok it might take lot of efforts, why not after all my dream is one of the greatest dream so its worth it and it gonna be one of the greatest achievement in my career.  So, I’m ready to put my extra effortJ

‘Second Chance'

 

           If i might have a second chance to live the day's once more. 

And rectify mistakes i made to even up the score. 

 

If i might have a second chance  to use the knowledge gained, 

perhaps i might become at last as fine as God ordained. 

 

But though i can't retrace my steps, however stands the score, 

tomorrow brings another chance for me to try once more. 

 

Yes, I Can Do It.

I'll Win For Sure.

 

© naresh

 

 

My First Million: I am not a conformist

As i said in my earlier post, i wanted to post all the successful entrepreneur's stories for inspiration.

*Its a story of Grocery retail in India got a facelift, thanks to Subramanian, the man behind the Subhiksha chain.

AN opportunity to work as an investment banker with Citibank could have been anybody’s dream job, but this man gave it up to pursue his own ambitions. And definitely for the better. “I am grateful I didn’t have to work for a typical nine-to-six job for long,” says R Subramanian, the mastermind behind Subhiksha, India’s largest grocery and pharmacy retail chain.

 

An IIT-IIM graduate—and a topper of his batch—Subramanian barely worked with Citibank for a couple of weeks before realising that his passion lay elsewhere. The year was 1989. “I was always a conformist and wanted to do different things in life,” says this 41-year-old entrepreneur.
After Citibank, Subramanian joined Royal Enfield in Chennai as one of its general managers. However, that too couldn’t hold him back for long. Two years later he finally decided to venture out on his own. Hailing from a service background—his father was an officer in the Reserve Bank of India—entrepreneurship was an unusual choice for Subramanian. However, that did not deter him from treading into the world of business.
   Within a few months, he established his own outfit, Vishwapriya Financial Services and Securities that introduced IPO financing in in 1994. “While the question of capital grips several wouldbe entrepreneurs, I gathered an initial fund of Rs 50 lakh from angel investors,” he says. Launched with just two people, this Chennai-based company has today grown to be a Rs 250-crore entity with a headcount of 120 people across India.
   And that’s not all. Riding on the success of his first company, Subramanian decided to get into discount retailing. “In the mid-nineties, our finance business was doing well and we were planning to diversify. We studied two options, retail and software, and eventually zeroed in on the former,” he recalls. “I approached angel investors once again for an initial investment of Rs 50 lakh by the help of which I established my first outlet along with 10 people in a basement in Adyar, Chennai in 1997,” says Subramanian. Needless to mention, it became huge hit. Today, the chain has over 1,000 outlets nationally spread over 90 cities, with a turnover of Rs 2,300 crore.
   With Subhiksha, Subramanian changed the way groceries in India were sold. “We studied the Indian model of retail and combined it with the convenience of neigh bourhood retail with the benefit of discounts available from hypermarkets thereby creating a supply chain that could make the kirana operate cost efficiently,” he says.
   The model has been well received across the country, says Subramanian: “It gives me a huge kick to see that our model is not only being studied by management gurus here but is also being copied by global retailers who want to foray into the Indian market. Subramanian’s first million came in the first year of retailing operations in 1997. Now he has much grander plans. “We will continue to grow and be India‘s largest retailer in every segment,” he says, adding, “We plan to increase our presence in existing markets and selectively enter other markets as well.” However, the journey has not been all that simple. The biggest issue Subramanian says he faced was opposition to his pharma retail model from drug distribution cartels. “We sell medicines at a discounted rate of 10% and got into a spat with drug companies and distributors. However, the issue was resolved when we dragged them to court,” Subramanian reminisces.

Well, i wanna post all the great entrepreneur's successful stories...how they buit their business ventures and how these guy's earned their first Million Dollors...I'm sure this will be inspiring for anybody who has dream to become budding entrepreneur...put it like this who wanna be Millionaire..J

My First Million:  How Career Launcher spread his business

 

*Career Launcher is one of the reputed CAT coaching institute in India.

 

He first dropped education to pursue a career in cricket and then cricket to pursue education. “It was when I feared failing, I thought of securing my future by studying further,” says Career Launcher group chairman Satya Narayanan.

This self-effacing alumnus from IIM-Bangalore started his business from his New Delhi home with an initial investment of Rs 360, a table and four chairs for a classroom.

Hailing from a lower-middle class family, Narayanan did his initial education in Hyderabad, and then shifted to Meerut along with his family. “It was then that my father brought me a pair of slippers, as north India was known for chilly winters. I went barefoot to school in Hyderabad,” he reminisces.

When his family later shifted to Delhi, his passion for cricket took over and Narayanan dropped his Class 12 exams to participate in an under-15 cricket tournament. But soon enough, he realised that reaching the pinnacle of the game could be a very long and risky journey. Narayanan eventually took his class 12 exams and sailed through with 90% marks. That got him through St Stephen’s College in Delhi where he opted for a degree in computer science.

The next stop was IIM-Bangalore, where he was hired by pharmaceutical major Ranbaxy on campus. It was here that Narayanan’s interest in training began taking shape. “I used to find ways of getting into training. I realised that it was something that interests me and decided to start Career Launcher,” he says. He began with a post-CAT personality development programme (PDP), and found a helpful assistant in James, a student of DCAC College at Delhi University, who got posters and pamphlets for the programme printed and distributed.

Finally, in January 1995, Narayanan quit to start full time training of PDP batches from his home. The numbers began to swell and with 80 students enrolling into the programme, he approached his IIM and non-IIM friends for assistance. “Initially, they scoffed at the idea. But I finally convinced them to conduct classes in their flats. I used to buy them beer during weekends to compensate for the trouble they took for me,” says Narayanan.

Those days, mock-tests for CAT had just been started by St Stephen’s, SRCC, IIT and the Delhi college of Engineering. Narayanan proposed to these institutions a common mock CAT for Delhi students. This clicked, and 425 students took the common test in the first year. Thereafter, he also managed to convince other institutes across India for a national mock-test.

“We roped in a leading magazine and tied-up with a watch brand to give away watches to the top 25 test rankers. I also took into confidence bus drivers who delivered our material to smaller towns,” says Narayanan.

In the second year, close to 4,000 students across 22 cities took the mock-test and 300 students enrolled into his PDPs. “I made my first million in 1996. My friends and I went on a holiday to Nimrana, Alwar and Bharatpur Sanctuary. That was a remuneration to my friends for helping me so much,” he says.

Career Launcher is now a Rs 70-crore company with a presence in the US and the Middle East and an expanded portfolio including school, higher education and overseas test preparation services. And Narayanan is aiming higher too, “We are expecting a turnover of Rs 100 crore this fiscal,” he says.

 

Only Dream: I just want to be one among them and be a part of famous alumnus…J

Hello…. World….J

 

It’s been very long time I hadn’t updated my status…on preparation front.

Please forgive me…oops! With whom I’m begging this, absolutely not at all require to mention. Because I think, I’m the owner of my own destiny!

 

Well….let me tell you all these days, I was busy with my object deliverable with my client.

Thank god there’s not much of problem while performing UAT (user acceptance test)...I’m successfully completed my FIRST object under Finance module…J

Just today I got an appreciation mail from my great client…J

 

For your kind information, even I’m also done with this year’s performance appraisal and the news is I’m happy my PM, given me rating as 3.3 on 4 …that means, I’m exceeded my boss’s…expectations ..J .. Well…well…all-in-all my job going fine. I’m happy with it.

 

Now come to the actual serious business of my life…yeah, it is...undoubtedly.

 

Hmmm…frankly speaking, preparation is not that bad at all, but the lone problem with it is just trying hard to maintain consistency… level. Omg! Maintaining consistency level is one of the horrendous job a person can do, I guess…really difficult achieve but its enough in fact, great if we maintain at least 99% consistency level  considering the fact that we all are humans…J

 

Finally, let me  quickly update on the core tasks of my serious business…called

 ‘CAT-Hunting’…&  

 

First let me give details about my difficult part of business: VA & RC.

Yeah….as I know this is the serious sector to watch out for so I’m putting lot of efforts sincerely …

i.                    keep updating the Vocal( say word list)

ii.                  Solid Reading

iii.                Yet to start English usage…I’m sure I’ll start ASAP.

 

Now come to my next most prioritised sector: DI & LR

Well…I’m doing well in LR but for time being I stopped doing DI, reason behind that as I’m still not met the Speed Maths technique criteria’s where I should be little more quick enough to complete the calculation part.

 

Daily wise schedule: except weekends, where the preparation level is high.

i.                    Daily solving 1 to 2 LR problem

ii.                  Alternative day I’m trying to do some more sets from TIME.

iii.                Daily I’m doing, I’ll do in fact I got to do this Speed Maths techniques until I take mockCAT‘s.

At last my fine sector in the whole business called…: QA

 

I was regularly doing this task honestly though I infrequently not meet this because of lacklustre life style in the mornings... (Omg! Getting regularly morning…5.00pm is really taking toll…) of course it’s not the same case with night schedules.

 

Finally over all picture, I say my preparation level is satisfactory in fact, you can add GOOD…J..

Well….i knows, there’s no room for complacency… I’m sure I’ll improve to the best of my level…and trying to get rating as the BEST…J

 

Thanks world…for listening all my gossip... L for most of the people, but for me right now that’s only matters most.

 

Oops….i forgot to thanks my VOX.

 

I love you so much for so many reasons.

 

Have a great weekend….to the world and happy preparation to ME.

 

 

IN DEFENSE OF MBAS Businessmen grouse about them, but the best ones have financial skills that corporations badly need.

 

Dumping on MBAs has become increasingly popular in recent years, both in the popular press and in specialized publications such as the Harvard Business Review. Newly minted MBAs, the critics say, are too ambitious, too impatient, and not worth the high salaries they command. I often hear similar complaints from senior managers and corporate directors. My short answer to these criticisms is that MBAs need no defense because their offense has been so successful. The marketplace has spoken: new MBA graduates with a few years' work experience command salaries as high as $70,000 a year, and even without on-the-job experience the top graduates from the premier business schools start at around $50,000. Consulting firms, investment banks, commercial banks, and large industrial companies presumably court these MBAs with such princely offers because their predecessors have proved to be worth it (and, presumably, because employers aren't really eager to find patient, unambitious young managers). My free-market orientation convinces me that this rebuttal is correct, yet the disappointment with MBAs is obvious and widespread. Why all the grousing from the managers paying these big salaries? I suspect that it arises from experience with the mediocre graduates who come out of even the best schools, and with the legion of MBAs churned out of lesser institutions. Some employees always prove disappointing, whether they have MBAs, B.A.s, or engineering or law degrees. But the smart students coming out of the top schools are equipped with new financial skills that can help any company improve its performance. How can employers monitor the quality of business education and identify the MBAs who deserve the accolades and the dollars? The easiest way is to stick with graduates of the schools that have been primarily responsible for disseminating the new learning in finance that has developed over the last two decades. By my lights, these schools are the University of Chicago, MIT's Sloan School, the University of Rochester, and UCLA. Moving strongly in this direction are Stanford, Wharton, Berkeley, Northwestern, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, New York University, and Harvard. The different ways that business schools train managers explain why MBAs are not created equal. Most business education falls into two broad categories. The first has a descriptive, institutional bent. Its purpose is to provide students with knowledge of current business practices, conventions, and -- though certainly not the intent of its proponents -- popular myths. This approach, which prevails at most state universities and many other schools, often is combined with an excessive reliance on the case study method pioneered at Harvard. Case studies, which force students to work through abbreviated versions of actual business situations, are designed to produce experienced decision makers. The exercise of making decisions under pressure is supposed to generate the best managerial talent, regardless (so it seems) of the validity of the reasoning underlying the decision. Business schools copied the case study method used in law schools, where it has long been extremely useful. In law schools, going to past cases means going to original sources, just as rigorous historians go to original documents. But, as Professor James Lorie of Chicago has pointed out, the use of cases in business education is little more than a vicarious and attenuated apprenticeship. And apprenticeship ceased long ago to be the predominant mode of education in almost all serious disciplines. By contrast, the second category of business education is fundamentally scientific in its methods. Known as the Chicago school or quantitative approach, it attempts to imbue the student with a valid theoretical understanding of business decisions -- not only of how such decisions usually are reached, which is where the institutional approach usually leaves off, but how they ought to be reached. The quantitative approach begins with the assumption that those business practices that have survived the test of time have good economic justifications. It then attempts to separate the real economic reasons from the popular myths. THIS APPROACH recognizes that before the student can adapt decision-making skills to specific, unforeseeable situations, he or she needs a solid grounding in such disciplines as economics, statistics, and accounting. The goal is to provide the student with a coherent body of objective, broadly applicable principles. Such principles are not based on ad hoc conclusions generated by a set of hand-picked cases or a collection of war stories passed down by successful veterans of the business world. They are the product of applied economic logic supported by empirical tests. Armed with scholarly studies subjecting masses of data to rigorous analysis, the student comes away with a reliable guide to how a variety of decisions can be expected to affect stock values. To illustrate the fundamental difference between the two approaches, consider one of my favorite managerial conundrums: what is the best dividend policy? Practitioners of the institutional approach usually impress upon their students the conventional wisdom that, given a fixed level of earnings, investors prefer that corporations distribute more of those earnings as dividends. All things being equal, higher payout ratios supposedly mean higher stock prices. After all, it doesn't take a financial wizard to determine that the market responds favorably to dividend increases and unfavorably to decreases. A business school with a scientific orientation approaches the question quite differently. First, the student reads a classic 1961 paper by Franco Modigliani of MIT and Merton H. Miller of Chicago putting forth the proposition that dividends are irrelevant to how the market values a stock. The student then reads an extensive body of empirical tests supporting that theory, and supporting the proposition that increases and decreases in dividends matter simply because they convey information about management's assessment of future earnings. Where does all this theory and evidence leave the future corporate decision maker? The purpose of the exercise is to foster a propensity to distinguish between financial illusion (in this case, the popular view that investors prefer dividends to capital gains) and market reality. After all this you might say, ''OK, Stern, this is well and good. But we need only one MBA to make your case, and we only deal with dividends in January. Should I hire just one and send him on vacation for the rest of the year?'' My answer is that, especially in finance, the kind of training pioneered at the University of Chicago has implications for a broad range of decisions. A revolution in the theory of corporate finance has been under way since the early 1960s. The study of finance, grounded in sound economic logic and bolstered by sophisticated statistical methods, has made steady progress toward achieving the predictive power of a hard science. Finance scholars are challenging much of the accounting-oriented intuition that continues to pass for the collective wisdom of Wall Street. Properly applied, the new insights can provide managers with a more sensible basis for setting corporate goals, evaluating divisions and subsidiaries, choosing among investment opportunities, pricing acquisitions and divestitures, structuring incentive compensation plans, finding the ideal capital structure, and communicating with the investment community. The modern theory of corporate finance is, at bottom, a change in the theory of valuation. To the extent that managers view their function as providing the maximum returns for stockholders, all financial decisions are grounded in some theory of capital-market pricing. How managers use the assets at their disposal and what they tell investors depend on their understanding of how the stock market works. The rise of modern finance theory has brought about a confrontation between two very different views of how the capital markets value securities. This, in turn, has given rise to two distinct philosophies of management. The traditional view holds that stock prices are determined primarily by reported earnings. Executives who subscribe to this ''accounting'' model of the firm see their goal as maximizing reported earnings per share. The rival view, the ''economic'' model, holds that the market value of any security is determined by the after-tax cash flows it provides. That is, the tricks that accountants can play with things such as inventory valuations don't really matter to the stock market unless they affect some real variable like taxes. According to this view, accounting profits offer a good measure of performance only insofar as they reflect real cash profits. When reported earnings differ significantly from cash flows, they distort performance and provide an unreliable guide to value. RESEARCH IN FINANCE and accounting has produced a large body of evidence attesting to the ability of the stock market to penetrate accounting fictions. The first implication, which business students schooled in the quantitative approach well understand, is that earnings per share don't count; cash flows count. The second implication is that public corporations should be run exactly as if they were private -- to maximize not earnings but cash flows. When a company properly communicates this approach to the market, the sophisticated investors whose assessments have the greatest influence on share prices take good care of the company's stock. The scientific revolution in finance is steadily winning converts in the corporate world. But much corporate practice still betrays the strong influence of accounting considerations and an unwillingness to believe what the market is saying. The prevalence of accounting-based management is the greatest challenge for the modern business school, and its greatest opportunity. The lessons of modern finance offer a great opportunity for managers to improve their service to shareholders. The MBAs who carry these lessons from the premier business schools into the next generation of senior management can be expected to provide great benefits for stockholders.

*  Originally this article was listed with  (FORTUNE Magazine) –written by   By JOEL M. STERN  

Most of the CAT aspirants have already given up hope on IIMs even before starting preparation for CAT.
Why?
Well, this is a result of twin factors. One, most of the students taking CAT, in their 20 years of upbringing have never been exposed to an entrance exam. To add to this, the kind of aura that has been attached to CAT by the media, students and the bunch of coaching institutes mushrooming in the market makes the aspirant vulnerable to succumbing at the slightest confusion caused by the myths making rounds in the market about CAT.

Let’s expose these Myths!

Here comes tips from Vivek Tuteja:

Myth 1: Success ratio in IIMs is 1:120
Here, we will have to separate IIMs from CAT. By my experience I can say that almost two-third of the students taking CAT are not targeting IIMs in the first place. They are targeting host of other institutes affiliated to CAT. They would not have even applied to IIMs if each IIM were charging a separate fee for entrance forms like the other CAT affiliated institutes. So this leaves us with 40,000 students and a ratio of 1:40.
Let’s go a step further. CAT is an exam that requires a lot of perseverance. However roughly only 50 per cent of students are able to persevere through the preparation period and are prepared to their best level on the day of CAT. So if you are taking CAT and seriously targeting IIMs and are ready to sweat it out till the CAT day, your chance of making it to IIMs will be 1:20.
Feeling Better?!!

Myth 2: Maths Genius + Vocab Stud + 800 wpm Reading Speed = IIM Call
Contrary to the popular belief, CAT is not a test to gauge mathematical aptitude and verbal aptitude. CAT is recognized as one of the best tests in the world to check the management aptitude of the candidates. The candidate needs to be good in mathematical and verbal ability but if those were the only areas IIMs were testing, there was no need to design a complicated exam like CAT to test the same.

Myth 3: The exam is getting tougher every year
Well, CAT 98 had 180 questions divided across 4 sections to be solved in 2 hours. So, a candidate was required to clear 4 sectional cut-offs and one overall cut-off in 2 hours. CAT 2004 contained 123 questions divided in three broad sections; hence a candidate was required to clear three sectional cut-offs and an overall cut-off in two hours. So a CAT taker in 2004 roughly had 50 per cent more time per question compared to a CAT aspirant in 1998. Of course, CAT in this period has moved from fundamental based test format to application-based questions.
So CAT has evolved into an application based test which in its course not only checks the basic fundamentals but also how you apply these fundamentals, given the pressure cooker exam environment with multiple simultaneous goals.

Myth 4: Speed and Accuracy match is what you need to crack CAT
An aspirant may have a great accuracy level and high speed, but if he does not possess the right exam strategy and the right selection of questions he will land up in no man’s land.
For a CAT taker one key trait is self-analysis. He needs to analyse his skills at regular interval and accordingly arrive at the right exam strategy. A CAT taker, who carries his ego up his sleeves on the day of CAT, will never be able to crack it. Rather he should use his presence of mind and keep an eye on the war (i.e. individual sections) rather than let his ego fight out each battle (i.e. each question) till the end.

Now, when the big myths have been shattered, let’s analyse why is CAT what it is today?

CAT — a test to check managerial aptitude
CAT checks the exam taker on the essential traits of a manager apart from the quantitative and verbal fundamentals that are prerequisite for anyone joining the MBA programme. These essential traits include adaptability, stress management, analytical approach, decision-making skills, self-analytical skills, and competitive benchmarking. All these skills are required to crack CAT in one way or the other. Apart from these, a manager is supposed to be a team builder, growth-oriented individual and have good ethical values. He should be able to look into a problem from multi-disciplinary angle. These skills are tested in the attitude tests viz. Group Discussion and Personal Interview.
So if you are able to get through the aptitude and attitude tests of CAT, you already have the right management aptitude and are fit for the revered team at IIMs to shape your future

CAT — What it takes?
Let’s understand what it takes to be a potential CAT cracker. Unlike college exams where one can slog it out, burn midnight lamps for 15 –20 days, solve last 5 years’ question papers and can still be sure to get a distinction, CAT preparation requires a single-minded effort, disciplined approach and a lot of perseverance. To be prepared for CAT, one needs to have maths & verbal logic as well as fundamentals in place. Mathematical and Verbal logic are a product of the way one has exposed himself to these logic areas over a period of time and cannot be mastered overnight. So, one should not be shocked if couple of people claim relatively good scores in Mock CATs without much of preparation. It only goes to say that their mathematical/verbal logic is in place. These candidates now need to work on capitalizing their logic upstart by giving due stress on mastering the maths/verbal fundamentals, striking the right exam strategy and getting that split second decision making in place.

Remember, it’s not the most intelligent, most diligent or the most spirited who cracks CAT. Intelligence, diligence and motivation pay only if you are a smart test taker.

So Happy CAT hunting!!

The author is a PGP from IIM Ahmedabad and has 5 years of experience in education consulting. Early this year, Vivek turned entrepreneur and has launched Endeavor Careers in Ahmedabad, an educational enterprise dedicated towards guiding MBA Aspirants in their endeavor to make it to IIMs. he can be contacted at vivek@endeavorcareers.com