Introduction

This was the only talked about thing in Sillicon-Valley for next 48 hours post its occurrence. And why not? It was the biggest social network giant acquiring the fastest growing instant messaging service. Some said it was a safe bet played by Facebook to continue its dominance in the digital world. Some said it was a very smart move by Facebook taking its mission of “Connecting the world’s people” a step forward. Some said the deal was ridiculously overpriced deal traditionally often done by a giant to buy the new kid in the block. But what astonished everyone was that it was a start-up that provided simple messaging service that was priced at a whopping 19 billion USD.

The deal

The deal worth $19 billion had three components: $3 bn cash transaction, $12 bn worth of stock and $3 bn restricted stock option for employees of Whatsapp for the next four years.

What was in it for Facebook? Prospects of Whatsapp:

If we go by financial numbers and asset calculation, there is no way the deal can be justified. Whatsapp had annual revenue of $50 million and an employee count of 55.

1. Making a mark in Mobile space:

However if we dig a little deeper, Facebook has an active monthly user base of 1.2 bn worldwide, but the number seems to reach its saturation level. This is in social network space. In synchronized space, there is no monopoly and there are multiple players competing at a  level playing field. Facebook messenger has evidently failed to make the expected impact in this space. Line had 300 mn users in Japan, WeChat dominated in China with 400 mn active user base.  But Government policies and privacy issues are major obstacles in the process of acquiring. So, Whatsapp seemed to be only lucrative option.

2. Whatapp’s outstanding growth:

Whatsapp had approximately 450 mn user base. It was growing with another 1 mn users’ registration on a daily basis. To add to this, 70% of the registered users were daily active users. And please note, engagement is the key here that Mr. Zuckerberg also admittedly said, “WhatsApp is the only app we’ve ever seen with higher engagement than Facebook itself”. And Facebook had initially gained its popularity through sharing photos of familiar people. The count of the images shared on Facebook and Instagram combined is approx. 400 mn and the same for alone Whatsapp is about 500 mn.

3.  Bringing the digitally active people under a single umbrella:

Facebook acquired Instagram, a digital space that was popular in image sharing business. If we merge three services, in total, we get an user base of approx. 2 billion. Now, if Facebook finds a way to interlink the services, that may witness a new form of digital leader with Facebook holding the umbrella for them.

4. Playing safe:

In the previous week to the deal, Japan’s Rakuten acquired Viber for 900 mn USD. Facebook’s initial target was Snapchat. But the numbers of active users (30 mn) and the photo transaction were far less as compared to Whatsapp. Skype was acquired by Microsoft. None of them were up for sale.

Anticipating growth prospect of Whatsapp, Google offered $10 bn for acquisition. If Google acquires Whatsapp, given they have Google+ and Google Hangout in their kitty, they can interlink them all and make it big in the networking space. Facebook realized this threat. Now, if we try to estimate the BATNA for  Whatsapp, they clearly had an advantage. So, Facebook offered them a deal they could not refuse.

5. Revenue generation way of Whatsapp:

Whatsapp works on a very different revenue generation technique. The app is free for first year and following this, users have to pay $1 per year to avail the service. This seems to a very innovative way of making business. Given its users are already involved and satisfied with the service of the app, they will not hesitate to pay this small amount. But, if the growth rate of the user base, it will not be late to reach the billion mark. That adds to 1x user base revenue. And this is not all. Whatsapp can introduce meaningful ads to make customer’s life easier and better. As Mark Zuckerberg puts it, ” Once we get to being a service that has a billion, two billion, three billion people one day, there are many clear ways we can monetize.”

Conclusion

So, although $ 19 bn deal may seem way too much for a synchronized messaging platform at a quick first glance, deep down it may as well be a win-win for Facebook. Only future will witness it. In the words of Brian Nowak from Susquehana, ” We’ve seen it out of Google before ($1.65bn for YouTube, $12.5bn for Motorola, and most recently, $969mn for Waze). $19bn is admittedly a hefty price tag, but $42 per WhatsApp user is only 9% higher than what Google bought YouTube for. It is 14% more than Facebook paid for each Instagram user. Those acquisitions seemed pricey at the time of the deals too, but they are now key parts of the Google and Facebook ecosystems and monetization stories (which trade at much higher multiples in the public markets).”

References:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/02/20/5-key-reasons-whatsapp-is-worth-19bn-to-facebook/

http://www.redherring.com/internet/facebooks-whatsapp-deal-is-google-being-left-behind/

http://gigaom.com/2014/02/19/the-irrational-rationality-behind-facebooks-16-billion-acquisition-of-whatsapp/

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/02/20/facebooks-19-billion-deal-sticker-shock-but-justifiable/

http://www.cloudave.com/33954/entrepreneurs-learn-whatsapp/

http://dashburst.com/facebook-whatsapp-acquisition-strategy/

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb40e20e-9a02-11e3-a407-00144feab7de.html#axzz2zXFkuPn9

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/20/facebook-whatsapp-shares-stock-fall-acquisition-reaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp

Article by Subhadeep Das

With the advancement of civilization and the emergence of modern corporate culture, work-life has become organized. For a major percentage of corporate workers, work has become a central part of their lives. And hence it has its effect on personal life too. While a good day at work brings smile back home, a bad one spoils precious family hours or even worse, a long one does not leave any space for family hours. In worst cases, if the “long” ones go on for days, you lose connection with your family. In the long run, this affects your state of mind and happiness.

Here, work life balance (WLB) comes into play. WLB is about empowering individuals to accustom to a specific work circumstance to help fulfill their responsibilities and aspirations to lead to mutual benefit of the individual, business and society at large.

Reasons

• Globalization: With the advent of globalization, twenty-first century has witnessed 24/7 running workplace, continuous change of business process and near-death of trade unions.
• Salary is not the only thing that matters: In the rat race of professional advancement, viz. perks, status, profile, position etc., individuals tend to forget the fundamentals, the more important things in life.
• Have a life: Work is one of the various aspects of life. One should explore all other avenues of life to be actually happy. Unknowingly, this might keep you from being a “smart worker”.
• Raise a family: Family is an important aspect of life. Keeping this in mind, companies have measured indices for work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC) and found a direct correlation with turnover rate of organizations.

Work so that you can work tomorrow: Ultimately, health and state of mind are the most important things that will keep us going in the long run. And leading a balanced life is a must for that.

WLB Strategies

• Work hours
• Family-friendly work policies

Work-life balance: Eastern and Western perspectives

Companies take different approaches based on its demographics in order to maintain WLB at an individual and collectively at organizational level.

• Female workforce:  In Asian countries, it is a big challenge to bring female workforce in the male-dominated work place and retain them as compared to west. There is additional family expectation besides a challenging work environment and this puts professional career of women at stake. In order to address this issue at individual level, companies practice specialized socialization process and HR policies are made in tune with that.
• Traditional priorities:  While sharing family responsibilities equally between spouses is a norm in west, the story is different in Asian context. Here, women are in charge of family and their husbands are the bread earners. Although, the mindset is rapidly changing among urban youths, still story of sacrifice of leaving workplace among women is commonplace in order to pull together the family strings. So, WLB policies are made in accordance.
• Long Work hours: In Asian context, longer work hours seems to be equated with higher commitment.
• Family-friendly work policies: Although several measures have been taken to introduce family-friendly policies, the process lose its value in the communication stage and actual implementation is still something most of the companies are looking forward to.
• So far Indian companies have been able to make improvement in following areas to improve WLB:

(1)   Work hours

(2)   Maternity leave

• Western multinationals mainly stress on the following points to improve WLB:

(1)   Flexi working hours

(2)   Employee assistance program

(3)   Childcare and helpline

Top companies in WLB rating

• Nokia 4.3
• Agilent Technologies 4.2
• Microsoft 4.0
• Procter & Gamble 4.0
• GlaxoSmithKline 3.8
• Nestle´ 3.8
• HP India 3.7
• GE 3.7
• IBM India 3.6
• Citigroup 3.6
• PepsiCo 3.5
• HSBC Holdings 3.5

Source: glassdoor.com: Scale: 4.51–5.0 ‘very satisfied’; 3.5–4.5 ‘satisfied’

Public sector vs Private sector vs Multinational companies

Reference:

http://www.psynip.nl/website-openbaar-documenten-sector-arbeid-organisatie/a_chandra_12.pdf

Article by Subhadeep Das

 

I think IBS Dehradun works with a vision to create a world class educational environment which prepares students to fully develop their professional abilities that foster a strong sense of responsibility and ethics. I found the IBS campus was integrated with all learning amenities requisite for a good business school. The whole campus comes into the range of fully residential Wi-Fi networks. It has futuristic infrastructure design that will transform the way the student will learn in years to come. Our classrooms are equipped with LCD multi-media projector and internet networks computers. The library offers huge collection of management books and magazines of national and foreign writers covering all aspects.

IBS organizes a lot of student activities during the MBA program. The time when I joined IBS Dehradun my seniors gave us warm welcome by organizing fresher’s party which consisted of many cultural activities, plays, solo and group singing and dancing which I enjoyed with my classmates and seniors.  It also organizes industrial tours for giving the real corporate exposure to students and also sports tournaments. The whole idea behind these activities is to give us some relaxation and maintain our physical and mental energy level.

One of the most important things of IBS Dehradun is to provide good platform for the placement of students in various excellent companies. Recently I got selected in the very first company of campus placement that is U.S. based company XL Dynamics India Pvt. Ltd. on 16 October, 2013 before completing even my 3^rd semester of MBA course. I like most the attitude of my well qualified and trained faculty members, towards students which helped me a lot, since the beginning of program till my selection in this company. To prepare students for the purpose of placement, college organizes placement process in which faculty members organize mock group discussions, mock interviews and presentations which provide real environment of selection process by companies. I improved myself a lot in communication skills controlling my composure during GD and interview through this process. Throughout my selection process in this company, faculties supported and guided me in each and everything which made me to be selected.

In short I would like to say IBS Dehradun is a place where feeling of worth flourishes in the atmosphere, where individual differences are accepted, mistakes are tolerated, communication is very open and people are pushed and trusted to do the best they can, I feel…..

“Looking at IBS Dehradun is like achieving a way towards success”.

Contributed by Mannan Khan (Batch 2014, IBS Dehradun)

Historical Context in India

“With the advent of internal war, parochialism, exogamy, there came a profound shift in male-female relations. The male monopolization of warfare was instituted and extended to hunting (in order to preclude the use of weapons by women) and to the initiation rites of the young (male) warriors. The inequality of power between men and women was institutionalized in a way from which we have never recovered.” –  Why There Are So Few Women Warriors (1983)

If Indian society can be traced since its inception, we can see that it has been thoroughly patriarchal. Male dominance has been evident is many aspects of life. Before birth there was “sex-selective abortion”, and then birth of a daughter was seen as a curse in “son-fixation”, her sense of awareness was deprived with no apparent education, limited socializing permit, child marriage and it was cruel to the extent of bride burning and widow burning.

Surprisingly, in India, unlike other countries, the fight for “equality-for-genders” was initiated by male leaders. As we step into the twenty-first century, we can take pride in the advancement of women in the battle for equality. ‘Empowerment of women’ has taught our society that women are the flag-bearer of the world, giving birth and shaping the future of the world. Those “taken-for-granted” innate qualities are being valued realizing their essence. We have witnessed a host of women leaders in the hall of fame with the likes of Devi Chaudhurani, Aruna Asif Ali, Benazir Bhutto, Mother Teresa and Pratibha Patil.

Facts and figures

But still we have a long way to go. According to ET’s survey on women empowerment, a handful 16 women (4.8% of 335 positions) are on BOD of 30 Indian sensex companies. In BSE 100 and BSE 500 indices companies respectively 5.4% and 5.3% are women. Corporate brands are taking measures to boost these numbers to bring in gender-diversity in the workplace. According to a study for women in leadership(WILL), Indian companies like TCL, Zensar Technologies, Tata Steel, JSW Steel had 5-6% women in senior positions.

Now if we take this situation to its immediate superset, i.e., Asia Pacific context with 15% of Indian organization, a new Mercer survey on Women’s Leadership Development shows

Lean In(Global context)

In 2010, Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief-operating-officer at Facebook delivered a TED speech at company’s boardroom. It was an instant hit among big corporates and now has in excess of 2 million views on YouTube.

In her talk, she stated,

“Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 heads of state — nine are women.

Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top, C-level jobs, board seats — tops out at 15, 16 percent. The numbers have not moved since 2002 and are going in the wrong direction. And even in the non-profit world, a world we sometimes think of as being led by more women, women at the top: 20 percent.”

And she attributed the issue to following reasons:

1. The Leadership Ambition Gap: What Would You Do if You Weren’t Afraid?
2. Sit at the Table
3. Success and Likeability
4. It’s a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder
5. Are You My Mentor?
6.  Seek and Speak Your Truth
7. Don’t Leave before you Leave
8. Make your Partner a real Partner
9. The Myth of Doing it All
10. Let’s Start Talking about it
11. Working Together Toward Equality

In USA, it has been thirty years that we have been observing percentage of women coming out of the pipeline of college graduates is more than 50. However when we check this number in the next pipeline of corporate jobs, the numbers are less for women. Now, if we see the further next pipeline of leadership position in Government and corporate, the numbers are shocking. With growing awareness among women in India, we see a greater percentage of women going for basic as well as higher education. Going forward, we must take a deeper look so that the story of numbers for top level corporate women positions does not repeat itself in India down the growth trajectory.

Why corporate offices find it difficult to hire women at top executive positions at times?

According to a HBS study, the main reasons are:

• Cost of employing women in management is greater than the cost of employing men
• Rate of turnover of top-performing women is 10.5x times that of men
• Women find it difficult to break the glass ceiling at top management
• Why women are the solution

Besides the core reason of gender diversity, according to Zenith research, following are the core competencies of female managers where they outperform their male counterparts.

• Networking with colleagues
• Understanding the gravity of a crisis situation
• Commitment to their organizations
• Multitasking
• Collaborative work style
• Crisis management skills
•  Interactive leadership
• Compassion at workplace
• Free from gender-biasedness

Following is the extract of a HBR article:

In the book “Winning the war for talent in the emerging market”,  Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid analyze strategies for retaining talented women employees include:

(1) Fostering the ambition of the employees and creating opportunities

(2) Building a diversified workplace by creating an environment free from gender bias

(3) Flexible work arrangements to fulfill family responsibilities and

(4) Emminent safe cab services

Drawing on groundbreaking research, amplified with on-the-ground examples from companies as diverse as Google, Infosys, Goldman Sachs, and Siemens, this book is required reading for all companies seeking to strengthen their talent pipeline in these rich and expanding markets like India.

Conclusion

In India, only 2% of the CEOs in top companies are women, 16% of the Indian governor and senator and 24% of the state legislator positions are held by women. These are really rookie numbers. And on the top of it, most of the progress in terms of introducing new policies for fostering women managers are happening in MNCs. Indian companies are still far behind in this matter. According to a Catalyst study, women managers yield upto 83% higher ROE and upto 112% higher ROI. So, it is not just the need for diversity in the workforce  that should employ women. We need balanced female workforce in order to increase productivity.

References:

http://www.shrm.org/research/articles/articles/documents/09-0677_india_women_ldrshp_fnl.pdf

http://zenithresearch.org.in/images/stories/pdf/2011/Aug/9%20vol-1_issue-4_09_RUHI.pdf

http://hbr.org/1989/01/management-women-and-the-new-facts-of-life/ar/1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_In

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/few-executives-are-self-aware/

 

Article by Subhadeep Das

This question is, usually on every MBA aspirants’ mind, “When Should they do an MBA?”.

Should it be after couple of years of work or just after the graduation? But it is important to take this decision in the years of graduation studies, with solid reasons to back your decision. Questions related to this decision come up when interviewed for getting into a Business school. These questions are incidental when someone has work experience of less than one year, or has frequently changed employers/ firms/ job profile, or has a year gap in which no work experience or education is shown. In order to satisfy the above questions and to draw a successful career map, answering the when should one do MBA is a priority.

Even though the composition of work experience and freshers across each Indian Business schools varies, highly, these business schools mainly prefer a higher percentage of students with work experience. An article by Times of India states that nearly 27% on IIM Ahmedabad’s current batch are freshers. Another article on Pagalguy reads IIM Indore and IIM Rohtak’s freshers composition at 65% and 10%. These business schools prefer not to exceed their freshers to work experience ratio from 1:3.

Well, it is crystal clear that business schools reserve large number of their seats for aspirants with work experience than that of freshers. So is it favourable enough to join a business school with a relevant work experience? When an MBA aspirant with work experience is interviewed, the frequently asked questions are: ‘Why MBA now?’, ‘Why leave the job?’, ‘Why change the line?’, ‘What do you look forward to after an MBA?’ and many more. It is crucial to answer these questions, satisfactorily. What is more important is what you did at your work? What did you learn? What did you achieve? How did you come up with innovative solutions? How did you handle a particular situation? Everything that happened on the job, should be at the tip of your fingers. The main reason why these questions are asked is because they prefer students with work experience. All this information is relevant to decide whether the aspirant should be admitted or not?

The management schools’ curriculum is case studies based on which lot of working is required. During in-class discussions, students are expected to give their insights, spot minute discrepancies, relate it to their experience while they were working, express their viewpoints, use reasoning and recommend feasible solutions. As said earlier, the preference given to aspirants with work experience is to facilitate healthy in-class discussions.

Since the cases discussed in the business schools are real time based on organisations, the work experience students have some idea of relating to the problem as they themselves might have faced the problem while working or their colleagues did. They have knowledge regarding the organisations discussed as they have worked in them or with them as their clients or suppliers, or even as they studied them closely while working for their competitors.

Working in an organisation gives hands on experience. You are provided with the resources and information to work your way towards the solution. Check it feasibility and implement them. Even while discussing the cases, one is not required to bring conclusions, but reason and recommend with feasible solutions and logical thinking.

One more advantage to the work experience students is they already have a direction. Their work experience in a particular sector helps them to decide upon their area of specialisation and domain. Another advantage is that a work experienced student has a bird’s eye view regarding the work flow of a normal organisation.

But the business schools do look for freshers. During discussions, freshers are able to bring freshness to the table by bringing in new ideas. The ideas these freshers bring in are innovative and not the old traditional worked out ones. They defy monotonous nature of things happening and challenge them which help in healthy discussions. Another advantage is these students are ready to experience new things.

Most important advantage to the freshers is the recruiters look for them. The recruiters usually prefer freshers or students with less than a year’s work experience, especially during internship recruitments. These students are easy to mould and gel up quickly with the rest as compared to the work experience students.

However, if someone is applying to business schools abroad, a minimum number of years of work experience are required to fulfil the criteria of applying, which is most commonly of two years. Thus, work experience turns out to be a relevant factor. One of the other factors that affect this decision is finances. Students from a weak financial background usually find preferable to work initially to support their family and stable the finances. But few students also opt to work to support their future MBA expenses and fees. Other factors that can be considered is the job market in the future. Is it worth it to leave the job today? What is the Rate of Investment? How will the job scenario be related to the domain and area of specialisation?

Most crucial factor is career mapping. Where do you want to be? What are you supposed to do now? Is this job giving you what you need? Will this job take you where you want to reach? Are there any other opportunities? What was the plan when you applied for this job?

Article by Divyanka Gangurde

Many people make a common blunder of using ‘leader’ and ‘manager’, interchangeably. The role of a leader is clearly different from that of a manager. A leader’s role is to bring out a change. A manager’s role is to bring consistency in the whole process. What is important to understand is the difference between being a manager and a leader.

Many companies who hire students as their management trainees always hire those who reflect leadership skills. As per my personal experience, a company had conducted group discussions with nearly 35-40 students just for selecting only two candidates. Out of my group discussion, one of the students made it to the company as a management trainee. It was a situation based GD. We were told to arrange the given items in the order of preference. The student who made it gave his inputs, kept track of the time, backed up others suggestions, incorporated others suggestions, questioned others and made quick decisions. To be precise, he led the whole discussion and made it to the company. Companies require such capable students as they are the ones who will work for them in the future and make it to the management level.

Leadership Styles

You may have come across drawings and photographs which showcase leadership as the leader walks ahead and others follow. But this story is not universally the same. If you look at the Chinese system, they follow the paternalistic way. They prefer their leaders to be fatherly-like. Their pictures would showcase the leader walking behind the followers. The leader walks behind to protect the clan and is supportive. There are different styles of leadership. For instance, Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany; Even after accounting for his deeds, he is referred as one of the greatest leaders. His leadership style was charismatic. Charismatic leadership focuses on the leader’s capability of motivating and inspiring his followers at a very commanding and emotional level.

There are other leadership styles too. The Democratic: a participative leadership in which each and every member of the team is involved to build the decision process. The Servant: more like a philosophy and set of principles to enrich the lives of the employees, build better organisations and a healthy and caring work environment. The famous example of such a leadership style is South West Airlines which have established themselves as the most employee friendly airline. The Laissez-faire: the leader believes in delegating by providing the tools and resources to the subordinates to solve the problems all by themselves. The Transformational: here, the leader uses his personality and vision to bring change in the perspective, motivation and expectation of his followers. The authoritarian: also known as autocratic leaders. These leaders are more like managers; they have set agendas, goals, policies, rules and procedures. They are directive and controlling. They possess the autonomy and have higher standards of supervision.

To become a successful leader one can adopt any of the leadership styles or the combination of these styles. Usually, different organisations prefer a particular style of leadership depending upon the business they are into. Many countries prefer their leaders to follow a particular style of leadership. In fact, in one single organisation, different leadership styles can be observed to be followed at various levels, departments and business lines. There may be also difference in the styles followed by the holding company and its subsidiaries depending upon their business, their employees and their region of operations. Usually, organisations hire employees depending upon their organisational fit and goal alignment with that of the organisation. Thus, developing leadership skills is crucial.

Effective Leader

It is important that the leader is an effective one. For being a successful leader, one should know his capabilities and his personality. He should be able to use these capabilities and features to influence the followers. The main role of the leader is to establish direction and align people. If the leader takes interest in knowing its followers, he can arrange and delegate them according to their capabilities. This also helps in defining their roles. It also enhances communication in the group and does not stop the followers by hesitating to ask guidance and help. Two way communication and proper integration and collaboration, all three together boost team morale and the outcome is higher efficiency while working in teams. Being supportive and helpful encourages the employees and enriches their creativity leading to higher productivity and lower wastage. The leader should be able to communicate the vision effectively. Communicating the vision effectively brings clarity of roles, responsibilities and facilitates reduction in wastage of time and resources. The main role of the leader is to give direction to the followers. A leader can never spoon-feed his followers. He needs to give them direction towards working and achieving their goals. He needs to show them the path and push them forward by inspiring them. But it is very important to supervise. An effective leader needs to delegate the work and also need to give autonomy to his followers. Giving the employees a hands-off experience is a must. But at the same time, the leader must involve him in every activity the employees undertake by giving them sufficient resources and attention whenever the employees require.