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LATERAL THINKING AND CREATIVITY

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In today’s competitive market companies not only need skilled people but needs employees who have lateral thinking and are creative so that they can provide creative solutions. Below article will provide you a brief overview of lateral thinking and creativity as it is an important skills which is needed by MBA students to come up with ansolution of a difficult situation.

What is Lateral Thinking?

Think of a railway track; it consists of two parallel lines running alongside each other separated by a narrow gap. A train has to run along that track; if it goes on either side it will derail.Creativity

Our thoughts or the way we react to events can be likened to that railway track. They run along defined boundaries and the reason for that is the conditioning that we receive early in our lives and our experiences.

Most of us go through our lives with more or less similar experiences and incidents. About 90% of us can relate to one other because our lives follow a similar pattern allowing for some individual quirks and differences. These patterns are established very early in life and most of us are unable to break out of it or do not want to break out of it because we find comfort in things that are familiar. To be honest, there is also no particular need for us to move out of that pattern that we have set up for ourselves.

The ‘railway track’ mode of thinking also arises from these circumstances. The predictability of our experiences circumscribes our thoughts and over a period of time, we are incapable of moving out of that parallel track. If we need to think differently, we need to derail our minds so that it jumps out of the track. And that is the crux of lateral thinking or what has come to be known today as ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking.

The Dynamics of Lateral Thinking

When we speak of people being creative or creatively inclined, we are talking about people who do not think along conventional lines because they have jumped off the railway tracks. By some quirk of fate, they perceive things differently from what the majority of the population do. You must understand that there is nothing abnormal about these people – it is nothing more unusual than being left-handed among a largely right-handed world.

What does lateral thinking actually involve? Is it merely being able to think differently and perceive your world differently? Well, that is part of it. Those are just the ingredients, which go into lateral thinking. Lateral thinkers have their brains wired differently from most of us. This enables them to not only have a different world-view, but also have a different perspective on events.

The main objective of lateral thinking or what in corporate circles is called ‘value proposition’ is how it affects the way we solve problems. Are we getting results out of that lateral thinking? Is it making us more efficient at solving problems?

Let me give you a very simple example. Most of us take the same route while going to college, university or work. You may be walking or taking a cab to the nearest bus or railway station and then taking the train to your destination. Or, you may be driving/be driven to your college or workplace. Or if you are very lucky, you may just have to walk around the corner to reach your journey’s end.

Whatever the mode, the fact is that we invariably follow the same route. That is because we like safe, predictable things, we like routine and it is also less trouble.

How many of us actually try to find out different routes to go to our institute or place of work? How many of us experiment with different modes of transport to see if we arrive faster or even slower or have a more stress-free journey? How many of us think of varying our routine even slightly just in order to get a different experience?

The answers to these questions will give a glimpse into the way lateral thinking works. As a lateral thinker, your mind will follow different routes to solve a problem compared to a conventional mind.

Your mind will view the problem in a unique way; in all probability, your mind may not even see it as a problem.

Here, I want you to understand that all lateral thinkers are not necessarily problem solvers or are creative, in the sense that we know it. Let me iterate here that it is just a different perception of things.

Lateral thinking

It is quite likely that a lateral thinker might further complicate an existing situation. But yes, with lateral thinking you can definitely arrive at uncommon conclusions and can learn to tackle problems in other ways than you would normally.

But then do we want to be lateral thinkers? Instead of answering that question, let me ask you something else – do you want to be left handed?

Can we Train our Minds to Think Laterally?

Well, if we can learn to play tennis and swim tolerably well, I guess we can also learn to think laterally. There are certain skills of an exceptional nature that you might not be able to acquire – if you are tone deaf or do not have a good voice then it is quite likely that you will never be a singer or be able to appreciate music or learn the piano. These are some skills, which require inborn talent.

For the rest, certainly you can acquire mastery with practise and training.

Edward de Bono, who pioneered the concept of lateral thinking said in another book, ‘Tactics’ – “The key point about lateral thinking is that concepts, perceptions and structures evolve over time and are a summary of history rather than a blueprint for the future. In the mind, this is due to the self-organising nature of the brain, which is designed as a pattern-making recognition system. So we may have to cut across and break out of patterns before putting things together in a new way. Provocation is an essential part of lateral thinking and there are various specific techniques such as the random word technique.”

To paraphrase what Bono says, we have to create a spark in our brains that will provoke our thought processes to get off the beaten track. We have all heard of brainstorming; brainstorming is a way of provoking our brains to come up with novel and unique ideas. The more bizarre, the better because then you have more and varied ideas to choose from.

We have to learn to brainstorm at every opportunity. You should not let logic or reason colour your thoughts during this process, because you have to break out of the pattern you have set for yourself.

The brain has to be trained to make that shift from the usual to the unusual.

If you are consistent, you will find that thinking up stuff ‘outside the box’ becomes a habit. Keep in mind though that the ideas you have generated should lead to practical use. Some creative people are known to be impractical and some are also known to be severely straitjacketed in their ideas. You don’t want that. But then again while coming up with ideas do not junk the impractical ones. Maybe they will lead you somewhere too.

As a lateral thinker you have to let your mind roam freely; you should be able to astonish yourself with your thoughts. Push and stretch at the limits of your metal boundaries. That railway track I told you about in the beginning should have a width than can be widened at will.

Contributed by Disha Parekh Mohanty

 

Steps To Effective Communication

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Effective CommunicationsEver since the evolution of civilization, homo-sapiens required some medium to exchange their thoughts amongst themselves. The process was defined as communication and various mediums were developed to facilitate it effectively, timely and safely. Now a day, apart from old school face-to-face conversations, people use e-mail, text messages and phone calls or chat-engines for communications. Even when these mediums are highly advanced, the basic ground rules of effective communication have not changed much. In fact, I personally feel that due to the technological advancements in the mediums of communication, the need to reinforce the basic etiquettes has become even more pivotal now.

So, there are personal communications and then there are business communications. You are the king of your personal life and mostly you are not judged on the basis of ways in which you handle things. But in professional life, opinions are being formed about you by watching your every action. In fact, in many cases, perceptions are formed just by seeing the way an e-mail has been written or in the way communication on telephone happened. For being successful, one needs to manage his image/perception in the right way apart from having the skill-set and determination. So, one needs to chisel down his communication skills in order to be successful and that effect will rub on the personal life also.

So, let us try to cover the three most used modes phone, texting and e-mail. I will talk about phone first because more often than not people find it extremely convenient to just pick up the phone and talk. In case, you are making a call, start with the greetings and introduce yourself briefly (in case you are speaking for the first time. Then before stating the agenda of the call, ask for the person for whom the call is. Listening actively and focusing on the person in conversation is the most important ingredient of a smooth telephonic conversation (both ways). Watch your volume level during the conversation because if you are talking that doesn’t gives you a license to disturb others.

An etiquette that one must follow while picking a call is that the receiver must receive it till it rings three times. Also, as per me one most abused etiquette during the telephonic conversation is that one party doesn’t informs the other before taking further actions as in putting on hold, connecting to some other person, taking in a conference or for that matter putting the phone in speaker mode. These mistakes leave a bad taste in the mind of other party. And finally, the conversation should not end abruptly. It must always end on a closing note such as ‘Have a nice day’. It is advisable that one must not leave long voicemails. Just state the reason that you called and ask them to revert as soon as possible. That’s it!!

MBA Graduates

Now, what happens if you call somebody but they are not available and you need to convey your message immediately? Texting comes in for the rescue. However, please note that texting is not a formal mode of communication. Importantly, if your message is more than 160 characters, you should switch to other mode of communication. It is advisable that you should tell that who you are in the very beginning if you have even miniscule doubt that the recipient might not have saved your contact. Mind your tone while texting because in no way you can repair the damage done to your image/relation once the recipient gets offended by the tone of your text. The best way to avoid such miss-happening is by being crisp, simple and to the point during texting. Lastly, proofread every word of your text before hitting send button to avoid embarrassing situations later. Etiquette wise, you can reply to a text in the next 48 hours and you should try to reply as many texts as possible.

Lastly, the most extensively used tool for the communication, the e-mail. If you are drafting a fresh e-mail, always start with greetings. Please…please…please try to avoid typos!!! They make you look very unprofessional along with using shortcuts like u (for ‘you’), dere (for ‘there’) etc. Make it a habit of mentioning subject. Usage of a professional e-mail address is advisable in place of funky e-mail addresses if you are communicating via your personal e-mail id. Don’t overuse the high priority option. It is provided there for a purpose. Don’t abuse it by using it in every e-mail of yours otherwise recipients won’t even open your e-mails. Use your signature to give opportunity to the recipients to know more about you by giving links of your social media profiles.

While replying to-mails please don’t use ‘reply to all’ feature until it is seriously required. I am sure you would agree that not everybody wants to know your opinion. Also, in ‘to’ list keep the persons from whom you are expecting a response and ‘cc’ only those for whom the communication concerned is for information purpose. Be sure to include the information to which you are replying for keeping a track of the communication. Always try to personalize the communication by using active voice during communication instead of passive voice.

Before forwarding e-mail, please have the basic courtesy of cleaning it because the recipients might not be interested in reading the commentary of earlier recipients. And don’t forget to proofread the e-mail in any case before sending it. Generally, ask before sending any attachment to the recipient as in what will be the appropriate time to send the attachment. The recipients might get offended if you sent attachment without asking and it resulted in bouncing of some important mails for the recipient.

Thus, in a nutshell, a communication is effective only when it has solved its purpose without causing any inconvenience to other parties and to self. I hope, you will double tick all the above-discussed points before doing any corporate communication in your respective careers. All the best!

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

How to prepare for MBA entrance written exams?

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Management GraduatesAs notifications are about to come for the next year’s MBA entrance exams, time is probably right to ponder about one’s strengths and weaknesses and gearing up for the battle. Once you are able to qualify the most important question, ‘Why MBA’, the stage is set for a series of strategically planned events which will eventually help a candidate in assuring a seat in a top b-school. First of these events is applying for the entrance exams and then secondly and most importantly writing those exams as many b-school gives a lot of weightage to the scores in these exams. In this peace of text, I will put forward my approach in tackling these entrance exams efficiently.

So, what is the right time to start preparing for these exams? I will keep my reference point around the CAT exam because almost all institutes follow the same pattern in written exams except IIFT, XAT etc. In my opinion one requires intense preparation of 6-7 months before ‘the day’. By intense, I mean 3-4 hours of time every day with a clear goal to achieve after each day’s investment. Please understand the entrance exams are a test of your temperament when you are out of your comfort zone. It is not a test of your knowledge really. Because, in MBA a cliché line is used which is ‘We are generalists and not specialists.’ So, as a candidate you are expected to do reasonably well in all the sections of the exam and not only in one.

Now, when a candidate looks for preparing for these entrance exams he gets perplexed when he sees various institutes claim 100% strike rate in getting students to top b-schools. In my opinion, one needs to spend time with oneself for preparing well, especially if the student is from science background. One needs to play on its strengths and cover his weaknesses to perform well. Practice holds the key. The more you practice, the more probability increases of your success.

Understandably, if the student is from non-science background, he needs to get extra attention to get his basics right, for which joining a coaching institute is a fair call. The questions which are asked in the quantitative ability and reasoning section don’t require intensive calculations in most of the cases. Most of them can be solved by proper visualization based on basic concepts. Questions on geometry, trigonometry are an example. As mentioned above, practicing in a timed setup will reap maximum dividends in terms of increase in performance. Mock tests come into the picture now.

For practicing in a real time environment, one needs to subscribe to one of the leading coaching institute’s test series. Caution: Don’t let the frustration creep in into your mental set-up on low scores but do note your mistakes/weak areas. Focus on accuracy and the speed will follow. In these high pressure scenarios, the judgment that which question to attempt and which one to leave becomes very critical in the final score. This judgment will only come if the candidate will follow the mock test series schedule religiously. Don’t run chasing each and every test series in the town, because all of them are mostly same that is they have same level of difficulty. Please…please…don’t exert too much pressure on yourself for solving too many questions in too less time. Trust me it is not going to help you and will decrease your efficiency.

mba graduates

One needs to develop reading capability for scoring in the exam by solving reading comprehension questions. Reading will help you in increasing your vocabulary. In questions like, synonyms-antonyms, one word or choosing the odd one out a good vocabulary comes very handy, because in these kind of questions either you know it or you don’t. So, having a good vocab will enable a candidate to score quickly without thinking much. The time saved here can be devoted by candidates to solve more questions in data interpretation and reasoning section where candidates complain about lack of time.

In many exams like XAT there is a section named as ‘decision making’ which asks for your course of actions in certain corporate/business scenarios. My take on this is that one cannot prepare oneself for this by mere practicing. Rather, reading economic times or following up with the activities happening in the business world and trying to decipher the business logic will help the candidate a lot. In this kind of sections, candidates with work experience hold an edge because they don’t need to prepare for it specifically. As a matter of fact, there have been instances in previous years when XAT also asked candidates to write an essay in the entrance exam itself. I will talk about it in my next article.

Also, now various institutes have started to keep a section of general knowledge/current affairs in their entrance exams. In exams like CMAT, SNAP and IIFT students already feel the pressure of lesser time. But if can attempt this section in a better way, it will save them a lot of time apart from increasing their score. In this case also, either you know it or you don’t know it. In today’s mobile age, it won’t require much effort to download an app of a good newspaper and be in touch with the recent news/current affairs on the go.

In the above discussions, I have not endorsed any book or study material for the preparation. What I did was, I referred Norman Lewis for vocab and read articles in various newspapers for comprehension. For quant and logical reasoning, I followed material of a coaching institute religiously. Most importantly, I monitored my performance during mocks very closely.

Thus, prima facie everything depends on, how well you managed your time to give an optimal performance across the sections in an exam. Remember, an exam cannot decide your career, so be calm and composed. Having a composed state of mind increases your performance by at least 10% and in this tough race, every inch is important. Be sure that you do well in areas of your strengths and cover your weak spots efficiently. Everything will be good. Good luck!!

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Where from to do an MBA?

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Business SchoolWith globalization, industry’s demand of people who can handle cross-functional skills, shrinking economies and an increase of functional activities in day-to-day business over routine transactions the need for business ready managers is increasing day by day. In Indian scenario, the mushrooming of b-schools is an understandable reaction to the demand of business ready managers having above mentioned skills and background. So, after qualifying the basic question of ‘Why MBA’, a candidate looks for a convincing answer for ‘Which b-school I should finalize for pursuing my MBA.’ In this peace of text, I will try to help you by giving you various qualifying pointers on the basis of which you will get a better idea for answering ‘the’ question.

Now, to find out the health of a particular college, the candidate goes to web and types the name of the college in the search bar. He sees a rosy picture on the b-school’s website. He then turns up and ends up searching ‘top MBA colleges’ and gets 1000+ responses in less than 0.22 seconds, only to baffle him more about his approach to go about finding the health of the college in his options. So, to have a clearer picture, try to see the parameters on which a particular website has given your wish-list’s college a particular score. The most important parameters to look for are faculty to student ratio, accreditations from various reputed bodies, college’s age, the profiles of the important persons (deans, HODs etc.) and infrastructure.

Secondly, candidates try to have a view of RoI scenario. In this, they consider the fee +other expenses as a ‘cost’ to MBA which is fundamentally wrong. In my opinion, it is an ‘investment’ towards an exciting career which is very fulfilling and rewarding, if one will try to see the bigger picture. By bigger picture, the point which I am trying to stress is that one should not do the naïve calculations of RoI by the immediate benefit one gets after MBA be in terms of salary package or role. Rather, one must try to interact with the alumni of that particular b-school and then try to evaluate if what role (and CTC) they are into after 5 years, 10 years or 15 years.

As discussed above, the shrinking economy has made it a buyer’s market, so a candidate will not see a very pronounced effect on its career immediately but he will surely see the effect in a period of 3 to 4 years. But one thing will be for sure, an MBA from a good college will give wings to its career and will be deciding factor in the later stages of its career.

A candidate might want to get back to its current industry or might want to change industry after MBA. As perceived, a one year MBA is more mapped for the former candidate and a two year MBA for the later. Thus, if it boils down to honing one’s skill in a particular industry or a particular skill-set, then apart from choosing between one or two year, one must also see if there are institutes available to focus only on that particular skill-set. For example, there are institutes like MICA and NITIE which are there for specific skill set namely communications and manufacturing domain.

MBA Students

An MBA gives you various perspectives and to get an insight about how those perspectives actually help a candidate in its professional life in the words of various leaders, industry champions and visionaries is very critical. This can only be possible if there is a very efficient connection of the college in the industry. Guest lectures, good internship offers can only be possible if the b-school has great corporate connects. Firms like Deloitte, HUL and Hyundai organize various events year to give chances of b-schools to showcase their talent. Students can use this as a great launch-pad to impress one and all in the list of key stakeholders of that firm. So, candidate must also check about the laurels that students of their concerned b-school have brought in these kinds of competitions.

One can only get an idea about the faculty and the kind of activities that happen in a particular b-school by only getting in touch with the alumni of the b-school. Today, it is a lot easier via the utilization of various social networking sites. You can follow the page of that particular b-school and you will get all the updates about the activities happening in the college in your feed. These kinds of activities give a lot of exposure to the candidates to have overall development of their personalities.

Every b-school has various committees like marketing committee, finance committee, student council, operations club and various non-academic bodies like speaker’s club, sports committee. Though, the tight schedule of academic activities won’t spare much time for these activities but one must try and be a positively contributing part of these activities. Thus, a candidate must also check out the extent of these kinds of activities in the concerned because passing exams and attending lectures will make a candidate a run out of mill MBA.

Lastly, as I discussed earlier that MBA is an investment towards an exciting career. But after every investment one also thinks of the immediate monetary return primarily because of the heavyweight EMIs waiting to be paid in the case of MBA. So, it is important to check the placement record of the concerned b-school in the last 5 years. One most important thing to notice while checking this is the average work experience of the previous batches prior to joining MBA. This detail will help a candidate in viewing a clearer picture because the average CTC gets beefed up due to higher CTC of candidates with greater work-ex and the published figure on the website paints a wrong picture. Also, checking out the kind of companies visiting the campus will help a candidate streamlining its strategy for placements or internships.

Thus, I will emphasize again that an MBA is an experience and must be 100% sure before choosing the vehicle for this exciting, adventurous and fulfilling joy ride because a journey is as comfortable as a vehicle and this experience rubs on candidate’s personality for molding him into a better professional.

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Why MBA?

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MBA Degree.To answer the above question, an analogy between a painters’ painting and a professional’s career has to be understood. A professional can lead his/her career in the same way as an artist can paint his masterpiece but an artist cannot undo what he has done till that time on the same canvas  if he gets some new thoughts during the painting. A professional can do it with the help of a ‘magical stick’ if he wants to change to the business/senior leadership side or if wishes to change the industry. That magical stick is an MBA degree. With this, I have stated one of the most prominent reasons which candidates have with them before applying to b-schools every year. Now, there are various other reasons which the candidate must be able to think through and be absolutely clear before he even thinks of writing competitive exams as to why doing an MBA is such a big deal?

So, what is that itching behind the desire of the candidate to use the magical stick- an MBA degree? Talking about candidates with some work experience, they start to get a feel that they will face a ‘glass-ceiling’ during their growth as a professional may be after 1-2 years or even after 6-7 years depending on the individual. Only an MBA degree will be able to bail them out towards a role which will require more business acumen or senior leadership i.e. a strategic role. Or in other words, to convert them into a more functional and business oriented role from a transactional role in the organization.

In today’s internet age, it would sound utterly illogical if one would say that I want to do an MBA to gain knowledge about managerial concepts when he/she can easily access all the literature for free on web. But having said that, it is the interactions with the faculty, industry champions and people with quintals of work experience and learning from their experience that makes an MBA worth it because one can never have access to that ‘experience’ of having mature business oriented interactions without actually doing them.

For people, who want to have something of their own, an MBA is just what the doctor ordered. Because, when they will be conceiving the idea of their start-up they will be well-versed with the parameters to adjudge the business feasibility of that idea. As a matter of fact, I can comfortably say that the experiences of people who had an MBA degree were much better than those who hadn’t when they tried to get funding for their business. An MBA gives you that ability to see things from different perspectives neutrally before arriving to a workable conclusion.

regular mba degree

‘Connect the dots.’ is ‘the skill’ which one must master before even dreaming of having a more strategic role in an organization. So to master this ‘cutting edge’ skill, candidates look up towards an MBA degree from a premier institute. An MBA trains a candidate to be more of a ‘generalist’ than a ‘specialist’. So, once a candidate is out of the b-school, he remains a ‘generalist’ throughout his life which comes handy when he gets the position of as big as a CEO. For shouldering responsibilities at that level, having an eagle eye view of the business will be the most critical quality that the person must have.

Although till now, I have not talked about the most baseless and the most popular rationale behind candidate’s intent to pursue an MBA which is the carrot of higher salary packages after MBA. So, let’s be very brutally honest about addressing this rational because it is about money….the hardly earned money!!! So, the real picture is that when a firm employs you after your MBA, it pays you on the basis of what value you are bringing to the table. If you have not imbibed those soft or tangible skills in your personality during your MBA, then obviously it will not come out naturally in the job interview and the recruiters, now a days have that acumen to judge your value for the organization near to perfection. So, candidates who just do an MBA for the heck of it only to get hefty packages are doomed to be left disappointed. As a matter of fact, going out of the scope of this piece of text, this must be one of the reasons for candidates to ponder for as in ‘why not to go for an MBA?’.

And last but not the least, apart from giving a candidate an MBA tag, greater career opportunities, exposure and knowledge, an MBA gives you the chance to do a very strong business oriented networking. Simply, because of the nature in which its contents are unfolded and delivered to the candidates in a classroom environment, you get to interact with people from various industries who will bring to the table something different. A strong alumni network, industry contacts through esteemed faculties of the b-school, a chance to avail an internship opportunity with a premier firm to have a feel of the playground before the actual play begins are some of the other aces that an MBA candidate has up his sleeves.

Thus, apart from the above mentioned reasons there can be other reasons too as every single individual in this world is solving a different question paper which is unfolded by life in front of them. An MBA is an experience which might not end up as a pleasant experience for every tom, dick and harry if the individual has not thought through as to why he/she wants to have this experience. Thus, for this experience to turn out as a joy ride which would turn a candidate into a more business oriented professional, the justification must come from within and not cooked up by getting affected from surroundings as to ‘Why MBA?’.

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Focus On Internship In MBA

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Internship in MBA programOne of those questions to which an MBA student wants a convincing answer after ‘Which college?’ is ‘Where to do an internship?’. The rationale behind an internship in the MBA curriculum is to make students have a feel of the industry, profile, company which they want to pursue after MBA. I personally feel that the hard work which a student puts in during internship weighs more than all the efforts put together that one makes during exams, assignments when it comes down to the growth rate as a professional after MBA.

Most of the ‘janta’ joins MBA program for primarily three reasons: (1) Switch the industry (2) Move up the corporate ladder and lastly (3) A higher salary. However, none of these can be achieved without having the proper backing of a relevant internship. In the case of a one year program, the chances of green ticking the first point is comparable to an iota. Some institutes like ‘Great Lakes, Chennai’ which offer 1 year program have an equivalent to an internship, which they call as ‘Empirical’. In empirical studies the students decide on a topic and do research on that topic for the whole year in a stepwise manner, either in a group or individually.

As perceived, an institute teaches you all the concepts and theories but a candidate seldom gets a chance to work in an environment which is similar or even close to industry. Most of the activities are faculty driven and your performance is judged on the basis of the grade which you get. But in internship, you know that every deliverable of your will affect firm’s business which was not the same when you were handling case studies in college. Just wonder if you happened to contribute in a fashion which catches the eye of the top management!! Well, half the battle is won. So, morale of the story is train yourself for becoming ‘a vital cog’ in firm’s wheel of fortune. You will get the visibility and appraisal accordingly and you are en route a great career.

It is of utmost importance to master the art of trade before actually going into battlefield. An internship presents before you the opportunity to internalize the way business works without the fear of being judged much because you will be mentored by some senior person in the organization (who can be your future boss). I have observed the trend that when a firm goes for recruitment in a college, the preference is given to the students who have done internship in their firm. On top of that, they don’t hesitate in offering a higher package to those interns just for the simple reason that they can be straight away deployed on to the field without much handholding, in turn increasing their productivity.

Why focus is important in an internship because only then you will be able to invest in yourself. Try and get hold of as many things as possible which are important from the perspective of business model of the firm. This will increase your competency because then you will be able to connect the dots between various functions of the business. Recruiters are looking for the candidates who have this edge of being a generalist. And this is the only skill which ‘makes or breaks’ the career of a professional when it comes to career growth.

MBA InternshipAn internship is as important as spending your time in college activities, for strong networking. As has been rightly said, ‘Your network is your net worth’, you will grow at a rate proportional to the growth rate of your network. Even if you don’t join the company in which you did internship, chances are very high that you will end up in the same industry. Having good contacts in other leader firm of the industry is strategically very important for business development purposes. You might get hold of a potential opportunity because of a contact which you won’t be able to pursue otherwise. If you are able to create value for the firm during your internship, it won’t go unnoticed and this will take your networking to the next level strategically.

Now, how to go about searching for internships? So, it boils down to prioritization and channelized efforts. Start from prioritizing the firms in the industry of your interest. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket i.e. keep trying in other industries of relevance. Regular follow-ups or keeping a track record must be in your skin. Since, it is ‘buyer’s market’, try to show them the value that you will bring to the table by relating it to your skill-set and most importantly show the ‘Energy’. You can take the help of various job sites. There might be an opening for you if the company is continuously posting requirements on the portal, which you can leverage through your contacts (if any). Since, competition is tough, it is advisable to back your-self every time and have a go-getter attitude.

All said and done, a candidate is not the same person once he comes out of an internship as he/she was before joining internship. In a two year MBA set-up, candidate gets a chance to relate the concepts learned in classroom to what he was doing in the internship. This whole process of internalizing and re-internalizing proves to be very value additive when a candidate faces interview for final campus selections.  If the candidate is able to articulate his takeaways during internship by relating it to the business model of the interviewing firm in a lucid manner, the job is done. But real ‘job’ starts from there to implement the learning of internship effectively to create value for your employer, which in turn will stamp your capability, credibility and adaptability as a resource and a successful professional.

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Advantages Of A Full-Time MBA Program Over A Distance Learning Program

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Advantages Of A Full-Time MBA ProgramVirtualization is the new buzz word which is affecting our day to day lives. Think of any corner in our lives from shopping, eating to choosing your life partner and making important communication (email), virtual world has taken over. Education is not an exception. From the old ‘chalk and talk’ method, the paradigm has shifted to delivery via applications which support virtualization. I have been a spectator of this whole paradigm shift and hence would like to put forward my understanding of this whole change.

First things first, the basic advantage of regular MBA is that you get a feel of how communications are done in front of key stakeholders in corporate environment when every who’s who of business is watching you via real time classroom interactions. One cannot participate in a business oriented discussion with the liberty of not being judged only in a classroom environment, which helps the candidate grow as a professional. The ability to contribute in a business oriented discussion positively is the most important takeaway for a full time MBA student as compared to the student pursuing distance learning program who chose to be anonymous and secluded.

Regular MBA takes you ‘out of your comfort zone’. Particularly, candidates with work experience who resign from their respective jobs only to take a loan and chose to remain unemployed for the period of next two/one years, stakes go on an all-time high. On top of that, urgency to meet tough deadlines for assignments and presentations add a mountain of stress on those stakes. A distance learning student always stays within its comfort zone and does things at his pace. So, a regular MBA student green ticks a very important ingredient to become successful as a professional which is ‘efficiently handling pressure situations’.

I have seen candidates going into a b-school with a devil may care attitude, procrastinating in almost their every deliverable, a fair bit of being laid back while trying to be proactive. But once they come out of the b-school system, a quite visible dent in their personality is there in terms of being more disciplined, more methodical in going about their tasks and always being a leader in being proactive.

MBA program

Apart from this a distance learning student misses out on other important activities in the campus like in person interactions with great visionaries, entrepreneurs and successful personalities in industry who are invited by the college to deliver guest lectures. Today, top MBA colleges have tie-ups with NGOs or drive on their own for being responsible and contributive towards social causes. These programs give ample opportunities to regular MBA students to develop their leadership skills and stand out as a winner later on in their respective careers.

I have seen regular MBA candidates enjoying the advantage of having a very strong ‘personal’ alumni network over the years in their corporate lives. As a student, they interact with three batches personally on an average, which are their immediate seniors, their own batch and the immediate juniors. This personal interlocking done during their student life proves to be very handy when they seek guidance during their career as a professional. The cushion of ‘knowing somebody by face’ is there and the level of comfort during discussion is reflected vis-à-vis their interaction with some other senior person in the firm. In the case of distance learning mode, this ‘personal’ touch is missing and only virtual reach remains there.

Based on my above viewpoints, one can easily infer that regular MBA brings along more focus and intensity along with it. You just cannot afford to have a hiatus once you are in. This prepares you for the upcoming corporate life as while working it will be very crucial in deciding one’s success because their quality of your work will also be very important along with the quantity. In distance learning mode, while attending lectures via webinar or any other virtualized tool, a student has various distractions. These distractions can be itchiness to quickly check their Facebook and Twitter or the desire to go and have a small sandwich break. So, needless to say discipline and focus go hand in hand for doing something worthy.

Lastly, the single most important thing about which every candidate does its analysis before joining a regular or distance learning MBA is the ‘placements’. A glance at the recent trends gives a very clear picture that students enrolled in a regular MBA program get better roles, better packages in better companies vis-à-vis students enrolled for distance learning. Based on my interactions with various recruiters the single most important factor which tilts the equation in favor of regular MBA candidates is that they are seen as someone who are more polished and more ready to take up business roles. To go with it, their calculative risk taking appetite is considered to be much better than the distance learning folks.

Thus, it all boils down to ‘No ship sails through the ocean without facing the storm’. As is clear from the above talking points that regular MBA candidates become more battle hardened and more trained to handle critical situations in corporate life where the onus of the success of business decisions lie on their shoulders. Also, amidst all the demands of increasing seats in distance learning MBA course in top institutes there is no denying the fact that colleges are aware that quality will suffer if they do so. So, regular MBA will not see serious competition in the immediate years to come and will be ‘the wiser thing’ to do for the aspirants as MBA-exposure= distance learning MBA, which obviously won’t give the bang for the buck and time invested by the aspirants.

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Experienced Candidates OR Freshers For MBA?

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Experienced OR Freshers For MBAIt is the B-School admission season again. The environment is ripe with with speculation about who will make the cut and who will not be boarding the train this year. The questions are many. Which school, specialization, location, fee among many others. One such question is, should I take the plunge this year as a fresher or should I gain some work experience first. When do I get the maximum bang for the buck out of a MBA program?

So, does it really matter about a candidate willing to enroll in an MBA course if he/she is a fresher or an experienced candidate? The answer is- It depends.

Experienced candidates are perceived to be better equipped with the knowledge of industry, corporate culture, the processes, organizational structure. So, it can be safely assumed that they are able to relate with the theories that are being taught in the classroom and can also contribute positively by suggesting that how a particular concept/theory can be used in a particular situation while being on the job with some appropriate modifications.

However, the thought process of an experienced student can be biased towards a particular industry. Experienced candidates will have a lot at stake which is precisely the reason behind their strong work habits and understandable lesser risk appetite culminating towards lack of fresh perspectives and creativity in their thought process.

In an MBA environment, one often feels like being bombarded with information (in the classroom and after the classroom). It is a bitter truth that many times one would not be able to apply a theory (which is taught in the classroom) in a business scenario. So, the crux is not every concept will be relevant for one while one will be on the job. Experienced candidates have a better visibility and priorities defined when it comes to this aspect. Thus, experienced candidates are expected to have a better visibility of what they want from an MBA program and how they are going to attain those objectives.

‘Freshers’ as the word suggests bring in lot of freshness, energy, creativity, enthusiasm and most importantly are very good at brainstorming activities because of their unbiased approach. As compared to an experienced candidate, a fresher will be under lesser pressure which will allow him to internalize a concept after analyzing it from angles which are 180 degrees apart. The risk taking appetite of a fresher will be very high because of their openness towards any given industry. This is where a fresher scores during internship interviews because at that point of time companies look for enthusiastic candidates who are hungry for learning new things. A fresher easily fits the bill and in most cases gets the PPO (pre-placement offer) from the organization.experienced or freshers for mba degree

As a matter of fact, many freshers get inclined towards entrepreneurship during their MBA because of their risk taking appetite and the desire to do something of their own. However, fresher generally suffers from devil may care attitude which hinders growth in situations where more objectivity and sincerity is required. Freshers are generally more stronger academically or other interpretation of this is that they have more ‘bookish’ knowledge than the practical/functional knowledge.

MBA is all about ‘peer learning’. Now a days, B-schools are leaving no stone unturned to ensure a balanced mix of freshers and experienced candidates in their intakes. The idea is to achieve synergy of a fresher’s open mindedness and an experienced candidate’s functional knowledge. This is precisely the reason behind inculcating a culture of ‘group assignment’ in most of the MBA programs. Every group will have a good mix of freshers and experienced candidates where group assignment is designed in such a way that both kind of candidates utilize their strengths and work on the weak points respectively via learning from each other. That is why there is a cliché that in an MBA program, the role of a teacher is of a mere facilitator. After all, an MBA is not only a way to learn how to be an accountant, a supply chain consultant, a marketer, an HR professional but instead a way to learn what one needs of these roles as MBA gives you an eagle’s eye view to lead an organizational or cross functional teams.

So, our analysis boils down to the level of comfort and the objective of an individual to which certain task has been assigned or self-assigned(MBA in this case). The viewpoints are highly subjective to the situation. So, from the point of view of a fresher, if one wants to specialize in a particular domain then obviously MBA will be a value additive investment if done with work experience. But the situation will change if the objective is of doing general management, then having prior work experience does not really matter.

Also, it is perceived that freshers are more prone to succumbing to the pressure which an MBA program exerts on them as they land into MBA straight after finishing their graduation which results in decrease in performance, hindered learning, inability to apply the concepts learned in real word scenarios and inability to cope up with deadlines. Talking about experienced candidates, they might be suffering from superiority complex and over-confidence which proves to be a serious roadblock for them. So, there are some dark sides on both banks of the river.

Thus to sum it up, a candidate enrolled in an MBA program is like driving a car at night where in you are not able to see further the range of the headlight but you can still make the complete trip utilizing your strengths and by working on your weak spots/cutting them down depending upon whether you are a fresher or an experienced candidate. In the end, we must not forget that the more the specialized the world will be, the more it will be run by genralists.

Contributed by Sthita Sahu

Get Ready for IBSAT – with a Fit Body and Mind

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This post is about creating a solid foundation. Next, we will share test taking tips and techniques, and more than can help you ace IBSAT or any other tests you plan to take.

First things first.

You take test with your brains. You have heard about “Fit brain in a fit body.”

So start to take care of your body well, if you have not been doing it already.

If you are weak, in poor health then your brain finds it hard to focus.

People get sick due to extremes mostly.

At whatever stage of your preps you are it is important that your body and mind is in good shape.

You need energy to study – sit through exam – here are some simple tips that should help.

Simple tips.

Get into a routine. (8 am – 10pm) type. start early if you are a morning type or stay up a little if you work better at nights.

Stick to it. Creating a plan is simple, what is more important that you follow it. So stick to your routine and follow through on your ambitious plans.

Cut back on distractions (at least 4 days a week). It is totally possible to live without TV or Facebook for sometime, give it a shot and you will be happier and more productive.

Eat better. Simple, more green, less junk, some nuts, little fruit. Do not over eat.

Do not overdo anything. Do not push yourself too much. Find time to play, have fun, sit with friends and family and do not forget to laugh often.

Move around. Go for a walk – morning and evening. Morning – brisk and evening – relaxed stroll.

Drink water, take deep breaths and take breaks in whatever you do.

Dance if you can, a great way to burn calories and have fun. Best part, you do not need company to do it – just switch on the music on a player or your mobile phone and start.

So move around, be happy and more productive.

Hope you found this useful.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

The Blackberry Story

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The Blackberry storyIntroduction:

There are differences in the ways mobile and telecommunication business works in different countries of the world. In countries like USA and Europe, Smartphone companies partner with the telecom service providers to come up with a reduced price for consumers to avail phone along with services on contract basis. In India, however, the scenario is somewhat different. Cell phone companies and the service provider do businesses separately and people are comfortable with it. Although, a small number of joint initiatives have taken place, none of them have proven their success of scale.

The story:

The building block of RIM was a little unconventional. They had two CEOs. One for the engineering division and the other for the integration of the corporate functions. Mr. Lazaridis was in charge of engineering division and Mr. Balsillie looked after sales and industry interaction. They worked in a close liaison and the model was working well. Blackberry had a very niche offering. A Smartphone that had keyboard and customized apps for the corporate segment of the market. When iPhone was first introduced to the world in 2007, Blackberry pointed out its shortcomings like battery life, robustness etc. in public. Before iPhone, the smart phones used to run on single processor and OS used to take less memory space. Blackberry was running on single processor and OS took 32mb memory space. iPhone was a touch device that ran on dual processor and OS memory space was 700mb. For its initial product selling without partnering with any major service provider, very few people could actually afford it. But they made a pact with AT&T and came up with its combined offering starting with $199. Mr. Lazaridis, the great mind behind Blackberry realized the threat now. Given the sudden surge of the touch phone demand and Apple’s deal with AT&T, Verizone turned to RIM to come up with a touch phone that will not have a physical keyboard. Internally they wanted to call it “an iPhone killer”. So, RIM built Blackberry Storm. But the demand driven product manufacturing had to be quick. Storm had a few bugs and it was slow too. RIM stopped producing Storm. So, Verizone then turned to Google and its newfound operating system Android in 2009. Verizone started its massive marketing campaign as Motorola introduced its droid phone and pinpointed the pitfalls of iPhone with “iDon’t” campaign. As it turned out, Motorola and other Android phones gained success, but not at the cost of loss of market share of iPhone. In contrast, Droid phones started eating market share from Blackberry, Nokia and other Palm and Windows operated phones. As a result, by the end of 2011, Android’s market share was 47.3% and that of RIM dropped to 16% in US market. The main conflict boiled down to the one between software apps and reliable hardware manufacturing. RIM’s engineering principle was built on the very fact that it would provide a hardware that will be low on power usage giving it more battery life and the compact form will make it robust. But this was the need of corporate executives. With the advancement in the smart phone world, more and more people started turning to a device that will be more interactive which led to the high demand of touch phones. Other requirements were smart camera and apps. So, Blackberry ventured into that world and came up with Blackberry 10 OS. But the developers’ network for Apple and Android were huge and well-established. So, they failed to compete with Google Play or iStore. As a reult, they failed to gain market share in normal consumer market. And the corporate execs did not want camera or fascinating apps. So they also complained. So, RIM lost market share there too.

Introducing BBM to non-Blackberry phones:

Instant messaging is the new “big thing” in the mobile era. We have witnessed Facebook acquiring Whatsapp for 19 billion USD in this line. Well, Blackberry is the pioneer in this area. They first introduced BBM as a wireless instant messaging service. It quickly became popular among the Blackberry users. The advantage of BBM is that BBM does not use cell phone number for the service. Rather, it generates an unique BBM pin for a phone. Since this pin is a randomly generated number, the privacy is higher. To add to this, the developers brilliantly incorporated the display of time of delivery and time of reading the message. A number of new players evolved in the same area fighting for market share in iOS and Android phones. So, Blackberry made a strategic move. It also introduced BBM app to non-Blackberry phones for free. The BBM user base increased from 60 million to 80 million.

Conclusion

But since then, the number of BBM users has not increased much and remained stagnant. Those, who registered for BBM in the “hype of getting a BBM Pin” given it was a “corporate status symbol” for long, do not find it so effective. So they have turned to other instant messaging apps. As a result, the number of active users have decreased significantly. At organization level, the collaboration of engineering and functional team was a differentiating factor and once a thing to be boasted about. But lack of mutual accountability and communication have ripped that off. So, the situation right now is such that it is painful to see the greatest innovator of “once-upon-a-time” is bleeding right now and desperately looking for a way to get back to the mainstream.

Article by Subhadeep Das