What happens Behind that Wall...Part 2

I would start from where I left off in the last post where I mentioned about Operation courses. The topics covered in operations' subjects include solving network and flow problems which are not very uncommon in the logical reasoning section of written tests. These could be asked in written tests because no specific knowledge is required and pure logic would solve the purpose. So now you would fairly agree that there is some logic which governs what is asked in the written examination.

I haven't talked so far about the verbal section of written examination because its not governed by any specific subject or area. Different exams tests students on different type of questions but the common type in all sorts of tests is the reading comprehension section which I think is probably the most important thing required during and after MBA. The whole course is designed to be completed in just two years whereas the subjects covered make a big list. Thus one is required to read a lot of stuff including academic/theoretical things. I have separated out academic stuff just to specify that the other portion reading includes lot of cases which by their nature are not theoretical but still pose a challenge. Comprehension is tested in a big way here as on an average cases are longer than 20 pages and contain lots and lots of information much of which is not required most of the times. Therefore one needs to comprehend what is required and what is not, which I think is tested in RC's of exams. I think many people would agree that of late the questions other than RC's have focused on checking logic and comprehension, at least CAT has moved in that direction. By now I have discussed correlation between written exam and what happens in and after MBA.

Time to discuss about the second stage i.e. GD and PI. Well PI is something which is required to know the person and hence a way to judge whether the aspirant is actually ready to take on the challenges ahead. PI is probably more justifiable as compared to the GD's especially considering the chaos we generally create in a GD. I used to and I still hate GD's because they have been one of my weak areas and I have found many people who feel the same way just because results of that 20-120 min discussions are many times pretty arbitrary. However theoretically speaking GD's do test a important thing which is how one behaves in group. Testing this is important because one has to work in teams in the corporate world and that's precisely the reason during MBA their are plenty of group tasks to be done. So a group is situation is simply unavoidable in this field and that's why GD or GT make sense however the chaos created by desperation for a seat always leave a bad taste.

Whole selection process thus have some reason behind it. One more thing which is necessary to be told here is that the fact all my professors rate us highly but at the same time they expect a lot from us. Here at IIM's they believe we belong to the 'cream' of country so expect quick as well as thorough analysis. This belief is also one of the reason that duration of program is short. So subjects are taught pretty rapidly to cover maximum possible things.

I mentioned about the subjects belonging to the three core areas but there are many other which are equally relevant. Organization Behaviour is the subject which deals with aspects like organization structure, team behaviour, individual's behaviour, factors which motivate people etc. I find these subjects pretty interesting as I am able to relate most of the things with my work experience. Many things are sort of obvious in this subject but there are many things which we perceive in completely wrong way so its knowledge is a plus point. OB is followed by Human Resource Management which I expected will cover only behavioral aspects but it turned out to be pretty deep. It had decent level of mathematical application and lot of business logic. All in all, OB and HRM add a different flavor to the MBA education.

Another very interesting subject is Information Tech & Sys. We all know how IT has impacted our lives. IT is also not only an area which absorbs majority of engineering graduates but also a major recruiter in B-schools. These facts make it imperative to have ITS as subject. The subjects introduces us to SaaS (Software as a service), Open Source, Business modelling etc. This is perhaps the subject which shows us the true capability of a MS Excel, a tool which all of us know far less than its full potential.

Any firm can be affected by internal or external factors. For better understanding of all these factors we are taught Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. As the name suggests microeco discusses things related to internal factors i.e. things which firm can fully control and macroeco discusses things related to external factors. Understanding of Government actions/policies can be gained through macroeco. Another subject which is liked by many here is Indian Legal System as it introduces to Corporate Law, Environmental Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Consumer Court etc. No one can run a business while neglecting the legal aspects, so it is not only interesting but essential to know the legal framework.

Another important thing to know here is that the structure and topics of each subject is updated regularly. Its not like what I experienced in my engineering i.e. outdated topics or things which are not at all used in practical world. Each professor put in lot of effort to keep things updated and try to relate things with recent happenings

In sum, MBA education is very interesting and is worth giving a try! Although B-schools are mainly considered 'placement agencies' they do have some relevant things going on the other side those walls.

What happens Behind that Wall...

I am writing a blog entry after a long time. I wanted to write earlier as well but somehow I managed to engage myself in all other activities except blogging. My last post was in May 2009 and was regarding preparation for CAT 2009. Well coincidently this one is also on the same lines. If you get an impression that I am obsessed with this whole process, then you won’t be completely wrong. The whole selection process is something on which I can talk for hours based on my experiences.

This time of the year all the aspirants have already experienced the first hurdle and some of the lucky ones start preparing themselves for the second stage. This article is directed towards those lucky ones. Through this article I want to help people to prepare themselves in slightly better manner. No it’s not going to be a gyan session on do’s and don’ts of GD/PI; I just want to show you the world waiting for you once you clear the second stage. When I was preparing for my GD/PI I always felt the need to know what happens behind the walls of a B-school. Many a times I criticized the written selection process, relevance of the different sections etc. but after experiencing the B-school life for around 7-8 months I can easily say that the whole process is pretty systematic/structured and logical. Each and every thing happens because of a reason.

To understand things let’s just do a fast forward and see what lies after two years of MBA education and then move backwards and hope that things would fall in place that way. MBA is often a stepping stone to reach a high responsibility position like CXO level. Of course typically some years of experience is required after MBA but there are many who assume such roles immediately after MBA(here I am talking of start-ups). So what does anyone needs to succeed or even operate at that CXO level? Let’s assume the start-up wishes to provide a new product. Here lies the need to decide upon what that product would be, who will buy that product, what all are the expectations of those buyers, how that product will satisfy those needs etc. answers to this set of questions can be obtained if we know what Marketing is all about. At that stage one can shortlist some ideas for products which would be further evaluated. For manufacturing any product we would require a location of manufacturing, equipments, material i.e. capital would be required. Now how to source that capital for each project, management of funds obtained, expected returns from any project all such things can be answered based on knowledge of Finance. The next step is to define the various processes like the assembling of product, its packaging, transportation from manufacturing plant to wholesalers, distributors etc. Efficiency of each and every process does impact the profit making capability of the firm so we just cannot ignore Operations.

Marketing, Finance and Operations are thus three core areas of business and they form the backbone of any MBA program. CXO level guy needs to have fair knowledge of all these areas because decision on anyone is highly interlinked with other two. These core areas can be divided into sections which are taught in MBA program as individual subjects over various terms of the course. For example I had three subjects of Finance over three terms; Financial Accounting, Cost Accounting and Corporate Finance. Financial accounting is where we are taught about the financial statements of a company. Financial statements give idea about financial health of a company and are good means of comparing different companies. Cost accounting teaches us how to keep track of the various costs which a firm incurs in making of product or providing a service. With complete understanding of costs involved one can find ways to reduce the same and hence increase the profits. Recession has made a term called “cost-cutting” highly popular; Cost accounting is precisely the direction where one needs to head in order to cut the cost. Lastly, Corporate Finance which is probably the most interesting of all finance courses, here we are taught to evaluate projects based on expected returns and budget constraints. There are many methods for such evaluation and vary in depths till which they go and their user friendliness. As far as I know it is this area where CFO level people work on, obviously the projects under their consideration would be of high importance. People at that level rarely do anything related to financial accounting however their decision are based on financial statements and their decision impact the status of financial statement. So knowledge of financial accounting is paramount and hence is the first financial course taught in b-schools. As anyone would expect finance require proficiency in maths. This proficiency is precisely what is tested in quant section of any written exam. Financial decisions involves interpreting information from various sources for example the three financial statements (FYI three financial statements are (a) Balance Sheet (b) Income Statement (c) Cash Flow statement). I think you would be able to guess the section which would test this ability; yes it is data interpretation section.

In the first year I had two Marketing courses (1) Marketing Management and (2) Marketing Research. The first course shows various facets of marketing like understanding the customers’ needs, knowing who your customers are, ways to reach the customer, creating your brand etc. Marketing Research focuses on the extracting the information which helps understand the customer and its requirement.

Operations was divided in two courses Operations Research and Operations Management. OR introduces to various mathematical and statistical techniques used to solve the problems of Operations Management which in turn includes things like task scheduling, inventory management, supply chain management etc.

To be continued…

I have not even made half of my point yet...