17/02/2016

17/02/2016; 18:45:


The new month began with classes in the morning and an end term in the afternoon- an RIP end term. There were a few short-answer questions to assess our exposure to rural India after our week-long stints in villages across Madhya Pradesh.

Globe@I staged a re-launch after their month off- it now has new owners (still students) and a slightly changed menu. They promise that the menu will be periodically revised to include student demand/ desires.

We had our first Sales & Distribution Management (SDM) class at 8 p.m. A group activity was scheduled to happen in this first session, to help us understand the need for organized distribution systems. 5 groups, of about 7 students each were to be the buyers and the other 5 groups were to be sellers. Each group of sellers had one kind of item to sell- Oil, bread, shampoo, soap and biscuits. Each set of buyers had been given a demand schedule and were required to procure a certain quantity of each item in the market. The goal of the sellers was to maximise their profits by selling at the highest possible price. The goal of the buyers was to procure the exact quantities in the demand schedule at the lowest possible price. Receipts of each transaction were to be maintained by both parties involved. While everyone wandered around the classroom, trying to get the best price they could, I suggested that we just make fake receipts. The penalty for any wrong entry was 20% of the total. Even with the 20% penalty, we could easily get the best ‘deal’ without actually making any transactions. Of course, my group members did not agree to my genius plan. I decided to take matters into my own hands. First, I went up to the biscuit seller and inquired about the maximum quantity that they could sell to me. This figure was about 5 times that listed on the demand schedule. A price was quoted. I offered to buy but only at about 10 times the quoted price. Of course, they readily agreed and quickly filled out a receipt. This was where the evil genius came in. I filled in a random group number (not mine) and submitted the receipt. I then continued to make large purchases at exorbitant rates, filling in different group numbers each time (I covered all groups other than mine). The sellers were surprised but happy. Now, we would win by virtue of all the other buyers’ spending being much higher than ours (I correctly assumed that my group had stuck to the demand schedule and reasonable prices).
The professor is obviously in for a surprise when he gets around to evaluating our performance in this group activity.
2nd morning began with some classes. A case was discussed in the SDM class- our professor is a visiting faculty member from Goa and his comments make the class more than interesting.
Later in the evening, there was some Media Comm. work to be done- a form had been sent out, asking for everyone to fill in their achievements over the past year(s) and provide pictures of the winning moment. This data was to be collated into presentable form and sent to the Director. Luckily, this task took lesser time than I’d anticipated and I then quickly got to doing the first pre-process for the position of SAC-Treasurer. It was a rather comprehensive pre-process- the SAC budget for the new financial year (2016-17) was to be drawn up; all taxes applicable to the SAC were to be detailed; and then there were a few questions relating to dealing with any deficit that may arise out of a fest during the year.
After duly sending this in, I headed up to partake in a classmate’s birthday celebration. Meanwhile, the current SAC-T had managed to create a Whatsapp group of all the applicants and called for everyone to assemble at the Pi Shop at 2 a.m. Once there, we were split into groups for an interesting, situation-based task. Here was the Pi-Shop- all the inventory was whatever was out on the display floor for us to see and we were to pretend that it was the month of July- right before the new PGP batch was to come in. The Pi Shop had asked the SAC-T for a loan (about 2 lakhs); given their cash balance and their current outstanding credit to the supplier, we were to decide whether the loan was to be sanctioned or not. We drew up estimates of their cost of procuring all the required inventory, assumed margins on all the items, assumed a cash discount percentage and decided that it was best to sanction the loan. We also figured that by our calculations, the loan amount could be repaid in a very short time.
There was an Industrial Visit on 3rd morning. Since we’d presented our final submission the last time that we were there, there wasn’t much to do this time. We had a short interaction, had lunch and then got back to campus around 2 p.m.
I then got around to doing some media comm work- mostly sending out e-mails related to the mentorship programme. Most of the Media Committee work takes place only at the end of the year, in the last term- there’s the yearbook being prepared, visiting cards being sourced for the batch, a mentorship programme being run for the candidates shortlisted for IIM-Indore’s WAT/PI and some miscellaneous activities. The mentorship programme is a rather complex process. We reach out to all the short-listed candidates by way of e-mail and a Facebook group. Students from campus volunteer to be mentors to these candidates- they are then matched up based on work experience, college and stream of study. This year, a larger number than usual of students signed up to be mentors which is definitely a positive.

There were 2 SDM classes in the evening where a case on GoodYear tyres was discussed. The tyre industry is pretty complex- there is more money to be made from auto services than from selling tyres yet you want dealers to be selling tyres too- each type of retailer has their own strategy to deal with this.
Later, we had the fifth session of the leadership workshop. A book summary was to be presented by our group. The book in question was ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’- we gave a short oral presentation, summarizing the 7 habits that the book talks about. It was while reading this book that I realised that I’d been first introduced to concepts in the book, specifically the urgent-important matrix when I was 4 years old, courtesy my father.
Right after, I played some Volleyball before heading up to the SAC Office in SR-7 for the last stage in the selection process for SAC-Treasurer. Unlike what I’d expected, none of the questions were really technical- understandably, technical prowess had been evaluated in the pre-processes. The questions focused on the candidate’s understanding of ethics, how the candidate reacts when faced with an ethical dilemma, management of the SAC fund and overseeing of the various for-profit ventures on campus including JAM, Pi Shop and Express-o-mat. From there, I headed off to the night mess before heading to my room and trying out the newly launched ‘Old Monk Radio’.
4th i.e. Thursday morning began with a Finance class where we learnt about Warrants & call options. There was then an SM class after which I promptly fell asleep. We then had an SDM class where we discussed the expansion of distribution channels for a manufacturer of organic yoghurt.
Ranbhoomi was to start the next day and practice was in order. We spent over an hour playing basketball and then proceeded to play volleyball. Since the night mess was closed, Globe@I (the recently back-in-business Globe@I) was making rolls and fried rice late into the night. There was then an HRM assignment to be done. Trying to figure out the problem statement in the case proved to be a bigger problem than the company in question seemed to be facing. Eventually, we agreed on a few things and put them into writing.
All this while, we were listening to the newly launched ‘Old Monk Radio’- they had added a new song dedication feature where one could (anonymously) dedicate songs to people in the batch. Some of the dedications were love-related, others were just plain funny. Someone managed to dedicate ‘Jaa Chudaail’ to a poor unsuspecting lady in the batch! We contemplated putting in a request but eventually decided against it when we failed to decide on a song.
The SAC-Treasurer and the two treasury members were announced over e-mail in the middle of the night. It has been finally decided that the work-load was too much for one person and a team of 3 members has been formed rather than just a single person as was the usual practice.
Ranbhoomi began on 5th morning, with some basketball matches. There were some classes to attend post which we devoted all our time to Ranbhoomi. The football matches were being held off-campus at a suitable ground; the cricket matches were held in the newly-built cricket stadium- that gave the residents of Lanka something to do for 3 days!
I pretty much lived on the basketball court for the three days that Ranbhoomi was on, watching all the matches. We watched a girls’ match on 5th afternoon, in an attempt to assess the competition. Our boys’ team had a match in the evening and a lot of people turned up to watch it. We had a match too- devoid of audience, but, we won! At 11:30 p.m., a movie screening was held in the Central Lawn- that’s also where all the food stalls were- Meximus, Thick Shake, Chick Blast, Faasos and more! There was even a guy selling popcorn & cotton candy and this food truck dishing out delectable Chinese.
The first Mock Bid for the Student Exchange Programme went live at 11 p.m. on 5th February. There is a list of about 30 partner universities to choose from- each has about 2-6 seats open. The Student Exchange Committee had sometime ago begun sending periodic e-mails with information about the universities to allow for informed decision-making. In the form, one could fill out a minimum of 4 and a maximum of all universities in an order of preference.
Meanwhile, all the different events on campus sent out Google Forms, asking the PGP1’s to fill in their decisions- whether to retain their POR and be promoted to being a member of the senior team, to try their luck at exchange and retain their POR if that fails or to simply give up their POR for personal reasons.
We had the second instalment of the Design Thinking Workshop on 6th Feb. It began with us going over our problem statement and generating possible solutions. We were to generate probable solutions under different scenarios- when you have an infinite budget, when you’re thinking like a child (this part was preceded by us watching some Tom & Jerry videos to get us in kid-mode), when you have absolutely no money, the more feasible solutions and the crazy solutions. In total, each group ended up with 25 different solutions to their problem. We were then asked to pick the most feasible solution(s) and prepare a prototype. We were given all sorts of craft material including thermocol, coloured paper, empty glasses, coloured tape, sketch pens, glue, string, straws and of course, anything that you could find around you was good to be a part of the prototype. Our problem statement dealt with improving the campus placement experience for the students. Accordingly, we drew up the user-interface of a mobile app and listed out its features- including schedule updation in real time & preparatory material in the form of short, animated clips, preferably with Tom & Jerry in them. We then proceeded to make a red punching bag- this was one of our suggested stress busters. Other ideas included music, a meditation room and sleeping pods. We then used the thermocol sheet to depict changing emotion through the placement process. We used the base of the paper cups to draw faces on and then pinned these, in sequence on the thermocol sheet. We then used straws to show the links. The finishing touch was suspending the punching bag from the bottom-right corner of the sheet. In the last hour of the workshop, each group was to present their solution and prototype. Someone had made a replica of the library, complete with book-shelves, seating and umbrellas in an open-air reading space. One group depicted the mess, with a barbeque station, wifi and comfortable seating. One group’s model was all equipped to deal with free riders in project groups- an all-in-one box that had alcohol bottles, mark-sheets and other incentives to get the usual free riders to work. One group dealt with improving the learning process by adding some field learning and industrial visits to the usual course curriculum. They’d made a model of the classroom- with a blackboard, the horse-shoe shaped seating and students. They’d also made a car-manufacturing assembly line- a group of curious students stood by the assembly line, watching carefully. Everyone attempted to do a critical review of everyone else’s work before we closed for the day.

I then walked out to the Central Lawn and stood watching a Kabbadi game- it was the semi-final, IIM-Indore v/s Sanghvi Institute of Management. It was nearly one-sided but fun to watch; there was a lot of cheering for the IIM-Indore team by some other opponents who had perhaps lost to the Sanghvi team earlier in the tournament. Soon after, a volleyball match started on the court next to the Academic Block- the teams were both equally good and our team lost by one point in the final set. Meanwhile, the Women’s Arm Wrestling event had begun bang in the middle of the central lawn. A tug-of-war rope had been drawn into a bout ring and the matches started. All three winners were from IIM-Indore. I’d contemplated participating but decided against it for I did not feel like breaking any arms. On my way down to the hostel, I stopped at Globe@I- they’d gotten a large cake on the occasion of the director’s birthday which happened to coincide with their first anniversary. There was cake for everyone and lots of pictures were clicked!

I then quickly headed down to the basketball court after changing into appropriate gear. A boys’ basketball match was just wrapping up- our team had managed a win and they had another match right after ours. It was a nice match that we managed to win. Our boys’ team then had a semi-final game. They played really well but the other team proved to be unbeatable (this was the same team that later won the final). Meanwhile, a counter-strike championship was in progress in Mess 1. Ranbhoomi was all set to cater to gamers of all sorts, this time around.

A bonfire had been arranged for at 10 p.m., in the Central Lawn. There was music, food, games, people and chocolate- a perfect end to the day!
7th morning began with the Women’s Basketball Final. The other team was really good; we’d earlier seen them playing and knew that we’d need to try really hard to even match up to them. We put up a close fight- we were even leading by a few points somewhere in the 3rd quarter after being down nearly 10 point right in the beginning. We lost the game 36-42 but were really happy. The Men’s final was held right after and we stayed to cheer even though the IIM-Indore team hadn’t made it to the final. It was a brilliant game that was finally won by Sharda University 62-52. Amity University were the runners up and we figured that could’ve just played this game in Delhi!
After lunch, I was back in my room when a batchmate had a proposition. We’d received an e-mail about a Policy Writing Challenge, courtesy of the RBI. A 2000-word essay was to be sent it by EOD; the topic was ‘Demographic Dividend of India: Opportunity or Threat’. She’d collected some demographic data and we got writing and were soon done. We then sent our work to another teammate to add the conclusion/recommendations.
Ranbhoomi’s closing ceremony began at 4:30 p.m. in the New Audi. Gautam Gambhir was the guest of honour for the evening and handed out all the prizes. We even received a trophy for Basketball! Right after the closing ceremony, Raahie- the Band was all set to perform. They’d come from Mumbai, just to perform at Ranbhoomi. They staged popular Bollywood songs and ended with an original composition. It was a very enjoyable hour- we wish they’d played longer. It was totally a dance party in the New Audi- a nice close to 3 fun-filled days. We then headed up to the Central Lawn to get ourselves some food.
Applications for the positions of the different fest coordinators were thrown open in the evening- there was to be one coordinator each for Udaan, Utsaha and i5Summit and two for Iris. 7th Feb also happened to be Rose Day- the first in the series of days in the run-up to Valentine’s Day on the 14th. Someone decided to use this opportunity to make some extra cash and thus, Airlift Delivery was born (for the night at least). An email was sent out to the institute with a Google form and some details. They had rose and cards on offer; these could be delivered anonymously for an extra fee of Rs.30 on top of the 50 bucks for a rose and 30 for a card. The idea was a great hit; they sent the email out late in the afternoon and had nearly a hundred orders to deliver by midnight. And no, I didn’t receive or send any roses.
8th morning began with an ISM Quiz. We’d been informed beforehand that the quiz would be MCQ type. Of course, there’s always a twist in the tale. The paper was MCQ alright- each question had one correct answer and one mark for marking the correct option. Then, there were two marks for explaining your choice. And, if your explanation was wrong, not only would your correct option not fetch marks, but there was an additional 25% penalty too! After the quiz, we received an email from the IPM Office- the government of Odisha has initiated a new scheme under which students from the state who belong to the ST category will receive a scholarship to study in premier national institutes.
We then had a few classes. Meanwhile a Committee was constituted to oversee the arrangements for the Convocation which is scheduled to be held on the 26th of March. We headed out in the evening and ordered some chicken tikka. This starter invariably turned into dinner when it was too spicy to be eaten by itself and we got some rotis to go with it.

Tuesday morning began with a few classes. Right after class, we had a Finance Quiz at 5 p.m. The quiz was fairly easy and dealt with the exact stuff that we’d been doing in class. We received an email about a Live project opportunity from the Consulting Club. It dealt with creating a Digital Media strategy for IIM-Indore which the winning team will get to implement over the course of the coming year.
In the evening, we gathered at Mess-1 at around 6:30 p.m., all set to go for a party. A party was being organized to celebrate the success of Utsaha- somehow, the other fests haven’t gotten around to having parties just yet. Buses had been arranged for and we headed to Vidorra where nice food and an inviting dance flood awaited us. An in-time extension to allow us to return to campus late had been arranged for and we got back close to 1 a.m. (as opposed to the usual 11:30 p.m. limit).
Somehow, Section E did not have any classes scheduled for 10th Feb- everyone else had classes since the Industrial Visits were now complete. There was an SDM class later in the evening where there was a rather interesting case being discussed- ‘Hulu: An evil plot to take over the world’. What it actually dealt with was an online video aggregator who promised on-demand access to popular content including movies and TV Series. I really like the idea the professor uses to tackle most cases- the classroom can be easily divided into 3 sections as per the seating arrangement and each section is to be one stakeholder in the case in order to allow for an analysis of the same problem from different perspectives. Our area was to be the customers, the next advertisers and the third the owners of cable and the content.
Someone in the PGP2 batch sent out an email offering his car up for sale. Understandably, he’s going to leave this one here and just get a new one wherever he is in the next few months. We contemplated asking for the details before deciding against it for I am still to learn how to drive (everyone else I know can, though).
Section E managed to get lucky, two days in a row- we didn’t have any classes on Thursday either! Perhaps, we’d had a lot of classes in the beginning of the term. We received an email announcing an SM Quiz at 2:30 p.m. The quiz was, as promised, largely MCQ type; there was also a short-notes section. There was then an SDM class at 3:30 p.m. We discussed Cisco’s strategy to venture into VoIP after having successfully captured the market for routers and switches. Right after the SDM class, I headed to the lawn adjacent to the MDC- Media Comm was to have a photoshoot (mainly because a team picture was needed for the yearbook). Most other Clubs/Committees had gotten their team pictures clicked, looking all professional, suited-up. Media Committee spent some time debating this- of course, formal attire was not even an option- we flitted between options including a VIBGYOR-themed picture, a pink/blue picture and an all-black picture. Eventually, everyone agreed on a colourful theme. Of course, there’s always someone who doesn’t quite agree and accordingly, someone turned up, dressed in black from head to toe. We quickly gathered into 2 lines and posed. I figured that we were done, but, someone suggested that we try a change of scenery. We headed behind ER-2 and posed with the clouds. Our boss felt that the pictures were ‘boring’ and that he wasn’t ‘feeling it’. Deciding to humour him, we worked quickly and the poor guy ended up being suspended in mid-air by a giggling team as many pictures were rapidly shot. We then clicked some pictures at the main entrance of the Academic Block- here, we even used a parked institute bus as background. A final few pictures in the Central Lawn, the Open Air Theatre and about an hour later, we were finally done- we’d surely succeeded in making and capturing some memories!
Right after, I headed over the Old Audi- an interaction session with the Director had been arranged for two sections at a time. Director Sir urged us to Build A Career, have dreams and follow them; the floor was then opened to questions/suggestions about the PGP curriculum and the campus in general. Suggestions varied from the timings of the Fin Lab and the surprise quizzes to the student exchange programme and the industrial visits. Sir was very positive about some reasonable suggestions and promised changes.
We were informed that the term would end on the 22nd of March- we’re looking to plan a trip to somewhere before our internships start- most likely on the 4th of April. I’m still waiting on some written communication regarding my internship; hopefully, it shall reach me some time soon. Sports Comm sent out an email announcing the 6th Edition of the campus IPL.
SPICMACAY conducted an online quiz at around 11:30 p.m. It was to be related to classical dance, music and art; of course, we decided to participate. The quiz was, as they’d promised, very interesting. More than anything, we were surprised by our (hitherto unknown) knowledge about these topics. We didn’t win, though.
12th morning began with a few classes – an HRM class where we discussed the idea of Tata Motors restructuring their rather complicated compensation structure. Later in the day, we received an email from the E-Cell announcing plans for a new change in the PGP curriculum to encourage entrepreneurship. Students who have a concrete startup idea that they wish to pursue through their second year can opt to study 15 credits worth of entrepreneurship-related courses and complete the rest of their credits through the work they do on their startup. Interactions with angel investors and access to the development labs of industries around Indore will be arranged for by the institute; further, a two-year placement deferral option will be made available. This really looks like a step in sync with the new StartUp India campaign. Here’s hoping that IIM-Indore gives birth to some stellar entrepreneurs!
We had an HRM Quiz at 5 p.m. It was an open-spiral, MCQ Quiz. Of course, there’s always a catch- there was negative marking and the quiz was only 15 minutes long!

Acad Comm. sent out an email asking for feedback on the class representatives – this was to be an important criteria in the selection of the senior team. Later, there was a DT assignment to be sent in- while we’d all initially planned to send in more or less similar assignments, when I got writing, I couldn’t stop. I started with detailing out my experience and learnings and then wrote extensively about applying the Design Thinking Concepts that we’d learnt to playing more effective Basketball.
13th morning began with Saraswati Puja at 7 a.m. We then had a Finance class which was to serve as a review session before the midterm. We’d planned to head out early in the evening but we managed to fall asleep and then headed out for dinner.
Before heading out, we wrote out a few Valentine’s Day cards to drop into the ‘Pyaar ka Matka’. Like every year, this year too, the Cultural Committee had arranged for matkas to be placed at strategic locations- one could write cards to any person of their choosing- just that the cards were all to be anonymous.
At 12:01 a.m., the bidding for our SDM Project topics began- the rule was simple- you had to email the section & the professor with your chosen industry. The chosen industry would be allotted to the first person to send in the email- somehow there wasn’t too much of an overlap in people’s choices though FMCG was the most popular. We picked the readymade Apparel industry.
Another edition of the Zumba classes was all set to begin on Sunday morning- it will be a daily feature at the Gym above Mess 3. Sunday was obviously sleepy- we headed up at around 3 p.m. to get some biryani- Noor’s Kitchen was on campus selling 4 different types of biryani.
Later in the evening, I got to compiling our Sustainability group assignment. We’d picked the topic ‘Evaluating Social Capital at IIM-Indore’. All the group members had, in pairs interviewed the service staff on campus- the housekeeping staff, the transport staff, the medical centre staff, the security staff and the mess staff. Questions had included the positives of their work, the problems they face and possible solutions. Most of them are happy with their work, mainly due to the job security and the positivity associated with the brand name.

After sending this in, I attempted to make some plans for Valentine’s Day- of course, all my attempts failed. I then just ate in the Night Mess after taking a long walk around campus.

Monday i.e. 15th morning began with some classes- the last ISM session (where we closed with a quiz) and then the last HRM session. We ended the session by clicking a group picture with the professor. Later in the day, Cul Comm sent out an email announcing Mr. & Miss Valentine- based on the number of cards received.
We then attempted to study some Finance for the midterm; soon, we just ended up in the night mess.
The Finance midterm began at 10:30 a.m. It was a 2-hour long paper that covered all the concepts that we’d discussed in class. Part A was case-based and Part B had some True & False questions.
In the evening, we executed our (delayed) Valentine’s Day plans and headed to Chef’s to eat some Roestti and Pasta. Somehow, there were no classes scheduled on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Wednesday morning began late, with some rice for lunch. We then got to writing testimonials for the yearbook since it was the last day to send them in.
I then participated in a focus group discussion on online marketplaces for automobiles- this was needed for some MR project that everyone was working on. And now, there’s a Lasya party to attend!