The Journey of GIMBA!!

Ten months ago we set our foot steps to a Journey,

Filled with enthusiasm, anxiousness, and a story,

We entered a world with dreams untouched,

Looking for a new discovery and an exciting ride.

The first day was the day of introductions,

Met some new faces and some with moving reactions,

Things in no time turned interesting,

And the journey appeared to be long and exciting.

In no time first term got over,

Everyday brought a new story and a new fervor,

As days passed by, some old stories died,

With an endless hope that it would change its stride.

Singapore was great but it passed on in a flash,

Dubai started with pockets already short of cash,

Inside the campus, temperature was not as hot,

As finance and IT students were no longer in the same boat.

ALP started with a bang and held a lot of hope,

And so did the first placement session,

In between all this there was a new turn in class participation,

As it showed first signs of desperation.

Oh god! Yes the placement fever finally caught up,

and everyday a new JD turned up,

making all of us wonder if a JD could turn into a job,

all of us would leave without a tinge of sob.

But as I sit down and look back at the last ten months,

It brings in beautiful memories and gives goose bumps,

Never ever did I imagine the journey would be so beautiful,

Because some times journey overshadows the eventual destination.

Namit Nayak

Information Technology, GDEC08

Innovation-Productivity-Change: A measured approach

With the ever changing global business landscape, carved by technological advances and the ongoing challenging times of recession companies are struggling to keep their heads above the water to breathe and survive. There has been a shift in the philosophy of productivity, a shift which has the potential to render the big ones helpless and the small ones with all the power. The shift is that of Innovation.

Innovation has become a buzz word with every new kid on the block, challenging the big and established ones on the grounds of innovation. Responding to the change and threat associated with innovation, firms today have become more experimental than ever with huge involvements in terms of resource and capital commitment.

Productivity is another aspect that drives the decisions of a firm. Productivity is enhanced when a process is repeatedly used with minor correcting changes that enhance the ability of the process and not the process itself. The Human mind on the other hand has the inept tendency of standardizing things, activities and processes so that they can be replicated with lesser effort. But when the underlying assumptions and rules of a set process change, the result is an emotional response of aversion towards the stimulus of change.

Thus Innovation leads to change in the standardized adopted process and is always associated with the factor of change and managing this change effectively is crucial for success.

Considering the high stakes and the level of involvement that firms are witnessing and showing in current crisis a firm needs to have a calculated approach towards innovation and must look at various aspects of innovation, align it with its needs and possible consequences. The article shares some aspects that a firm should consider and evaluate when it comes to innovation.

Need for Collaboration: Stand alone Innovation is of no use unless it is implemented to achieve the value it has the potential to create. Before a firm goes for innovating within itself, it should explore the opportunity of collaborating with other firms who may have similar innovations available. This is important as in tough times optimal usage of resources and capital is crucial for survival.

Maintaining Rationality in experimentation:

Innovation calls for experimentation with set rules and guidelines. It is important to understand that experimenting with rules and procedures may not always lead to innovation and productivity. A firm must constantly measure the direction and magnitude of innovation with the purpose of innovation. Failure to commit resources to the right innovation efforts may lead to huge loss of capital.

Alignment between Innovation and Need: In tough times “need” is the rule and only things that are based on “needs” survive, the rest just vanish. Before going for innovation the firm must identify the NEED first and then move in the direction of catering to the need. The traditional approach of creating a need if it does not exist may not work in challenging economic times as the only thing that drives business in tough times is the need that is urgent or the one which brings immediate results to the business.

Ensuring Optimal Use of Innovation: Innovation if not put to use is like a NON Performing asset which has the potential to generate value but is not able to. So for firms which successfully innovate, and create value for users, using the innovation to produce results within the business is crucial.

Managing and Enduring Change: Innovation is always associated with change, and humans have an inherent aversion towards change. For a firm to actually achieve the result of productivity improvement , managing change is crucial as this change will require additional commitment of resources to make it enduring with respect to employee acceptance. Failure to adopt the change will lead to further loss of investment.

When to STOP Innovating: A firm should know when to stop innovating and start replicating. Innovation without replication is incomplete and a firm can benefit from innovation only after it replicates the learning gained from innovation. A constant innovation cycle may not always help. Innovation in a process that is replicated many times over will always lead to increased productivity.

Vishal Shukla
Information Technology Management
December’08

Mystery

Empty roads, Closed Coffee shops pooled with the sound of music speak a thousand words for many. The clandestine beauty of life might have blown away many and yet there are cynics who don’t understand it. The cherry will be ripped apart if the mystique nature of it is not enjoyed in its totality.

Life is made up with so many moments and stories. Some are complete and there are some which last for few moments and are incomplete, yet they are the ones which remain afresh in ones mind with its surreal and mystique nature. There are times when your heart cries remembering them and at times it brings with it hope and an irresistible desire to do something extraordinary.

The enigma for many is to how to rekindle that one small magic moment into eternity. People have this hope that world around us will be complete and the sunshine will be bestowed its lost beauty if the enigma is understood. But sometimes it is the journey that teaches things which are beyond and helps us to explore unknown territories. Everything happens for a reason and the beauty is that the reason is unknown.

Namit Nayak
Information Technology Management
December’08

This is my world

This is my world
This is how it is

The six year old in Darfur fighting with an AK-47
The sixty year old obese in the US waiting for his ticket to heaven

The four year old in remote Sudan hopes food will reach his parched lip
The forty old mother in China remembers her second child, offloaded to Hong Kong in a ship

The one year in Aceh fighting for survival in a dysfunctional incubator
The ten year old Mongol knows no difference between a crocodile and an alligator

The five year old in Mexico waits with his mother at the junction, waiting to hop
The fifty year old Russian who once was a proud cop

The three year old in India shares his room with ten others
The thirty year old Afghani militant knows no difference between foes and brothers.

The seventy year old German waits for company, only a dog to tame
The seven year old korean is hooked on to his video game

The teenager from Pakistan sprays bullets at innocent
The teenager from Iran displaying his protest vehement

This is your world
Will this be how you leave it to your progeny?

Siddarth

Banking Management

December 08

Quantum Computing – The wavy world.

Playing with waves and particles is the game of future world. These days we follow up waves in the fields of Mobile Computing, GSM, GPS, Listening radio, Bluetooth for transferring Data, RFID Tags, Infra red in TV remote and many more numerable examples in day today life. These are some of the basic usage of transferring Information through waves. If transfer is possible, then why not processing of information in waves? Quantum, wave Computing comes and play a major role in developent of  wave processors.

Waves are like everywhere and nowhere. Imagine a world where each of us is allotted a processor in waves. It would scan your face for authentication and available to serve you for 24hrs without any interference of outside world. It would project Virtual image on air and control your day today activities may be related to Finance, Scheduling, Automations, Calls, Entertainment, Business Problem, accidents, alarms and ample of utilities with the move, by processing and projecting Virtual Environment on air. It would just change the way world moves. No need to carry hardware, software and multifarious products. Just live your life in complete automated, planned, user friendly manner with your wavy personal Assistant moving as per your speed of life. Controlling, adapting  and keep on updating  itself according to your behaviour.

Feasibility – Processing through waves is already possible and have been implemented in Virtual Laser devices like keyboards, imaginary blackboard on air. As per diagram, the Keyboard keys are waves projected on solid surface and have capability to process the clicked keys and transfer data to PC.

As per above, processing in wave is very much feasible but challenge is to project waves on air analogous to sentosa(Song of the sea in Diagram), with novel Operating System.

Hope some innovative Organization soon come up with this unique product to revolutionize the world’s traditional computing.

Rightly said -

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Puneet Bajaj

Internet Marketing Management

April 09

The power of brand!

I would like to share with you all a recent experience and relate it to what we have learnt about branding and/or will be learning about branding. Around one week back my mobile phone broke down, I tried getting it repaired but the repairing cost was too high as compared to India, so I decided to rather buy a rather basic model for the time being and get my phone repaired once I get back to India.

So as a typical Indian consumer I enquired about price on a number of shops and thus finally find a shop close to our hostel. The shopkeeper was an old man, gave me quite a few options ranging from 60 dollars to 600 dollars, but as usual I was broke and had very little money! So I told him to narrow down the range to minimum, which is $ 60.

 

He finally displayed two models, one was a Nokia and other one was an LG, LG one was a nice phone with color display, and came with a 1 year warranty. Nokia model was one with a black and white display and also did not have a warranty. Now see the power of branding, the LG phone was a clear winner I terms of features, value for money and every other tangible aspect including the asthetics. I ended up buying the Nokia one. Why?

 

On my way back I was thinking about how what is the power of a brand, and how much a company can leverage on to it. It was sheer power of the brand Nokia which made me buy an inferior phone in terms of features but still some where I knew that in terms of quality, the phone I have bought is a better phone. Well, who knows!

 

I urge all the readers to share their experiences regarding various brands they buy and what drives them to give into these brands.

Madhur Dhawan

SMM- Decmber 2008

Revolution of Information Management – Adding Intelligence

World of Information is becoming complex day by day. New information is getting accumulated at Geometric progression. Side by side different innovative tools, algorithms and web applications are getting developed to have search, usage and utilization of information as best as possible. Accumulation of tremendous information in this Global world has forced us to do proper trade-off between Precision and accuracy of complex Information, using tools like Six Sigma. Because information derived and needed would be different for different humans, but database is same, and more precise the information, higher chances of inaccuracy and vice versa. Now, by analysing and embedding different variables and Technologies, we are slowly and steadily moving towards Knowledge based search Engines, adding intelligence to our search for information and last but not least trying to imitate “Human mind”.

Knowledge based search would really be a revolution and very difficult to implement. For e.g. Currently, we use Text, Voice, image, visual based search through machines. But having a search based engines which analyze surroundings, past, present, future prospects, real time environment and multifarious macro, micro variables of the world analogous to Human Brain does and finally deliver result in 3D, audio, visual, interpreted, simulated way. This would really be a new gyration in the entropic world and change the meaning of word “Search”.

Instead of implementing search based Engines using one Tool and technology, Search should synchronously and coherently use different integrated hardware, products, software, services and algorithms to get the best possible output. Google, the leader of Search based engines whether its Searching information, images, earth(Google maps), videos(YouTube), people(Orkut) or anything, Google is always ahead in this. Realising value of Information Management, Slowly and steadily they are shifting from “Database tag keywords to knowledge based search” by integrating real-time Webcam, location, traffic, video, advertisers, sensors, macro, micro factors and many more inbuilt attributes to provide user “what really he/she interested in”. Still, today’s Information based search has just entered into Search engine arena. Still lot to explore to replicate Human mind made by God.

Rightly said -

“Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.“

Puneet Bajaj

Internet Marketing Management

April 09

“Cloud Computing” the BUZZ is in the Air – Part 2

Welcome to my second post on Cloud Computing, this article speaks about the Ontology of the cloud. Though there is no industry defined ontology for the cloud, I found this particular representation most appropriate.

As seen in the figure the cloud is divided into five layers:

Cloud Applications: This is the most visible layer to the end users; it exports the work from the end users to the datacenters where the cloud applications run. It is normally referred to as Software as a service (SaaS). Examples are google apps, salesforce.com

Cloud Software Environment: This layer provides the application developers with a programming language level environment with a set of well defined API’s facilitating the interaction between environment and the cloud applications. It is also referred to as platform as a service (PaaS). Examples are Google App Engine, Sales Force Apex, Microsoft Azure

Cloud Software Infrastructure Layer: This layer provides computational resources, data storage and communication services. VM (Virtual Machines) are the most common form for providing computational resources to the cloud user and such services are dubbed as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) examples are Amazons Elastic Compute Cloud, GoGrid, Skytap, Flexiscale, ElasticHosts, AppNexus. Data Storage is another software infrastructure provided that allow users to store data at remote disks and be billed according to their usage. The service is referred to as Data storage as a service (DaaS). Examples are Google App Engines Big Table, Amazon Simple DB (database for application development), Iron Mountain, Amazon Simple Storage Service, Nirvanix, CloudNAS, MobileMe iDisk. Communication as a service (CaaS) handles the task of providing service oriented communication capability that is reliable and secure, example being Skype.

Software Kernel: This layer provides software management for the physical servers that constitute the cloud. They can be implemented as an OS kernel, hypervisor, virtual machine monitor, or clustering middleware.

Hardware and Firmware: Is the actual physical hardware forming the backbone of the cloud. The users of this layer are normally big enterprises with huge IT requirements in need of subleasing.

That’s all I have in this week’s post, in the next post I will write about the different types of clouds and on Interoperability between various cloud service providers.

Sundeep Malik
Information Technology Management
December’08

Lighter moments

A day in the life of an MBA…

 Siddharth Vishwanath

Human Resources Management

December 08

Impact of global financial crisis on Singapore’s beauty and cosmetics industry.

The impact of global financial crisis on Singapore’s beauty and cosmetics industry.

Ayaz Furniturewalla, general manager of Elizabeth Arden’s distributor market and travel retail in Singapore says that “Beauty is recession-proof. Even when the economy isn’t doing well, people still need a little distraction to feel good about them.”

For majority of the Singaporeans, beauty is a ‘must-have’ rather than a luxury.

Irrespective of the slowing economy and the growing financial crisis, the beauty products and the cosmetics industry in Singapore remains upbeat. Above all, this industry is expected to maintain the current pace of growth next year also. A small survey conducted by a marketing research company also showed that despite the job losses and the deep economic recession that the country has faced till date, seven out of ten Singaporeans will continue to spend on beauty products and services. Those who wanted to cut their spending on beauty products like cosmetics said that they would just switch from designer labels to house brands.

In the recessions of 1990 and 2001, the demand for cosmetics increased when the consumer confidence was low. The same trend is being observed in the current economic crisis. This fits in perfectly with what the economists call the ‘Lipstick effect’. The Lipstick effect states that the sales of beauty products and cosmetics go up in times of economic adversity. The sale of lipsticks has seen a steady rise during the recession time. Products like Lipsticks are an affordable indulgence, as compared to a new dress or an expensive skin treatment, especially during the times when an average purchaser wants to spend less on luxuries.

Recession has definitely affected the up market and expensive range of cosmetic and beauty products, because it is not possible for the consumers to spend extravagantly on them during recession times. The term ‘recession chic’ has been coined by several blogs and articles in Singaporean magazines and newspapers which are filled with tips on how to maintain good looks at low cost during the times of recession. US marketers are launching new products targeting stylish, budget-conscious women customers who want to look chic.

To conclude, this quote clearly indicates why the beast known as recession has failed to affect the beauty products and the cosmetic industry:

“Through war, plague and recession, human vanity endures”.

Aastha Gupta

Product Marketing and Management

April 09