Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The field visit to Chennai - A trip that changed my outlook towards life....

I started on the trip to Chennai - a field visit to the various NGO’s as part of our Management of Non-Profit Organizations course – with a light heart, buoyant spirits and a promise to myself that I would have fun these 2 days away from the humdrum of MBA with its assignments, presentations and lectures… but instead what I experienced was the stark reality of life… a 2 day crash course on how the other half of the world lives…

We visited 4 NGO’s in the 2 days… The Banyan – a home for the mentally challenged women, ANEW – an organization that provides training for women in non-traditional employment, Sri Arunodayam – a home for special children and The Kuthambakkam Village – an initiative by Mr.Elango Rangaswamy. All 4 were different yet all were similar..!!! They all worked at the goal of providing services to fellow human beings either by empowering them or by taking care of them!


When we visited The Banyan, I was gripped. The most admirable thing about these people was that they were so courageous to face up to life after the cruel blows it had dealt them. They had suffered so much at the hands of life and society and yet they were looking forward to the future instead of wallowing in the misery of the past. The confidence on their faces, the way they spoke (and that too in English – I found that very surprising!), their ever-smiling faces, they were so friendly offering us tea and making us talk about ourselves, putting us to ease etc.
Hats off to them!! :-)

At Sri Arunodayam, We were told many stories about the children who are now a part of this organization. Their own parents abandoning them because they are ‘unhealthy’, family members using them for begging by mutilating them, women conceiving after the age of 35-40 and then abandoning them because they weren’t as they had expected them to be,… I would have loved to have had more interactions with the kids there; now that they have touched my life they will always be a part of me even if the interactions were only for a short period of time, it is the substance of the encounter that matters!!

The trip changed my outlook towards life completely… I have heard people say that “You’ll never know what you have been missing until you get it, you’ll also never know the value of what you have until you lose it..!!!”. This trip was something like that… till now I have been taking so many things for granted that I have never even given a second thought about how many times my parents have given up so much on something just so that I could have it? How many times I have cribbed or complained because I have not gotten something or because things have not gone my way? How many times I have though of myself as the person who has only problems in her life and that her life is a failure? How many times I have only thought about myself for that matter not even thinking how others would be feeling, or putting myself in others’ shoes in certain situations? How many times I have hurt my parents for something so inconsequential that it didn’t even matter at the end? How many times I have picked up fights with my bro’ which were so silly, stupid and immature?

The trip just made me realize how little importance we give something in our life like our relationships for instance… it only when you see the brutal reality of people who lack them, you are thankful for what you have..!!!

This trip has been a real eye-opener in more than one sense. It has made me realize the kind of person I am and the kind of person I want to be. It has helped me understand better than before, how rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever!!!

It taught me that.....
“Where you end up isn't the most important thing.
It's the road you take to get there.
The road you take is what you'll look back on and call your life.”


Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Learning from not-learning

Learning from Not-Learning

Perhaps its one of the things you pick up at ASB, or maybe its something that any P.G course will teach you (if you care to open your eyes and look, that is!); that there is a lot to be learnt from your ‘not-knowing’. Of course, its first necessary that you care that you ‘don’t know’ and second that you have sufficient guts to look it and say ‘shucks! I don’t know that at all!’.

Its very easy to say ‘I don’t give a fair penny that I don’t know’. Its also called ‘escapism’ I think… :) especially if you want to shine when you get into the Corporate World.

A very simple example to illustrate what I’m talking about is the feeling we have after writing an exam: (read: our Mid-Term exams) the Prof comes to class and goes over the paper (or rather: over your dismal performance in the paper!) and you squirm in your seat. He may make it sound all very simple (‘Read the text and all will be well’). Actually…. Its true…. You realize that after you’ve had the taste of the paper. No, Im not just talking about the phenomena of lack of preparation. If you can realize that perhaps this subject is actually worth knowing/ that it may actually require some more time/ that maybe you should be prioritizing better….. that’s what I’m getting at. Are we going to be smart enough to realize, and do something about, that there’s a whole lot we don’t know and we probably should be?

Let’s face it: when we go out: there’s always going to be this pack of smart-asses (no pun intended!) who will finish our sentences and do the math just a little faster and know the one detail you didn’t, about the subject. (And no: its not just the IIM breed I’m talking about).

So let’s just not sit on it and chew hay! We got a chance to remedy it…. (and by God, we can….!) Let’s take the chance and do what’s possible. Who knows, it may be the thing that creates the difference between the salary we get and the salary we hope to get…..

OK, I hope all the readers of this blog are sufficiently inspired! I think I’ll come back sometime later and try reading it myself! :)

Have a good day, ppl. :)

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Pirated Softwares- A Disaster or A Boon

One can hear a lot of buzz in the Software industry about the software piracy and its ill effects on the industry. At first glance it seems very true, the piracy has killed the competition and has made the companies to lose a hefty sum, however if we take a closer look at it or say take a look at it from a different angle it is not as bad as it seems. In fact it was a boon in disguise.

We find people saying that most of the people in India use pirated software; and it is very true. Except for some big companies, the retail users don’t go for the original versions. And the reason was high price. For an average Indian the original software is out of reach due to its high cost and thus they buy software from the gray market. The gray market is very efficient and operates under perfect competition, thus the price is known to every one and is very competitive.

The availability of cheaper versions of software allowed the Indians to set up software training centers. These centers mushroomed in every locality, main road, and market place etc., these centers were the training grounds for most of the successful people in this industry. The formal and organized Computer education centers like NIIT, Aptech, and Zee Education etc., were not able to cater to the growing demand for the trainers and also these training institutes charged hefty fees as they used the original versions of software. On the other hand, the unorganized market with pirated software was catering to the needs and was instrumental in matching the supply with demand for the ever growing numbers of software professionals.

However, the availability of pirated software triggered the Computer Hardware Sales in India. The increase in sales of hardware is triggered by the availability of cheap pirated software. Thus it can be said the use of such software had not resulted in loss for software companies but just a shift of profits from software companies to hardware companies. what do you say?!

A trip to the monkey falls--a respite awaits

We had our third sem mid terms last week...it was a very very long week...i guess because we hardly slept, how could we, we never opened our books before the week oops sorry the day of the exams!!!! ironic-the life of an MBA student...it just moves so fast...i am sur our seniors will be surprised for a second when they think that its their last semester in ASB!!!! well time does fly at least in ASB it does at lightning speed...exams come and go, assignments load up but are eventually submitted, classes start some sleep through some concentrate but eventually the teacher does his job as usual very well... its a smooth flight, i guess in no time i'll be out of ASB and in the corporate world for which ASB is preparing us all.

i am deviating from my subject of talk again, i have this sad problem, anyways back to the long yet over mid terms...ASB rocks why??? well they know that if not all some of us really worked hard and deserve a treat...well well well guess what we are going out for a fun trip to the monkey falls, i am not well versed with Coimbatore, but this place is supposed to be very beautiful (promise to give a detailed account once i am back) so...i guess all of us are very excited. there are 2 main reasons for that:
1) its a treat after the mid terms
2) our first trip was when we did not know each other well, but now we are one family we are expecting to have more fun than ever!!!

so does'nt ASB rock...of course it does...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The financial accounting std's board in india (ICAI) is looking to implement a similar standard (as bellow) for Indian companies which will affect the balance sheet of some of our largest companies, especially government owned one (like SBI and other PSU banks). It is an accounting standard on employee benefits (AS-15) that will also cover accounting treatment of retirement benefits but its implementation has been deferred. Read on...

(A hindu article mentioned it briefly http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/02/07/stories/2007020702761000.htm)

A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE NEW ACCOUNTING STANDARD FOR DEFINED BENEFIT PENSIONS AND HEALTH CARE BENEFITS (US GAAP) FOR SOME OF THE US COMPANIES

This new accounting standard that will take effect for audited financial reports issued after December 15, 2006 greatly simplifies and improves the economic relevance of accounting for employee benefit plans. This new standard addresses one of the major sources of unrecorded debt (off-balance sheet financing) by requiring the unpaid obligations of an employer to be reported as debt on the balance sheet. The defined benefit pension plans and other post employment benefit (OPEB) obligations of the employer are equivalent to an interest bearing loan from the employees, and should be treated like other interest bearing debt in performing financial statement analysis.

The importance of this source of unrecorded debt has increased significantly over the past decade. In 1999 the average pension plan of all Compustat firms with pensions was an unrecorded asset position of nearly $200 million. Since 2001 the average position has turned negative, with an average unrecorded liability balance of nearly $170 million by 2002. While 67% of pension plans were in an overfunded position in 1999, only 9% were in an overfunded position by 2002. Within these average data there are some drastically underfunded plans which have caused companies like United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Bethlehem Steel, and many other smaller companies to file for bankruptcy. If the new adjustments had been made for companies like Ford and GM at the end of 2005 they both would have reported a combined negative shareholders’equity of more than $60 billion dollars. The following table reflects the significance of the new standard on Ford and GM, and may be extrapolated to other labor intensive companies.



The adjustments reported in the table above are based on the premise that no tax benefits will accrue to either company in future years for these unrecorded obligations. The theoretical tax benefits would be approximately 35% of the amount of the adjustments to shareholders’ equity ($49,798 for GM and $25,579 for Ford). However, to actually receive these benefits GM and Ford would need to report taxable earnings in future periods well in excess of the adjustment amounts. It is not clear that either company will be able to report the magnitude of positive earnings in future periods needed to receive any significant component of the tax benefit.

The adjustments reported for GM and Ford may be dramatic and unusual, but the new reporting requirements will have a much broader impact on U.S. companies with employee benefit plans than many people might expect. Companies like IBM, Verizon Communications, Lucent, Boeing and many others will be significantly affected by these new reporting requirements. Based on a report by Credit Suisse’s David Zion and Bill Carcache issued in February 2006, the S&P 500 firms had a combined underfunded balance for pensions and OPEB of $501 billion at the end of 2004, roughly $1 billion for each of these “blue chip” firms. About $165 billion of this was from defined benefit pension plans with the other $336 billion from health care and other postretirement benefit programs for employees. Needless to say, we should expect to see significant changes in the balance sheets of labor intensive companies with defined benefit pension plans and other post employment benefit programs beginning with the 2006 year end. And this will, in turn, put pressure on health care providers to reduce their costs and accelerate the shift from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans for U.S. corporations.

Friday, February 2, 2007

Consider this...

Market Economics plays a vital role in our day-to-day life: knowingly or unknowingly, we become a part of market dynamics. The one that struck my mind is the point system. I mean the point system that we use to register for our courses.

It is very interesting to know that it actually is a stock market simulation. It has many of its features, like the supply & demand, bulls & bears, weak—semi-strong—strong hypothesis and many more.

To begin with, imagine that each course is a stock and the each semester is a trading session. With the beginning of every session, we bid for these stocks with certain parameters and expectations in our mind.

Some select stocks to maintain their portfolio (Major, minor or dual), some based on the expectations (psychology), some on the Fundamental analysis i.e., performance of the companies issuing the stocks (by companies I mean the Faculty) and some are mere speculators and naïve investors.

The investors can be classified as long-term investors and short-term investors. Long-term investors are those who hold on to their predetermined portfolios and select stocks with long-term perspective of capital appreciation (gaining absolute knowledge); short-term investors are those who alter on every trading session and have blurred idea of the way they are heading and register for a course only to influence their dividend returns ( i.e., CGPA)

At micro level, there are few who chose to enter this market (MBA) with certain knowledge and there are those who entered only to follow the trend.

Coming back to the stocks, the supply of stocks is as usual limited (30 or 60 seats) and the demand varies (max of 120). For some stocks, the supply is far from sufficient and for some there are no takers (Hmmm). The investors have wide-ranging reasons, to choose or not to choose a stock; some of the reasons were stated earlier. Other possible reasons could be peer pressure, the returns from the stocks in the form of dividends (goods marks) and capital appreciations (actual knowledge), weak fundamentals, bad technicals etc.

Surprisingly, some of the stocks that rarely give dividends and appreciate are also chosen, this is done only in order to maintain their portfolio (12 credits, 3 audits).

Amidst all these, we have bulls and bears speculating in the market. Bulls are those who inflate the market by giving more points and bears are those who have fewer points and restrict others from registering the course by stating that the course requires a lot of accounting (just as an example).

The bulls originally hold stocks that have low demand and hence low price of the stock (Finance people registering for finance courses) and thus use their surplus amounts to invest in stocks with larger demand and limited supply (for example - Strategic brand management). Many a times, the genuine investors loose and are thus are incapable of maintaining their portfolio... Since every investor is subject to maintain minimum number of stocks every year and in each trimester, they tend to choose stocks in which they have no interest, as it is available in plenty and there are no takers for it.

The bull traders who benefit from low trading stocks in their portfolio artificially inflate the prices for some stocks. The markets (we all) also contribute for rise or fall of stock prices (Points).
Consider this… We tend to quote prices for these stocks based on our market information and to a certain extent on our priorities as well. The market information relates to our knowledge about the number of people registering for the course and about the points that they have quoted. We tend to average all known quotes and offer our quote at price, higher to our perceived average, thus raising the overall average.

We tend to quote above the perceived average because of the supply-demand mismatch. Since the demand of these stocks outstrips the supply, we fear loosing a seat and to secure that we quote higher. This thought process actually initiates the game theory and continuously complicates it.

As the great Adam smith stated, - the market benefits when everyone does what is good for him; we are unknowingly following his path, and take for granted that the whole market is benefited.
However, instead of following Adam smith, only if we follow the versions of Prof. Nash, we all would be in a better situation.
Prof. Nash suggested that the market benefits, when one does what is good for him and also for the group. Following this idea, if we try doing well for ourselves and at the same time, think for gain of the whole group; we all would be in better situation.

By following Adam Smiths principle (self interest), we are actually blocking each others way and giving rise to ambiguity and dissatisfaction .Instead if we think of others (Prof. Nash’s Theory) and follow what is stated below every one will be benefited.
As you all know, we have 25 points to invest and minimum of 10 points to be invested per course artificial demand for the course, if everyone follows one quote and invest the whole 25 points in every course that we register for; there would be no inflation. There would be one price prevailing in the market and the regulatory authorities (PGP Chair) will have to reconsider this point system.

Nevertheless, the regulatory authorities are well aware of the market psychology and its erratic behavior towards supply and demand relationship, thus they are able to continue with the same and by far, have been successful in their objectives. They are very confident about our group strength and ready to bet on it.

Though we all know this, not all would come forward to follow it, as we all are mean-social-animals and for most of us “I” comes before “We” (At least for me). The problem lies within us and yet we criticize the regulatory authorities.
Also consider this, of all the investors, and their friends, who criticize the system, many are those who did not get their desired courses, and few others are their close friends: ironically, it is these friends who register for courses for reasons not known and inflate the points to be quoted. (Myself registering for SBM and blocking the way of my friends).

Hey guys this is all that I could observe in this simple looking yet not so simple POINT system that we are following for the past one year. I guess there are many more of such observations and would be glad if you all can help me in identifying it.

Regards,
Nikhil Garje