Cattle worth 1 crore

Recently, Mr. Satish Pradhan, HR Head of Tata Sons made the following comment at IIM Ahmedabad's annual fest "Just like cattle is paraded and traded at the fair, the highest tag goes to the student with the best performance during the two years (of their programme). Is that the way to go? Will you be happy selling derivatives, living in a penthouse and driving expensive cars while the rest of the world goes to the dogs?"

Well that's a fair observation in many ways. Sure, on the day(s) of placements, students vie for the best job (which usually means the highest paying job) on offer. The best budding management graduates of the nation participate in one GD after another trying to outwit, out shout the other participants to get that interview call and finally the job offer. Of course, this is only the culmination of months of preparations which includes preparing multiple one page versions of CVs (each customized to a specific role like Finance, Consulting, Marketing, General Management, Operations etc), endless hours spent tweaking and beautifying the CV right down to the alignment of text, font face and size, days worth of cases preparations for that big ticket consulting firms, or reading Hull and solving problems from 'Heard on the Street' to the point that given the solution one can go backwards and give out the question, reading up on companies and attending presentations from various firms and asking good (and often needless) questions during or after the presentation just to make an impression. Call it a cattle fair or a rat race, it's relentless and combined with the academic pressure it's often near back breaking; for almost a month students hardly get more than 4-5 hours of sleep owing to placement preparations.

While the sermon is all right, the preacher isn't. It is easy to make such statements and expect others to shoulder the onus of state building when you yourself are doing a rather comfy job at Tata Sons, one of the most risk averse conglomerates in the whole country. If Mr. Pradhan is so concerned about the 'world going to dogs', why hasn't he done anything himself? Why not join a government body and help in policy making? Or why not go to the villages and start some grass-root level enterprise/NGO to help the 800 million poor in the country. How about taking the entrepreneurial plunge Mr. Pradhan? I am sure with your reputation and contacts, starting a business and getting funds and even good people to join you won't be tough. So why haven't you? Charity begins at home Mr. Pradhan. Instead you expect fresh IIM grads, who have a hefty loan to pay back and zero savings, to forego a lucrative offer and jump into selfless service. The hypocrisy is so evident.

Off late it has become rather fashionable for speakers at IIM events to cajole the audience to think beyond their hefty paychecks and do something for the country. Now, that's all fine if comes from the likes of Dr. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rakesh Sharma, Dr. S.K Brahmachari (CSIR) etc who have worked in public institutions to bring about positive change and are worth emulating. But when it comes from a CXO of a corporation (particularly when it is as taunting as 'cattle fair') it sure wouldn't go well. The language itself is abominable and smacks of opportunism because it was made in the presence of a slew of reporters who would be vying for such quotable quotes. And as expected, every news paper, right from the tabloid-esque Times Of India (which regularly published unverified news about IIMA) to the more serious ones like Indian Express, have not spared a inch to mar the reputations of these institutes. Dear corporates, we don't object to you getting on the high horse and asking us to do something you yourself haven't bothered to, but please do so in a way that does not abuse our hospitality. We still believe in "Athithi Devo Bhavo" despite our well reported arrogance, but don't stretch it.

Of course these articles led to the usual reaction. Readers in TOI comment threads have jumped in, as they always do, claiming how IIMs are nothing but a placement agency and it's grads are greedy and not worth the salaries they commands. So let's take it one by one.

Are IIMs placement agency? I don't think so but why shouldn't they be. IIMs prepare it's students to be managers who then are supposed to manage the affairs of corporations (or even PSUs and NGOs). So it is only natural that IIMs are doing their bit in getting their students placed in the best possible firms to do they very job that these students have been trained for 2 hectic years. Placement therefore is a big factor over here. The buzz around placements is simply because that is the primary reason why students go to a business school. Add to that the front page news that the media publishes about placements. And for the general public, if IIM placements are so useless affair, why do you comment so much on it (as can be seen in the TOI comment section). You know, if you people did not show so much interest in these figures, TOI would have no incentive to publish it on their front page. IIMs would like nothing better than to conduct a media free placement where we do not have to go short of issuing restraining order on media personnel. But for various reasons, we have to inevitably provide the news to the media. When we do not, they publish stuff on their own.

Do IIM grads deserve the salary they command? To those people who have asked it I ask, how do you know that you deserve the salary that you get? More importantly, it's a free market and companies pay a competitive price. If the firms think it's fair, then who are you to pass judgement. Even Mr. Pradhan's firm recruits students on the basis of their curricular, co-curricular and extra curricular achievements and a long drawn out GD. IIMs only provide the market, it is the buyer (the firms) and seller (the students) who decide the prices. And considering that students have much less power to negotiate, it is primarily the buyers (the recruiters) who drive up the salaries.

Some have argued that American firms have a better placement mechanism where there are no 'cattle fairs'. Not really. In the US, a student has to individually contact recruiters and write emails and await for replies. It's good in the sense that a student has more control over which sector, firm and role he or she would like to be in. However, such a system depends a lot on how well connected the student is to the places where he is applying. In India, where most of the bschool students are freshers and that too from lower and middle class families with hardly any contacts in the industry, this can be disastrous. Of course, a student at an IIM may not always get a offer to his liking (either role or sector wise) but he/she is sure to get a offer that is nearly as good as everyone else's. A lot of the exchange students have praised IIM-As placement system and it is also ranked the best in the world in terms of placement by Financial Times. May be, in the long run, when IIMs have students with high work-ex and the buzz around placements is less, such a method can be employed. IIM-A already employs a similar method for placements in the Executive MBA (PGPX) programs where it obviously makes more sense.

Are IIM students greedy? Well, what have the people, who accuse IIM grads to be greedy, done to show that they aren't? And should IIM grads be saints oblivious to money? If you are entering the corporate life, you have to have some affinity for money. And most of these IIM students are from modest families. It is only expected that they would want a good life. Why should we be apologetic about it? And I am sure, Mr. Pradhan's company would not want to buy derivatives sold by IIPM grads or hire a consulting firm staffed with IIPM grads for a consulting assignment. Wonder what would have happened if the Tata-Corus deal was structured by IIPM grads?

And yes, quite a few IIM grads do join NGO or start their own firms. But in a country where risk taking is not encouraged, it's a little tough to be courageous. But we try. Also we do not owe anything to you and we are free to work in any country we choose. Sure the govt subsidizes our education. Big deal. The government also subsidizes diesel and tax payer money also pays for roads and water supply. Does that mean that no Indian should ever go and work in another country? Is every Kendriya Vidyalaya student expected to never go and work in another country?

To all those people who have been commenting about how greedy we are and how IIMs are nothing but placement agencies I have this to say - "Hey, stop being such sore losers. Losers never win"

Indians lose Grace while India wins the Cup

This World Cup was not like the one in 1983, this time India was the best team, a clear favorites who justified their position by winning the cup. I am not saying that it was any mean achievement; but the win in 1983 was far more dramatic, since India defeated teams which had a much stronger line-up as compared to them.

Over all the world cup was quite predictable (England being the only exception) and largely ordinary with no real  stars emerging out of the concept. It was notable that not many first timers left the mark for us to believe that they would be legends in the years to come. However, what was interesting was the manner in which two heroes of my generation started and ended the tournament. It started with the cover drive from Sehwag and ended with Dhoni smashing the ball for the maximum.

What was unfortunate was the Indian behavior. During the match against Pakistan and the Sri Lanka, I was disgusted by the group of people in the stands abusing the players and their nation and others joining the chorus gleefully. It seemed like the match had given them the right to legitimate their need to vent their personal frustrations in public and project them on others. I also saw youngsters on two wheelers shouting obscene comments against the two nations after their team had won the match. I am not sure if cricket had been prayed like that had India lost any of these matches.

Considering that many of the unruly incidents during international matches in the past have happened in Mumbai, all they are doing is to project themselves as the most unruly crowd in India. But considering Mumbai's twin focus on unaccounted money and greed with the tasteless culture and excesses of bollywood this aspect should not be a surprise. The Mumbai crowd indulges in organised buffoonery, eve teasing and racial comments and that has become quite a norm.

Its scary for me to think what this kind of sporting excesses would do to India's already fragile sense of self-esteem which is a very depressing thought as an Indian. Grace is rapidly leaving our culture. Many of the people, especially the youth, flooding the streets displaying their newfound enlightenment and exuberance with no grace makes me think that they do not deserve this team or the cup.

There were far more innocent times in Indian cricket where a win in the world cup would have been of much more value to the national psyche than merely being reduced to just another chest-thumping way of announcing yourself into the world's consciousness.  

Ingredients of a successful 'Businessman'

While pondering over the probable reasons for the survival of the human race through the thick and thin of times, it makes me pleasantly surprised to note that humans (and especially men) had an excellent sense of trade. In the prehistoric times, they traded women for security, security for food and food for women. Then the times changed. We became civilized (probably) and invented money or rather discovered it in the form of gold, which to date remains the standard de-facto. Money was certainly the biggest invention of mankind; for in the years to come, it was, by far, the single biggest motivating factor for discoveries, triumphs and innovations. We all need to bow down and accept that it still remains to be the single biggest motivating factor in the current era and would remain to be the same in eras to come.

Lost track, didn't we? Money is such a distraction, you see.

So, once we became civilized, the trading intensified. In came barter and then currency. Men traded goods for money, money for security and security for women. Most of the factors remain the same, except the fact that money became the standard for survival instead of food and women lost out on a little bit of importance. Then came industrialization, the era of processed goods, factories and colonization. The ones who were more adventurous, were more successful. As the mainland Europe became small for the inhabitants, the thieves and criminals were sent to Australia and the modern day USA. The trade never stopped. Industrialization was a result of inventions and trade was a by-product of industrialization.  It was also the era of discoveries (for the Europeans at least). Man traded security for fame, fame for money and money for women. Big differences were seen over the past era. Changes they were; for the good or the bad? Only time had the answer.   

We next stepped into the modern world, with probably the most powerful of the human discovered tools;  Education. What was driven by instincts and experience was now driven by knowledge and estimation. The degree held the key to success. The businessmen were more knowledgeable than before. It became easier to apply knowledge to gain prosperity. The businesses grew in size. In came globalization. In came the era of rules and exceptions. 

While most in the modern world love to quote exceptions to nullify an argument, yet many fail to realize that one in a million humans is an unseen jigsaw. What does it take to be a successful businessman? Many disagree with education being a prime consideration quoting entrepreneurs with little formal education. To me, people like Dhirubhai Ambani are an exception and not the rule, for many like him, with similar potential are still selling oil somewhere. The silicon valley giants have built their empire with the help of thousands of trained professionals. The names we never hear about. Look at the government; each one of us know that who are the people making the policies and running the nation; yet the people in prominence are the ministers and not the civil servants. Ever heard a cabinet secretary reading out the budget to you?

Hence, we find ourselves in this world where a man trades life for money and gets traded by women for everything else. Revenge; isn't it?

Yet what essentially defines a successful businessman is the desire to succeed and the right trade at the right time. Many have that click by birth (yes, you can imagine a few communities, but I would refrain from naming), and others learn it by their own mistakes or by the mistakes that others have already made. And yet, success like meteors, is rare to spot and amazingly short-lived. What makes the businessmen successful it the ability to touch the zenith after been pushed to the nadir.