O yes dear! Degrees do differ a lot. Engineering keeps us busy with Kirchoff’s laws, Laplace transformations, Distribution curves blah blah blah. Sadly, we never use them on anything beyond pieces of paper. In contrast, a MBA is an excursion to reality; a confrontation with hideous facts.
Dear friends, in my 7 months of MBA education so far, I’ve come across plenty of quite-disturbing truths. Each of these has a potential to stir a thinking mind. I wanted to document some of those and share them with you. I hope you can spare a few minutes for them.
@*@ My first lesson was like a ‘wake up’ alarm. Without ever realising it I’ve always lived on foreign brands. Right from the Farex which my mom fed me many moons ago to the Reeboks I now wear; from the Colgate with which I begin my day, to the Mortein which burns after I fall asleep, hardly anything is Indian. Ditto for you.
“Wah Wah Globalisation” some might utter. But go a step below that rhetoric and you’ll notice the fact that we don’t have a single truly global brand of our own except Kamasutra and Yoga. Why?
I’ve identified some of the culprits. It’s us – the so called best B-schools of the country. We slog day and night dreaming to be picked up by the Goldman Sachs’, McKinseys and other blue chip companies. We follow the system too soon, forgetting to question it when required. Perhaps we need a Munnabhai MBA who can think different. And until that happens we will continue to eulogise dynasties like Tatas, Birlas et al, but never see an entrepreneurial genius like a FedEx, a Dell or a Google.
@*@ Now some trade news. I assume you know that 95% of India’s trade happens through sea. We have 12 major ports in India. As per the last Indian Ports report these 12 ports have TOGETHER handled 287.6 million tonnes of cargo in fiscal 2001-02, which is lesser than a single Singapore port (325.6 million tonnes) or a single Rotterdam port (320 million tonnes).
Now you’ll easily agree that we indeed contribute less than 1% to total world trade.
@*@ Manufacturing has lost its pride. Today a Babulal & Sons manufactures the goods, a Ghanshyamji Brothers Ltd packages it and then passes it to a Nike/HLL. These guys offer it to you with the w-i-d-e-s-t artificial smile and rob you off thousands in the name of ‘customer delight’ and other concocted management jargons.
You might think the profit pie is shared equally between all partners. Take this. ..
There are many small enterprises in Bombay who manufacture toothbrushes and sell it to the big FMCG companies for anything between Rs.1.75 to Rs 4. These toothbrushes are then ‘brandedised’ and sent to primary market with a price tag ranging between Rs 11 to Rs 20. Can you visualise the easy profits after removing the advertising and distribution costs? It’s whopping!! By the way, this toothbrush market is alone worth Rs 2000 crores in India.
@*@ Does price of a good always reflect ‘added value’ inside it? Or is the poor ignorant customer paying for something else? Let data answer this question.
Most premium goods use raw materials which are imported. They pass through our ports which are grossly inefficient. The importers have to make a freight payment which is a proportion of the total import value. The world total freight payment is 6.2%. In India the figure is a terrifying 12%. This obviously gets added to the basic price.
Also, we are always over-staffed. Mumbai port alone has 23, 600+ employees. Their salaries and wages amount to 77% of its operational earnings.
Who pays for these inefficiencies? The customer of course!!
@*@ How urban are our cities? Does urbanisation mean constructing commercial centers, malls, theme parks or iMax theatres? What about sanitation, public health, transport? Forget the cities, why can’t we ever ‘urbanise’ an Indian? Why do men treat this country like an open-air toilet?
This is my first stay in Bombay and I’m enjoying the love-hate relationship with it. This city is the true microcosm of India. I’ve seen grandeur which can make any middle class guy gape. I’ve also seen gauns (villages) right here which made me chuckle. You’ll be surprised to know that in a mega-city like Bombay the distribution of kerosene still happens through bullock carts. Yes, bullock driven carts. Click here to see the pics for yourself.
@*@ India got independence in 1947. Israel, a year later, in 1948. In the last 50 odd years they have fought more wars than us. Had more bitter enemies (Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria) than just China and Pakistan. Terrorism never let them breathe peacefully. Add to it severe shortages of water, land and capital.
Today, they are irrefutably more advanced than us in most departments. We take their help in Agricutute (drip irrigation), Weather (artificial rain), Defence (Phalcons, Tavor rifles) and even peacetime reconnaissance (advanced UAVs).
Where did we go wrong?
@*@ Lemme end this list with that fact which pushed me into writing this mail. Every year, the World Bank comes out with a compendium ‘World Development Indicators’ which has rankings of all nations on various parameters.
The 2004 edition of the same has the World income map on its inside cover. The map pictorially categorises 210 nations into 4 slots – Low income, Low middle income, Upper middle income and High income. Guess where we stand?
Low income; alongside nations like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Togo, Cameroon, Sudan and other no-so-glorious names. How does it feel? Doesn’t it feel worse than losing the World Cup finals to Australia?
My dear reader, I can go on like this forever, but I’ll stop here. I hope you have got the gist of what I’m trying to say. It will be a shame if you think my sole purpose was to criticise or mock the system. NO. I am as much a part of it as anybody else. My only motive was to make you aware of the malaise around us. To make you ‘think’ over some basic issues. God willing, one of us will probably solve a few of those.
A departing note – A country as great as India cannot be judged solely on a few hiccups like mentioned above. Agreed, these are some aspects which make us feel uncomfortable. But the fact that this nation braves to fight this cancer is what makes us all proud. On some other day, I’ll tell you about innovative projects like Tripura’s Rubber Parks or mighty moves like the Iran-Pak-India pipeline, Kochi’s Hybrid Port etc which have the potential to affect even the last common man.
Before I sign out, I’d like to thank my college for making me capable enuff to write this mail.
Praveen Gattu
First Year, PGDIM
National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE)
Mumbai
Dear friends, in my 7 months of MBA education so far, I’ve come across plenty of quite-disturbing truths. Each of these has a potential to stir a thinking mind. I wanted to document some of those and share them with you. I hope you can spare a few minutes for them.
@*@ My first lesson was like a ‘wake up’ alarm. Without ever realising it I’ve always lived on foreign brands. Right from the Farex which my mom fed me many moons ago to the Reeboks I now wear; from the Colgate with which I begin my day, to the Mortein which burns after I fall asleep, hardly anything is Indian. Ditto for you.
“Wah Wah Globalisation” some might utter. But go a step below that rhetoric and you’ll notice the fact that we don’t have a single truly global brand of our own except Kamasutra and Yoga. Why?
I’ve identified some of the culprits. It’s us – the so called best B-schools of the country. We slog day and night dreaming to be picked up by the Goldman Sachs’, McKinseys and other blue chip companies. We follow the system too soon, forgetting to question it when required. Perhaps we need a Munnabhai MBA who can think different. And until that happens we will continue to eulogise dynasties like Tatas, Birlas et al, but never see an entrepreneurial genius like a FedEx, a Dell or a Google.
@*@ Now some trade news. I assume you know that 95% of India’s trade happens through sea. We have 12 major ports in India. As per the last Indian Ports report these 12 ports have TOGETHER handled 287.6 million tonnes of cargo in fiscal 2001-02, which is lesser than a single Singapore port (325.6 million tonnes) or a single Rotterdam port (320 million tonnes).
Now you’ll easily agree that we indeed contribute less than 1% to total world trade.
@*@ Manufacturing has lost its pride. Today a Babulal & Sons manufactures the goods, a Ghanshyamji Brothers Ltd packages it and then passes it to a Nike/HLL. These guys offer it to you with the w-i-d-e-s-t artificial smile and rob you off thousands in the name of ‘customer delight’ and other concocted management jargons.
You might think the profit pie is shared equally between all partners. Take this. ..
There are many small enterprises in Bombay who manufacture toothbrushes and sell it to the big FMCG companies for anything between Rs.1.75 to Rs 4. These toothbrushes are then ‘brandedised’ and sent to primary market with a price tag ranging between Rs 11 to Rs 20. Can you visualise the easy profits after removing the advertising and distribution costs? It’s whopping!! By the way, this toothbrush market is alone worth Rs 2000 crores in India.
@*@ Does price of a good always reflect ‘added value’ inside it? Or is the poor ignorant customer paying for something else? Let data answer this question.
Most premium goods use raw materials which are imported. They pass through our ports which are grossly inefficient. The importers have to make a freight payment which is a proportion of the total import value. The world total freight payment is 6.2%. In India the figure is a terrifying 12%. This obviously gets added to the basic price.
Also, we are always over-staffed. Mumbai port alone has 23, 600+ employees. Their salaries and wages amount to 77% of its operational earnings.
Who pays for these inefficiencies? The customer of course!!
@*@ How urban are our cities? Does urbanisation mean constructing commercial centers, malls, theme parks or iMax theatres? What about sanitation, public health, transport? Forget the cities, why can’t we ever ‘urbanise’ an Indian? Why do men treat this country like an open-air toilet?
This is my first stay in Bombay and I’m enjoying the love-hate relationship with it. This city is the true microcosm of India. I’ve seen grandeur which can make any middle class guy gape. I’ve also seen gauns (villages) right here which made me chuckle. You’ll be surprised to know that in a mega-city like Bombay the distribution of kerosene still happens through bullock carts. Yes, bullock driven carts. Click here to see the pics for yourself.
@*@ India got independence in 1947. Israel, a year later, in 1948. In the last 50 odd years they have fought more wars than us. Had more bitter enemies (Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria) than just China and Pakistan. Terrorism never let them breathe peacefully. Add to it severe shortages of water, land and capital.
Today, they are irrefutably more advanced than us in most departments. We take their help in Agricutute (drip irrigation), Weather (artificial rain), Defence (Phalcons, Tavor rifles) and even peacetime reconnaissance (advanced UAVs).
Where did we go wrong?
@*@ Lemme end this list with that fact which pushed me into writing this mail. Every year, the World Bank comes out with a compendium ‘World Development Indicators’ which has rankings of all nations on various parameters.
The 2004 edition of the same has the World income map on its inside cover. The map pictorially categorises 210 nations into 4 slots – Low income, Low middle income, Upper middle income and High income. Guess where we stand?
Low income; alongside nations like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Togo, Cameroon, Sudan and other no-so-glorious names. How does it feel? Doesn’t it feel worse than losing the World Cup finals to Australia?
My dear reader, I can go on like this forever, but I’ll stop here. I hope you have got the gist of what I’m trying to say. It will be a shame if you think my sole purpose was to criticise or mock the system. NO. I am as much a part of it as anybody else. My only motive was to make you aware of the malaise around us. To make you ‘think’ over some basic issues. God willing, one of us will probably solve a few of those.
A departing note – A country as great as India cannot be judged solely on a few hiccups like mentioned above. Agreed, these are some aspects which make us feel uncomfortable. But the fact that this nation braves to fight this cancer is what makes us all proud. On some other day, I’ll tell you about innovative projects like Tripura’s Rubber Parks or mighty moves like the Iran-Pak-India pipeline, Kochi’s Hybrid Port etc which have the potential to affect even the last common man.
Before I sign out, I’d like to thank my college for making me capable enuff to write this mail.
Praveen Gattu
First Year, PGDIM
National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE)
Mumbai
