On relatives and conversations

Conversations plays a very important role in fulfilling the social needs of a human being. It provides a means for interaction between individuals. I believe that ladies have a greater need for conversations when compared to the males. This is amply proven by the way in which girls talk when they meet on roads or the way in which wives share their 'ghar ka rona' when they meet at the vegetable vendor or the amount of bitching done by fast friends.

I had been in Mumbai recently and got stuck up in a place where a lot of aunties and mamis had assembled for a function sort of thing. With no access to laptop, TV or a novel, I decided to listen to their conversations.

As is generally seen, the conversation went to the whereabouts of a person who has reached the age of marriage. A lady asked "Do you remember the name "Tamari Masi na Jeth ni Mama ni chokri?"" And in the next instance the name of the girl popped out from the mouth of the lady standing in front. I was awed by their ability to relate to people quickly.  Next I overheard somebody asing about " Pilwai wala Sumanbhai ni Bhanji na kakaji no 2nd jamai".

Upon hearing these terms, I realized how limited knowledge I have about my relatives. I know only a few of them. Hope to know many more and relate to them at a speed these ladies are capable of.

Hats off to all those Gujju Bens who are able to know so many far away relatives by names.

On meeting School Friends

I meet school friends intermittently whenever I come to Sangli. I make it a point to meet atleast some during each visit. (Though I meet Pavan everytime I come)  However, I happen to meet about 3 or 4 at max together. I do not meet all of them together. This was the first time around 11 of us met together after the school got over (after 9 years) all thanks to Shigen, Gaurav and Vishwanath for taking the initiative.

It felt great to meet everyone after such a long gap. Some of us looked the same (me included) and some of us had completely transformed into a new individual altogether. Some of us have now been married and a lucky one even has a kid. We had a chat for around 2 hours where we talked about all the major events happened at school and it was surprising that I wasn't a part of any, barring one incident of standard 4th. I found that there were some of us had a gala time at school harrassing the officials of the school and troubling the Principal of our school. Looking back I find that those pranks which I considered useless at that time made me laugh heartily tonight. We recalled most of our batchmates and our crushes at that time, had some pizza and lots of sandwitches. Finally, we talked what each one of us is doing with our lives and our future plans.

After coming back home, when I started to think about the life of each one of us, a strange feeling has gripped me. Most of my friends have either joined their fathers' business and have expanded their fathers business to a diffeent field. A friend whose father traded tyres has started a cafe at prime location of the city. Another one whose father has several factories has started a saree shop which sells high end sarees only. Another friend has expanded his fathers wholesale wheat trading business to a multi-distributor business. He now acts as a distributor to Wipro products, Vodafone products and a host of other major products in Sangli district. All of the above weren't very bright at studies in school. Yet, they have made the best of whatever they had and are now shoulder to shoulder with their fathers.

And here I am - still studying or trying to study and who is not clear what he wants to do in the future. I am in no position to overtake my fathers consulting firm (My brother who will do that hopefully and thankfully).
All I am going to gain after studying for so many years away from family is a job that too in some city that is not Sangli. : (
Out of the whole lot in school, I obtained decent enough marks to make it to UICT and then the journey to Herdillia and SCMHRD. Sometimes I feel that in case I had not obtained those marks, I would have been doing something here in Sangli like my friends with a certainity of what I would be doing in future.
Yet, I feel that I am so lucky to have experienced staying away from family, knowing a lot of new people from different corners of the country and learning a lot from them too. [Contradictory feelings together]
Hopefully, I soon figure out a right strategy in my life, get a decent enough job and eventually come back to Sangli with my own firm or a factory - with my school friends.

Wishing everyone a very happy Diwali and a Happy New Year.

Debit and credit card

Debit and credit cards have changed the way the urban India shops. More and more shopkeepers are now installing the magnetic strip credit card readers next to their billing counters. The advent of internet shopping and eticketing has changed the scenario of shopping and ticket booking for many especially in urban India.
Online shopping market in India is worth Rs 1,300 crore and the growth rate is upwards of 30%. (Reference). The online travel industry is expected to grow to Rs. 28000 crore.
More statistics about the ecommerce in India is available here, here and here.  Especially booking train tickets online has changed the way we plan for train travelling. No wonder 1/3rd of all the ecommerce transactions in India are through IRCTC.

It has been around one year since I have started making use of the eticketing facilities offered by irctc, msrtc, etc and I have been amazed by the convenience the service offers for a service charge of Rs. 10 to Rs 25. The whole experience of booking ticket has become cashless and ticket booking happens very quickly (Well, the internet speed acts as a bottleneck here).

While I am really happy with the convenience the service offers, there is something about the whole procedure that makes me a bit uncomfortable. The transaction being cashless doesn't give a feel that we have lost money. E.g: My last irctc transaction involved a sum of Rs. 2273. Now this is a huge amount and parting with such a huge amount under normal circumstances (when we book tickets through agents or ticket counters) and makes us feel that we are spending too much and should put a control on expenditure we make. But this eticketing experience did not give any feeling that I am doing a transaction involving a huge sum. Infact, I was tempted to book an alternative ticket just in case I couldn't make it to the train on that day. The idea that I will be locking in Rs 2273 again didn't bother me at all. The feeling of parting with ones' hard earned money (or parents' hard earned money) just doesn't come in. And this is what makes me uncomfortable.

It happened to me once - there was a book store cum library newly opened up in a town and I just went to see the shop and was really amazed by its collection. So, I was tempted to become a member. I was about to give my debit card to the store owner to register me as a member. But then I discovered that I had forgotten my card. So, now I had no other option but to carry out the transaction with cash. But as the feeling of parting with so much cash (around Rs 1000) creeped in, I decided against becoming a member. And now I am really happy I didn't become a member. (I have a great collection of ebooks to keep me busy for around 5 years alongwith a great library at SCMHRD). Had I brought that card on that day I would have surely been tempted to become a member and would have wasted Rs 1000 unnecessarily.

Because of such services, I feel that the savings of people will decrease and people will spend more and more even though there is no need. I've seen a lot of my friends and colleagues buying books from infibeam just because it flashed on their laptop screen without any need. (Temptation to buy). So, I feel that one of the major reasons why people in the USA have a lower savings rate when compared to the Asian nations is the wide spread use of debit and credit cards.

Conclusion: While credit and debit cards have made transactions convenient, we should restrain from using it unnecessarily out of temptation and try to do cash transactions (part with ones' hard earned money), wherever possible, so as to value money (eventually save more).

Partying

The meaning of the term "Partying" has been in a state of change.

Right from childhood the term partying has been in a constant state of evolution.
In school during primary days, partying meant an evening snack at some friends' house with some games like Housie lotto or musical chair hosted by the mother of the party giver. Birthday parties used to come with return gifts. Based on the return gifts, we used to rate the birthday parties. A bulkier return gift meant a better party.

As I evolved, the idea of partying also started changing. Now in my secondary days, parties did not mean celebration at anybody's home. Parties had to happen at a restaurant where the group had to have dinner followed by a desert. It was no longer cool to be hosting party at home.

As days passed and I got out of my junior college, the birthday parties lost a bit of significance. Now, party meant visiting a hill station or another town so as to help friends spend a lot of time together. Still the restaurant pattern did not change.

As I joined my first job, the idea of party remained more or less like a restaurant party but with only one change - The party needs to have booze. Infact, the term 'partying',  in my office and also in my B-school, is now synonymous with booze. The food aspect of the party is forgotten and now the site selection for party involves a place where good booze alongwith a proper ambience is present. As I started interacting with more and more people around, I have now observed a different trend. Now, partying means to spend an evening in a pub (in a huge group) where people get to dance around alongwith beer, wine. etc and then after getting tired, have some food in a restaurant if there stomach is still asking for more.

Thus, partying has evolved significantly - from the innocence of house parties to restaurants to the boldness of drinking at pub. Wonder what will be its meaning in the future.However, for me, one thing remains constant - a party means to spend quality time with friends and colleagues.

PS: The above post represents the view point of most of the people whom I go partying with does not necessarily mean that I drink at parties.

On Festivals

The fact that I stay outside home has led me to miss a lot of festival celebrations with my family members. Not only me, but most of the young people who stay outside their homes for work or studies tend to miss a lot of festivals.
During festivals when I am not at home, I tend to visit the heart of cities (or what we call the old city part of the town) to see how the festival is celebrated in the city. Today was such an occasion. Today was Dassera and so I had been to the old part of Pune (Deccan and nearby area) to see how the festival is celebrated. I was very happy to see the automobile stores, mobile shoppes and other shops geared up for the Dassera shoppings. [Hope that they have a good sales today. (Rain clouds lurking around)]. I saw a lot of people in traditional dresses but yet I felt that the feeling of festival was missing amongst people. The festival feeling was just like superficial. It was as if there had to be some ritual on Dassera because it was done by ancestors. The rituals are considered as a pain during the cosy holiday by most of the modern day nuclear families living in tier 1 or tier 2 cities.
I had observed the same during the festival of Ganpati - Most were invloved with worshipping their own at home idols.
When I look at why these festivals were started, I find strange to observe such kind of behaviour. These festivals were started for bringing people together. E.g: Lokmanya Tilak started Ganesh Festival to help people get together and plan for the freedom movement. I do not know who started Dassera but it also means the win of the good or the right v/s the evil or the wrong. So, ideally during these festivals people should meet together and discuss issues surrounding them. As such festivals should be an occasion of a get-together between people.
Yet more and more people, during these festivals, are opting to celebrate the festivals with their own families. People consider festivals as an occasion to be a time to be with their families.

So, I believe that there has to be a serious thought given on the reason why the festivals are celebrated - Is it because of our parents, ancestors [tradition] or are we seeing any value in it (other than, ofcourse, a holiday)

Dassera - I am missing the distribution of those apta leaves and taking the wishes of parents and elders.
(An interesting link of why the Apta tree leaves are distributed in Dussera. Click).

Wish everyone a very happy dussera.

Orange Cream Biscuits

I had fallen into this habit of eating orange cream biscuits when I was at Chennai during the summer season. Being new to the place and not knowing Tamil, I preferred to go to shopping places (MTO's) like Heritage, Spencers, Lifestyle, etc for buying the biscuits.
Now at the stores the following biscuits were available:

So, going w.r.t cost per 100 gram of the biscuit, we see that Parle is the clear winner and it offers the maximum weight for a rupee.
However, before concluding anything w.r.t value for money, we also need to consider other things like taste, hardness, etc.
In my opinion the taste of all the above biscuits except, the Complan biscuits, is similar and not much differences can be attributed to taste. (Complan biscuits taste a bit like medicine).
In terms of the hardness of the biscuits, I found that the Sunfeast Special orange cream biscuits were a bit tough and needed quite an effort to break inside mouth. The other biscuits were comparatively soft and could be easily handled by my teeth. (Meaning the moisture content in the Sunfeast Special orange biscuit is less as compared to other biscuits).
Thus, in terms of properties which I look for in an orange biscuit - Taste, Value for money (here weight), hardness, Parle Kreams is the best.  All this was w.r.t consumer’s point of view.
However, thinking from the point of view of the company, I feel that Parle is losing out w.r.t ITC and Britannia. Britannia is the market leader in cream biscuits market even though it charges the highest per 100 grams (Complan can be left out of discussion due to its taste and positioning as a complete food) Parle is charging less for what the consumers are willing to pay more. Why not cash in? Why is Parle not getting aggressive? ITC on the other hand is currently applying the best strategy. It has orange cream biscuits at both the Rs 5 and the Rs.10 price levels. In addition, I found that ITC biscuits were replenished every 5 days or so thereby keeping the shelf always filled with biscuits. On the other hand, Parle biscuit shelves were always half filled or so suggesting that the focus on the distribution of Parle isn't as good as that of ITC. Britannia's replenishment was moderate i.e not as frequent as that of ITC but not as low as that of Parle Kreams. Currently, Britannia is the market leader in the orange cream biscuit segment. However, because it is charging the most and new player like ITC is introducing new pack sizes at both higher and lower prices, I believe that ITC will surpass Britannia in this segment.
Thus, if we think with respect to company, I feel ITC is doing the right thing while thinking from consumers point of view, Parle is better.
 
Conclusion: It is not always necessary that the consumer is always right. If we think only from the point of view of consumer, we might lose out on creating shareholder value. Thus, marketing personnel should be aware that doing too much for consumer can be detrimental to the sole purpose of the company.

Decision Making - An irony in life

I have often felt that life is all about making decisions – be it with regards to work, children, parents or society. Every decision taken by a person is the determinant of what he/she is likely to face in the future. The path on which a person walks is shaped by the various decisions taken by him. An appropriate and a wise decision could get person lots of goodwill and success while an inappropriate decision could lead to misery. So, it is extremely important for individuals to take appropriate decisions.

Now, at every point of life we take decisions - be it deciding about which clothes to wear for a birthday or buying/ renting  a house or getting gifts for friends or choosing a stock in the market.  Some decisions have a short-term impact on our life while other decisions have a long-term impact. Ideally, for a better life in future, the long-term impacting decisions need to be taken with more care and thought as compared to decisions which do not have such a long-term impact. These long term decisions should be taken considering all the pros and cons critically. So, the time required for a long-term impact decision should be more as compared to short-term impact. But does it actually happen?

Consider the following situations.

1. Gift to be bought for a friend for his birthday - We do a thorough review on his belongings and find out what he is in need of. In addition, we also keep an open ear for his desires so as to know what is he longing for and so on. I typically start thinking about the gift 1 week in advance before the present is to be gifted. A lot of consultations and discussions occur before arriving at the final decision.  Thus, for deciding the time required to do a simple thing such as this, we take close to 7 days.

 2. Campus recruitment - Typically, in an engineering college or a B-School, students are intimated about a company 1 or 2 days before the recruitment day. The ppt by the company happens just before the process of recruitment begins. We are left with no more than 30 minutes to decide whether we want to join the organization or not. The exact details like the location of job, the salary package and the exact work profile are told only during the ppt. While it is true that in the 1 or 2 days when we have been intimated about the company, we can do some research by asking peers, seniors, etc about the company, the exact details are only obtained only during the ppt. So, a decision has to be made considering the newly added parameters within 30 minutes or so.

Thus, for taking a decision for a job which could have a long term impact w.r.t career and future, we are left with less than 30 minutes while for a trivial matter like a gift, we get full week for decision. Such an irony.

Yet, another example where the irony is visible is the arrange marriage decision. We need to take a decision about our life partner in around 2 or 3 meetings and that too short duration meetings of 1 hour each or so. I mean such a major decision - marriage - has to be taken by meeting a person (with whom we wish to spend rest of our life) for a total of only 3 hours.

Thus, I conclude that the time given to take a decision is inversely dependent on the amount of the long-term impact the decision is going to make in one’s life. Greater the long-term impact of the decision, lesser is the time given to take the decision and vice versa.

What else do you learn at MBA !!

I am a big fan of Bhel Puri and Samosa Chat. The taste, the variety, the mixture of different chutneys, the salt, the sev, etc all make my mouth water as soon as I see it some a Bhel Puri stall. During my stay at Chennai, I have found a lot of Bhel Puri stalls at T nagar and at Adyar area. However, the Bhel Puri at Chennai is quite expensive. The lowest charge of Bhel Puri I've found out is not less than Rs. 20. The average cost is around Rs. 25. I've tried Bhel Puri at many places like Sangeetha hotal, some tapris here and there, the Sri Krishna Sweets, etc. However, I haven't been satisfied with the taste of the Bhel Puri anywhere. The best taste (Chennai ka best) I've ever had was at a small stall near Adyar fly over. While the place where I found a good Bhel Puri isn't important, what I feel is worth considering is the young man who operates the Bhel Puri stall.

The stall he operates through is heavily coloured with the menu written on the front side and pictures of different chaat items on the sides. He calls himself a 'self employed' youth and makes it a point that people notice it. It is written in bold letters at the top of the stall.
As soon as I entered the premises, he greeted me with a welcoming smile, asked me what will I have and then quickly started making the chaat item I ordered. While he was preparing the food, he started talking to me about my whereabouts and telling me about his hometown. During the talks he said that the speciality of his stall was that it is the most hygienic Bhel Puri stall in the area. I had a glance at his table and I actually found the whole table very clean with different chutneys and other stuff stacked properly in the small space. He also kept his stove a good 1 meter away from other stuff, a rare sight at Bhel Puri stalls. (Generally, people keep all sort of things around the stove creating a potential hazard). He said that for customer satisfaction, hygiene is the most important factor 'Agar khana acha aur hygienic hai toh customer phir se aayega'. He chatted with me for quite sometime until he had other customer. However, even while serving them, he asked me whether I'll have chutney or any other thing for about 3 times. (Customer care and service).
As I looked around, I found that he had a covered dustbin a good 10 metres away from the stall, water (some mineral water brand I can't remember) too kept around.
After I was done with the chaat, he asked me whether the food was fine or not. (How many stall owners ask this?). The chaat was also not expensive. Infact, it was among the lowest charge I paid for a samosa chaat at Chennai. (Rs. 20). While going he asked me to visit again and gave me a masala puri.
He jokingly said - "Mera customer hamesha wapas aata hai. Hum sabse acha service aur khana deta hai".
Now that is quite an exaggeration but still, I will visit him at least once again definitely.

Why?
1. Good, hygienic food (Product)
2. Cheap compared to others around (Price)
3. Customer Satisfaction provided
4. Aims to build up a good relationship (Promotion)
5. Located at the heart of Adyar (Place)

What else do we learn at an MBA? A young Bhel Puri owner also knows it!