“Ah! I’m training to be better at a job I hate!” says a girl to her friend in one of the episodes of my favourite TV show, and the first thought that struck me was, “Hey… I know that feeling!”. Trained as a coder, happy as a writer, I am now a student of business studies. As I was thinking about this, I looked back to my days as a software engineer and recalled a particular incident.

It was a typical Monday morning, and people were returning to their routine lives after the weekend. Everybody loves weekends. It’s the time when we go back to being ourselves for a while and recharge our batteries. Some of us like to go out and have fun while some prefer staying indoors and resting. Some people find time to develop a new hobby or rejoice in the old ones. Traveling, shopping, boozing, sleeping, writing, partying, everyone has their own way of preparing themselves for the next five days of “work”. Won’t it be great if the weekend didn’t end? If we could do whatever it is, that makes us happy and get paid for it? If we didn’t have to be all “logical” while picking up a career path? I was still preoccupied with this stuff when one of my colleagues came back from a meeting with his manager.

Apparently, the poor guy had no “clarity of thought”, and all the work he had done during the previous week was nullified in just 15 minutes of the meeting. “What will you do now?”, I asked. “Look for another job, do something else!”, he replied, yet both of us knew the hollowness in those words. It was then that I asked him the question I was pondering over for so long.

“If I tell you that in this moment of time, you can be anything you wish to be, I give you all the resources you need for that, and you are free from all the expectations of your family and society, if money was not one of the driving factors for work, would you still be working in the same field?” It took him longer to understand the question than to find an answer. We are so used to living in the reality that we take time to comprehend if someone tells us to stop for a while and imagine a perfect world for a moment. “Travel…If only I could get paid for that,” he replied, turning back to his desktop.

As I asked the same question to my other friends, it turned out that traveling was the most voted for “hypothetically perfect profession”. Some wanted to see all the big cities of this world while some would love to go to the not-so-famous locations. Most people didn’t have a particular destination in mind when they chose traveling over their current job, but some were very particular in their answers, for example, one of the respondents wanted to go to the highest and lowest points on Earth.

Traveling was the most common, but not the only answer that I got. Meera (alias), who had been working in the IT sector for more than a year, said she would like to be a motivational speaker. “I would like to take up a job where I can actually inspire people and, may be, make a difference in their lives. Also, I want to do it because I know I am good at stuff like that,” she added as her fingers ran onto her keyboard.

Meera was one of those many people who wished to do something in their lives but were moving forward on an entirely different path. But I also found some people whose dreams were not that different from the reality. Rajat (alias), for instance, wanted to be a game developer. He wished to make a game that would stay with his name when he was long gone. A similar example was Smita (alias), who, someday, wanted to be a big name in the field of cybersecurity. Rajat and Smita both were then working as assistant software engineers.

Unlike Rajat and Smita, others had a wide gap between where they were and where they wanted to be, and not being able to picture a way to reach the latter one had labeled it as a “childhood dream”. Such a list of unfulfilled dreams comprised joining the armed forces, being a pilot, starting a business of their own, getting into the Indian cricket team, and many more. But some people had still not stopped chasing their dream yet. Akash (alias), who wanted to be a social worker, was one of the most sought-after coders in his company. His then WhatsApp status read “Happy and content,” but he didn’t look content when he said that he was working on something and would probably change his field in a few months.

One of the answers that surprised me came from a person who, I always thought, loved his job as a coder. “I don’t want to do this work.” said Piyush (alias) as he turned his system off at 8:47 PM and knew that he’d be coming an hour before his usual time the next day. He wanted a simpler life where he could find time for himself. One more person who found it difficult to fit into the fast-moving life of NCR was Kuljeet (alias). Kuljeet came from a small town in Punjab and wished to go back to his home-town more than anything else in the world. “Oh jee, mujhe na achhi ni lagdi ye Dilli-NCR ki zindagi. Mujhe bass ek chhoti si 15-20 hazaar ki koi naukri mil jaye jo gharkepaas ho… (I do not want the Delhi-NCR life, if only I could find a job that pays 15-20 thousand rupees but let’s me be close to home…)” says Kuljeet who had been working in NOIDA for nearly two years and was earning way more than the “15-20 hazaar” he yearned for. That, I must say, was the most heart-breaking answer I got.

The point is, all the people I asked had their own dreams, and a majority of people wanted to do something entirely different from what they were doing. If only, the imaginary situation presented to them was real and their heart and intuition were the only driving forces.
The question I had started asking just for fun and out of a little curiosity made me realize that “logical thinking” has killed more dreams than anything else. We all have that stack of dreams lying in the corner of our hearts, waiting to be chased. If only, it was that easy to take the road not taken.

Rendezvous, the official city meet that is organized right before IIM Nagpur PGP Admission process starts, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience in itself. I consider myself fortunate enough to be a part of the 2019 season and a contributor for the same. The first edition of Rendezvous in 2018 witnessed about 12 aspirants visiting us from various parts of India. Some cities had zero turn-ups and so in 2019 the focus was solely on first increasing the numbers of people attending.

Before the initial stage shortlists, followed by WAT/PI, we invited B-School aspirants for a meet in their respective cities. The objective of such meets is to make aspirants aware of the IIMN culture, life on campus, placements, how should they prepare for their WAT/PI and of course, to address all concerns they have. We planned for a total of 10 cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhopal and Pune. Even though we had two washouts, but the rest of the cities had people coming up in numbers that helped us achieve total aspirants’ count to 61. This jump from 12 to 61 in itself was amazing. And I must say, that the personalized marketing technique was applied to a large extent to achieve this hike. In fact, paid digital marketing and social media activities also didn’t yield results the way personalized marketing did.

I recall initial instances when a large number of aspirants who initially joined their respective city WhatsApp groups asked lot of questions, showed great interest in the meet, but later, as the date of the meet approached they shied away from coming. It was a laborious part to do, but then filtering out such names and sending a formal personalized message to them on behalf of IIM Nagpur (yes, that’s a proud feeling when you act as the face of the Institute to the outside world) asking for their confirmation and showcasing how excited we are to host them, brought back close to 40% of those aspirants.

This particular strategy to connect with individuals with formal content is very close to what companies do in case of personalized marketing (also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing). The concept states that we should leverage our available data and technology to deliver individualized messages to our prospects, and we did the same. Of course, we were not selling a product or service, but yes, the city meet aims at spreading awareness and culture that we are building here on campus at IIMN. It impacts admissions a lot and, going ahead, the quality of students graduating out of a college.

On a closing note, with the last few months left in college, I look forward to the present team to leverage the data they would gather and make the jump from 61 to 100+ at least. If no other tools would work, touch the human psyche, go the personalized way; it may be a little hectic and laborious but it is a guarantee for decent results, if not the best.

Any job we take up after graduation loses its novelty after a while and this was one of the reasons why I decided to go for an MBA. It has been three months exactly since I joined IIM Nagpur. In these three months, I have attended more than twelve guest sessions, conducted by the likes of HR Head, Marketing Head, Operations Head, Strategy Head, Analytics experts, and even finance experts associated with well-known organizations. You might think, how is that not monotonous? Anyone might get bored after 3-4 sessions. But believe me when I say, it is worth spending each minute of those sessions listening to their valuable experiences.

We do have YouTube and other resources for information, but since ages, it has been said that the practical way of attaining knowledge always works better than the theoretical one. To give an example, until a month ago, I had no idea about what to choose as my specialization. Now I can say that I have formed a pretty decent idea about which areas I need to explore further. The exposure to various functions has improved my understanding and I have been able to apply elimination tactics to arrive at some focus areas. This is the extent to which these sessions, even in such a short duration, can be of great help.

People say there is no age limit for learning, and when successful people come and tell you how, even after working for 20 years, they are still learning new things every day, it reinforces the idea of learning further. Do you know that in any organization a good EQ is considered better than a good IQ? Research says women tend to have better EQ than men. As per an MHRD report, the female literacy rate in India is 56.8%, then why do only 23.3% of women work in an organization? One of the sessions forced me to ponder on this. Some reasons are consistent since medieval ages, but this needs to be changed. I never realized earlier that the annual report of a company could offer such valuable information about its performance. Had I known this earlier, I could have helped my father avoid some risky investment decisions that failed to yield returns. While that is in the past, I am certain now that our future decisions will be much more informed.

The guest sessions at IIM Nagpur have opened many avenues of new knowledge for us. I have learned that the oft-quoted re-skilling of employees does not work since change and adaptability are often only in the mind of the individual. You must have come across that YouTube ad that claims that ‘data is the new oil’. We have learned just how valuable data has become and will continue to be, in the coming decade.
We often chase an ultimate goal, but I believe that it is the journey that should be given more importance. The industry leaders who visit the IIMN campus share the journeys that have taken them to their current heights, and their experiences are a goldmine for management students. So, even if we have to sometimes sacrifice our Saturdays and Sundays for these sessions, the insights we derive from those are every bit worth it!

This article has been published by InsideIIM.

In December 2018, almost the same time last year, I was working on my field immersion module with the after-sales and service department of Kirloskar Oil Engines Limited (KOEL) – an outsourced organization and KOEL’s official partner. The Field Immersion module at IIM Nagpur is one of Institute’s flagship offerings and part of the core curriculum in the two year MBA programme.

The broad level problem statement on which I was working was to devise a strategy to bring back the company’s out-of-fold customers. Once an AMC expired after the first purchase, a good percentage of the customers either ignored renewing the AMCs on time or else chose to go for local after-sales service providers and not the authorized dealers. This led to a decline in revenue from the after-sales servicing channel. The experience while working on this problem statement in itself was quite interesting because, as a part of market research we had to understand consumer behavior, their preferences, and understand the reasons on the basis of which they preferred local unauthorized dealers and not the contract-based authorized ones. We conducted research among more than 300+ customers and analyzed the possible factors that stood out as prominent reasons during the research.

We were expecting some strong technically grounded reasons behind the decline, or maybe, poor servicing quality from the authorized dealers, but surprisingly, what came in as a core reason was just poor back-end customer relationship management. Even front-end CRM was highly satisfying but that back-end support in terms of informing customers on time about expiration, casual calls for some greetings occasionally, updating them with new offerings regularly, even if their AMCs are intact; neglecting such smaller, personalized aspects led to a fall in customer base. I will bring in the concept of individual or one-to-one marketing once again. When we talked to the customers, many of them were delighted that they were having someone from the company’s side; some research also gave insights that many customers haven’t been contacted for more than five years. Another issue that came up during the research was that the back-end database wasn’t updated with changes in customers’ current possessives. This further led to a mismatch between customers’ expectations and the efforts/direction in which the back-end, as well as front-end servicing teams were focused.

Eventually, by the end of the third week, we completed six pilot projects and brought back all the six out-of-fold customers. Based on the same framework that we applied in our pilot projects, we prepared a document that contained the devised customer relationship best practices and a framework to keep the cycle intact so that the company doesn’t lose sight of their customers. In a nutshell, my FIM experience offered me learning on how to handle customer segments that fall into a category where most of the owners and decision-makers are usually less educated and henceforth, to sell more in that segment, touching their psyche is a must.

As part of the International Immersion Programme (IIP) at IIM Nagpur, some students from the PGP Batch of 2018-2020 had the opportunity to visit South Korea. The students visited Incheon International Airport Authority to understand the baggage handling system at one of the largest, busiest and cleanest airports of the world, which claims to have a baggage mishandling rate of 0.0001%. The contingent also visited Samsung Electronics and Samsung Innovation Museum to learn about the history of Samsung and the latest innovative trends to hit the market in the times to come. The visit to Incheon Harbour Authority gave them an understanding of how the port contributes to national economic growth by developing the eco-friendly port as a logistics hub and marine tourism destination. The students visited the Incheon National University, Sogang University, as well as some of the prominent cities including the capital city of Seoul gave the students the opportunity to experience Korean culture, and interact with several Korean students to learn more about the country and its work culture.

When we talk about the culture of an organization, we refer majorly to the internal policies related to employee benefits, working hours, dress code, hierarchy in the organization and others. But, if we dive deep to understand the core, it is the distinct culture of an organization that plays a pivotal role in its journey towards the acme. And this comes with a great sense of motivation among the employees and other stakeholders.

For any successful organization, branding has always been one of the most crucial front as it conveys the latent message behind the mission & vision statement, the core values of the organization and the underlying culture. If we look at any successful organization, we would see that their brand and culture are perfectly aligned and are integrated so as to strengthen its sustainable competitive advantage, and fuel growth. Their leaders understand impeccably that a progressive, growing culture contributes to a progressive, growing brand – and an extraordinary brand reflects the actual sense of an extraordinary culture.

This article aims at discussing the learning from one such organization, which has achieved a remarkable position in the industry with an innovative culture, and we will see how their branding support them at each level with an example of their logo design.

As part of the International Immersion Program at IIM Nagpur, we recently visited the Rakuten headquarters in Tokyo. We were privileged to have an insightful discussion with Mr Masatada ‘Seichu’ Kobayashi (Seichu San), co-founder and Chief Well-Being Officer, Rakuten and Nalini George, Chief People Office, Rakuten India on the cultural changes that Rakuten has seen in the last decade, and how it has impacted the organization. One of the most critical aspects of the discussion revolved around the importance of branding in a company’s life-cycle, especially when the organization is going through diversification and rapid growth globally. Below given are the key pointers about the evolution of Rakuten’s logo and how it was in sync with the growth strategy of the organization.

The first brand of Rakuten group was Rakuten Ichiba, an e-commerce platform. The inspiration was taken from Rakuichi-Rakuza, Japan’s first free and open marketplaces from the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1600), with the objective of creating a sense of bright future and ‘optimism’ – as the word ‘Rakuten’ means in Japanese.

Initially the logo was designed to reflect how company focuses on the empowerment of the local merchants. It was conveyed by the red circle representing the Sun, taken from the national flag of Japan. It communicates the message that Japan is “The land of the rising sun”, and hence it builds a connection with the native culture of Japan and conveys the firm’s values of empowerment through innovations.

With the focus on globalization along with maintaining the native culture, Rakuten came up with a new elegant logo, with “R” shown inside the red circle. It reflected the transition phase, as portrayed by the logo in English language along with the red circle representing the sun.

The current logo with a motif based on the Japanese character for “one” or “ichi”, reflects the vision of Rakuten group as a unified business group with multiple businesses encapsulated within one culture and value system. This logo is also aligned to the minimalist design principles, that becomes a crucial factor when an organization is expanding globally.

We also had a discussion on how Rakuten started an initiative, “Englishization”, under which English became their official business language. Now, this is a major shift for an organization of this scale, and needs enormous effort internally within the organization. But, with their dedication and determination in the last few years, they have achieved this goal with immense success, and today, Rakuten takes pride in claiming its position as a global player in internet-based products and services industry.

When the going gets tough and is prolonged
And when our life as an exam stays on a rage
When the pitfalls while acquiring wisdom are obscure
And when our shaping ideology demands an experienced gaze

Well, it’s a phase that can either make or break us
It’s that moment when our hopeful eyes look up to you

And so, today, remembering all our beloved, revered teachers

We acknowledge you for directing our sagacious minds
We thank you for solving our enigma to direct our thrives
And we express our gratitude for shaping billion instants of our lives

Happy Teachers’ Day!

Lord Krishna, ought to be that one name with whom two women fell in love in different time frames, Radha in Dwapar yuga and Meera in Kalyug. And surprisingly, those two admirable women from our scriptures never had any hatred for each other. Because it is quite unusual that when two women loves the same man, they don’t have differences but that is the definition of love that Lord Krishna brings to life.

If you have ever lived love and found it swaying away from your amalgamated soul, your palms clasped together and your head turned back, you searched for the lord. As you walked down the stairs you ended up glaring at a miniature of Lord Krishna, in which he stood flawlessly with Radha. Your eyes remained stuck at the display of togetherness the Divine portrayed. But then true love stories are not meant to usually have a happy ending. Krishna and Radha’s love story will always be immortal but it never ended up in a marriage. In a human being’s life when you think of your amalgamated soul wearing away and your love parting ways, due to something uncontrollable, even if you are an atheist, your head bows down, your hands join mostly before one admired figure from the scriptures, Lord Krishna.

During his childhood, Lord Krishna once asked his mother, ‘Maa, you say that the Sun is there in the east, but today I saw it in the west. How did that happen?’ She replied, ‘Son, you will be the king of this world one day, so in whichever direction, you, as a leader direct your finger, the sun, the moon and the universe is bound to go that way.’
If you are your mother’s most adored child, you must have your own tantrums, you must have your own precious pampering that you need. You must also have your own set of pranks you played on your neighbours, and dare I say, their daughters. I believe, this must have brought some nostalgia to each one of us quite vividly. Some of us from towns and villages must have jumped walls to get hold of mangoes and guavas from our neighbours’ gardens. We must have jumped walls to bring the cricket ball back, we must have broken window panes too and must have faced complaints that those neighbours made to our mothers. Despite all these you still remains your mother’s most loved. Lord Krishna was no different, and so as a human soul, we do share one more common thread with him.

Each one of us strives to achieve great milestones and as B-School graduates, one day most of us would be leading some organization. When you will be at that position, again, even if you are an atheist, don’t forget to visualize one of the most eminent leaders, Lord Krishna. He shaped his career and profession so perfectly that when he led a team of helpless brothers into one of the most epic battles of all time, his philosophy, his lessons, his advice and his logic made underdogs the winners, and as a result, the ‘Bhagwad Gita’ was born. Even today the world recognizes those lessons. Science, arts, politics, management, choose whatever you like, the Bhagwad Gita has had an impact everywhere. That’s a real leader and a career that wields an influence even today.

School, colleges, workplace – your journey results in the forging of many friendships. With time we forget them – we move ahead, life moves ahead and we say time has changed. Well, time may change, the world may change but you, as an individual, shouldn’t change. At the mention of ‘friendship’, think of how many friends you have retained from, say kindergarten and primary school. And if you have some, how many of them stand with you today? Today you have many friends in a B-School. How many of these will you still be in touch with, 20 years from now? You may not want a horde of friends, but do retain the most genuine of those, and you will achieve the ideal of friendship that Lord Krishna and Sudama defined. It is not about positions, status or time, it is just about love, humanity, modesty, care and concern. Preserve these elements and life will be beautiful.

Reflections on Lord Krishna may never end but the major aspects in a human being’s life have four touch points. It starts with a mother’s affection and the childhood days, gets friendship added with time, moves on to career and then love, relationships, marriage and beyond that, the role as a leader or as an individual to whom society and your family look up to. Science may say that nothing can be ideal in life, not even PV=NRT is completely ideal, though taught as an ideal gas equation. But by following Lord Krishna’s footsteps and lessons, things may closely follow an ideal path, even in our daily life.

Just think of bringing a change. When you do, others will question you, but stay firm on what you believe and act upon. Eventually someone else will do the same and henceforth, a chain will start, a chain of moving towards perfection and a state as close as humanly achievable, to an ideal one.

On October 2nd, 2019, the nation celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Regarded as an international icon of peace and a devoted individual who worked for the human rights throughout his life, Bapu is still alive in the heart of every Indian as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence. To celebrate his 150th birth anniversary, the Culture and tourism ministry laid down a list of activities to be performed across government managed organizations and in regions associated with Gandhiji.
As a part of this initiative, IIM Nagpur will publish a series of write-ups, focusing on Mahatma Gandhi’s personality traits and the numerous course of action taken by him for the welfare of humanity and the country. Khadi for the mass, Making non-violence a brand, Satyagraha as a potential weapon to fight injustice and imbibing a life of simplicity makes his life immortal and pious.
The purpose behind publishing such write-ups is to spread the ideals that Bapu’s charismatic personality and thought processes reflected. Gandhiji, a true visionary, a perfect portrayal of one who demolished British policies with his foresightedness, silent yet dominating moves and patience offers us a plethora of opportunities to learn from his life.
IIM Nagpur commemorates this occasion by announcing a two-year plan in which several articles on Bapu’s ideals will be penned down and made available on the institute’s official website. They will be rich with the fragrance of Gandhian heritage and will expose us with situations that will answer critical questions such as, how to validate simplicity as a morality? How to understand the thin line between what’s enough and what’s more? How to realize that the true essence of a perfect nation radiates across generations when we emphasize more on humanity and intrinsic values of a person?
Before we embark our series of dedicated posts for reverend Bapu, let’s take a pledge of not limiting ourselves to just reading the Gandhian principles and philosophy. Instead, let’s take this oath of experiencing Bapu’s endeavor and thoughts from our soul and offer some time in retracing the causes and implications of the same.

Jai Hind…

The worshiping of Lord Ganesha is prominent in our Indian society. Ganesha is considered to be the genesis of the eminent Hindu Mythology. It is said that, we as Indians garner a lot of trust in our Hindu mythologies, but being self- proclaimed righteous Hindu doesn’t solicit the well-being of our “nation” as a whole. Ganesha – a Sanskrit compound, is an amalgamation of two words i.e. Gan- “A group of people” and Isha – “The Leader”. So, in the process of celebrating his birthday, we not only in still an essence of leadership but we also rejoice the confidence of being a people’s man/woman.

But are our celebrations really in coherence with the thoughts and learnings we derive from this occasion??

Generally, NO. We celebrate and then we deliberately tend to ignore the significance of it.

Ganesha – an elephant headed kid, a child considered to be dissimilar, a prodigy not by appearance but by brilliance and wisdom; epitomize the same very ritual that we follow while exploring our own inhibitions. The entire theory that Ganesh Chaturthi exemplifies is that the future of a child can never be dictated by his/her physical appearances. This theory gets its back-up from an old Indian saying “Kids idolize Gods”. But analyzing deeply, one would see that it has turned out to be a mere shibboleth nowadays. Saying that we are at fault is not at all justified. But it might be true that in the process of nurturing our future generations we sometimes are bowed upon by self-developed prejudices.

Ganesha Chaturthi is a festival where celebrations start with the birth (Sthapana) and end with the farewell (Visarjan) of Lord Ganesha. A lot of feelings and enthusiasm remain attached to the days of Ganesha’s stay in an Indian family. But as per the tradition, the string breaks as soon as the necklace is off the neck.

The rationale behind the festival could only be served by seeking an utopia in our Indian society where a child would never be judged upon external factors (appearance, race, cast and community). Because, the times are near when the children would grow and lead, so carrying these inherent inhibitions at these high times would certainly mar the glory of their efforts.