Mumbai...Bleakness

I came in to work this morning to catch up on mutliple things, but its hard to focus on anything when once considers that the seige in Mumbai is now into its third day! Much has been said already, so I don't need to rehash anything. I was particularly struck this morning by a moving piece by Sambit Bal, editor of Cricinfo.com.  He writes, 

"...I have watched a city of a million dreams held hostage by 20 or so men who have purged from their souls every trace of humanity - let's not confer on them the dignity of a religion - and I have felt the blood drain out of me...."

Go home Kevin P and company. Perhaps, one day, there will be another innings that will make more sense...

On leadership -- from the land of Gross National Happiness

"“Destiny has put me here. I will protect you as a parent, care for you as a brother and serve you as a son. I shall give you everything and keep nothing. This is how I shall serve you as King.”

Jigme Khesar Namgyei Wangchuck, V King of Bhutan, (on his coronation)

Something for all world leaders, including President Obama, to think about...

ISB Alums Innovating at Google India

Last week I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a link from Manik Gupta's Gmail page to his post announcing Google's mapping of India. Manik is one of those exemplary alums that ISB should be proud to have. He really understood the true essence of a business school education. One that goes beyond GPAs and placements (well, Google is not a bad landing;-), but really involves soaking in the educational experience in a broader sense. 

I must admit Google India maps was of immense use to me when I had my Hyderabadi driver (never been North of AP) take my father's car back to Jaipur just prior to our move to Minneapolis. I could literally show him our house around the corner from Moti Dungri, across from the beautiful Birla Temple, on the map.

Not to be outdone, this morning I got an email from Alok Goel, another proud ISBian and former president of the Biz Tech Club at ISB. The official Google India blog features his latest product, an SMS based search service. 

Part of my motivation for posting this is to express my disappointment at the shrinking enrollments in the IT courses at ISB. People who are passiionate about technology seem, naturally, to be burnt out by the four-five years they spend dealing with global delivery model. Long hours, distance (not just physical) from the clients and life in the trenches can be expected to take their toll. The natural inclination is to look for careers in i-Banking, consulting and marketing, which in of itself is a justifiable exit strategy from a B-School.

The paradox however is that overall supply of jobs for ISB graduates in these areas has never been greater than the demand, and a significant number of ISBians end up back in the technology sector, in roles that befit their enhanced profiles. Of the set that go back to the IT sector, there are those that believe that their prior experience is enough to carry them through should their i-banking-consulting preference elude them. There are others like Manik and Alok, who, after some soul-searching and wine tasting, recognize where their true passion is and work expressly towards that goal. They take relevant IT electives, engage with the relevant centers and dialogue woth the plethora of industry leaders that stream through Gachibowli.

In anticipation of this, our strategy has been to offer IT electives that expressly cater towards studnets looking to chart careers in the innovative aspects of this sector. These inlcude, but are not limited to, product innovation in networked Web 2.0 businesses (a great course developed and refined by Prof Amit Mehra, but which sadly may have to disappear next year due to low demand), business intelligence/data mining, global sourcing and financial valuations of tech. businesses.

The optimist in me hopes that it is a matter of time that this message sinks in, but are their aspects of the stroy I'm missing out? Do voice your frank opinions on this...

Election 2008 -- Polls v prediction markets -- the latter won hands down

My PhD student Miguel Velasco pointed out this morning that the Intrade prediction market far outperformed opinion polls in prediction the overall election 2008 results. Take a look at this snapshot from Yahoo. The polls predicted Indiana and NC to go red, but the market got it right (in that they went left:-)

To play around with this interesting dashboard go to http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard

On Sam...

In class group discussion on whether Walmart should offer it's slick logistics and vendor managed inventory as a platform to others ( a la Amazon);

Group that is against this - " What would Sam say?" NO!

Group that is for it - Guess what, Sam's dead:-)

Down Economies -- IT Spending

I begin teaching in the executive MBA program at Carlson today. I look forward to spending the next couple of months with this impressive mix of 60 odd (ok, 52 to be precise:-) Twin Cities executives from all walks of business. The question is somewhat timeless -- IT spending continues to rise worldwide, yet as many firms fail to drive value from these as those that do! 

Interestingly, a new article from Mckinsley Quarterly dwells on what firms should do with respect to IT spending in downturns. Some interesting excerpts:

"CIOs, of course, should continue to make their operations more efficient and to reduce costs, especially in areas that show signs of bloat."

"Still, except in the most dire circumstances, turning off technology investments during a downturn is counterproductive. When business picks up, you may lack critical capabilities..."

"Few companies have successfully capitalized on the explosion of data in recent years. Often this information, residing in separate IT systems or spread across different business units, has never been mined for insights that could add value. "

Not surprisngly the three pillars of our course are:

1. How to manage IT to keep the lights on and continously reduce costs while improving service?
2. How to leverage corporate data for business inteliigence?
3. How to use IT to play offense and innovate?

Look forward to the hearing your views on this.

From One Twin Cities to Another

We (the family) are getting ready to move to Minneapolis where I'll be joining the faculty at the Carlson School of Management at the U of M (as they call it, or if you are from Minnesota just plainly the "U"). Two years have flown by at the ISB and (through what I must admit was some very broad minded thinking by the U of M and ISB administration) I'm glad that I'll continue to direct CITNE, our fledgling research centre at the ISB.

Perceivably, this is a move against the tides. Away from the emerging lands of opportunity. Someday I'll get into the details of why and what prompted these moves. Something probably every US grown Indian academic considers doing (I think the broader immigrant reverse migration story has a different narration than our narrow segment of academics) at some stage.

As of now, I'm getting a rousing farewell. Four of my Mayo friends and their families are descending into the Twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad starting tomorrow morning. Looking forward to a fun weekend!

ISB Ranks 20th in FT's 2008 Global MBA Ranking

Predictably, there has been a lot of buzz in the Indian media around the 20th place global ranking the ISB MBA has received. One question that is openly being asked is where are the IIMs? Did they not participate? Can they make it? Interesting questions all.

One of the joys of working at ISB is that we get the Financial Times delivered to us (via Mumbai and two days late) in our offices and hallways. To me the FT Weekend edition is worth it's weight in gold, by far the best newspaper reading in the world. At a broader level, it signals ISB's global mindset. Barring a couple of visits to IIM-B I've never stepped foot on any other IIM. So I'll let them speak for themselves.

At the ISB, one does get the feeling of being in the new India, one that is at ease with itself, but also intricately embedded in the global economy. We shift effortlessly between chai and samosas to measuring consumer surplus in eBay auctions worldwide (see the New York Times' recent coverage of our paper forthcoming in the premier peer-reviewed journal Information Systems Research or ISR, as we call it). Incidentally ISR is one the 40 journals that the Financial Times counts in the research component of its ranking. Research has a significant 10% weight in FT's scheme of things, and yes ISB has a long way to go on that (and we sure have our set of issues, but that is fodder for another chow) given the small number of our resident faculty size, but top-tier research is something that ISB cares about. Like in many US research oriented B-Schools 'publish or perish' is the mantra that rules the lives of the tenure-track ISB resident faculty.

Speaking of the components of the ranking, the DNA newspaper today quotes IIM-A director Sameer Barua as saying "the FT has ranked ISB on the basis of statistics of salaries give by them." The comment is troubling in more ways than one. The FT ranking methodology is by far the most open of all major international rankings. Anyone can view it at http://rankings.ft.com/pdf/key/global-mba-rankings.pdf, and Prof. Barua certainly needs to be pointed to it.

Salary rated components make up about 40% of the overall weight. Significant, but not the sole criteria. What bothers me more is the use of the phrase "by them." The first thing that FT looks at is whether the numbers given have been audited by KPMG or not?

Meanwhile, I missed the celebrations on Monday collecting data for some new research in Mumbai. Neverthless, rumour has it that a few more parties are forthcoming and that there is a new out-there "lounge" on the campus, and it also has a watering hole that is open beyond Sarovar's 10pm curfew at the EH. So the journey continues.

Party hard and work harder...

RB