What a Life?

What has my life become (probably true for many other people also). It’s no different than a machine.

Monday for Friday (and sometimes even Saturday), same routine – Wake up in the morning – freshen up –have tea – shave (alternative days) – take bath – get ready – have milk – leave home – rush to catch a bus/sharing cab – walk down to office (without even bothering about what’s happening nearby you) and in this race to reach office on time, sometime though you hungry still skip even the thought of having something (As you don’t want your boss to ask what’s the office timing, which, he/she would never do when you leave late)

On-time (sometime even before time) you reach office and than the day of meetings and reports start and than you don’t even have time to question yourself - is this what you really want? Lunch break helps you keep your body part (external only) moving in sync. Again back to your own busy world.

At the end of the day (or may start of the night), it’s time to move back to home and again the rush to reach fast. Go back, get fresh, have food, watch TV for sometime and to bed to wake-up early.

That’s my life, how about you?

Sometime I wonder (and just wonder), is this what I was looking for? I have no answers or probably I don’t want to answer myself, as it could be painful to hear the truth..............................................................................

It’s time HR relook their role in the organisation

Firstly, let me clarify I have no issue with the task and responsibility taken up by HR guys. I am here to put forward an extra responsibility that they can take up for the better tomorrow of corporate houses they represent. Indian along with China is among the most sought out destination for growth and this means that this MNCs comes here and set-up shops (offices, manufacturing units, etc). This brings good news and a bad news on the table; good news is ‘lots of job creation’, bad news: we don’t have enough resource to meet the demand. But what’s worse is our existing resources have no capability to meet the criteria laid down by the corporate world. Every time I read a recruiter’s interview, I find his biggest concern as non-employability of the engineering, management and other graduates. So this means the organisations have to spend a good amount of money and time on them to make them employable.

Here, I believe, HR can play a larger and more impactful role. We all know it’s the role of HR to recruit the best available resource (within the organisation budget) and then to retain them. But in a market where the supply is limited and demands unlimited HR managers are forced either to suffice with what is available or overshoot the budget. What if the HR managers take a step back and make sure what is thought in colleges is relevant with the industries need.

Though, we find a lot of top executive in the list of board of governors of various management colleges, guiding them about the need of industries, I believe the process of corporate involvement with the academic world should start at the college level. I believe the HRD minister and others should relook at AICTE’s role in curriculum design and rather leave it on a committee represented by both academician and corporate than those snail speed AICTE guys.

So what’s the role that HR is gone a play? It is this division of the business that understand the needs of various other divisions. It is this division who have the responsibility towards the employee of all the divisions in terms of their training and development, growth within the organisation. So we can say they understand the need of the corporate world better than anyone else and hence should be given the responsibility to communicate with the academic world about the corporates need by joining them in task of curriculum design and also in it delivery.

I leave it here for others to comment and thus refine my idea.

The Battle of Placement

Heard and read about hundred's of battle in the past century, but now I got an opportunity of being part of a one unique battle. A battle, irrespective of the fact that you win or loss, leads you to another battle, a bigger battle.

Was it wrong timing (2007), wrong place (Praxis Business School) or altogether a wrong decision to do MBA, I have no clue, but I know onething, I am in the mid of a battle - 'Battle of Placement'. I don't know when this battle is gone end for me, but it seems tough time is still ahead.

I have taken a loan of 4lakh, the EMI for which comes to Rs. 13,866/-; chances are high that I am gone be placed out side Mumbai (where my parents stay), so rent and food expenses need to taken care of, also some upfront cost while setting up my new house. But you may be wondering why am I putting up my expense list here - just to make you understand what it feels when you being offered a job with take away salary of 18K to 22K (yes, it is per month, afterall I am a MBA) which may force to still depend on my father. The salary offered is just twice my last drawn salary before MBA.

Over and above the salary issue if you take time to think whether a profile is appropriate for someone to start his/her career, I am sorry, but you don't have the luxury to do so.

I just wonder whether I will be able to win this battle of placement by winning or I have to surrender, so that, I am left to live. I was and am a finance student who wanted his career in the finance domain, but not sure anymore where life is gone take me from here...........................I am on the road of uncertainity, hoping for the best for myself.........................but the way ahead is a mystery.

Recession and Entrepreneurship

The world economy is either hit by recession or at least the fear of it. Most of the things go down with the slowing economy, clearly indicating a positive beta with the economy (I am a finance student, you see!). But we also find a negative beta between the economy and the events such as loss of jobs and participation in entrepreneurship contest (I don’t have data on people becoming entrepreneurs). People say recession is just the right time to work on your dream as you have little to lose, but have an opportunity to conquer the world. I don’t know how correct it is to go for something that you feel is a good idea, in times when the whole world is not even looking at something that they felt to be great ideas a few days back!

A few days back, a friend of mine was asked about what he would like to do in life ahead and he had proudly said ‘I would like to an entrepreneur some 7-8years down the line’.

So, the next question, why not now?

There are various platform created for budding entrepreneur to come up and show their talent in this period, when the economy is hit by recession. So, this sounded a valid question.

My friend being intelligent and a quick thinker answered it very well. He answered: ‘Sir, most of the asset classes, particularly equity have shattered down. This asset class – equity, therefore gives an opportunity to make good money if I stay invested for next 2-3years. Therefore given that I have some money I would rather invest my money into equity for next few years and when the economy is back on track, I would like to use the money made to start my venture.’

Is this guy crazy in doing opposite to what the world generally does?

May be, but he has a point.

Probability of his venture being successful is lower than the probability of good returns from the investment. Also, even if the venture is successful, there is no surety of good return, which could also be true for equity investment (wrong timing for the stock chosen for portfolio). But nonetheless this sounds like an interesting idea - to invest now and wait for the economy to stabilize and then start your own venture.

In any case you could say ‘recession led you to entrepreneurship!’

Credit Rating Agency: A question on their functioning.

The recent crisis in the financial market defied the history of many companies as we knew them and created another for us to narrate to our grand children as a horrifying story of our times.

Not going into cause and effect story once again, let us look directly into the subject matter of the write-up. One of the entities blamed for the cause are the credit rating agencies (CRAs), other being the regulators.

So, what do you think? Are the CRAs to be blamed for what has happened or did they perform their task in the very manner they are expected to?

I here, take a different view than what most expert on the subject matter speaking and take a stand that the CRAs cannot be blamed.

The CRAs gave AAAs and AAs to most of papers which turned out to be toxic assets later on. But does that mean that their whole process of rating was wrong? I don’t know. I leave upon you to decide. I have a question, why have we not raised question on the role of the board of directors (including independent directors) who more than anybody knew what was going on; raised question on the functioning of the audit firms who proudly sign without even caring about knowing what and where they are signing; those equity research guys, who believe they know everything about the stocks they track, and specially those media people who make stories larger than life and make fool of people like you and me. We need to understand that CRAs are also run by human beings like us; they are no special people, who can read what’s hidden in each number.

But, if we take my last point and move forward, then, we cannot expect anybody to come forward and accept their fault, because it’s a human error.

So what do we do?

We make rules and regulation of what the duties and responsibility of each one of us are, be it individuals or institutions.

Can we all make the rules and regulation?

No.

So, who will do that? The government has to appoint regulators; but we already have them, now what?

If we analyse the situation what we see is a flaw in the whole functioning of the CRAs and their client. For CRAs, the clients are the companies which come to them to get them self the (best) rating (possible), and since they pay the CRAs, the CRAs feel a moral duty to please their clients. That’s what has happened and I don’t see any reason for us to blame them for anything that, as a customer, even we would like (to get special treatment).

So what’s the way out?

There are many things in my mind, but each has its own drawback. I would present the one that is clear enough in my mind to present it to you. How about, only one rating agency in each country and the price being fixed by the regulatory authorities? Sometimes monopoly can serve better than competition. I know there are lots of ‘What if’ questions that are not answered, but to be frank with you, I don’t have any answer for those questions as of now, but we surely will find right answer as the time passes.

The whole issue is not small to be left here, so I would request you to put your thoughts here for the benefit of others; who either like me has limited knowledge of the subject matter or those who would like to hear it from everyone to bring a change in the way each agencies and not just CRAs works.