Fin, fini, finito, the end...

Perhaps this could be a good occassion to post - I'm officially done with the MBA! We just had the final SMAP presentation to the professor, which means no more classes, cases, group meetings, powerpoint presentations, spreadsheets --- till I start working.

But that doesn't happen well until July, so that leaves me a couple of months to unwind, travel, forget everything I learnt (well, almost everything) and start all over again.

Perhaps this is also a good time to bring this blog to a close. Just a parting note - someone who recently got an admit to IESE asked me if I had a good time. Lets just say, if I had to do the MBA again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

¡Hasta siempre!

The Countdown Begins

I know how ominous that title sounds, but it's true. We recently had the most awaited party of the entire year, a.k.a the Multi-Culti 2008. Anyone who has been there will tell you about the madness and debauchery that is the MC. This year was no different. I lack the superlatives so I'll take the easy way out and post pics so you can decide for yourself.

The Calçots-eating competition, courtesy Cataluña.


55+ countries represented..


The Indian performance


But nothing beat the Japanese, they were way too cool!


And that's how it ended... for some.



Anyways back to the countdown bit. The Multi-Culti's over, so is SKIESE. Next up is Doing Good and Doing Well, followed by Spring Fling -



And before you know it's time to graduate, and start a new chapter. Shudder. I'm not sure if I'm ready to go back to the real world.

A first..

From as long as I can remember, we at the Asian Business Club (ABC) at IESE have been trying to organize an informal get-together... the objective being meeting all the members outside of school, to get to know people rather than purely network.

Last Friday we finally managed to achieve that, with a premature celebration of the Chinese New Year, a.k.a. the year of the rat. About 30 of us including a couple of professors gathered at Shanghai 1930 (which despite being a pretty good restaurant, is not my favourite - that honour goes to Sichuan Mitsui Sichuan .. bah I can't decide).

Unfortunately, it was Friday, also the day I play Badminton, so by the time I got home, showered and left for the restaurant, I was ready to bite my fingers off due to hunger. Lesson learnt - even 2 glasses of wine on an empty stomach *will* make you tipsy. Thankfully they brought out the food before I passed out.

I'll leave you with some pictures. And thank god, I didn't karaoke that night. Once is enough!

Back!

Right, so after a number of complaints from people that I didn't know read my blog, I promise to get back to posting regularly.

Last time I checked, I was done with the 1st semester of the 2nd year, and was on my way for the Winter Break. What's changed?

a) We have results from the previous semester, and I did okay.

b) We started with the 2nd and last semester of the MBA... and man, I'm swamped with work. Since I'm interested in consulting, I chose the following courses -
- MADEM (Managerial Decision Models) a.k.a. my favourite class this term. It's a lot of excel modelling, crystal balling and optimizing, but I love this stuff, so I'm enjoying it a lot. It's a *LOT* of work, might I add.

- ENFI2 (Financing Entrepreneurial Opportunities): Perhaps the most heavily subscribed class in the MBA.. or perhaps 2nd most (the first being INTEC which I took last term). Focusses on .. well, financing entrepreneurial opportunities. Good base for someone looking to go into Venture Capital.

- DRIMA (Information Driven Marketing): This class is essentially the MarkStrat game, where teams of marketers have to compete in 2 markets to gain market share and $$$. Lots of fun!

- EMECO (Emerging Economies): After taking INTEC the last term I wondered if another Economics class would interest me (INTEC was my favourite class last term).. and I was pleasantly surprised. The Professor, apart from being the ex-Dean of CEIBS, is very experienced and extremely engaging. Totally worth getting up at 06h30 on a Friday morning... I know!

- SISCI (Management Control): Talks about topics such as budgeting, evaluations (not HR related!), aligning incentives of the employees to the objectives of the company, Transfer pricing etc.

- SMAP (Strategic Marketing Planning): Or in other words, writing an actual marketing plan. Practically every course this term has teamwork, and so does this. We're coming up with a marketing plan to introduce a luxury car by a manufacturer traditionally known for mid-range family cars. Can't talk about the company incase they ask us to sign confidentiality agreements.

c) I accepted an offer from a consulting firm, which means (i) I officially have a job! and (ii) I'm gonna stay in Barcelona atleast for the short to medium term. And on days like today (open terrace barbeque in January!), I kinda feel glad about making that choice.

Second Year Blues

You're right. I haven't posted in a loooooooong time, and there's a very good reason for that. If the 1st year was full of academics, the 2nd year is only slightly (really, very slightly) easier in terms of workload - purely because you get to choose what classes you want, and there's a couple of hours free each day due to flexible schedules.

But what makes this year crazy is all the time that goes into organizing activities for clubs (I co-run the Asian Business Club), job search, projects etc. Specially the projects. Most courses that I've selected this term dont have exams, instead they have projects. With different teams. Imagine trying to match the schedules of, on an average, 6*5 = 30 people in order to complete your projects on time. Of course, all of them have to be due the same week.

Anyways, did I mention we had the chance to talk to Conchita Martinez? One of my courses this term is Marketing of Experiences, Innovative Concepts and Media (MECMI) .. and there was this case on how Maria Sharapova's image was marketed to companies in order to differentiate her from compatriot (and equally hot!) Anna Kournikova. In order to get a first-person view of the situation, the professor invited Conchita Martinez and her agent, where we grilled her on everything, from how it was to beat Navratilova at the Wimbledon, to her present day assignments. Awesome.

Finally, I'm kinda annoyed that there's now COW (Comment of the Week) in the 2nd year.. so many good comments going to waste! Tsk tsk.

The Daily Grind

You know, I just realised the advantage of courses in the 2nd year ... no mid-term exams!! They used to be right painful throughout the 1st year. Barely 2-3 weeks of classes and bam! there's the mid-term.

Come to think of it, there're hardly any final exams too. Most of the classes I've chosen have projects to be done, but no "exam" as such. Weird as it may sound, I prefer to have exams over projects. It's a day of torture but then you're done. With projects, no matter how much you work, there's always a little bit more that you can perfect.

Anyways, the first years should be off on their annual London Banking Tour. I distinctly remember last year's when about a 100 of us paraded in London in our suits, all carrying bright red umbrellas that one of the banks gave out. Now that's a sight you dont see every day!

Back to school

So it's been 2 days since school started and things are back to normal already. Since we get to choose the electives that we want, I went in for -
INTEC (International Applied Economics)
MECMI (Marketing of Experiences, Innovative Concepts and Media)
COCOM (Corporate Communications)
PERSO (Personalidad y liderazgo - my spanish credit for the bilingual degree)
BRAND (Brands and Advertising) and
CORPO (Corporate Strategy)

This week has been pretty laid back as I only had 2 classes a day, between 14h00 and 17h00. But starting Monday, it's going to be the usual routine of 09h45 to 17h00, with a 3 hour break in between. May be I can put that time to good use? Let's see.

Quick one before I leave for dinner - In today's CORPO case on the Walt Disney Company, the professor was mentioning how Disney World was a holiday experience and not just a one-day trip any more, when she inadvertently said "So people like T***** (female student) like to go to Disney World to spend a few days there, wake up next to Mickey Mouse.."

Oh, the laughter in the class...

Home, Sweet Home
The internship as it was ended last night, and I've written enough things about it to reiterate again. Right now it's home, sweet home for a month and then back to books for another year.
Vacation time, finally!

Countdown

Starting Monday will be the last 2 weeks of what has felt like an unusually long internship. The workload's still a lot, but then at least I don't work weekends like the Investment Banking guys, so it's always good to spend the weekend in Barcelona where the weather rocks and the beach awaits, right?

Wrong. For starters, my flight back to Barça on Thursday night was possibly the most disturbing ever. Right behind me was a child (I could swear he had a mark of the devil on him somewhere) who screamed at the top of his lungs at the airport in Madrid, during the entire hour of the flight, and after landing, as his parents even stood next to me as I was picking up my luggage at the conveyer belt, seemingly oblivious of the nervous breakdown their child was causing their fellow passengers.

Now let's get this in perspective - I have a nephew who, if let loose, leaves the house looking like Katrina has struck - not to mention he does have his fits of yelling and screaming and crying. So I'm pretty immune to what I consider "normal" child behaviour. The kid that was in the plane, on the other hand, took "normal" to a whole new level. I think 2 more hours of yelling like that and they would have had to make an emergency landing because the screaming would've loosened the screws from the wings or something. It was that bad.

Plus after I finally got into the taxi, hoping finally for some peace and quiet, I have to meet the only cabbie in all of Barcelona who would not stop talking about the advantages of putting on a seat-belt, because its mandatory since 1991, and because the sky would fall apart if I didn't. And I was on the back seat, on a ride that takes 15 minutes to reach my apartment. It was the longest 15 minutes ever. (And before you branch off into the advantages of using a seat-belt : I know.)

Not to mention the weather this weekend *sucks*, despite my sun-dance, which according to some people, was not the right sun-dance. So no beach.

However, all's not bad. I had a satisfying week at work, met friends for dinner, and intend to get some beauty sleep, now that the weather's prompting me to.

All's well that ends well.

Summertime

Last night those in Barcelona celebrated the official beginning of the summer with La fiesta de San Juan, when everyone comes out on the streets and lights firecrackers. So at Barceloneta, Barcelona's (in)famous beach stretch, were 3 generations of IESE students - two from class of 2007, a dozen from 2008 and representing class of 2009 was one brave soul.

It turned out to be almost like a picnic, people bringing food, blankets, cava & wine flowing freely, with a free spectacle (the fireworks!). It's almost exactly one year ago that we were right there, meeting everyone for the very first time, all starry eyed, not knowing what lay before us. Yesterday, with the exception of knowing people around us, the rest was pretty much the same. I can't believe it's been ONE WHOLE YEAR already. Pics have been clicked, will post them as soon as someone emails them around.

The job front has been fairly tranquilo so far. I've been told that on the coming friday we have the monthly (or is it quarterly?) Office Day where everyone from the Madrid office comes over to the Barcelona office (or vice versa) to meet and talk about projects, evaluations, presentations and some general banter. Another occasion to test my Spanish, which I must admit, atleast feels like it's getting better.

First Day

I doubt if the title requires any explanation - I officially inaugurated my summer internship today... and boy, what a day! I knew that some of the people at the firm spoke spanish so I was ready for just that - some spanish. What I didnt expect was to spend the last 11 hours talking to everyone single person - even the non-spaniards - in spanish.

Alright, it's not a fair complaint. I know I'm gonna look back at this with a smile, but for the moment though, I yet have to come to terms with my present situation.

But let's go to the bright side - the people were nice. I've been placed on a business strategy / market launch project(which I exactly what I wanted). I'll be based out of Barcelona and might have to occasionally fly to the client location. There's free food and drinks in the cafeteria.

I have a feeling this might go well. Fingers crossed!

Brief interlude...

... between the reality of classes, cases and exams and the reality of having a job. This week has been perfect - warm weather, no school, not having to get up early, daily dinners and drinks - except that it's also been the week of saying good-byes to people you've become friends with over the past year, even though it's for a maximum of 6 months (esp. for folks going on exchange). Wonder how hard it'll be saying good-byes when we finish the MBA!

But life moves on. My immediate concerns for the moment are buying (another) suit for the internship, wondering what it'll be like to work after so long, and how I'll fare on my final exams, not necessarily in that order.

For now, it's time to convince Melissa there's no way they're letting her board her flight with that much luggage, then drinks with some folks at L'Illa, followed by dinner and a long night's sleep. This rocks!

The breaks are off...

... as we hurtle down to the mid-point of the MBA. A week has passed since the mid-terms, we have back our results (except QMM and Global Econ) and I managed to do well in all. At least I managed to do as well as I expected to do (i.e. *barely* scrape by in Corporate Finance) so no complaints. Now if only QMM and Global Econ don't turn out to be shockers, I will have survived the first half of the last term of the first year.

Post mid-term is a whole new story. We seem to be working endlessly, including on weekends. Apart from the daily stuff (which most of you know by heart by now), we're supposed to hand in three project reports until the end of the term, which is a mere 3 weeks away.

The first one's for Operations Strategy - a real life case for a Sports goods manufacturer / retailer in Europe, that will be discussed with the company in concern. The second one is a mock M&A negotiation in Corporate Finance between AT&T and McCaw Communications, but mock or no mock, there's a ton of stuff to do. Finally, my pet project is the one for Competitive Strategy, where we had the liberty to choose any company we wanted. Mine's a well-known telco in Spain / LatAm, and considering I'll be doing telecom consulting for my summer internship, it's the one I'm most interested in.

Needless to say, our final grades depend on how well we perform on these projects, so I better get back to them. Now where did I leave my coffee??

Another finde..

So finally another set of midterm exams is over. The good part is that they end quickly so there's no prolonged torture. The 2nd day of exams brought Quantitative Methods (QMM) and Operations Strategy papers. QMM seemed to go uncomfortably well, so either it *was* easy or I screwed up big time. I think it's option A.

The Ops Strat exam had an HBS case on [German luxury car manufacturer] that had trouble in finding a good place to locate their new production plant. I think I did OK, but so did the other 219 of us so it's up to the profs to bother about the grades.

Finally yesterday we faced our fears (well some of us anyways) - Corporate Finance and Global Economics. For once I'm certain I screwed up Corp Fin big time... like I was telling someone, "I have a lot of numbers, I'm just not sure if they're right". But then I only want to be partially blamed for this - we were told we'd have a sheet with formulae on it, but the one we got was barely sufficient. Now if we were allowed to bring our own cheat sheets, it would have been a whole different case... Only now I'm glad I didn't choose finance as a career. I got whacked by the WACC.

By the way, we had a question which promised 1 Bonus point to the best answer in the class (which I have my doubts on, but that's what it said). The question? "What would you rather be doing right now?" There sure are going to be a few creative answers to that one!

Global Econ went pretty well (again, my opinion only!) considering Melissa and I had revised a couple of key concepts (Open/Closed Economies, Fixed & Flexible exchange rates) just before the exam and 2 of 3 questions were directly based on them. Sea lo que sea, exams are over!

Oh, we also had our first ever Beach BOW right after the exams, and the party ended at 3 AM (for some of us) at the awesome Danzatoria up on Tibidabo. Cheap beer, warm sun and eye candy is probably the best post exam therapy ever.

¡Hasta pronto!

Exam Time

Mid Term time again. Did case on [Spanish Airline] for the Competitive Strategy exam today. 1 down, 4 to go. Up next - Quantitative Methods and Operations Strategy.

Houston we have...

Having gotten into the third term routine, a few of us (actually all of us) were a bit surprised to get an email from Student Affairs informing us that the Operations Strategy course won't be held in our usual classroom, but was going to be held in another, in a different building.

Now it so happens that in every operations class, one study group has to prepare a presentation about the case, analyse the competitive situation of the company with a focus on operations and suggest possible alternatives. Today's was about a German textile manufacturer that catered and supplied products to basically all the major car manufacturers in Europe and a few in the US & Asia.

So why the change in class? Well our professor had a word with the CEO of the company under consideration, and the two decided that the conclusions that we would arrive at as a group would be presented to the CEO to get to know his thoughts on the same... through video/teleconference. Imagine our relief when, after listening to our recommendations, the CEO replied "I came out of a board meeting 5 minutes ago, and we've decided to do the same". Phew, disaster averted.

By the way, I think Georgio may have won what could probably his 30th COW with "Why did [Italian Car Manufacturer] turn around so spectacularly two years ago? Uhh..because I left the company!" . I'll find out on Friday.

In other news...

>> This blogger has been down with a spate of illnesses. First it was cold, then cough, then fever, then every kind of -itis you can think of (gingivitis, bronchitis etc etc) and once I recovered from that, I got the stomach bug that kept me throwing up like there was no tomorrow. For some time I wondered if I should be reading my cases in the bathroom instead of going back and forth. But all's well that ends well so no complaints!

>> I had the amazing chance to meet Mr. Narayan Murthy, who among other achievements, founded Infosys. He is on IESE's board of directors and some 30 of us had a chance to hear him speak and answer questions over breakfast, and it was fascinating to hear his views on the strategy of Infosys, the growth of emerging markets and the competitive advantage of Europe. I'll post some pics if I can lay my hands on them.

>> Whoever said Term 3 was easy or laid-back or relaxed or any other adjective meaning the same needs to see me a.s.a.p. It's all a bunch of cleverly packed lies to make us feel better. In fact, apart from your standard cases and pop-quizzes, this term we have to deal with, on an average, 3 assignments to be submitted per week.

The fact that some of them are team assignments doesn't really help, as you end up working for all of them, lest you get left behind. The only saving grace is that we have a bunch of holidays this term, so there are only 3 weeks in the entire term where we have classes all 5 days a week, so there's some breathing space left.

>> Oh I forgot. There's another thing that makes it harder to concentrate on studies, and that's the weather. It's so good, there're no words to describe it. It's April and the temperature's already hitting the 20s, which means that it's going to be a hot hot summer. ¡Welcome to Barcelona baby!

Summer in Barcelona!

No, it's still firmly springtime here in Barcelona (which only means one thing - lots of rain!) but I'm talking about me spending my summer in Barcelona.

I finally heard from my number 1 choice for internship and they said Yes! Which means I get to do what I wanted so bad, and I get to spend summer in Barcelona. And hopefully pick up some more Spanish on the way. I can't believe my internship search is finally over.

In other news, this blog has been apparently nominated for the Best of Blogging awards. Gee, I must've done something right.

Term 3

The last term before the first year ends is here! I must admit that it hasn't got a warm welcome, considering we had final exams (Term 2), then "a whole weekend" to recover(according to our QM prof), immediately followed by a week of new courses.

Everyone's looking forward to the coming Friday as we take off for Easter Break. A quick word on the third term though. We have 7 courses -

Global Economics
Corporate Finance
Operations Strategy
Quantitative Methods for Management (Half Term)
Competitive Strategy
Leading Organisations (Half Term)
Transforming Organisations and Markets with ICT (Half Term)

- and going by the looks of it, I think I'm gonna enjoy Corporate Finance the most. But its too soon to say. A ver.

Quick update on the weekend. Friday Night - Killer party at A Viva Voz where some 35-40 of us karaoked the night away. Now I have the kind of voice that shouldn't be heard outside the bathroom, so I was pretty reluctant to sing, but its amazing what a couple of beers and some tequila can do!

Here's Ranjeet and I singing ... lets just say something that would cause Madonna to sue both of us.


Bala and Rawan serenading each other..


The night clearly belonged to Hiro and Kenji, with their superb rendition of Livin' on a Prayer!



Meanwhile off-stage, Morgan got busy with what he does best -


... and then some more!


The guys singing "We are the champions"


Just a bunch of really happy people!


Saturday - Killer brunch at Susan's. I have no pictures for this, but believe me when I tell you that we ate like there was no tomorrow. Pancakes, french toast, baked omlette, hash browns, banana cake ... slurp.

Sunday - Killer barbecue at Stefan's where we started eating at 1430 and finished LUNCH at 1900h, with my groupmates from Team A1. Pics to follow.

All in all, a killer weekend. I think I must've eaten a month's worth of calories in 2 days. Now if only I could find those jogging shoes...

Exams suck...

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate exams? Ever since we started the MBA in September, we seem to have a never ending flow of exams - surprise tests, mid-terms, finals and the cycle repeats itself all over again. I wish IESE just said "Alright, you're good enough, here's your MBA!"

Plus 6 papers over 3 days make me really cranky. We had Capital Markets and Economics today, good thing being neither of them were 3 hrs long. Being half credit courses, the exam only lasted for 1.5 and 2.5 hours respectively.

Due tomorrow is Cost Accounting (shudder - I'm actually blogging just so I can postpone studying) and HRM. Day after: Operations Management (another shudder) and Marketing.

You know how captured spies endure torture by focussing on completely unrelated things to take their mind off the pain. I'm focussing on the Karaoke night on Friday and Sunday's barbecue @ Stefan's. This too shall pass.