Yeah! The heading says it all. I just couldn't resist the temptation of blogging. I have decided to start blogging again but at another place about something else. This is what it is!

The Steep Curve
MBA, B-School Life, Australia, Sydney, India, Bangalore, Chennai, Marketing, International Business, Project Management, Information Technology, Economics, Finance, Maynard Keynes, Peter Drucker, Phillip Kotler, Seth Goddin, Tom Peters, Micheal Porter, Business, Cricket, Philosophy, Advaitha, Living, Existence!!!

You knew it was coming. Right one year after I bagged myself my first job offer, I stepped into this world of blogging. But as time flew, things started getting busier and busier. Once something moves from 'pleasure' to 'pressure', there is no point in continuing the same. I will be back, if time permits me to get back. I have made innumerable number of friends through blogging and would like to thank each and everyone who have commented and read my blogposts. Let the Maya stay with Sambhar for ever!

And for all Sambhar freaks.....Get Sambharred!!!

Adios!

Filtered by sambhar.....

Wow! This topic makes me rub my hands and sit down in ecstasy to start writing further. Just a word of warning or caution before I proceed, this blog-post may have references to (okay, “if”) 'obscenity' or 'nudity', please 'go back if you are below the age of 18' (after effects of internet porn!).

What movies like "Dil Chahta Hai", "Salaam Namaste", "Nala Damayanthi" etc have done is showed nectar, stimulated, enthralled the interests of many to akin to a life in Ozland. They have shown all sorts of stuff about the country, which elated the eyes, from Sydney-skyscrapers to Melbourne Cricket Ground and get people to start adoring every aspect of what’s Australia (for that instance it’s the same with “Jeans” with US). Basically this made people to pack their bags and land in this wonderful country (10% in Oz student population landed from last 5 years from India). After coming down under, heaps among ‘these’ people realized this was a load of crap and there is no direct relationship between what’s shown in movies and what reality is (poor souls!).

So then what happened? Of course these heaps where disappointed. But still they had hope in their souls and one thing gave them much more hope than anything, especially for men (Okay! I am a man now & you are not my mom) to stay on. And this is without doubt the Oz women. According to me “the most beautiful women living in this planet”. I don’t care if you beg to differ since I seriously stand by this point & don’t care what you say.

Erotic, exotic, beautiful, sexy & what not?! Segment them into any category you want. I find all of them fitting into these. No, I am not fanatical. And every woman I see doesn’t make me feel the same. But what I am trying to say is that almost all are; which makes me get into imaginary Adam & Eve atmosphere. Mintzberg, Porter & Kotler disappear all of a sudden and get me started with “Pataafying Strategy”.

When I arrived initially in Sydney, I was taken to a place called Bondi beach. Never miss this if you are coming down under. The best beach I have ever been to, of course after Marina beach. But only difference is you cannot take a topless (in case of women) sun bath in Marina beach, your b#$%@# will get burned. But in spite of a hole in the ozone layer, luckily you won’t have a hole up your chest while sun-bathing.

Frankly speaking, there is no need for people from countries with higher mercury levels to have a sun-bath. Over here inspite of the mercury levels scaling such intolerable levels, people want to go sun bathing, especially women. My old flat-mate who was from France went sun-bathing every week. So I was thrown at a random place where I didn’t know which err..i mean where to look at. This opened my mind, my third eye, my seventh sense (yeah I have one more) and most importantly made me to start wearing glasses all over again.

Most of my friends think otherwise, I just consider that they don’t have the wisdom to see things I can see. But that doesn’t make me score an own goal after all these. Indian women are good looking, I don’t deny that fact (feel happy!). But it’s just a comparison that Brad Pitt made with Angelina Jolie, who can be classified into one segment and Jennifer Anniston into another one. All men reading this post at this juncture would be relating their self experiences and quantifying what I have just said. But again these come with their own set of disadvantages. It is believed that Oz women cheat the most in the world. No wonder I see heaps of Oz guys getting married to Asian girls all the time.

Anyways would like to end up with a quote, the famous one which everyone uses most frequently in lives “All that glitters are not gold”.

Note(Important): In case, by any chance, any of my family members, close relations, close relations to my family members, family members of close relations read this, just want to tell you that I am not going to get married or in love with that white girl who was standing next to me in one of the snaps I sent you. In fact I don’t even know who she is. Thank you for not imagining and frightening my mom!

Filtered by Sambhar…..

If you still haven't checked my previous post on Supermarkets, please take some time to. But it will help you to gain 'nothing'!!!

I want to run a pole here. Tell me honestly, when was the last time you went to a Supermarket. This pole is restricted to the people in India. You don't have to vote here, its just for your recollection. Our brain is programmed in such a way that once we hear a word, there are other things which comes into picture. Lets take supermarkets here, then we start to view the signboards (it may be Nilgiris or Food World or anything else), the staff who work there, the kind of shelf decoration they have, the kind of stuff that's available or sometimes may be even what's there in which aisle, since you are so used to going there or you are a good observer. Trust me most of us are good observers and we observe change very well.

Why did I ask this question? For a variety of reason. To begin with, I wanted to make sure people remember the things I want them to remember. I would like to say, people have their own choices in this front. Some may choose to go down to a Supermarket, pick up a trolley or a basket, pick & choose out of aisles what they want to buy, stand in the queue to get their items billed, pay the bucks(read as 'ripped off!') and get off. Or there may be others (like my mom!), who makes a clean list of items to buy for the month (she would forget most of them), decorate it & give it to a local grocery store, who in turn would get it delivered on the very day.

There may be reasons for both these ways. I haven't come across many who fall out of this category. The reason my mom does this is because she works. This is may be the case with all the employee class of people in India (which is sooper high!). Atleast most of them would prefer this, due to the non-availability of time. Some of them, treat grocery shopping as pain too. How many instances has your dad forgotten to bring home some 'Toor dal', which was asked for by your mom. Its not that he forgot or may be he did, its mainly that its not a pleasent shopping experience for him to get around doing it. I am not trying to convey that, by making Supermarket shopping pleasurable they can increase the sales, rather I am saying there is also some other basic funda behind this equation.

How many times have you walked out of the supermarket carrying out triple the amount of stuff you intended to buy? I would say it always happens with all customers. More than 20,000 new items fight for a shelf space every single year apart from the existing old items. Its a great Marketing funda that someone thought about this idea to do the same. "All that you want under one space with the best prices in town" is the funda. I sat down once with my mom during the fag time Supermarkets where the "in" thing & asked her why don't we shop at Food world. This was sometime back. Guess what, she gave me the very answer.

The majority of the Indian population falls under the middle class and they face the same problem with Supermarkets. Apart from being overcrowded and providing worst shopping experiences sometimes, I don't see any big reason apart from a "fag" to shop with them. May be there are good supermarkets providing the best customer service. But if you are arguing about the sustainability, then I am sure the pop & mom shops will survive in spite of the likes of Walmart & Woolworths(going to be called as Dick Smith) entering India. But these biggies can do so many other things which is much needed for the economy.

So in short, Why supermarkets in India may not succeed are- A. Due to the consumer belief of overspending, B. Not a pleasant shopping experience, C.Sometimes overwhelmed with choices to decide amoung alternatives & D.Most importantly accessibility to Pop & Mom stores.

May be I can write more after I finish my 'Buyer Behaviour & Economentrics of buyers' subject next Autumn semester!

Filtered by sambhar.....

My results were out last week & the statement read as follows to me
"Form is temporary; Class is permanent!!!"

I had three Distinctions & one Credit, being in the top ten in the b-school for one subject!

Filtered by sambhar....

I have forced myself to write about something funny. I have no clue when was the last time I wrote any humorous post. Anyways this I am sure will make you have a heartly laugh. Just a word of caution, few things may be funny for some one & may not be for few, so don't get upset if its not upto your expectations. I am going write about incidents that made me fall on the ground & laugh, this was one such incident.

There was this friend of mine, who joined along with me in the same intake. Accomodation is big problem when you find yourself in alien land, most of the times. For our benefits Real estate agents have opened up offices every where. One such famous agents are Raine & Horne. They have their offices everywhere. Our man wanted to live in a suburb called Bondi (pronounced as Bond-die).

What does he do? He called the agent's and asks, "Is it Rainy & Horny?" (#$%). Obviously the operator gets furious about our mans ignorance about being in the state of 'horny'ness and spits at him saying it aint rainy & horny(waa, how rhyming!), its Raine & Horne (Rain & Horn). This didn't end here. He contined asking the agents, if they have any vacancy in "Bondi"(Boon-dee), like the way tamilians pronounce the eatable "boondhee", till the time the operator hung up.

Best time was when he came forward and said this in front of every one. I almost fell on the ground since even then he didnt realise that it was "Raine & Horne" & "Bondi".

Right from the time world realised the necessity for an organised market, the supermarkets became a major resource of regulatory trade. Channelisation of consumer commodities were made available through this. Due to strong regulatory necessities in western countries and the reason that all consumer necessities can be brought into one zone, which resulted in economies of scale & scope, supermarkets were able to achieve the price advantage and thus the compatitive advantage on the longer run, which resulted in their spontaneous demand.

I know what everyone would be thinking just after reading the first paragragh. There is lot more, than what you think it is. Supermarkets have become such a day-today activity that we just ignore the importance of them in our lives in general. Think about Indian retailing industry for a minute. Why is the reason that India has strong rules when it comes to retailing in India for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). It's regulated to such an extent that any multi-national has to partner with an Indian company to enter India and at the same time give up a lot of benefits in comparision to an Indian established company, say like the Tata's. In spite of these the likes of Walmarts are awaiting an opportunity.

The reason for this is that Supermarkets have become hybrid in nature and reached such an extent that they can sell anything to everything at a premium price. I worked in Woolworths for over four months as part time employee during my first semester of my MBA and was amazed by the operations side of things. Woolworths employees the largest workforce when it comes to retail industry in Australia and also the numero uno in retailing. I must agree that most of them working with me were either students(part time as me) or people with inferior educational backgrounds. But I may have been the only guy to have worked in all departments, proving my Law of MJOA time and again.

I loved their professionalism involved for a small store, which had a turn-over of about less than 20% compared to the biggest store in Sydney. The mechanisms and models which were used were quite normal & natural but the operations were quite freeky. The whole store was divided into many divisions like Front end(Billing), Back dock(Stocks), Administration, HR, Groceries, Perishables, etc. Within all these departments there would be a specific number of people working completing the tasks involved. There were Supervisors, Two Managers, one Assistant Store Manager and a Store Manager. All these for a small store in a quite decent suburb of Sydney.

In terms of classification of competition, I thought 'Coles' was the Direct one and the 'Eleven' or the Convience Stores in which commodities costed one & half times more were the Indirect ones. These were at the surface level. The social architecture is in such a way that for fullfilling your basic needs like Cereals, Juices, Milk, Pasta, etc a visit to the supermarket is the only option so the market is huge.

Woolworths use the minimum shelf balance balance; if you are too keen in knowing the operations part and an accountant. As always when there is demand and no supply, you are going on a loss; so the vitality lies on the profit maximisation. So the social need for these resulting in having a major impact as a business. I would say, wanna make some money, open a supermarket. But again for me these may not be the best option when it comes to a longer term in India, for which I have my own views.

In the following post I will write "Why supermarkets may not become too popular in India", my view about this issue....

Filtered by sambhar....

Semester II has indeed kicked off in style today with a great overview of the capital markets of strong global economies over the past ten years in my Economics lecture today. I am still in the confused state of mind when it comes to choosing my majors for the program. My primary focus has always been in Marketing and I am sure its going to be the same till the end of my career, but the its just the combination I am having a problem working out.

So this semester I have decided to finish all my core subjects and have taken one marketing elective subject, international marketing management. This time around unlike the last semester I will have classes on two days in a week, i.e four lectures in two days time span leaving behind ample time for me to look at the rest of the week to allocate myself for working and studying. I think I have quite a bit of workload in hand since I have also taken responsibility inside the Marketing Society of UTS.

There is also this intution in me to get back to playing cricket for the University. So I may also consider that option and allocate some time of the week to devote myself to my longest serving passion, considering I can change my mind in seconds. Through in all, it looks like I have a feast in hand and trumphets to blow and lots of exciting stories to write about!

till then....


Get sambharred!
Filtered by sambhar....