Those were the days...

“Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end”....

The starting lines of the chorus from the 1960s hit single ‘Those were the days’; they pretty much encompass the mood as I look back at the last semester

I ended my last post at the end of the first semester with the hope of either picking a new language or a sport. Since then, quite frankly, I have done neither. The ‘supposedly relaxed 2nd semester’ was nothing like what it had been made out to be. This blog would try to cover the key hangouts of the 2nd semester and other aspects of our MBA existence

Lounge – In spite of the crumbling floors and the malfunctioning doors, this is everybody’s favorite chill out place. This is the place if you want to get a power nap between classes, catch up with batch mates and keep abreast with the latest news (both FT and gossip). The Mktg. Club initiated bringing some color to the lounge and thankfully other clubs followed suit. The lounge has been many a student's refuge during assignments and the exam time. It surely will be missed when the new building comes next semester

Canteen – Well they say ‘the best way to a person’s heart is through the tummy’. Rest assured, none of the stalls in our canteen are anywhere in contention for that. However there are stalls which are definitely a notch above the rest and I guess a day in the life of an NUS MBA student would be incomplete without hearing a screeching ‘Kaffie’ at the coffee stall or a commanding ‘Next Please’ at the Western stall.

Social Networking Sites and Chatting – I am sure the NUS MBA students would be one of the largest contributors to facebook and its applications. Whether it was the ‘Word Challenge’ or ‘Crazy Taxi’, we made sure the competition was tough. Missed a B’day celebration at Midnight? Don’t worry, all the snaps would be uploaded within an hour (tagging and comments included). Popularity of GTalk and MSN were at an all time high. ‘Staring diligently’ at the screen and ‘furious typing’ during class hours and you thought we were taking notes. Status messages ranging from ‘Anybody going for lunch to PGP’ to ‘Does anyone have a spare router’. Need I say more?

Curriculum – Though the content was obviously a notch above last semester, it seemed this semester had a lot more work. Guess more assignments and management games contributed to that. So whether it was buying back stock or deploying a mass market strategy, some of the very fundamentals we learnt in class were questioned by these games. Nevertheless colorful Profs, In-class singing and Interesting Videos were definitely the highlights. Not to forget the ‘Black Scholes, Bass Model, BCG Matrix, Diamond Model’ etc which we learnt in class

Truly International – With the 2nd semester, came about 50 students on exchange from other schools. The lack of representation from the west was truly made up with most of the students coming from Europe and North America. Different perspectives, methodologies and drinking styles were all to be learnt. ;) Lot of our students also got to travel for business plan competitions and various conferences. The official celebrations continued and party destinations turned from clubs to in-house parties. Cerebration was another high point of the 2nd semester. More about some of these and many other events have been written already on this blog

All in all the Second Semester was packed with action. In the next semester many of us would go on exchange and many would finish the course in 12 months. However it is pretty obvious that no one would forget how the last two semesters have flown past. Many a things have been learnt and many unlearnt, new friends have been made and new networks built. Many a places visited and many a tasks conquered. Many a times it has gone too fast for any of us to sit back, take time to reflect and enjoy the moment. A few years down the line I can see most of looking back and saying

“Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end”...

-Kuruvilla Alexander

NUS MBA Class of 2010

The Pilgrimage to Omaha – Enlightened and Humbled

On the 21st of April in the midst of our final exams, we got a pleasant surprise in the form of an email about the chance to meet the “Sage of Omaha” or more popularly known as Mr. Warren Buffet. The annual pilgrimage to Omaha was happening and the NUS MBA would send its share of disciples.

The reason was Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual General Meeting and the place was Omaha, USA. The event attracts some of the most ardent investors and authorities in the field of finance, all willing to fly from all over the world to hear the Oracle speak.

The exams didn’t dampen the spirits as we sorted out the Visa, Travel and Accommodation formalities. After a marathon 26 hours of non-stop travel, we reached Omaha. Another few hours of sleep and we soon found ourselves inside the Qwest Centre with 35000 other people

The AGM was very well organized, with a panel of experts filtering the questions and firing away at the CEO Mr. Warren Buffet and Vice Chairman Mr. Charlie Munger. As we sat there, we saw how simple Mr. Buffet made ‘Investing’ to be. It was truly a case of relearning. Questions spanned across different sectors, economies and topics. On one hand we had a Hedge Fund Manager asking whether BH would continue buying equity put options and on the other hand we had an 11 yr old asking what was the best investment to protect himself financially.

Buffet kept stressing on attaining the ‘right form’ of financial literacy. He said it wasn’t important whether you valued a company through DCF approach or Multiples Approach. Rather it was more important to understand the business fundamentally, to understand whether there was genuine demand and whether there was excess supply. Buffet confessed he hated fancy spreadsheets and BSchool jargons. He said being disciplined and not being emotional are the best skills an investor can have. Intelligence could cause more damage than good, this was reflected when he said ‘If you have an IQ of 150, sell 30 points to the next person’

The AGM ended in the afternoon and then all the international delegates had a chance to meet Mr. Buffet personally. As we stood in the line, we had the chance to interact with the other delegates. An Indian doctor who shunned his profession and started his own broking firm, a group of Norwegians who run an AMC (they also sponsored the trip for some of their clients), a senior Japanese venture capitalist who took notes with the enthusiasm of a kid, these were just some of the people we meet during the AGM.

Later in the evening, we happened to meet an Executive at Dell, who had flown in from Texas to attend the AGM. Though an alumnus from Wharton, he explained that his true learning was after he had graduated from Bschool and started reading the essays and articles of Buffet and Benjamin Graham

There was one thing we saw different in all these people and that was: their eagerness to learn and more importantly share what they had learned. For e.g. the Dell executive had created a club where Buffet fans would share their notes of their learning from the AGM, articles, books etc. Buffet himself is known as a selfless person, always willing to share his investment philosophy, money etc.

It’s a popular saying that ‘the teaching of a sage is reflective in the lives of its disciples’. The people we met at Omaha were the greatest testimony of the impact of the ‘Sage of Omaha’

- Kashif Aslam, Kirti Chopra and Kuruvilla Alexander

NUS MBA Class of 2009 / 2010

Thammasat Global Social Venture Competition

“Whenever society is stuck or has an opportunity to seize a new opportunity, it needs an entrepreneur to see the opportunity and then to turn that vision into a realistic idea and then a reality and then, indeed, the new pattern all across society.” - Bill Drayton

This was the focal point of Thammasat hosted Global Social Venture Competition, the Global round being hosted by UC Berkley, Haas School of Business. We participated in the South East regional round. Our team was amongst the 12 finalist teams, all with different ideas dealing with the Social ventures. Our team was the first one to make it to the finalists from NUS Business School.

The competition in itself was truly a wonderful experience. After clearing the first round where we represented our idea briefly, we were the first team to present on the final day of presentations. The three-day event started with a social event amongst the temples of Bangkok – a traditional Thai dance, with great Thai food. We closed the evening with an excellent opportunity to meet participants from all South East Asian region and some of the judges as well. We started next day at 7 AM, with our presentation at 8 AM. The panel of judges need a special mention here – consisting of 11 highly qualified people, the judges were extremely enthusiastic and were well-known for their past efforts in this arena. We had a chance to meet Sara Olsen, the founder of the well-known Social Venture Technology Group, a company that has done a lot in giving an impact meaning to the philanthropic angle. Measuring Social Return on Investment (quantitatively) was one of the key challenges of this competition that is dealt by SVTG. Besides Sara, we had many people from Ashoka Foundation like Chris Cusano (Director, Ashoka Asia Pacific).

The competition started with different ideas that dealing with the simplest issues in our daily lives. Clearly the attempt was to address some simple yet important issues in the society ranging from education, poverty to environment and healthcare. Our venture dealt with raising the Education level in India and acting as a consolidating force for many fragmented NGOs. Our team received positive feedbacks on identification of the issue and some judges pointed out that this was a problem of vast significance and almost ‘giant like’. Some of the other interesting ideas included manufacturing bricks from cow dung; Like most people in the room, I also found this idea very interesting. The Q&A session for this idea was hilarious dealing with product expansion into exploring other kinds of dung to make bricks. This venture was simplicity personified. – the team landed one of the two teams to go to finals for global round.

The other striking observation on the competition was the level of preparation each team did. For me, it was wonderful to see same level of enthusiasm amongst so many more people regarding a topic that is full of struggle and needs a lot of courage to undertake. The second day closed with a 60 second pitch from each team and a great food (again!). Our team came up with a different idea to make the pitch with both the team members participating in the pitch and structuring it as a game – just right to spice up the moment.

The next day was a Symposium including people from different backgrounds and varied topics. We learnt the importance of social venture, how people are struggling in this field, how far it has progressed and what needs to be done. It was an important eye opener for me. Some realizations from this competition also led me to take CSR projects at a later date with other companies. The symposium also consisted of a workshop on the measurement of CSR/ Social venture activities, conducted jointly by Sara Olsen & Paul Herman (CEO, H.I.P. Investor). After his session, Paul was highly considerate to provide us with an hour long feedback on our venture and that how important and difficult the level of problem was. This would form a base for improvement for future participating teams from NUS Business School.

We walked away from the event, full of memories – both in terms of knowledge we gained, and the network we had built. The Bangkok night markets brought people from many different nationalities and schools together. The two final winning teams were Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration (Thailand) and Prasetiya Mulya Business School, Indonesia (the brick guys- my favorites and now global winners as well).

The experience wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the night markets we went to each evening, the great Thai & foot massage (I managed to get some nice massage oil home!), the Grand Palace, the nine temples depicting the rich culture and most importantly, the Chatuchak market for shopping!

The whole event is a very important part of my memories and my MBA journey.

-Megha Mittal

NUS MBA Class of 2010

(From Left: Megha Mittal- NUS MBA; Kishore Moorjaani-Managing Partner, Credit Asia Capital; Yash Chandra-NUS MBA)