Saturday, June 23, 2007

Week Thirtyeight - Sleeping away the jet lag

Shouldnt it be jet lead? I travelled in the direction of earth's rotation... Anyways, thanks to the way my electives are structured, this week was light academically, just one MSI lecture. I slept away the jet lag/lead, it was good restoration for the tissues :)
Today we played a home match against Whitchurch - a match that was abandoned due to rains. We batted first and crossed 200 to get the maximum batting points, but rain came down in the last over of our innings, and by the time we were done with teas, the wicket had a puddle at either end. The two captains decided to call it off then. I didnt play today, just stood umpire.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Week Thirtyseven - International Business Experience

USA - the land of opportunity they say, where people from all corners of the globe come to realise their dreams. Certainly, a huge economy, and loads and loads of opportunities.
We started our week long visit in Washington DC with the World Bank Group, visiting the World Bank itself and the International Finance Corporation. We also did a short course at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University.
We then shifted to New York, where we visited Detica, who are an international business and technology consultancy. The next day, we visited Bear Stearns, one of the largest investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The next visit was to Bloomberg, the largest financial news and data company in the world. We then visited the Hearst Corporation, a media conglomerate that reaches out to the world with its monthly magazines and media interests. And finally, on the last official day, we visited American Express and Towers Perrin. American Express ofcourse is a globally known card and travel company, while Towers Perrin is, to put it simply, a world leading HR consultancy.
I personally got to learn a lot about business in the USA, and had interactions with some interesting people doing some very interesting work.
Apart from business, like I mentioned in my previous post, I also had another agenda, family and friends. I met my parents, sister and brother-in-law after a very long time, and my nephew for the first time. Also, my dear friend Amresh and his sister too. It was great meeting them, and fun too.

Week Thirtysix - Prepare for takeoff

This week started with press conference v2, another round of facing and fending off a hostile press when you are on shaky grounds... This time around was a bit more strenuous, but the learning was even greater.
Another important event of this week was a meeting with ECB officials. They want to set up a development centre for Bedfordshire in Cranfield, in order to benefit from the excellent facilities at Cranfield University. Cranfield University ofcourse wants to reach out and benefit the community of which it is a part. The Cranfield University Cricket Club wants local involvement and could do with some coaching. So all of us stakeholders met for discussing how best to accommodate each other's concerns. It was a good meeting, and I hope the outcome will be of benefit to all.
Lastly, and perhaps the dominating feature of this week, was preparing for our IBEs. As I have told you before, Cranfield takes its students on a business experience tour to various countries. I am going to the USA, where apart from the scheduled interactions, I will be meeting family, my nephew, and friends who go back a long way. We have researched the topics and companies, prepared our responses to anticipated questions, and are all set to go to the USA. I will miss the cricket this and the next week, but I am sure USA will be a very interesting experience.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Week Thirtyfive - Say cheese

Thats right - the FTMBA 2006/07 students gathered all dressed up for the batch photo this week. We also had a small discussion prior to the photo session on the Cranfield conference that marks the end of our MBA. It is moving closer and closer to the inevitable finish, this one year leadership course...
But not over yet, as the AMS WAC reminded us. 1500 words, 24 hours, team and stream dumps, working through most of the night researching on a denim brand, writing a report on how they should align their marketing and supply chain, and submitting in the morning.
The best part of course was after the submission. You guessed it, cricket! We played Willen in a home match. The highlight of the match - for me that is - was my knock when for the first time I scored in double digits. Should greatly up my batting average...