And the ball is in the court!!

Well, its November now (I hope I had written this in November). Anyways, its the last lap of the 1 year race and time to select what we want.. yeaaaa....

We had two subjects to chose from among the four as below:-
Morning Session (one to be selected):-
1. Data Mining and Analytics
2. Investment and Portfolio Management
Afternoon Session (one to be selected):-
1. Digital Business Models
2. Business Intelligence


Since I attended only once from each session, I will share experience for them.

Investment and Portfolio Management: This is one subject with I liked the MOST among the entire course (as they say the best comes at the last). The module was a good concept re-inforcer, eye opener, tool provider and lots more. The professor is a veteran in the field and explained the concepts very smoothly. Overall, this was an excellent module for me to learn. The evaluation was in the form of an exam.

Business Intelligence: This involved the understanding of statistics, learning a new programming language called R, analyzing data and deriving interpretations using certain fundamentals of statistics. The professor also shared, with the students, online videos which explained the above concepts. Homework (!!) was given after each session but BI involves doing the same thing again and again, so it was apt to ask us to do dome practice. Finally, the professor gave some insight on Big Data as well. The course evaluation was through a group assingment involving data collection, analysis using R, interpration and conclusions. It was a good learning experience.


AND that is the end of GMITE10 !! (but certificates were yet to be distributed). So everyone was waiting... waiting... waiting....


So finally, it was there!! In mid-January, Valedictory ceremony was held which involved distributing of certificates followed by yummy dinner. So now we were officially IIMB Alumni students.


This blog has come to an end, but if you have questions, you can post them, and I will try to answer them as early and precisely as possible.

Did I get lost in the woods?

It has been a "new" year and still I haven't posted a word since last 6 odd months. Well, to be frank, I did not even know how time flew by.

Now, that I just remembered about my blog, I decided to finish the remaining bits and pieces.

Well, so the exams eh!! Lets skip that part.

During and after the exams, we had some interesting, some boring and some very interesting subjects.

Let me jot them down quickly:-
1. Ethics in decision making: This subject was supposed to enlighten about how should be decide to take the right decision (or rather, ethical decision) when confronted with a scenario of dilemma. The scenario could be at a work place, at home or rather any place of social meeting. The assessment was done by an assignment to reflect on oneself.

2. Strategic Marketing: The syllabus covered on a very rudimentary level the aspects related to marketing, 4Ps etc. Kotler, Keller and Kevin (K3) was the book provided for reference. The evaluation for this subject was through a group assignment. The assignment involved devising strategy to market a brand (of our own choice) and present in a hard-copy format.

3. Management of technology products: This subject was apt for this course. The objective of the subject was to help understand the stages, challenges and "possible" solutions to overcome the challenges during product development (from a technology point of view). Lots of hard and bitter truths were brought to light by the professor (a veteran consultant). The evaluation of this subject was done though an exam (which was held at the last week of our course).

4.High Impact Leadership: The subject revolved mostly on what makes a good leader, how to be one, things to avoid & things to do in the process of being a proactive leader, some frameworks were shown, etcetera. I personally found the subject very interesting, and one of those subjects which you can start implementing in your life from the 0th hour of learning it. And yes, the evaluation was done using an assignment (in a form of a case study).

5. Negotiations: To be frank, this was the smallest among all the topics taught (except mediation ... Om........). Anyways, it was supposed to teach us regarding negotiation tactics, how to avoid falling for other people's negotiations, some negotiation cycle which says that you mostly do what is good for both the parties and .... And you guessed it right, NO evaluation for this.

6. Valuation: The subject dreaded by most of the GMITE10 students. But, it was nice and fun, and I use the concepts regularly. It taught (or was intended to) us regarding various models that can be used to value equity of a company (mostly listed in the stock exchanges). But, as rightly mentioned by the Prof, models are just 30% of your valuation exercise, remaining is knowledge about the company, industry, economy and LUCK (lets not worry about this)!! The evaluation for valuation (how nicely does it rhyme!!) was a group assignment in which one was supposed to prepare a valuation report of a company of one's taking. The exercise was a good learning opportunity to understand the challenges faced during valuing a company.

7. Service Marketing: This subject was more or less similar to the Strategic Marketing subject. The difference though (after thing for long) was that it covered the marketing concepts from services point of view (DUH... as if I told something great). Well, the only good (or bad??) thing was that there were two evaluations for this subject. First, was a group presentation based on a case study assigned from the "Service Marketing" book. Second, was an individual assignment (behold.. this is interesting), in which we were asked to thing as a director of IIMB and make/implement suggestions to make GMITE a better course than where it stands today (and where would that be !!).

8. Strategic Management: Well, lets quickly wrap up since you might be getting bored reading all this stuff. So to keep it short (and not sweet), this subject had case studies for the lectures and discussed how to form a strategy for the company/industry in which you are or going to invest. The sessions were AWESOME (with an A), and the professor was super energetic (superman wouldn't have agreed lesser). In short (why do I keep writing these words), the subject covered three aspects: analyzing an industry using porter's 5 forces, categorizing the firm as differentiator or cost leader and finally looking at resources & capabilities from the lenses of industry and the firms' competitors. This was more or less the same thing that was expected from a group assignment (used for evaluation).

I thought, since the page has become too lengthy, let me put the climax in a new page!!
Be ready for it!!