ankur Warikoo

Came back from ISB this weekend, after interviewing Round 2 candidates for the batch of 2011. Its funny (or is tragic the word) that inspite of the sheer amount of open source information available out there…courtesy Pagalguy (and the likes), more than 50% students dont come prepared, in the real sense!

One of my favorite ways to start an interview is with the following question – “How have you prepared for this interview?”. More often than not, the response will be pagalaguy, alum interaction, current batch friends etc etc.

The next question then is “Identify 5 questions that you have prepared for best, through all your sources”…and the great part is that most come up with the same 5 odd sections. But thats where it ends.

When told to come up with their responses to those 5 questions, the lack of preparation shows. Its not really lack of preparation because they say all the right things…walk the safe path. Its essentially lack of clarity.

At the very basic level, ISB is looking at 2 things

1. Why MBA?

2. What after MBA?

– Why MBA –

THIS is the most important section. It is NOT funny how many people want to do an MBA just because they are bored of what they are doing, feel they have to finish their education as early as possible or think of it as a magic wand that will allow you to shift from IT to Investment Banking!

DO NOT state rehearsed answers – “I want to acquire business skills” “I need an MBA to prepare a business plan” “An MBA will teach me leadership and management skills”!

Understand that an MBA will not do any of these. Thinking that an MBA makes you a leader is equivalent of thinking that a bat makes you tendulkar! An MBA is a tool…which will allow you to apply yourself and become what you have to.

There are no right answers to this, because everyone has their own right answer. So dont give answers that are socially desirable. Because we are not recruiting you to make please the world…we are recruiting you for you!

Also be practical. Consider one example – ISB is not a cheap school and if you take a full loan, the EMI comes to 35K or so! So when I hear a budding entrepreneur state that ISB will help him flesh out his business plan and then he will start right after, my first reaction is “and what if you plug this 20 lacs into your business”…”what’s plan B”…and thats where the discussion stops!

– What after MBA –

Oh cmon…how can you NOT know the answer to this! Worse still, how can you not know everything about what you wish to do. 300 students want to enter McKinsey, but do you know what it takes to get in! Get a reality check.

When we see an IT guy with 10 years of experience who wants to join marketing, or a sales guy with 4 years of experience who wants to enter corporate finance, the obvious question is…what will this 1 year offer you that you think this change is possible! And they have no clue! They just think that an MBA will do that automatically for them!

This question…the most fundamental one that everyone expects…is easily the worst answered in my experience. People havent thought through it…they are clueless…which would have been fine had you done your homework and figured out where people similar to your background eventually go and what they do! But not knowing it and sitting at an ISB interview is totally unacceptable.

Equally important is to have a Plan B. If you will not get the industry shift, then what? If your business will not materialize, then what? If you do not get a 12 lac job, then what?

How can students not have a Plan B. Ok…I exclude the tiny section that tends to balance itself on overconfidence, but for the remaining, the question is more of a “oh shit…i didnt think of it” reaction! CMON!

This year, I most likely will see 13 students join the next batch, interviewed by me! I make it a point to note their contacts and look them up the next year. And I wish the ones that we have rejected had a chance to sit through the interviews of these 13 individuals and realize what a big difference clarity in thought brings!

The punchline – Be extremely sure of what an ISB MBA will do for you…and why you need it in the first place!

All other questions can be omitted…they are simply fillers!

PS: I love helping out students who are preparing for ISB (selectively though), because for me the school’s future is decided by who goes in! If anyone out there feels I could be of help, please feel free to contact! I would be more than happy!

Beautiful imagination! Its ironic that the same can be said about the ‘purpose’ of the war too…!

That’s it..! Does anyone out there need any further documentation on which is the sexiest phone out there?

Scottish couple use an iPhone app to help conceive a baby girl

Or in other words…a tutorial on how not to spoil a classic by getting crass non-achievers, giving them more air-time than they ever got in their lifetime, and trying too hard to show that we have progressed!

Music sucks (what is it…an electronic house remix?)…the choice of individuals suck (sportspeople?? business guys??? the common man??) and its way too long to generate anything except revenue for the broadcaster!

Really badly done! And if you dont believe me…here is what you have to see! I kid you not…I had tears in my eyes when I saw the old one today…!

And here is the new one…!

Got a call this morning from ISB that the FT Rankings for 2010 have been released and ISB has moved up the ranks to close at Global Rank 12! Fantastic

The top 15 schools according to the rankings are:

1. London Business School
2. Wharton
3. Harvard
4. Stanford
5. INSEAD
6. Columbia Business School
7. IE Business School
8. MIT Sloan
9. Chicago Booth
10. HongKong UST
11. IESE Business School
12. Indian School of Business
13. NYU Stern
14. Dartmouth Tuck
15. IMD

You can view all the ranking here

And here is an evaluation on the top schools from a placements perspective

Comparison from a career progression point of view

And from a value for money perspective

Its fantastic that in less than 10 years ISB has reached the levels it has. Ofcourse, the ranking do tend to hide a lot of qualitative aspects that ISB might suffer from, but then I am sure other schools also have their own deficiencies! Keeping all these aspects in mind, I love the fact that ISB has done so much in such a short period of time…and needless to say…I AM PROUD TO BE AN ISB’ian!

Top 10 rankings next year! :)

1. The first thing you say when you call other people is not “How are you”, but “Where are you”

2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5.Your reason for not staying in touch with friends or remembering their birthdays is that they are not on Facebook.

6. You park your car at home and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. If anyone wanted to know how you looked 12 hours ago, a year ago, 3 years ago, 10 years ago, 25 years ago, they just need to view your facebook profile

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12 You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on this list

Credit: Thanks Kapil for sharing. The content has been ‘Indianized’ a bit!

Quite like the video…goes with the entire current Indian theme of 3 Idiots (which hopefully will be the theme for my next post, now that I have seen the movie twice!)

F*** Business School – yah thats pretty much what I would say to most people who want to do an MBA! :)

Cap Courtesy: Shantanu (Tuck Business School Alumnus)

Destination: Ranthambore

When: Dec 25th – Dec 27th, 2009

Who: 6 of us (3 couples)

Stayed: Raj Palace Hotel, Ranthambore Sawai Madhopur. Paid Rs 2,100 per night including breakfast. Average hotel. Rooms are quite small, not well-lit or airy! Service is slow. Would not recommend. Read my TripAdvisor Review here

Transport: Went by train from Delhi (500 per person, Tier III AC). Came back by car (Innova – 9,000 one way including all taxes and toll. Rs 8.5/km, took 10 hrs)

Food: For local food, do visit Dholi Maru on the main National Park Road. Else you get everything since its a place frequented by foreign nationals

Do:

1. Ranthambore National Park: Famous for around 40 odd tigers (none of which we were able to see, but that seems to be odd!). Entry is twice a day for around 3.5 hrs each. Reservations for canters and cab is done on current booking basis. Costs around 350 per person on a canter (which seats 15-20 people) and around 600 per person for taxi (which seats 6 people). The park itself is not dense…gives an arid rajasthan feel. But great for shooting animals and birds!

2. Ranthambore Fort: Consider walking from the hotel to the fort, a distance of around 14 kms! We did that and experienced lovely Rajasthan life on the way. The fort by itself is ok…has some funny history to it…as explained by the guide…and then there is this Hanuman temple as well. If in winters, do spend some nice time on top of the Badal Mahal overlooking the entire Ranthambore National Park

Pictures:

Dont know if this is true…but even if it is…I wont be surprised

“Shahrukh Khan charged a whopping Rs.30 lakh for releasing a book written by management guru Arindam Chaudhari, earlier this month in Delhi. But when an upcoming writer approached Aamir for his book launch, Aamir agreed on one condition to do it and that is if he liked the book.”

Yet to see 3 Idiots, but people tell me that it will reinforce what Aamir is all about!

If you are reading this review to figure out whether you should go for the movie or not, you are wasting your time. I would suggest you go!

If you have already seen the movie, you know you are wasting your time!

Avatar is a not so great movie, made fantastically. I honestly went in expecting something like the Titanic, a decent story done well with special effects. Avatar is one-third the story and 2000 times the special effects!

Jake Sully is an Ex-Marine and even though paralyzed waist down is recruited for a critical mission because his DNA matches his twin (dead) brother’s! Mission is to enter the world of Pandora (not to be confused with the box’s owner!) through a mixed breed (of the local community and humans) called Avatar, mingle with the local community and eventually persuade them to move from their current habitat. Because beneath that lies the most abundant resource of an element unobtanium (who thought of that name!!) which is the only way to save Earth.

And as expected…(and ala SRK) Jake’s Avatar merges a lot more than needed, with the local community, falls in love with the chief’s daughter (are they usually the one chicks around…why not the sweeper’s daughter…or the chef’s…why always the chief!!)…and eventually comes on their side. The climax is a battle between the humans and the locals, in which not surprising the locals win simply because animals matched with bows and arrows can anyday fight stun guns and AK47s!

However, what lies in between the story, is this entire, almost independent story of how Neytiri (the chief’s daughter) shows Jake ‘their’ ways…! Thats what James Cameroon has used to showcase the beauty of special effects. Pandora has been created in a  breath-taking manner, the relationship of the locals with nature has been expressed sensitively…

Its not a bad movie at all…cmon…we are from the land of “Om Shanti Om” and “Rab Ne Bana Di something something”…

My opinion is…that dude has spent 2,000 crores in making this jazz….you can surely spend 200 bucks…!

And hey…do watch it on a big 3d screen…

Rating: 2.5/5

I am tempted to say this is good news for SecondShaadi, but honestly, if the divorce was caused due to FB, there was a case for it right from the start…! FB would only be an excuse…not the cause…!

Facebook fuelling divorce, research claims

move beyond image panorama….video panorama is here..!!

Yellowbird has created a technology that captures video in a 360 degree format. Its awesome..because this is the closest one can get to being there and yet not being there…

Watch the video to experience what they have made.

The future excites me like anything…!

In a remarkable marketing strategy (I think this is marketing…they cant be that stupid to be serious!) employed by Haagen Dazs in India…I saw the biggest WTF banner on Saturday at the Select City Walk, Saket. Unfortunatly my phone battery has gone down and I couldnt capture it, but am glad someone did…!

1. Some agency is definitely getting fired

2. They really did take the marketing seriously and asked Indians to go away! Now THAT is crazy!

Ofcourse, as with everything in India…this too is a big media thing now…

(Photo Credit: Rajesh Kalra)

Outside the office of one of my clients!

Pretty Interesting…! But then…will only work once…you cant create businesses out of it…!

I have realized, that customers are (much) smarter than you think they are…(or you would want them to be!)! And that creates an impact…a big one…on businesses…especially the ones in the repeat business segment (almost everyone).

These guys can clearly not do a business of buying bicycles cheap and selling them for a profit creatively! Once…it works…twice rarely will. 

So value has to be created and it mostly always has to be either tangible or quantifiable. Cost and convenience are the biggest value creators…hands down. And the hardest to create…!

One of the most awesome and heart wrenching videos I have seen in a long long while.

TAC (Transport Accident Commission) started a campaign 20 years back targetted at Victoria (Australia) residents to shock them on the dangers on drinking and driving!

The video is a fantastic montage of the commercials they have ran in the past 20 years, against the backdrop of one of my fav songs! A MUST SEE

Steve Jobs would be a really happy man today!

My grandmum speaking to her sister in the US, using my iPhone and the handsfree!

Paa, in addition to multiple awards (that I am sure it will fetch) should win the Simplest Movie of the Year award. Its a wonderfully simple story, narrated in a simplistic fashion from the eyes of Auro. It is honestly, as if watching the world from the eyes of a kid.

Amol (Abhishek Bachchan) is a politic, ala Rahul Gandhi (or Sachin Pilot, if you will). Young, suava, sophisticated, committed and single! In his normal world, he bumps into Auro (Amitabh Bachchan), a 13-year old kid suffering from a rare genetic disorder Progeria. The disease speeds up the aging process, thereby making Auro look like an 80-old year old.

But Auro is happy. He has a fantastic mom (Vidya Balan, looking at her best!) and a cool grandmom (Arundhati Naag – where was she all this while) whom he fondly calls Bum, for obvious reasons! And in his happy world, he strikes a chord with Amol, which blossoms into a wonderful relation. Ofcourse, its only the audience that knows that Amol-Auro are actually father-son!

What follows is a wonderful father-son relationship unfolding through the eyes of Auro (and more importantly experienced by the audience). The dialogues are fantastic…crisp, funny (remind you of Dil Chahta Hain) and Amitabh is at his best.

I thought of who all could have done this role, in Indian Cinema and could think of anyone apart from Kamal Hassan. Maybe Aamir?

Needless to say, full credit to the make-up artists Christien Tinsley and Dominie Till who made this look totally unbelievable and yet believable! And for the director Kalki to bring about such masters together.

A Comparison to Taare Zameen Par is unevitable, and I find the battle a little hard to resolve. Unlike TZP, Paa doesnt focus on the sensitivities of the disease. It has a few unnecessary sub-plots (political wars, love story etc). So while I would call TZP a social movie which saw commercial success, Paa is a commercial movie meant to simply entertain. Its another thing that in the process it has brought forward Progeria and some astonishing stories!

Acting performances are top-notch. ALL are awesome! Even Paresh Rawal in his teeny role! The music begins with the catchy Mudi-Mudi track and continues with the “hummable-but not fantabulous” music!

Overall, a great movie to catch, for the sheer genius of Amitabh Bachchan! And the art of simple and effective story-telling!

Rating 4.5/5

I am a consultant, and honestly, the word slideshow (as expected) is quite sacrosanct in the profession.

It not only defines our very existence, it is also proven to the perfect hypnotic pendulum swung infront of clients with the chant “your business is doomed…we can save it if you give us all your revenue”

but evidently, a lot of people like slideshows for some very different reasons!

I found one of the best reasons today!

Slideshow: The Women Linked To Tiger Woods (NSFW)

Only Fox could have come up with such a masterpiece

And for nationalists, the Fox counterpart is Indiatimes. YOU HAVE GOT TO CHECK this out!

Immense WTFness lives in this world!

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Comment of the day:

My opinion of Tiger has sunk so low… The man has lousy taste in women.