Tips to Streamline Business Communication from the Best B.Com College in Greater Noida

The best B.Com College in Greater Noida, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology follows a teaching methodology that aims to develop skills for higher education and professional lives of students in their future. To this extent the academicians of the B.Com College have observed that students need to be taught the difference between generic and business communication. Communication in the generic sense is based on feedback. Business communication defines the scope and ambit of that feedback and thus streamlines the expected outcomes and reaction functions. Hence the adage of “think before you speak” is all the more relevant to business communication than to generic communication. While it may be too heavy to use the term of “professionalism” and expect undergraduate students to absorb subtle nuances of business communication when mature adults and working professionals find the going tough, we have defined a template to offer some time tested advice that is applicable to business communication across different dimensions of time, space and scale.

The 5S of Business Communication

The 5s of business communication refer to substance, science, story, style and speed. These 5s are the pillars of business communication and need to be focused on. The substance of business communication is the core. It is the heart of communication. Depending upon the second party in the conversation and the possibility of grape vine, there has to be a measured action towards choosing the summary of the subject matter. Science in business communication refers to following a measurement system to assess and analyze the effectiveness of communication. Modern day social media platforms come with tools that enable measurement of metric like the number of likes, shares, comments and the level of user engagement. The science of measurement is vital to the scalability of communication. There is a simple thumb rule. Repeat or scale up the substance that scores high on positive affinity from the target audience and eliminate the stereotypes that produce negative feedback. In daily lives the science of measuring effectiveness of communication may be difficult but not impossible. Next there has to be a great story around a business communication attempt. There has to be a punch of passion in the way one communicates in business. Story telling in fact is a skill that great marketers use to great effect to sell dreams and encroach upon the minds of their target audience. Great ad films, jingles, films, sops and plays have a story that we remember and relate to. Unless the audience feels that they are a part of the communication it is difficult to motivate them to produce the desired outcome in business. Style in business communication is an outcome of many factors like confidence, audience analysis, sense of timing, presentation and coordination with the audience or the other party. This is particularly the case in corporate presentations, meetings, seminars and conferences. In fact at the local level even a client meeting in a very seemingly casual Indian backdrop also mandates the fulfilment of this condition. This is an element of art and maturity. Art in business communication is not to be mistaken with art in the generic sense though. Art in business communication carries a value component that is integral to business.  Speed in business communication is managed according to short term and long term business actions. Many business actions of the short term are urgent and most of the business actions with a long term orientation are important. There is a big difference between urgent and important business actions. We have in the recent past covered the difference between urgent and important business actions through a separate post on Goodmorning Ishan. To cut a long story short it is important to understand which conversation will have multiple rounds and those that will end within definite number of rounds.

3Vs of Business Communication: Vocal, Verbal and Non-Verbal

The 3Vs of business communication are vocal, verbal and non-verbal elements of business communication. Communication in business has three different forms. The voice quality of a communicator includes features like pitch of the vice, clarity, tone, power and most importantly voice modulation. Think of great business leaders and even actors. They have a great ability to bend their voice according to time and space. This quality is truly an asset. These virtues are counted under vocal elements of business communication. Verbal communication refers to not just spoken form of communication but the choice of language in spoken and written forms of communication. Of course there are differences between the implications of spoken and written forms of communication but in the modern day landscape that is driven by technology, one has to be prudent in the choice of language. Non-verbal communication refers to the leveraging of coded forms of communication. Coded forms of communication refer to implicit substance that may not necessarily be communicated in words that are spoken or written. For example the dress code for a social or professional setting, hairstyle, shaven or unshaven look, furniture arrangement and decoration of a place and others reflect implicit messages that are visible to people who observe keenly. Visual merchandising is the biggest evidence of non-verbal communication in business.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we use unique techniques like business movie screenings of art films and middle cinema, role plays, theatre and memory association games to improve business communication skills of students. Our efforts in innovating the teaching methodology include special screenings of the works of Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray, Daniel Boyle, role plays on “How Stella Saved the Farm” by C.Vijaygovindrajan and Chris Tremble and “An Enemy of the People” by Henrik Ibsen.

The Argumentative Indian: Insights on Free Trade from top B.Com Colleges in Greater Noida

Top B.Com colleges in Greater Noida encourage academicians to engage in freewheeling intellectual debates and deliberations on free trade and globalization. This is to assert that the study of economics papers like business economics and business environment in the domain of undergraduate degree programs in commerce assumes a place of pride and great importance. To streamline the track mentioned above it is important to note that a discipline like business environment requires surgical precision in the usage of mathematical economics to inject the much required positive element in the study of social sciences along with the fusion of philosophical foundations of economics, economic history and trade theory to cater to the requirements of normative approach. The statement might appear subversive if not paradoxical that many top B.Com colleges while dealing with a paper like business environment tend to under-emphasise the scope and importance of trade theory and the related debate on issues of free trade and globalization. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, academicians make a deliberate intellectual endeavour to engineer a scientific approach to the track (based on mathematical modelling) while trying to retain the human element of a non-lab based science like economics. Our perspective on free trade is premised on the works of noted trade and development theorist like Jagdish Bhagwati, Paul Krugman, Arvind Panagariya, Joseph Stiglitz, Debraj Ray, Pranab Bardhan, Kaushik Basu and the late Harry Gordon Johnson.

Advocating Macaulay’s Vision of Trade as an Engine of Growth

Given that we live in times of when a uni-polar world order is misconstrued as a flat world, it makes enormous good sense to assert that trade has indeed acted as an engine of growth. The point though is to scratch deeper to get beneath the pseudo-intellectual passions running high on the animal spirit of capitalism and question the exact classification of winners and losers in this definition of international trade. Economists like Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya and others have exhibited empirical evidence based approaches to substantiating claims about trade led economic growth. To a great extent it is only humble for us lesser mortals to wholeheartedly accept their doctrines based on the economic growth rates that the Asian Tigers, China and India have achieved by engineering an economic system design whereby trade policy acts as a gateway to gains from exchange and gains from specialization The Flying Geese model of trade liberalization also adds fuel to the fire of this raging advocacy of free trade and the enormous potential that it has to address issues of world poverty, unemployment and low per capita incomes. The Cambridge version of Edward Denison also greatly steers the pro-free trade lobby to the shores of safety while amply exhibiting evidence amounting to the runaway success of softer economic borders.

Advocating Social Market Democracy for Economic Development

The social market democracy advocated by the likes of Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and the rest have in their discourses on trade theory fashioned a strong critique of free trade and the over the top usage of neo-classical policy making that is now renowned as the “Washington Consensus”. In fact they have also produced mounting evidence to the contrary that free trade twinned with colonialism has led to free massacre of indigenous peoples across communities in the Third World. They have with documentary evidences substantiated the cost of overly relying on mathematical and statistical modelling for the purpose of policy formulation and decision making while taking the liberty of omitting human spirits of development and gross national happiness. Yet it is fashionable to suggest that howsoever intellectually stimulating this side may seem, none of these economists have spent too much time in India for teaching, research, voluntary pro-bono social causes or any kind of campaigning to take poverty heads on. It is equally true for the former lobby of economists as well.

Is Free Trade the Same as Fair Trade?

To take the debate on free trade and globalization to its due climax, it is worthwhile to ask for the legitimacy of free trade and its capacity to resolve rather than create challenges for the Third World. This is to suggest that the Third World is where more than 60% of the global population resides. To quote the legendary Massachusetts economist Paul Samuelson, we are dealing with “the importance of being unimportant.” The lion’s share of humanity resides in the third world and thus going by the concept of universal adult franchise and intellectual democracy, the votes of the impoverished, overpopulated and plagued peoples matter more if not as much as the votes of the First World. Economic history on a global scale offers compelling evidence on the North-South Divide, the centre- periphery argument and the infant industry argument of Friedrich List. It is not enough to have a borderless world. It is also important to respect borders and sovereignty of nations.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top B.Com Colleges in Greater Noida, the academicians of the faculty of business administration and commerce engage in active research on the tracks of free trade, infant industry argument and poverty in search of solutions to real life challenges with the hope that we can offer academic and intellectual inputs for profits, people and the planet. We also acknowledge the efforts of our B.Com students Himanshu Sharma, Aril Wadia, Anu Sharma and Saumya Shukla in collaborating with academicians to step up academic efforts in the study on free trade. 

Fast Facts on Game Theory & Mahabharata from Top B.Com Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top B.Com Colleges in Delhi NCR improvise within the framework of the academic curriculum to offer fresh and innovative insights on different disciplines. Game theory is one such topic that invites the attention of students from diverse disciplines such as mathematics, economics, commerce and management. While game theory is one of the hot tracks for research and higher studies in management and has found wide spread application in the domain of academic and business research, there is still ample scope to explore more about the subject. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology one of the top B.Com Colleges in Delhi NCR the academicians move beyond the traditional examples of usage of game theory in business economics and business environment. Here are a few interesting fast facts on the same.

Game Theory and Mahabharata

It is very fascinating to note that the Mahabharata apart from being an epic of epic proportions and thus being a treatise on subjects of political science, philosophy and literature is probably the first ever treatise written on game theory. Many academicians from the Anglo-American school of economics are not very aware of the crystal clear applications of game theory that the Mahabharata has. To put things into perspective it shall be encouraging to note that the Mahabharata has brilliant expositions of different aspects of game theory. In fact the entire story of Mahabharata can be retold in the form of game theory centric rounds.

Asymmetry of Information: To Be or Not to Be is The Question

The background story of the Mahabharata notwithstanding the portion of the Mahabharata that is relevant to game theory is that of gambling. “Dyut Krida” in ancient Indian terminology refers to game of gamble and speculation. Perhaps it makes enormous good sense to assert that the evolution of non-cooperation between the two warring parties in the epic premises itself on the paradigm of speculation. The decision of the Pandavas to accept the invitation to a game of speculation was not an incorrect decision. In game theory centric terms it was not a well informed decision.

The asymmetry of information with regard to any transaction or game can have significant consequences for the game and in extreme cases drastically alter the very conclusion of the game as is seen in the case of the Mahabharata. In game theory terminology as also in actuarial sciences there is a widespread application and importance of the use of asymmetry of information. A well informed decision that takes into consideration both the costs and benefits of playing a game is the rational basis of a decision to play the game or not. As such there are ample examples of real life situations and business transactions where paucity of information for a single party or information surplus to another party may lead to the distortion of markets. As is evident from the Mahabharata it is the asymmetry of information that leads to decisive one sided outcomes in different rounds. The decision of the Pandavas to play the gamble, the decision of Kauravas to go to war, the decision to enter the Chakravyuha and even the killing of Karna by Pandavas are all examples of asymmetry of information at play. It makes great sense to reiterate the words of William Shakespeare:

“To be or not to be is the question.”

Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection

In many cases of real life and business we come across situations involving a definite lack of transparency. Asymmetry of information acts as a double-edged sword. It works in favour of the party having access to information surplus and works adversely against the party facing an information deficit. Intellectual property rights like product and process innovations that are safeguarded by copyrights, trademarks and patents are potential weapons of non-price competition used in business and politics. Moral hazard plays out in favour of the party that has access to secret knowledge resources like a new invention, new technology, more efficient plant, equipment and machinery and the likes. Adverse selection plays out against the party with lower access to information resulting in ill-informed decision making. The Mahabharata is replete with instances of both moral hazard and adverse selection whereby one party scores over the other by virtue of greater access to and better safeguarding of resources that have higher efficiency.

Games with Multiple Rounds: Cheating and Tit for Tat Strategy

The Mahabharata comes across as a game with multiple rounds. Assuming that the parties at war did not know the number of rounds of warfare required to achieve victory it may be referred to as a game with indefinite number of rounds. Again it may be said that in most business and real life situations games alter their nature from indefinite to definite ones as the partied proceed from one round to another. The debates on this aspect however do not eradicate the questions of incentives to cheat.

The most popular literature on the incentives to cheat in business & economy, politics and governance is The Evolution of Non-Cooperation by popular scientist W.D. Hamilton and economic theoretician Robert Axelrod. Yet it makes sense to suggest that the earliest exposition of cheating and tit for tat strategies as is used in oligopoly analysis to resolve the breakdown of cartels is found in the Mahabharata. The spontaneous and sporadic movement from one episode of murder to another one is premised on the breakdown of cartel on the lines of cheating and tit for tat strategies.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top B.Com colleges in Greater Noida, Delhi NCR we have discussed case studies on the usage of game theory in the Mahabharata and business in the paper of business economics. We intend to take up the theme in greater detail by engaging in academic research on the same.

Pump Priming an Economy: Insights from Top B.Com Colleges in Delhi NCR on Keynesian Economics

The top B.Com Colleges in Delhi NCR regularly engage in research on the different schools of thought that prevail in economics. Given that macroeconomics as an academic discipline is governed by mathematical modelling premised on intricate null hypotheses it is very hard to reach at a definite consensus of views that can be truly all encompassing and all pervasive. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, academicians of economics have engaged in both theoretical lectures and mathematical economics driven approaches to reach the crux of the matter and further to satisfy the appetite of aspiring MBA and PGDM students on the floor of the classroom. Sir Winston Churchill, the former British PM had once jokingly commented that if a question produces four different answers from four different people despite the presence of empirical evidence being abundant on the subject matter, they must have been economists!

Tracing the Invisible Hand of the Market and Animal Spirit of Capitalism

While it is common for business leaders, policy makers and economists to heap praise on the invincibility of the invisible hand of the market and the animal spirit of capitalism, they are rather difficult to search for in times of recessions. It is not plain humour that while Gulliver’s giant of erstwhile USSR has long been dead; the animals of capitalism have not been in the pink of their health, with the frequent need for the governments to offer strong socialistic type governmental ventilation. The crux of the matter is that there are academicians, managers, business leaders and policy makers out there who do not wish to acknowledge the fact that capitalism of the laissez faire type can slip into coma.

On several occasions across the world we have seen governments pump priming the economy. The Wall Street crash of 1929 turned the profession of economics on its head. What followed from the then U.S. President Roosevelt in terms of the formulation of the New Deal and the New Economic Policy later under Keynes made a strong case for replacing the invisible hand of the government with the visible hand of the government. Recently India under one of its greatest engineers of neo-classical economic reforms Dr.Manmohan Singh has had to embrace pump priming in the avatars of MGNREGA and the farm loan waiver schemes. This has not been a voluntary choice for policy makers of the erstwhile government of India but a marriage of comfort that aimed to resolve challenges that persisted as a result of the 2008 sub-prime crisis.

The Costs of Pump Priming and Fiscal Profligacy: Baro Ricardo Equivalence

The costs of pump priming can be particularly high as has been the case in the PIIGS countries. While ventilation for recessions can be justified even at the cost fiscal profligacy, the experience of Portugal, Iceland, Italy, Greece and Spain has been far from satisfying. As Dr.Singh put it “no government can live beyond its means”. The lessons of fiscal prudence on one hand and those of the withering welfare state are difficult to recon ciliate. The bad news flowing in from the PIIGS (Portugal, Iceland, Italy, Greece and Spain) economies is a pointer in the direction of the impact that fiscal profligacy can have not just on economic growth rates but on the very legitimacy of a sovereign economic nation state. While jamming in monetary with fiscal policy may raise a few eye brows, it is badly kept secret that the interplay of the two shall determine the course of flow of the Indian economy. It makes enormous good sense to recall the words of the Iron Lady of United Kingdom, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: “The least state is the best state.” Fiscal prudence is the need of the hour. More than just containing the unplanned government expenditure, there is a need to consolidate the planned expenditure. Fiscal discipline may be criticized by some who have the luxury of indulging in side seat driving but will enable the government to score on multiple points.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we offer deep academic insights to students on papers like business economics and business environment to create a foundation for them to pursue higher education of their choice and carve a career of the highest levels.

Insights on Earth Day from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR: The Economics of Global Climate Change

The top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR are business schools with a difference. While it may be fashionable for MBA students to aim for placements, CEOs to aim for ESOPs and corporations to aim for shareholder value maximization and for business school academicians to engage in academic research, the authentic truth is that the habitat that shelters each of these stakeholder groups has been at the receiving end of things. On April22, 2016 Ishan Institute of Management & Technology takes a deep insightful look at the economics of climate change and the rationale behind this negligence of gargantuan proportions. On Earth Day the academicians, staff and students of the first business school of Greater Noida come together to present you this insight on the economics of global climate change.

The Free Rider Problem, Tragedy of Commons and Treating Environment as a Waste Sink

A vast majority of the literature available on the issue of environmental management and environmental economics is driven by the exclusive focus on private goods and invisible hand of the market. It makes enormous great sense to suggest that the environment on local, national and even the global levels falls into the domain of public goods and therefore cannot be streamlined by relying on the invisible hand of the market unless it is strengthened by the visible hand of the government. Public finance as an academic discipline is rarely ever taught or discussed by business schools. Most MBA Colleges in the world and India do not integrate this paper into the academic curriculum and academicians of the highest stature who have the intellectual capabilities to break open the shackles leave much to be desired in terms of serious academic efforts to bring the subject into mainstream business education. It is worthwhile to recall the famous essay of the legendary MIT academician Naom Chomsky –“The Responsibility of Intellectuals” and thus seriously demand an explanation from academicians of business schools on the colossal torpidity shown by them on something as important as climate change.

Coming back to the core issue of environment and its stature as a public good, we bring into focus the properties of public goods. These are as follows:

·        Non-rivalry

·        Non-excludability

  These two characteristics features are applicable to the global environment. Being characterized by non-rivalry implies that the consumption of the environment by few does not leave any less of it for consumption by other consumers. Being characterized by non-exclusivity implies that consumers who do not pay the price in lieu of consumption cannot be stopped from consumption. These two properties combine to give rise to the free rider problem and the tragedy of commons. In the context of welfare economics these two phenomena can be viewed as negative externalities that motivate business leaders, corporations, micro, small and medium enterprises and governments to dump pollutants into the environment without having to bother about paying the price. Of course this issue has been tackled by some governments in the form of imposition of carbon credits and mandatory disclosure of carbon emissions, water negativity and other forms of quantitative reporting in social audit reports. Some corporations have also embraced green accounting. The truth is that micro, small and medium enterprises that are the lesser mortals in the world of climate change bear the brunt of these government policies and bleed financially while the big fish are just too big to be caught in the net of regulators.

     Corporate Actions and International Inactions: Data on the Robber Barons and Knights in Shining Armour

    A research done by the Climate Accountability Institute shows conclusive evidence that half of the quantum of carbon emissions have taken place in the last 25 years and that more than 2/3^rd of the same has been a direct outcome of the carbon emissions by just 90 companies worldwide. According to the leading English daily from United Kingdom, The Guardian this list of 90 companies includes 50 investor owned companies, 31 of them being public sector companies from Saudi Arabia, Russia and Norway. There are 9 government-run industries producing coal in countries like China, the former Soviet Union, North Korea and Poland. There are also comments coming from Harvard academia like Prof. Naomi Oreskes, who assert that Mexico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries that are not uttered and hence get the benefits of doubt. Contrary to this statement, one is baffled at the silence of these esteemed institutions on the fact that Mexico, Venezuela and a host of other Latin American and African nations were enslaved and colonized by west European nations for mining and resource expropriation as suggested in the documentary The End of Poverty featuring economists Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Raghuram Rajan. The consequence is that the robber barons play knights in shining armour while deploring the emerging economies.

     International Community and Climate Change

   All has not been lost and the paradise can be regained. Given that there has been international action on deliberations at the highest level within the framework of the United Nations Climate Change Conference suggests that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The sad part is that despite the existence of evidence and empirical data on corporate actions and colonial regimes of governments, there is no consensus on achieving inter-temporal equilibrium with regard to climate change. Despite the fact that most top MBA Colleges, business schools, governments, corporations and business leaders knowing the history of science and the inverted U-Hypothesis of Simon Kuznets, there is a lack of organizational will to turn the clock back and set the record straight. Here is the complete list of meetings that have taken place under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

     What Have We Done as a Top MBA College in Delhi NCR?

    At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we have undertaken efforts to be a part of the climate change campaign in letter and spirit. As an MBA College in Greater Noida, we have included 3 case studies into the academic curriculum of the paper of strategic management and discussed the solutions to the cases on climate change and social audit report preparation. We have integrated 2 case studies on free rider problem and tragedy of commons in the paper of business environment. We have also streamlined and added 3 case studies on carbon emissions in the paper of business ethics and corporate governance. Beside this Ishan Institute of Management & Technology hosted the first Global Value and Ethics Convention that saw participation from150 delegates from more than 25 countries in the year 2014. As an education enterprise of the 21^st century we have made disciplined efforts towards reducing the usage of plastics and non-recyclable materials, reusing stationary items and recycling processes for higher energy efficiency and a lower carbon footprint. We have also taken up the cause of animal activism and expressed our support for the ethical treatment of animals.

   On a concluding note, as a top MBA College in Delhi NCR and the first graduate business school of Greater Noida, we would like to acknowledge the efforts of our students Himanshu Gurjar (Department of Arhcitecture), Sagar Singh Solanki and Bhim Prakash (Department of Management), Mansi Verma, Praveen Kashyap and Aril Wadia (Department of Commerce) for contributing their collage collections themed on climate change in Delhi NCR during Kshitiz 2016-the annual fest of Ishan. 

Mist on the Screen for Yahoo-Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Even the top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR that are so far away from the hot spot of action are virtually awaiting tragic news. It is almost as if the writing is there on the wall for everyone to see and yet investors, bankers, stock brokers and media are just hoping against hope for a last minute miracle to salvage the fortunes of one of the earliest internet companies in Silicon Valley. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida, Delhi NCR the academicians and students have been watching at the turn of events with fingers crossed trying to soak in as much knowledge as we can. While the demise of the most ancient internet company is not exactly an opportune moment to learn, it makes enormous good sense to assert that analysis of business is required in order to prevent a recurrence of such phenomenon in India or anywhere else in the world.

A Brief History of Yahoo

Yahoo is indeed one of the most ancient companies in the internet industry. Having been established by two Stanford students Jerry Yang and David Filo, the company is headquartered in Sunnywale, California, U.S. Yahoo began its journey as an internet directory and soon became a valuable navigational tool for users searching for information on the internet. Even in the dotcom crash of the year 2000, the company managed to stay put and hold ground against adverse industry conditions. Some of the better known strategic business units (SBUs) of Yahoo are Yahoo Directory, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Advertising, Yahoo Online Mapping, Yahoo Video Sharing, Fantasy Sports, Tumblr and Flickr. While this makes for an interesting read in corporate history, there is more to the picture than meets the eye.

Industry Position of Yahoo

This time Yahoo’s earnings have been reported to be slightly above the estimates of analysts. The unfortunate part is that the reason behind this is that a string of bad financial performances that have been reported over the last ten years have forced analysts to revise their expectations. Revenue stood at $1.09 billion for most of the last quarter, down 11% from the year before and the net loss of the company stood at $99 million. Yahoo is expected to capture more than $2.6 billion in worldwide digital ad revenues. The absolute figures may just seem fine as long as one does not watch out for market share and industry data of competitors like Google and Microsoft.

What Went Wrong for Yahoo?

Given that Yahoo is now staring at the strategic alternative process; one does have to beg to ask for what went wrong for Yahoo? As with any other giant that falls flat on earth, there are not one but several reasons. Over the last ten years Yahoo has seen six CEOs pass through the doors. One of those CEOs was straight from Hollywood and led the company into acquiring Geocities for $4.6 billion, followed by the acquisition of Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion. Unlike Google and Facebook that evolved business models to branch out into the community based models of social media, Yahoo was stuck with content. Even Google focused a lot on getting digital ad revenue while Yahoo focused on creative business content. While Google went in for corporate restructuring last year and rechristened itself Alphabet, Yahoo failed to evolve in terms of corporate structure and design.

What Has Been the Role of Marissa Mayer?

The role of Marissa Mayer has come under close scrutiny from media, industry insiders and Wall Street. Marissa Mayer the present CEO of Yahoo is an alumnus of Stanford University who has specialized in symbolic systems. She was one of Google’s earliest employees and was one of the brightest and most successful product development managers in Google. In her stint as CEO of Yahoo, she did focus on high profile content acquisitions such as the blogging site Tumblr and high profile talent like David Pogue and Katie Couric. She did put in efforts to improve the search capabilities of Yahoo.

Suitors for Yahoo

With every passing day it is becoming increasingly clear that sooner or later this year Yahoo will have to opt for the strategic alternative process. Potential suitors for Yahoo include Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Amazon and Softbank. Yahoo offers these suitors a chance at improving consumer relationship and loads of user data that has accumulated over the years. It has been seen that telecom companies usually have expressed interest in such acquisitions in the past for strategic reasons but not many of those attempts have been successful.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the best MBA College in Greater Noida, we are in the process of collecting data on the liquidation strategy of Yahoo for the purpose of an extensive case study on what may turn out to be the fall of yet another dotcom giant anytime now.

Retirement-The Curse of Long Life: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

At the top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR, academicians and students are regularly engaged in learning, researching and implementing industry best practices. The search for optimization of resources for time, space and scale keeps going on and on. The search for the invisible hand of the market keeps going on and yet we do not recognize the facts that lie straight under the naked eye. We fail to take cognizance of the fact that for a free market economy that has achieved full employment equilibrium cannot move forward or grow without the destruction of at least few of the unproductive economic forces. Death and retirement are thus two very important factors that affect economic growth rates and take the world forward. Make no mistake no industry is as sustainable, as greatly repetitive, as destructive and as productive as death. Retirement is a brainchild of economists, policy makers and state but is born out of the problems of death and its antidote –long life span.

The Economics of Retirement

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the academicians of the faculty of business administration have touched down upon the issues of death and retirement in the lectures of business environment and business ethics. The point here is not to romanticize death like a poet or get philosophical without mind over matter but to understand the trouble that is fomenting in the PIIGS (Portugal, Iceland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and to a certain extent in the United States of America as well (in the context of falling off the fiscal cliff). There are some unusually interesting statistics available. In the United States of America an individual at the age of 65 years needs $ 400,000 just to cover health care costs. This data comes straight from an article published in the Harvard Business Review by Neil Pasricha. The article further asserts that retirement itself increases the risk of depression by 40%. While these may refer to data on explicit and implicit costs of retirement, as Carlyle has said it is incorrect for an economist to interpret costs only on the negative side. It is crucial to know why retirement is a cost at all.

Choice of Techniques by Amartya Sen and Disguised Unemployment

Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen in his seminal work Choice of Techniques (Basil & Blackwell Publication, London, 1956) asserts that there are three aspects of employment: productivity aspect, income aspect and recognition aspect. Of these three aspects most people without any formal training in the profession of economics refer to income aspect as being singularly important in comparison to the other two factors. This is a gross mistake to say the least. The productivity aspect of employment determines the value component and hence also determines the bargaining power of labour as a factor of production. In the corporate sector where a clear line of distinction is drawn between blue collar and white collar labour, it may be said that managerial work that most business school graduates look forward to is an overlapping of labour in the classical sense of economics and intrapreneurship, a managerial form of entrepreneurship. Never the less the productivity aspect of an individual has been observed to decrease with aging and may also turn negative in terms of marginal productivity of labour. Recognition aspect of employment concerns the fulfilment of psychological and social attributes. The yearning for being accepted as a team member in social institutions like business enterprise, family, school, community and friends cannot be negated. Psychological attributes of the Freudian type of self, social self, ideal self and finally the ideal social self are highly important in determining the youthful aggression that any individual needs so very badly.

Sigmund Freud and Cultural Super Ego

Sigmund Freud, in his seminal work Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) has elaborately discussed his famous structural model of psychic attributes. The work explains the components of the self that have been hinted at above. It will not be entirely wrong to attempt to understand retirement in the area where Amartya Sen’s views on development economics overlap with the psychology based construct of Sigmund Freud.

With aging, decline in productivity and a realization that the self is eroding in terms of value to the economy and society set in. The Freudian concept of ideal social self is then an extension of Sen’s concept of recognition aspect. Imagine an individual who has spent more than 30 years of his life dressing in the C-suite and leading life on the fast track with more than an empire of connections on LinkedIn retiring from job and thus retiring into oblivion. Imagine that same individual being forced to change his status update as “retired” on LinkedIn. Will the next morning ever be the same? Will he be in a hurry to follow a routine? These are questions that will continue to haunt him as long as he is alive.

The Yerkes –Dodson Law

What does retirement have to do with age? How does the psychological construct of a man change with age and finally lead to the erosion of recognition aspect and the dissolving of the ideal social self. At the top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR, academicians and students have engaged in research on these questions. The Yerkes-Dodson Law is a vital tool that links the missing dots and thus probably enables academicians in business schools to understand the phenomenon of retirement. The Yerkes-Dodson Law asserts that there is proportionality between mental arousal and performance. In the initial stages there is direct proportionality between arousal and performance and this direct proportionality lasts till the inflexion point. Beyond the inflexion point the graph goes downhill. There is inverse proportionality between arousal and performance beyond the inflexion point. The bell shaped curve is shown below.

How Does the State Step Into The Picture?

In the year 1889, Otto von Bismarck, the then Chancellor of Germany coined the term “retirement.” He said “Those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.” His objective was to address the problem of youth unemployment and streamline employment opportunities for the youth by removing the unproductive components from the workforce. The age limit for this was set at 70 and above. Other countries followed suit with retirement ages at 65 or 70.

The problem though is the way science and technology in medical sciences and health care have stepped in to increase the life span of mankind. The longer is the life span, longer is the time lived post retirement and hence greater the problem.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida, we do 5 case studies on social and economic issues that concern problems that cannot be solved by the free market economy in its orthodox ways. 

Driving the Big Data Analytics Revolution in India: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR and across India have a new fashion fad. While it may seem like a hyperbole to call big data analytics a mere fashion fad, it makes enormous good sense to assert that corporations in India are highly unwilling to jump onto an IT investment cycle bandwagon at the earliest. The tight rope walk that Indian companies prefer to do while balancing operating and financial risks, the imitation lag hypothesis, the currently existing bear phase of the global economy thanks to the slash in commodity pricing and a set of conservative people unwilling to accept even the change in position of office furniture add up to the effect of non-acceptance of the next big thing in IT. Needless to say business schools in Delhi NCR and across India are only slower to incorporate the emerging trends of business automation in their academic curriculum and follow the footprints of their corporate peers.

Achieving a Transformation in the Approach towards Digitization

Achieving a turnaround in the state of business process automation is a question of necessity. It is not a question of compulsion. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the top MBA College in Delhi NCR, the academicians in their interactions with students and business executives emphasise on the assessment of opportunity costs of letting go the digitization paradigm. Most corporations have tremendous quantities of data locked in legacy IT systems and legacy applications. This untapped data that is unused and locked in hard copies of files, servers, personal computers and legacy software apps are goldmines of intrinsic knowledge that can be and should be used for faster, effective and most importantly efficient decision making. Yes, there is conclusive evidence on the fact that digitization in its very primitive incarnation of intrinsic knowledge management can pay rich dividends. A research publication from the business consulting giant McKinsey asserts that corporations drive up profitability and productivity by up to 6%.

An Agenda for the Top Management Team for a Digitization Drive

In our lecture sessions on strategic management we have done 5 case studies and supplemented that with an insight again published by McKinsey. Based on these cases studies and the research publication of McKinsey we have reaffirmed our faith in the following 6 point agenda for the top management team of corporations to follow:

·        Transform people towards a gradual adoption of big data analytics

·        Streamlining a data analytics strategy

·        Assessing what to build, borrow, rent or purchase

·        Securing big data analytics expertise

·        Mobilizing resources

·        Building frontline capabilities

Engineering a Big Data Analytics Plan for Beginners

Once the top management team of a corporation paves the way for the adoption of big data analytics it is crucial to have a strategic plan of action and identify the key requirements of the project while also defining the business goals that the project seeks to achieve and identifying metrics for the measurement of returns on investment across different stages of the IT project lifecycle. Putting in place an analytics plan for corporations that are about to start off the first time should ideally consist of three components: data, tools and analytics models.

The creation of a sustainable and accurate data repository calls for systems analysis and design to streamline the flow and funnelling of data through different layers and reengineering the data architecture. Data governance standards may be required to be put in place with implementation of margins of error in data creation, maintenance and collection. More over it is wise to distil transactions from analytical reports.

The second part of the plan is to identify the relevant analytics models and assess the merits of each of the analytics models before being out to use. An analytics modelling factory may play a crucial role here by diagnosing which data analytics model works best for optimization of data so that it may be scaled for different business functions and units across the company.

The third part of the plan consists of tools meant for integrating the complex outputs of data modelling into the business processes that are being carried out in a routine basis. Tools that offer an interface between the output generated by data analytics modelling and business practices of managers complete the link between data scientists and analysts on one hand and managers and employees on the other hand. Many companies fail to institutionalize the big data analytics revolution because they fail to integrate the last two steps.

Three Big Data Analytics ROI Patterns

There are three clear investment patterns that are likely to emerge from a big data analytics project that is undertaken. These three patterns are as follows.

·        First, early bird catches the worm. There is crystal clear evidence that corporations that start early get the time cushion to learn by trial and error and thus adapt to the digitization strategy faster. 

·        Second, investment in IT and big data analytics expertise offers a better payoff than just investment in the technology. The coordination between IT skills and IT infrastructure creation is decisive in improving productivity and profitability.

·        Third, investing in big data analytics talent at scale holds the key. Big data analytics professionals are the ultimate knowledge workers of the 21^st century and are beyond an iota of doubt in short supply. It is critical for the HR department to build a large talent pool for driving the big data analytics project. There has to be an investment in hiring top IT talent at scale.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the top MBA College in Delhi NCR and the first graduate business school in Greater Noida, we have incorporated big data analytics into the academic curriculum of strategic management and have in the last year itself done 5 case studies in lecture sessions

Doing Well by Doing Good Against Cancer: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR like Ishan Institute of Management & Technology are consistently reinventing the academic curriculum and pedagogy for PGDM and MBA courses by institutionalizing industry best practices where ever possible or by inculcating them as add-ons in the form of case studies, research papers and business research projects. The first graduate business school of Greater Noida, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology has to this extent integrated case studies on CSR and sustainable business models in papers of strategic management, rural and industrial management and business ethics. An area of academic interest that the academicians of the business school have been pursuing off late is the development of business and revenue models that are based on bottom of the pyramid markets and are based on people, planet and profit. Our academic endeavours in this direction have been streamlined by the classification of such business models into new business development, new product development and new market development for bottom of the pyramid people. One such very exciting piece of business news that is still a work in progress is the involvement of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in the fight against cancer.

Venture Capital Investments in the Fight against Cancer

In the last week while participating in an off-the classroom question and answer session with PGDM students the faculty of business administration came across a knowledge resource from Bloomberg. It shows the spree in VC investments in the fight against cancer along with the details of the start-up companies that are engaging in the development of liquid biopsy for the effective diagnosis and treatment of cancer. A summary of the information is shared here with along with the expression of intellectual gratitude and indebtedness to Bloomberg for sharing this information publicly.

Given that the healthcare sector is highly dependent on research and development, it becomes a challenge to develop a business model that has experiments as the guarantor of the bread and butter stream. This is where the participation of angel investors, private equity funds and mezzanine capital sources becomes critical to the survival of these start-ups that are engaging in the development of cutting edge technology to fight cancer. The role of VCs as investors is a heartening sign and shows that at least corporations and corporate philanthropists across the world care about contributing to the fight against cancer in a way they understand best-business.

The New Product Development Paradigm for Cancer

It is common knowledge that cancer is an intruder that sheds bits of DNA and spreads them across the blood stream of the human being affected. These bits of DNA are the gold pots of knowledge that doctors and medical technologists are betting on. Given that we have the technology for genetic sequencing; it is possible to develop techniques of liquid biopsies that are less expensive and less invasive in comparison to tissue samples. The objective is to develop an all encompassing and all pervasive blood test that would examine for traces of cancer in the blood sample of a human being long before any visible symptom and sign of cancer becomes visible to the naked eye of the doctor. It shall be a simple to administer blood test and this is exactly the point that VCs like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are eyeing.

The Challenges and the Opportunities

The above stated stuff may amount to tall talk in the absence of any scorching evidence on the time duration that it may take to develop such a blood test based on liquid biopsy. Assuming that it may take ten years at least for the entire cycle of experiments, consistency in results and clinical trials before the medical community across the globe takes it seriously, it is a Himalayan task to accomplish. Of course the fact that FIIs are participating will provide scale to these efforts.

The efforts though are worth the returns. The liquid biopsy offers prospects of early detection that can save lives and initiate treatment at the earliest and thus increase the life span of a cancer patient.

New Market Development and Current Business Activity

The market opportunity for the liquid biopsy super screening test that shall examine traced of all forms of cancer may hit annual sales of USD 200 billion in the formative years itself. As of now there are 38 companies across the world that are selling or developing some form of liquid biopsy. The mean pricing of the new product being developed by companies is at $1000 per test. The head count of people who can be saved stands at 7.4 billion. Illumina’s CEO Jay Flatey opines that the first commercial version of the liquid biopsy shall be ready to be launched in the market worldwide by the year 2019.

Why this is Important to Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR?

According to the National Cancer Registry Programme of the Indian Council of Medical Research more than 1300 Indians die every day due to cancer. Between the years 2012 and 2014 the mortality rate due to cancer in India increased by 6%. The mortality rate is the highest in the North East wit most cases of cancer belonging to the type of stomach cancer followed closely by breast and lung cancer. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the first MBA college in Greater Nodia, Delhi NCR we aim to incorporate the latest and cutting edge technology and business models on cancer treatment as a case study for sustainable business development for bottom of the pyramid markets. There are ambitious plans of extending the case study into a fully fledged business research project on the development of cost effective and efficient solutions to health care problems by putting them into the templates of Gandhian engineering.

The Seventh Seal of Job Interviews: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida, Delhi NCR

The top MBA Colleges in Greater Noida, Delhi NCR offer the best academic curriculum to their PGDM and MBA students, unique in both content and form. The definition of the scope and ambit of the design of academic curriculum includes the syllabi of text books in many MBA Colleges. But for business schools like Ishan Institute of Management & Technology it takes on an all-encompassing and all-pervasive approach that integrates business films, general knowledge, communication, power dressing and a lot more with a singular objective of enabling students to cross the line successfully and get placed with a corporate enterprise of their merit. To this extent the top MBA colleges in Greater Noida, Delhi NCR develop and follow a blue print for placement preparation. This placement preparation is a process that aims to develop and process the academic knowledge gained in the lecture sessions into the capability to brand and sell oneself during an interview.

Developing the Right Perspective for a Job Interview

Many people may actually wonder about the title of the post of this blog. It makes enormous good sense to assert that a job interview is very different from an academic interview. The basic point is for students and people running the show in placement cells of different business schools to understand that a job interview amounts to selection in a team and thus academic merit is not the only factor to be considered. The interviewer is a part of a team himself and has a job to offer the best possible value addition to a specific team from a department or function. The point is to understand the psyche of the interviewer and get into the “behind the screens” mode as much as possible. Once inside the interview room it is more like a game of chess or rather a mind game. We take a look at some of the best practices from job interviews.

How to Deal with Historical Questions?

Historical questions are also called behavioural questions. Questions like “tell me how you addressed this issue when you were working in that position 2 or 3 years ago...” are examples of historical questions. These questions are not very effective in scanning the problem solving skills of a candidate. Yet there is a better way to use historical questions. An intelligent interviewer would follow the above given example with straighter one that focuses on the present times. Candidates should while answering the first example of historical questions e prepared to answer the follow-up question on how he would adapt the solution to the problem in the context of the present time.

How to Deal with Problem Solving Questions?

As said above any interviewee should expect a follow up question to a historical question. The follow-up question may be more pin-pointed forcing the candidate to offer a working plan of the idea he has to offer. In many cases depending upon the level in the corporate hierarchy for which the interview is being undertaken the interviewer may also offer a pen and a piece of paper. For example almost all Japanese companies ask their hires and employees to present the solution to a problem on a piece of A4 size paper. If a candidate offers an algorithm or a process flowchart, it makes the job of the interviewer easier. The interviewer should concentrate on each step in the process flowchart and deduct marks for missing out on steps like data collection, knowing the work culture, structure and authority protocol, consulting clients and distributors, identifying KRAs (key result areas).

How to Deal with Questions that are Futuristic?

There are questions that are futuristic and hence require the candidate to prove that he has got a sense of anticipation and vision for the future. Developing a vision for how a function like data analytics, marketing, business development or accounting shall change over the next couple of years is a difficult task. Developing a vision for how an industry is going to play out in terms of growth, organic and inorganic growth routes, recessionary pressures, government policy changes in the pipeline, etc is even tougher. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the top MBA College in Greater Noida we ask students to think in terms of an industry and observe it as much as possible during the two years of the MBA course. A vision takes time to develop. It is about looking at the big picture. We expect an interviewer to ask questions like forecasting major trends that are likely to emerge in 2-3 years, developing a plan for the first 100 days (following the 100 hundred day rule in Silicon Valley) and outlining goals for the first 3 months. To answer these type of questions a candidate must absorb knowledge like sponge by concentrating on lecture sessions, solving industry or function specific case studies, staying updated on company specific details by reading blogs, e-magazines, articles and business news portals.

How to Deal with Questions on Adaptability, Learning and Innovation?

The next level of questions in terms of difficulty level relate to adaptability, learning and process innovation. It is crucial to have answers to questions on these 3 metrics. Business environment is always and everywhere a dynamic one. It is not easy to keep balance while standing on ball that is rotating and revolving all the time. It calls for skills of adaptability, learning and process innovation to stay ahead of competition. At Ishan, one of the top MBA and PGDM Colleges in Delhi NCR we prepare students to face these questions. The answers to each of these questions have to be pin-pointed and objective. That is to say that beating around the bushes is no solution to this kind of questions.

These were a few insights on how to handle a variety of questions for job hiring interviews. At Ishan, the first graduate business school of Greater Noida, we have a very proactive multi-layered placement cell that engages in collaboration with faculty members to groom students for job interviews.