Purpose of my MBA

Gazing at the presentations being held in my IT class, I pondered over the last one year I have spent in IIMK. Watching my past through the prism of retrospection, I see various spectrum of learning and experiences I have undergone to reach here. A year and a half before, I was just another aspirant preparing for CAT. Every weekend, I used to board the Delhi metro and go to my coaching centre in Connaught Place. Those weekend classes, mock tests, preparatory packages, learnings, valuable insights were somehow adding value bit by bit to my knowledge bank. Though like every other student, I wasn’t sure of my purpose of taking this much trouble. Like all other aspirants, I was inspired to do an MBA to catapult by career to new heights. After working for 2 years in an IT firm, gave me a perspective on how a firm works. Let’s face it, a better job, more money, a name in the industry and a good decent girl is what everyone aspires at the end of the day. Not sure about the rest, but most of them manage to get a latter

These are the kinds of dreams that our peers and role models instil in us. Cracking CAT was the most valuable achievements in my exhibition of accomplishments. I was excited about the new faces, professors, new friends, new place and most importantly new environment to adjust, after 2 years of an independent office life.

A year later, I look at my batch mates, who sometimes give me jitters by their sheer know how of the world around and the knowledge they posses. I realize that the reality of doing an MBA is much deeper that I had presumed it to be. Who would have known that I would have developed a completely new perception about my future and life?

Businesses around the world are evolving, changing at a pace which makes it both a necessity and unpredictable at the same time. Every brick used to build a business empire is based upon a foundation that is expected to makes it indifferent to the disruptions in the stock market. Each of them requires pillars to endure weights and pressures of the competing strategies. I would now discuss the 5P’s of business which I have learnt here and how it has evolved my perception of my own goals of doing an M.B.A.

Profits, is what the core driver of every organisation. Society considers money as the root of all evil, but what is the root of money. It is the infestation of energy, our hard work aggregated and quantized into paper and metal. Money is the material shape of the principle that businesses wish to deal with one another by trading value for value. Energy can’t be destroyed so cant money be. It just changes ownership in the perfect barter system, still holding the authority to value any product offering. Neither an ocean of cries nor the guns in a war can convert those pieces of paper into the meal one needs to survive. Try obtaining food by using your muscular energy and not by the seeds sowed by a common farmer and one will realize that man’s mind is the cause of all the production in the world. To trade goods/services through money the code every person earns by his own mind and effort. It is the most precious of all variables which deals with nothing except the mutual benefit of the traders.

People, are the front line and the face of all businesses in delivering a quality product to a customer. In light of this criticality, employee must have a genuine belief in the product/service that the business is offering to the market and hence align their goals to the mission/vision of the firm. But first understanding the psychology and competencies of the employee is necessary. It is only then that the employee acknowledges a firm’s effort and hence synchronizes their demands with the requirements of the firm.

Planning is an integral part of a business concern. But planning is not just a strategy to implement at any juncture of time. Planning requires a conscious, persistent and patient attitude to think upon. A spider carefully weaving a web amidst a lush green grasses of dense bushes, patiently waiting for an insect to fall for it; the venomous reptile camouflaged into the grains of desert fixing its eye on the lizard walking nearby; a black leopard coating itself into the dark forest, waiting hungrily for its prey near the pond; a chess player, carefully assessing his rivals move, waiting for him to make a mistake to pounce on his king are all natural strategists. Business strategies are much more complex and cumbersome in nature to think and to implement since gaining money is not always the priority. Innumerable factors including stakeholders, consumer behaviour, competitors, market segments come into play and they all need to be blended with proper weights to create a suitable business model.

Process defines the model used to deliver value to a customer. I’ll rather metaphorize it as a Harley Davidson. Levers are moved up to shift gears in sequel transmission to maintain the speed to power ratio. Accelerator raced up to eject the right amount of fuel and air into the engine where innumerable gears and ball bearings talk to each other in a harmonical symphony to throttle appropriate amount of torque to the rubber tubes. The result is a perfect machine sliding through thin air in full glory. A business is no different. Each and every step of the product/service build up procedure gives adequate brand and market share to a firm constantly driving it forward into the wilderness of business markets.

Performance is the alignment of data and its analysis to ensure a successful implementation of the processes. A business should continuously shift gears, improvising and attaining its maximum potential. As the nature evolves, giving each of its life forms a gene to evolve its future generations, to survive among the fittest alive, so does the businesses where every employee and workflow must learn, interpret and evolve to the next stage of its life cycle.

I come back to my hostel room back from my class, looking at the newspaper lying in front of me which shouts out loud “Rupee falling to an all time low”. Economies around the world, not only in India go down, but the key is the develop strategies to rise it up again. To sustain the motor of the world, to keep it feuling with our ideologies, however small contribution that may be.

I realize today that it is for this very purpose that I want to work for, to make a difference. To be one of the many ripples in the fluid of ideologies so as to show the world what is it and what it should have been. To offer a perception, a new dimension, to the pool of life forces. Every form of energy deserves a better life than what it is today. It is the moral responsibility of not only me but everyone to contribute their bits to the spirit of the cycle of life.