CHOICE - Which one are you making?

‘CHOICE’ a six letter word, plays an important role throughout the life of an individual and perhaps even after his/her life. Choice can have a huge impact on the mental state of an individual. Choice I believe arises when one has alternatives which could be one or many, but even say when one does not have an alternative there exists a choice. A simple example in an Indian context could be whether I should touch my elders feet?

A choice is nothing but a decision one takes after weighing all the consequences, sometimes a forced one and sometimes at ones own discretion. Decision making I think starts right from infancy. An apt example would be of small children. They choose to stay close to people who benefit them in some or the other way. Nobody teaches them this but it comes so naturally to them. Choices change with time.

A choice one makes has its bearing not only on the individual per say but also on the near & dear ones and also in certain instances depending on the situation the society at large. Now-a-days one finds many people doing things and say that, ‘its my life, its my choice’. Well it definitely is but many a times these statements I think are made at the spur of the moment and sometimes also when one finds no justification for the activity that he or she may be carrying out.

How important it is to think about others while making a choice/decision?? According to me this is a very situational thing. There are times when one becomes selfish which is reflected in the choices that one takes. Well humans need to be selfish for if they are not they would not be surviving (Survival of the fittest). This is perfectly fine but what concerns me are the choices/decisions we make which hurt our near & dear ones especially the parents.

Many a times youngsters under peer pressure or otherwise get into activities which hurt the parent. These choices may be right or wrong, very subjective as it depends from whose side one is looking. A suicide bomber never thinks he made a wrong choice for him it would have been the only right choice. A person makes choices under different states of mind. A persons decision to become a suicide bomber could have been after thinking about the welfare of the family. A youngsters choice to go for love marriage could be more self oriented (Its gonna be ‘my life’ funda).

Now here we have 2 situations.
Situation 1: You take a choice of becoming a suicide bomber for the sake of your family (from the point of view of monetary benefit) and self (attaining moksh). Now this choice of yours according to a majority of the world is wrong. (Considering ones family agrees to it)

Situation 2: You decide to go for love marriage. No prizes for guessing that a majority of the world would say that love is the best thing. But say if your parents don’t agree for your love marriage and they leave the decision on you. I suppose majority of times one would go ahead try convincing the unconvinced giving the funda that ‘its my life’ and may be some others too.

Now would it be fair on ones part to take such a decision where the world would not have any objection but somewhere your decision/choice would have hurt your near and dear one especially your parent.

Lets turn the table around and go back to situation 1 wherein the choice that one has to take would in no way hurt the near & dear ones but is wrong in the eyes of the world.

Whom should one think of self, family or the world (society) before one makes the choice? Should one take decisions without any attachments? Is it possible in this material world? Hmm.. if u ask me like a good diplomat I would say that a balanced approach would be the best.

We hold the steering of life with us. Its imperative that we make the apt choice of the turns or decide to go straight (may be the conventional way). One may escape a wrong choice of turn unnoticed by the traffic police but its important from owns point of view to acknowledge the wrong choice of turn and not repeat the same. The important thing is to learn from ones choices. Here’s wishing that u all may make fruitful choices.

I hope you did not have the dilemma of choices before reading this article and I also hope u do not regret your choice of reading this. Your responses would be appreciated.

Is doing an MBA a necessity in today’s world??

How is your preparation going for the CAT?? Stop watching the TV and also stop playing games on that computer.. Aren’t you aware that the entrances are nearing??? Make sure you clear atleast one amongst the many you attempt every year… Well this is the type of conversation parents now-a-days have with their children. The pressure I believe is tremendous on the students and I am not talking about the pressure due to the competition but the one brought on by the parents. Having mentioned about pressure, before I talk on MBA, let me share some of the pressure instances and the possible reasons that can be attributed to this.

The pressure begins from the school days where the point of pressure originates probably from the kitty parties or small gatherings that the moms usually have wherein the report card of their wards are the point of discussion amongst many other important issues. Well if this pressure is to satisfy ones ego, it changes as the child climbs the ladder. On the next stop are the board exams. Not that the kitty parties are over but the stakes have just increased. Getting admission into a reputed college give a lot for the parents to talk about. Well going back there was a time when children taking commerce and arts were considered to be having less grey matter between their ears compared to their counterparts opting for science. I do not know the logic behind this though!
MBA – Mera Baccha Ameer (for the parents)
MBA – Main Bhi Ameer (for the student)

Well this is what I feel is today’s interpretation of Masters in Business Administration. The reason is very simple ‘the packages’. Well I do not have the figures, but I can say that not all who do an MBA get the hefty packages. Even though there is a growing belief among students that MBA is a prerequisite for hefty salaries.
There are reasons why the parents think in the above mentioned manner. In India unlike the US and the other western countries children and parents are dependent on each other at some or the other stages of their life. The huge sum of fees are either provided from the hard earned savings or are in the form of loans with the parents as the guarantees. So the expectations and stakes are very high.

Today one finds almost every student is preparing for the many entrance tests required to get into MBA. One cannot say that it is a fad because it has practically become a necessity. What has led to such a situation? A growing economy can be attributed as a major reason for this. I also believe that with the growing economy the stagnant graduate level courses are also one of the major reason for students opting for an MBA. Today a graduation degree (unless a professional course) has little value in India. Looking at the job market and the kinds of job available, a fresh graduate has very few avenues to go unless he has some additional qualifications. Today the jobs not only require technical expertise but also some knowledge about how business functions. There is nothing wrong about this requirement as with changing times the requirements changes.

This is where I feel the system has not caught up with the changing needs. Its high time there are courses introduced at the graduation level which gives the student a fair idea of the business needs. I feel a serious thought needs to be given to this. This would make the students more confident and also give the recruiters something that they are looking for.

Its not that a fresher having done his MBA becomes a finance manager / marketing manager and so forth after completion of the 2 yrs of MBA or for that matter starts working on mergers & acquisitions. There are always things that one learns from experience and no classroom teaching would help it. Especially in India, even after completion of MBA one is taken in as a Management trainee. Having said this I am in no way talking down upon MBA, its only that who is doing it, when is one doing it and where is one doing it needs to looked into.

Its my personal view that doing an MBA after one has some work experience would add more value than otherwise. This however is debatable.

Children playing the new influencer!

Everyone loves children. They have something special in them that attract everybody acting like a magnet. Off late the magnet has started attracting a new set of people towards them – the advertisers. There are different types of people whom the marketers wish to target; decision makers, influencers… etc.
Television is the major channel of communication for the advertisers. Off late increasing number of children have been seen featuring in ads. No, these are not the ads for candies that I am referring to, but ads of major telecom companies, dog food, washing powders, aviation, insurance policies, adhesive, automobile, masala’s etc. Children have become integral part of advertisements. The ads either have the children playing the lead role or are shown as the major beneficiaries of decisions to be taken by the parents.
The use of children has made many to raise eyebrows, especially the ethical cops who have raised the ethical issue regarding use of children in ads.
Well a marketer would not play such a card without having his homework done. Surely the homework would be done. Well let us look at this from a different side, say if children are not playing an active role in the purchase decisions, are the advertisers using children in the ad only to gather the attention of the masses.
I would put my weight behind the latter thought, but one cannot rule out the increasing persuasive power of children in the purchases made in a household. It would be interesting to look into the factors which have contributed to the increasing say of children in the purchase decision of households.
What fascinates me is if at all the marketers are right and that children are surely playing a crucial role in the purchase decisions in a home, then what would be factors that have contributed to such a shift.
The way purchasing takes place in India has undergone a major change with the advent of none other but the malls. As against earlier when the dads and the moms used to go to a grocery store to purchase the daily necessities, today with the advent of malls shopping/purchasing is more like a small picnic for the entire family!
The other strong reason could be advertisement itself! There has been increasing awareness level among children about the latest happenings, and the technologies available with the kids have made them a force to be reckoned with especially by the marketers for selling their products.
Thus a white uniform at school has become more important than a white shirt to be worn in an office say for a meeting. This is one such instance of the changing focus of the marketers and advertisers.
Children thus are wooing marketers like never before. Lets hope everyone plays their roles within their limits for the ethical cops would be having a close watch!!!

Marketing through the Microscope of a Microbiologist

When I decided to go for my MBA, people asked me having done your PG in Microbiology why are you going for an MBA. They asked me why not a PhD in Microbiology?? Why into MBA?? How do you relate Microbiology with an MBA?? Well people had their point. But yes I had mine too.
I spent a good part of my 5 years studying and exploring the world of microorganisms. To say the least, they are abso-lutely fascinating. Present all over the world and probably the universe too, so small yet so difficult to understand. There are the good ones which have proved to be of immense importance to mankind and there are some really notorious ones which have been responsible for a whole lot of damages to the human race.
After completion of my PG in Microbiology it was by chance that I happened to work in the field of Marketing. Market-ing requires meeting a lot of people, in other words going and meeting your customers to promote your products. On my first day in the field, our Area Sales Manager who was accompanying me asked me whether I had a girlfriend. To his surprise the answer was no. He told me, "boss you need a girlfriend". I was wondering how to find one. He told me that if I could deal and manage my girlfriend, then dealing with customers would be a cakewalk. He said that the customer‟s needs & demands keep changing at a rapid rate similar to one‟s girlfriend!
I was left pondering as to how true this was. During my two and a half year stint in the field of marketing, after interact-ing with different customers, I agree to one of the claims of my ASM – that of the changing needs & demands of the cus-tomers.
Customers in a lot of ways are similar to microorganisms! Just like microorganisms have life cycles, customers have them too. Identifying the life cycle is important from the point of view of both a microbiologist and a marketer. The en-tire strategy depends upon the stage of the life cycle.
The most important part in marketing as we all would agree is that customer service plays a very important role in maintaining/retaining the customer (Even a novice „RocketSingh‟ understood that). Microorganisms were no different. As a microbiologist, once you have isolated the micro-organism of your need, the job does not end there. It has to be given proper nutrients to continue its growth and extract the benefits/requirements from them. If you do not cater to their needs of nutrients, they would progress to the death phase of their life cycle and thus it would be-come difficult to revive them back to the level of your requirements.
The job of the marketer is to identify the needs of his customers. As a microbiologist my job was cut out regarding this. The unfortunate thing though, was that the microorganisms did not communicate with me. But just as the customers re-spond to the promotional plans by way of giving orders, the microorganisms too responded by showing growth and the desired results when provided with the appropriate growth medium. Microorganisms mutate if not provided proper grow-ing conditions or at times due to certain exposures. Consumers however don‟t mutate but yes they change their prefer-ences if the marketer does not fulfill the promises made to them or when the competitors offer a more value added prod-uct.
A microbiologist collects samples from various places to isolate the microorganism of his choice. A marketer scans the entire market place to identify his target audience very similar to the job of a microbiologist. The ultimate goal being, Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.
A marketer, I feel, is no different from a microbiologist, both in constant search of „new‟, the former searching for the customers and their needs while the latter searching for the organisms and their benefits. The logic remains the same but the arena changes. One works in the field while the other, in laboratories.
I have moved from micro to macro and I am enjoying every bit of it!!!