Smile on Face: Pain in Heart : Fear in Mind

0

Written on 10:04 AM by nitesh

What should one do when in a situation one can't do anything except waiting for things to happen and expect best to happen. You all would say chill and relax ........ but what if the wait is traumatizing since long time and you fail in one and only few good things can happen i.e chances for success are diminishing slowly or I can say when one starts to loose faith in yourself, seeing that others are getting what they want and you are still left waiting , crying in heart feeling the itch and fearing for the future. Fear of failure starts to peep in.

Though there is saying in English all is well that ends well..... but what if you are

not a super strong person and wait is killing you.

What should you do?

I don't know what to do, I am eagerly waiting for the day when I will get what I want and hence a sound tension free sleep. I want my mind to be free from any tensions and fears, God give me strength and courage to come out of this phase, help me I have not done bad in this world. This wait is leading to me not able to concentrate on anything, not able to read and do other stuff what I want to do now.

Not even a single moment leave the day, hours aside, passes when I am not thinking about it in the back of my mind. And the pain increases when people you meet say ohh you will definitely get through (tera to hoh hi jayega), and when you fail you start questioning yourself.
This is frustrating.....
Life is not easy.....


Waiting for my moment of triumph



Rising Rupee vs. Dollar: It means a great challenge for the Indian IT Firms

1

Written on 10:26 AM by nitesh

Debate contest was held in my company's Toastmasters club and I won the second runners up prize :)

Background

The rupee’s appreciation against the US dollar is the latest economic challenge for India Inc.Normally currencies appreciate when economies are doing well and a rise in their value is a cause for celebration. It is an indicator of a booming economy with increasing international business.


Dollar is depreciating for various reasons and I don’t want to discuss the reasons, reality is it is depreciating and it is expected to depreciate further. This is not a new phenomena Japan dealt with it in 60’s when 1$ = 400 yen and it has tanked to 1$ = 100 yen so is the East Asian economies in 80’s and we have to tackle it now.



This phenomenon has mixed affects, some sectors are gaining and some are loosing. Textiles and the IT sector are the two sectors which are getting adversely affected.
IT firms are facing challenges because more than 70% of the revenues comes from US and wage costs are also increasing due to shortage of skilled and talented manpower
The situation has bring in new challenges for the IT companies, expected profit targets of almost all the companies have decreased in last quarter.

We are facing increasing competition from countries like china, Vietnam, Philippines, east European nations as they are providing options for cheaper outsourcing destinations. But still we are 10-15 years ahead of them and have advantage in terms of talented English speaking manpower.


There are fears that if recession really comes in US economy than the outsourcing work will lessen. Despite of all this factors still the Indian IT industry is gaining new heights, our exports touched 40$ billion dollar mark this year and we are expected to cross the 60$ billion dollar mark set for 2010 much earlier.

We cant sit on laurels and wait for things to happen itself, it is a challenging situation and we have to tackle it


Lets discuss some of the solutions

I have categorized solutions under three categories


Macro Level Solutions

These basically deal with what new things industry can do.

In my opinion we should follow the Explore – Innovate-Disseminate Approach

In explore

Look for new markets like European nations, Australia, South American nations which will lessen the dependency on USA. Companies are doing that already for TCS revenue from US is 52% for Satyam its 56%.We need to become truly multinational now.
We should also look for the Indian market which is expected to touch the 25 billion dollar mark by 2010.

Innovate

Time is now ripe to move up the value chain, we should now not work as mere vendors but as partners of companies. If Indians as a part of Silicon Valley make world beating products there why can’t we develop products here and earn a few dollars more by selling licenses.We should go for consulting, systems integration and other high end work.

Disseminate

We should market ourselves in first as a Cheap outsourcing destination in whole and also as separate companies stressing on our specializations their by making a brand. E.g. Satyam Fifa 2010 and 2014 sponsors and around 10-15% of its revenues is coming from Sports outsourcing work



Micro Level Solutions
What should be done internally in the company?

Reducing Costs but how some will say bring in more fresher’s sorry I don’t totally agree with it, if you plan to run the company with fresher’s than go for those projects which are not highly technical and don’t require in depth knowledge and experience otherwise it will in long run lead to losses.

  • Stressing on code reusability,
  • Trainings of employees be it technical or non technical
  • Decentralizing the way of working which will make every employee feel honored about the company they are working in
  • Employee should be always kept motivated and his proper care should be taken so that he is always charger up in his work.
  • To cut the operating costs the companies need to move the low end work to tier-2 cities like Gandhi agar, Pune etc
  • Hedging is a short term measure

Governmental Measures

What can be expected from government?

This is the sector which put India on the global map and in 2009 tax benefits are to end so now the companies NASCOMM in particular should lobby with the government to remove the MAT ( minimum alternative tax)

There are lot of issues in making our currency either fixed like China or making it fully convertible like dollar so that is not an easy option.


Finally

The Indian IT sector is expected to show robust growth in 2008.

However the dollar will continue to depreciating because of recession fears in US and also fears of countries like China, Korea moving a chunk of their forex reserves from US to other economies like Europe and Japan. Indian IT companies will be able to come out of this challenge and will remain the most preferred destination for IT-ITes work.

SPJain GMBA GD\PI

5

Written on 2:48 PM by nitesh

SPjain GMba interview , It was on 8th March

3 essays
Wrote one pathetically but other two were okay :)

GD: technology can solve all problems
gave 3-4 gud points overall a decent performance

Interview
2 persons
one lady one guy

G1= Tell me about yourself
me blah blah

G= Did you join any coaching
me = no coaching but test series

L= which other calls do u have
me = IIFT, IMT-G

L= what's your % this year
me 96

L= did you gave cat any other time
me= yes when in college

L: % that year
me= 91

L= only gain of 5%
me = competition has also increased :)

L= try next year for iims
me = loss of opportunity cost :)

L= If all three gets converted which one would u prefer
me = Gmba why because its giving me global exposure which is must nowadays
as a company needs to be multinational to grow , gave example from past when i
didnt join NIT-K but joined daiict

L: Your father is a professor tell me 2 qualities which you have learnt from him
me: patience and never say die attitude giving exapmples and resons

G: There is a one more guy from your company
me : yes i know him my company is small so I know almost everyone :)

L: So if there is one seat whom we should take you or him
me: this is a tricky question

L: yes it is :)
me: okay you should choose me as i am one year younger to him and have gained much more expereince and exposure that him in less time and some more points which i have forgotten

G: you mother is a MA -BEd why she is not teaching
me : :) she is more interested in bringing me and my sister up.

L: Why Product marketing but not services marketing as you are from service sector
me: there is not much different in the both , there are lot of IT companies which develops products as well and above all marketing a product require more creative skills, out of box thinking as you are introducing a new product you need to change/divert people attention/perception towards your product, I want to do this.

L: Newspaper
me : toi

L: what on current affairs should we ask
me: anything on sports

L: dont know about sports
me: on subprime or budget

L: I am a layman explain subprime crisis to me
me : explained it beautifully in 2-3 minutes

L: 3 major highlights of budget
me: defence allocation, 60K crore and tax slabs

both smiling you can go now

lasted for around 14-15 minutes


Cleared this stage and was called for director's interview


Director : Tell me about your work-ex
me : told him

D: why marketing
me: told him

any questions
yes something on scholarship, and when the course is starting
he gave me the answers

he was compiling the scores according to me , writing some comments on paper and scores of othes sub sections( gd etc)

then he put the paper on a stack ( there were two stacks of those paper i dont know where is mine gone ... )

Hoping for the best