It is carrrrrrrrrrnival time!!! The entire world is in the mood for carnival and this place is no different!

Well well well... before u start conjuring up images of bare breasted babes on floats and samba... guys we're not in Rio.... This is St. Gallen and it is rather cold here so people were really dressed up ;)



But yeah we had an amazing day nevertheless ... lol


The atmosphere was electric.... and music enveloped the streets ...

people in "colorful' dresses and vivid themes and tons of face paint were all over the place with trumpets, drums ... u name it...


suddenly the sleepy li'l town of St. Gallen was transformed into a musical village and the crowds simply loved it...

Interestingly, there was a Swiss/German group dressed in Indian costumes and playing Indian music... talk about globalisation ... lol!

Over the past couple of days several events took place. One of the most relevant to the MBAs (mainly applicants!) was the release of the FT Rankings for the year 2008.

This year's rankings show some very interesting trends.
First and most visible developments was that London Business School jumped three notches within the top 10 and is now second only to Wharton!! Kudos LBS! INSEAD also progressed a notch to No. 6.

On a broader view, European B-schools have improved their rankings and two new European B-schools invaded the Top 10 space:

• Institute de Empressa (IE) of Spain which jumped from 11th to 8th rank.
• Judge Business School (Cambridge) which jumped 5 notches from 15th to the 10th rank.

As a result, NYU, Tuck and Yale are out of the top 10. Kellogg is down to 24!!

So is this a European invasion or do they have an unfair home advantage (FT is a European Business Daily). In case the former is true, it reflects the growing stature of europe (especially EU) in international trade.

Is it also a trend that hints that American B-schools are getting complacent? Well only time will tell. US is still clearly the favorite destination to pursue a business education. But the lack H1 B visas is now denting the popularity of american business education.

An another interesting development is the stellar performance of Asian business schools. China's CEIBS held on to its 11th position, Hong Kong UST returned to the FT table at No. 17. Singapore's Nanyang business school improved its performance jumping a whopping 20 positions to 46. The other leading Singaporean B-school (NUS) got edged out of the top 100. While India's sole entry to the FT ranking , the Indian School of Business made a spectacular debut at #20 with the highest weighted salary of US$ 169,355! The Asian crusade is picking steam and in the years to come it may cause a few upsets. :)

Other notable debuts were Strathclyde at #30, Shanghai Jiao Tong University(ACEM, China) at #41 and Vlerick Leuven Gent (Belgium) at 97.

B-schools that have demonstrated the most significant improvement in rankings over a three year period are:
Judge Business School, Cambridge at #10 (2006 ranking # 35)
HKUST #17 (#47)
Australian Grad School of Management #39 (#75).
Edinburgh University Management School # 44 (#82)
Nanyang Business School Singapore #46 (unranked)

These are perhaps valuable indicators for prospective MBA students and hopefully would help choose ur B-school.

In Block 4 that's currently underway, we have a course on business law. The Professor is actually a practicing attorney at law with a mid-size law firm in Zurich.


Law as many of us would know, is very nation specific and we are all not swiss and not all of us would work in Switzerland post-MBA.


Hence, what we are trying to do in this subject is to get an overview of the laws applicable to business and the situations in which we would deal with them. In essence, looking at situations where we should be careful about the fine print and to ensure we don't get on the wrong foot (or the wrong side of the law!).


What makes this course rather interesting is the fact that we are looking at a lot of case studies and trying to identify the key levers on which the case is based. In the process we are putting ourselves in the shoes of the attorneys and CEOs and coming up with probable scenarios. And we're not looking at the issue in the context of any jurisdiction specific laws but are applying plain logic.


I find this immensely intriguing!! Hmm maybe i should become a lawyer...!!! cheeky little mousey lawyer !! lol!

Stuart

In the news the last couple of days have been reports about the alleged fraud committed by a "rogue trader" at the French investment firm Societe Generale (www.socgen.com) .

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/01/24/societegenerale.fraud/index.html

What is really alarming about the whole issue is that a single trader was responsible for a whopping $7.2 billion fraud. Basically he took positions much above his authorised powers. While, the bank might cite him creating fictitious firms and blah blah.. the pressing question to ask is how and why did such large positions get built without getting detected by anyone?

This also reminds us of the other infamous rogue Trader nickleeson (www.nickleeson.com) whose aggressive bets on the Nikkei futures on the now defunct Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) and the infamous 88888 account led to $1.4 billion loss for Barings bank which also led to the collapse of Barings.

“How Leeson Broke the Bank.” BBC Online. June 22, 1999. British Broadcasting Company. 12 March 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/375259.stm

Later Nick also authored a book titled Rogue Trader which was later turned into a film. http://www.nickleeson.com/books/rogue_trader_book.html

Nick Leeson spent 6.5 years in prison, battled cancer and divorce and is now back into the mainstream. We have to wait and watch what happens to the Socgen trader.

The financial markets are already battling the subprime crisis, and if we have more skeletons out of their closets, investor confidence (which is already thrashed thanks to the stock market roller coasters) will plummet into an abyss.

Trading in SocGen's shares was suspended following the announcement.

This also raises the questions of ethics and its importance in business. And this is a question that we as MBAs and future business leaders or (Rogue!) traders need to ask ourselves.

Incidentally if we look at B-schools with the lens of Ethics, social responsibilty the FT rankings tend to get turned on their head. Beyondgreypinstripes is a site that looks into these issues and has its own ranking
have a look http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/rankings/index.cfm

Stuart

The block 3 fininshed last friday and as a tradition, we had the end of block event on the same evening. The event was a dinner at a Mongolian Bar be cue restaurant called "Han".

For those who've never been to a mongolian barbecue, it works like this: You have several bowls/containers of raw fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats. In additions u have jars of flavored oils ...

so u pick ur assortment of fruits/vegetables/flesh.. add the oil of ur desired flavor and head to the counter where u hand it over and watch it cooked in front of ur eyes.

once barbecued.. u add ur favorite sauces and u r ready for a delicious meal :)

Well delicious food and wine are just few of the benefits of an end of block event. It is usually an occassion to unwind.. break bread with friends... and enjoy an evening together after a long and intense block of coursework.... and considering that the very next day we were heading off to ebenalp, we were all very excited too!




The mba office is very thoughtful with organizing these events.. we've so far had swiss cuisine, chinese food, italian pasta and now mongolian barbecue.. besides a host of aperos and other delightful events...
We get an opportunity to taste delightful cuisines from all over the world and inevitably will find ourselves at home as delegates in any country devouring local cuisine with elan...

i guess these are some fringe benefits of a small but progressive mba program. !!
St. Gallen anyone??

Hey folks!
We just ended the third teaching block on friday and went for a class trip last weekend to Ebenalp (www.ebenalp.ch) a ski resort in Eastern Switzerland, about an hour from St. Gallen.
Here are some pics to give u a glimpse of the place

The place is very close to Mt. santis, which is a famous swiss mountain peak and infact we could see it from the mountain top...

We stayed at the Berggasthaus which is right at the cliff and is the only guesthouse there at ebenalp since 1852. So u know they've had a happy time with a monopoly. But the rent was ok about 36 CHF for a dorm with breakfast.. although the food isn't exactly cheap.. but hey it wasn't a rip off.


We reached in the afternoon and saw a very colorful "Drag" band (welcome to the carnival!!) . These guys brought up all their musical instruments including the drums.. the guitar.. and trumpets.. who lot of trumpets!! and just blasted off..
man it was amazing...


many of us then spent the day skiing while the others lay on the sun lounge (we had plenty of sun!) or took a walk amongst the mountains...which was equally delightful

the last gondola goes down at 4.30 pm and after that we have the mountains to us... in the evening around six the entire place was set up for the typical swiss dinner... and we had the dining hall full of people from far and wide...
in addition we had three musicians dressed in the typical appenzeller tradition (Ebenalp is located in the Kanton of Appenzell) and played on for almost the entire evening..


then there was this swiss maiden (ok she wasn't the youngest one i've seen.. but i'd rather not call her an aunt!) who sang swiss folk songs and the entire hall was filled with enchanting melodies and everyone including us swayed to the mesmerising music..

in the night we hit the games.... poker... booze games .... jenga... u name it...
and it was awesome fun..!!!!

the two days that we spent at ebenalp were amazing... we not only got to bond with each other in different scenorios and discovered so many common interests and the sun and snow.... awe i love this!!

i would've missed so much if i hadn't come to do my mba in this alpine nation...
ok the best part of the trip was that the MBA office has financed 60% of it! Wolfgang! Wolfgang!! President! President
:D
stuart

Stuart: There is a range of electives being offerred and we have been given the option to suggest our own elective too. There's however one pre-condition to introducing a new elective: that we should have significant interest in the proposed electives. i.e. atleast 7 students.

Please note however that the degree awarded would be of an MBA in General Management. The electives in finance (we have 2 electives in finance taking the total finance courses to 5) would enhance your financial acumen but the degree title would essentially remain the same. A recruiting company like an I-Bank, will certainly give u due credit for ur enhanced financial prowess.

Q2. My personal objective is to move into strategic management (consulting). Do you see the current electives and/or past placements an indicator to comment on the suitability of the program to my objectives.

Stuart: My immediate seniors and people from the previous batches have joined the who's who of consulting. I think this is proof enough of the potential of the course to arm one to be a consultant. However, please remember, the consulting recruitment process is no cakewalk. You need to convince the firm that u have relevant transferable skills from ur previous experience as well as an industry/ sector expertise that is ur USP and makes u attractive to them.

Q3. Is the exchange program with Babson and NTU available for all HSG MBA participants, or only to a select group ? If only to a select group - then what is the criteria of selection (merit, desire, availability etc) ? Have exchange opportunities improved for your batch i.e. any new schools added to the exchange program ?

2008 has just started.. and there's so much action in store... for starters the EURO 2008 soccer (British = football) is beng hosted jointly by Switzerland and Austria in June!

Wow! we guys at HSG are in for some real classy soccer action.. and the best part is that we'll be interning during that time.. so while negotiating our internship salaries we may trade in football tickets for$$$ .. what say?? ;)

On a personal front, we'll be graduating in 2008.. august to be precise.. so much much activity.. job search .. interviews.. travel.. parties... (how could i leave out).

Many of u people would be joining the schools of your choice.. 35 of you will join St. Gallen...

The new year always brings in hope , optimism and joy... hope i've rubbed off some onto you!
cheers!
Stuart

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