Last evening the MBA building was transformed by fascinating candles and lamps. Yesterday was the Indian festival of lights called Diwali and our Indian friends organized a rocking evening for all of us..

Diwali apparently, one of the most popular of all Indian festivals, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali) is celebrated by lighting up candles or lamps , prayers to gods and a lot of fireworks.. My Indian friends told me that traditionally poker is an integral part of the celebrations too!

All of our Indian friends cooked amazing meals .. spicy curry.. delicious deserts! .. we all had a great taste of the traditional Indian cuisine..

The girls colored rice grains and used them to decorate the entire room.. it was very interesting.. how colour, candles and grains of rice can transform a swiss bar into a traditional indian festive room!!

To top it all there were some rocking dances on bollywood and indian folk music .. which were high energy foot stomping numbers…

We all had amazing fun.. !!! What makes a truly international MBA like St. Gallen is that u meet people with so diverse cultures and in one year you get to experience a part of their culture, traditions , beliefs...and especially since ours is a small batch the personal interaction and bonding gets enhanced with each of these festivals make it is a very rewarding experience..

Can't Wait for the next party !!!!

1. it talked about topics like the geographic orientation of the management style of organizations, for instance, whether they were ethnocentric (controlled by the parent office in home country), regio-centric, polycentric … etc somethings we usually know but at times fail to notice
   
2. Cross Cultural sensitivity: specific interest to me was the hofstede's cultural dimension index (http://www.geert-hofstede.com/geert_hofstede_resources.shtml) that measures various (often perceived) intangible measures of cultural distinctions between people belonging to different countries and regions, and its corresponding influence on the workplace.
   
3. Organizations structures: most interesting for me here was the matrix structure and its effects in the workplace with regards to power influence and politics within the organization
   
4. Cross cultural game/exercise where we were split into three distinct teams with weird names and were given specific characteristics that we had to exhibit in our behavior, for example one group was instructed to maintain safe distance from others, while another was asked to hug! We were not supposed to tell the other groups what our characteristics were.. On the face of it , this exercise appeared futile, but when enacted, it gave a very clear picture about how cultural differences lead us to form dislikes and distrust towards other cultures and how best should we approach people of other cultural backgrounds.
   
5. ABN AMRO takeover case study , which was current and undecided at the time we took it.
   
6. This was also the course with 3 industry experts to speak on IM topics (see my previous post)
   
7. We had to take a test, write a research paper, analyze a company and give a presentations + paper on it!!! Phew loads and loads of work.
   

Prof Ruigrok is a charming person with an ever-smiling face and tries to incorporate our needs into his teaching (the ABN AMRO case for e.g.). some students however felt that IM as a subject did not add too much value for them, but others like me felt we had benefitted.. now how big the delta benefit was .. well it depends!

Finance I: Here we learnt about the basics of finance, things like book keeping (accounting), inventories, profitability, cash flows etc etc.. most importantly concepts of management accounting and financial accounting were explained, with a greater emphasis on managerial accounting (that's what future CEOs like us would have to do right!!).

What I liked was that the prof (Fleming Ruud) approached the subject from a CEO's point of view.. so we didn't kill time trying to balance the balance sheets and stuff..and neither did we try doing each and every numerical problem, but focused on concepts and how they can be applied to financial reporting and the implications of various alternative approaches on the balance sheet… don't get me wrong .. solving numerical is important but perhaps from a CPA's point of view..and on a time efficient MBA.. it made more sense to set priorities right!

From a CEO's perspective one needs to know about the accounting heads, accounting systems (IFRS/ US GAAP) , inventory, financial reporting, etc . We worked extensively with the Novartis Annual report and analysed various concepts we studied wrt the Novartis balance sheet, although financial statements of other companies were also analysed. We also did a group presentation assignment of analyzing the fine print of Novartis annual report and all of us came up with very interesting findings.

The exam too was equally good (not because it was open book) because it asked questions that made us apply the concepts we learnt to analyze the scenarios presented and prescribe how we would go about with our evaluation of the state of financial health of a corporation

This was perhaps the best course of the block 1 !!

Marketing:

Taught to us by two different professors (professors Marcus Schoegel and Andreas Herrman) we learnt the STP (segmenting targeting and positioning) concepts besides a host of other key issues in marketing.

Prof Schoegel is a high energy guy with an animated course delivery i.e. variations in voice , tone and expression and cool quips.. makes u laugh a lot…a really good thing, because marketing tends to get abstract. However, I really appreciated the two lectures of Prof Herrman who evaluated the quantitave sides of marketing of how customer behavior could be analyzed and tweaked to favor certain products, and how this knowledge can be used in pricing strategies to derive maximum profit for corporations.

We also did a group case study evaluating various strategies for BMW group going forward and gave a presentation (that was hotly contested and questioned). Some of the topics covered were : Web 2.0, expanding target base, targeting silver generation, innovative pricing options etc.

While the course was good.. being abstract it really didn't empower me as a CEO to evaluate how I could exercise control over the marketing aspects, i.e. how do I know how much to invest in mktg, how to evaluate how effective the marketing campaigns are and how to correlate mktg expenses with sales growth especially in the age of multi content marketing (online, print, TV, etc) . But as they say mktg and consumer behavior is too abstract to have straight answers.

In case you want me to write about anything in particular pls leave me your comment, and i'll write a post about it!

There's more coming soon.. stay tuned!!!

But then .. there was light at the end of the tunnel.. the 1^st teaching block came to an end on Oct 12. (yeah I know that was a week ago.. but I've had a break and really wanted to chill out!!.. sorry guys I'm human (oops a tiny li'll mouse ) after all!!

Ok lemme start this wrap up by listing out the key company events:

1. SWX: Chairman Swiss Stock exchange (SWX) Dr. Peter Gomez, (also Dean of the Executive School (ES-HSG)) spoke to us in a day long session about
   
• St. Gallen management model,
  
• merger of SWX Group, SIS Group and Telekurs Group: challenges, methodology, and future pathways
  
• Mergers of Stock exchanges: pros and cons
2. Novartis Workshop for their Finance Development program. See my previous post (http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/09/novartis-presentation.html)
   
3. Lhoist lecture: Sr. VP, HR of Lhoist (http://www.lhoist.com/) came as a guest faculty as part of the international management course (Prof Winfied Ruigrok) and spoke of managing multicultural and globally dispersed workforces, family enterprises (Lhoist is a niche family enterprises) and attracting talent to "non-sexy" (I banking/ MC/Fortune 100) companies like his. He was earlier no. 2 man in Hilti HR division.
   
4. Roland Berger Case Study Workshop





5. Investment Banking Days (IBD), with nearly two dozen investment banks on campus with workshops/ interviews (see previous post http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/10/investment-banking-days.html). I would like to add here that BCG and Mckinsey who were not original part of the IBD also later queued up to woo candidates and had 1-2 hour sessions in the 2^nd week of IBD late in the evenings (since all IBD slots were already full)!
6. CapGemini Lecture on Outsourcing: Again a guest lecture during the Intl mgmt course (Prof Winfied Ruigrok) for a corporate Rep on outsourcing: motives, methodology and repurcussions
   
7. Credit Suisse Workshop: Again as a part of the Intl mgmt course (Prof Winfied Ruigrok)
   
   
   

   Not bad for a short 5 week 1^st teaching block! What say?

We've also had a couple of company events and since 1^st October we have the investment banking days (IBD).. which calls for a separate post meanwhile just check (www.investmentbankingdays.com)

In the last three weeks alone, we've done :-

All Work

Finance: 20 + chapters of the really big fat finance book, group presentation and research paper on Novartis's annual report and share price performance.. and next week we have the big daddy of all finance test … huh!

International Management: 1 Research Paper, 1 test (don't even think of asking my grade!) 1 group simulation exercise (for which we won some good money!), case study in class about diversity and next week we have to submit a group presentation as well as a research paper.

Marketing: for three straight weeks we've worked on a group presentation on various strategies for BMW (our mktg prof consults for BMW)… in diverse areas like innovative pricing, Web 2.0 implementation, conquering new target groups etc.. and now we have another research paper to write…

And to add to all of this we have the huge course binders for each course that has just zillions of papers that we have to read (without having anytime to do so!!)

No Play???

It would be unfair to say that we didn't have fun..

We've already had three MBA parties (plus one more scheduled tomorrow) , besides over half a dozen aperos … besides some of us went to the Oktoberfest in Munich (beer.. beer… beer… beer…!!!!!)

The point is it gets very tough to do all of this within 24 hrs x 7 days no matter how smart u r!! so guys .. MBA is really hard work and really lotta fun…!!!

Cheers!!!

They were here to sell their Finance development program (FDP) for executives and were keen for talent from St Gallen.

The FDP is basically a starting point for high profile financial executives into Novartis and intends to groom them to step into CFO roles within a period 5-6 years..

The presentation was interesting and the program seems to be well thought out.. basically the FDP participant starts in Basel (which is the group HQ) and works there for about 15 months in different divisions and then be posted to another country as head of FRA (Financial Reporting and Advisory)..

From there to another international division (like BPA) and finally as a CFO for a company, which is when he/she will have graduated out of the FDP program.

Interesting huh? Yeah.. esp if u are a typical bean counter and like book keeping .. the responsibility , career growth and responsibility. Some guys were interested in M&A and strat planning which had other entry points…

Takeaways: just three weeks and we have the first company trying to sell itself to us.. great way to start ur MBA! And it helps to have a small batch.. u get to interact with these people one on one… so if u r keen to get in at least u could face an interview.. where u can sell urself .. and possibly land a job.

The first week at HSG (University of St Gallen) was really a lot of fun..

and this is the photo album of our experiences at the creative challenge...

On the last day we brought in some wine and raised a toast to Klaus who made this a very stimulating experience (=great fun) for all of us

cheers!

Stuart

Anyways , later in the evening we the MBA team organized a dinner for all of us…
well well well! that's being very generous I'd say (no wonder the MBA fees the world over is at an all time high!!)

We met at the Fondue Beizli.. the very famous Fondue restaurant of St Gallen.. To add to the fun it started drizzling and the weather became pleasantly cool..

For the uninitiated, a Cheese Fondue is the dish where in a large bowl of molten cheese is placed in the centre of the table and a flame is lit below… bread crumbs are picked using a long fork and dipped in this molten cheese and eaten… another variation is a meat fondue.. where u use meat instead of bread and dip the meat into the cheese

While the sweeter variation is the chocolate fondue.. where fruit pieces like banana, apple etc are dipped into a bowl of molten chocolate…

It is a must try if u want to get a taste of the Swiss way of life.. most swiss guys swear by it..

The dinner was a blast.. The Fondue, the wine, the drizzle… ah it was as if the Swiss gods (& HSG MBA team) were trying their best to make it a memorable first day for us all at St Gallen.. We had such a great time… we just sat for a long while drinking .. talking… dipping our bread and spirits in the swiss fondue! This was also symbolic in the sense that being a small group of carefully selected people .. we look forward to harmonious life long friendship…and nothing better than a fondue to mark the beginning of our shared learning experience!

The first introduction week had much more in store… don't go away.. stay Tuned!!!

Stuart!!