A mba july2018 by IMS Publications

editor from the

www.advancedge.com Editor-in-Chief Kamlesh Sajnani

Picture this. You’re attired in your dapper best, sitting in a chair in the waiting

lounge outside the interview room of your dream business school, awaiting your

turn to face the panel and begin your MBA journey. You’ve prepared well, you’re Editor Aditya Prakash Iengar

confident and you know that you will certainly give this your best shot. Now look around you. You’ll find so many others, exactly like yourself, all at the

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smartest, all waiting to capitalise on the same opportunity. Why, then, should you be chosen? What sets you apart from the crowd? What will make the interviewers sit up, look at each other, and say, “This is the candidate we

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want.”? The answer is simple: You. YOU are the reason why you will be chosen. So what have you done in your life that sets you apart?

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As the cover story in this issue mentions, now is the time that you take a long, hard look at yourself – who you are, what you stand for, what you have to offer the world. And of course, in the process, identify what makes you the perfect candidate for your dream business school. Basically, you need to understand the key areas of your profile that will attract

Address for Correspondence Advanc’edge MBA, IMS Publications, A Division of IMS Learning Resources Pvt. Ltd., E Block, 6th Floor,

institutes, and work on those, or identify ways in which you can improve your profile. And I’m talking about your academic record. Naturally, if you’re eyeing the best B-schools in the country, everyone will have a stellar academic record, just like you. So there’s much more to your profile, and in the cover story, we have

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provided a few ways in which you can build your profile and makes your bid for

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admission stronger than the rest.

Bandra (E), Mumbai - 400 051.

In this issue of Advanc’edge MBA, we have also outlined a great alternative Contributors Dr Suresh Srinivasan, Soumen Dutta, Aninda Basu

to the CAT – the GMAT. If your dream career lies in the field of management, the GMAT offers an equally good route, both for studying abroad as well as for institutes in India. We’ve broken down what you will need to take the GMAT and get a good score to give your application an edge.

Write to the editor at: editor@advancedge.com Websites: www.advancedge.com, www.imsindia.com www.facebook.com/advancedgeMBA

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole and in part without written permission is prohibited. Printed and published by Kamlesh Sajnani, on behalf of, IMS Learning Resources Pvt. Ltd., (CIN:U80220MH1999PTC121823) E Block, 6th Floor, NCL Bandra Premises, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (E), Mumbai - 400 051. Printed at Uchitha Graphic Printers Pvt. Ltd., 65, Ideal Ind. Est., Mathuradas Mill Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai - 13 and published at Mumbai.

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Your ultimate endgame is to find a career that will satisfy you for the next few decades of your life. And that starts with getting into a great management programme, and THAT journey starts in that waiting lounge, where you stand out among the crowd.

Aditya Prakash Iengar Editor

6/25/2018 7:24:32 PM

CONTENTS

July 2018

COVER STORY Stand out: How to improve your Profile

CORPORATE WORLD Modi Govt: Taking stock after 4 years

MBA BUZZ Understanding the GMAT story

Tata Motors and its turnaround trials

GMAT: Facts you should know

Govt’s divestment plan for Air India shelved?

COUNT DOWN Top 10 words of advice for would-be entrepreneurs

STUDY HOUR

SUCCESS STREET Why should marketers NOT talk?

Word Dose: Guests at dinner

NEWS SNIPPETS

Globescan

Flipkart-Walmart deal: What the future holds

SuDoKu

Disclaimer : The views expressed in the articles by contributors and others are not necessarily those of the Publishers, unless specifically stated therein. While no effort is spared in ensuring the accuracy of the information published herein, readers are advised to reconfirm the current facts before acting upon any such information. The Publishers regret their inability to accept responsibility for any inadvertent errors of commission or omission in this issue. Readers are recommended to make appropriate inquiries before incurring expenses or entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The publishers do not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of any products or services. The Publisher, Printers or Editor shall not be held liable for any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior permission from the publisher.

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Period 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years

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COVER STORY

Stand out: How to improve your Profile What does a B-school look for in an applicant? What should you have done until the applicatin process that might get you the admission? It’s all about having a good, varied profile, one that will show that you’ve done extraordinary things in an ordinary setting.

The Advanc’edge Team

the MBA and will turn you into a well-rounded individual.

Some of the specifics of the selection process First, let’s take a brief look at exactly what the B-schools consider for admission. There are some inorganic factors that

B-schools like good scores, be it the CAT, CMAT, GMAT, XAT, SNAP, etc. and previous academic record. As far as these factors are concerned, it’s all in the clear, as the lines are clearly drawn about who’s eligible to apply and who isn’t. Then there is the work experience

To get an admit to your dream B-school, you must have what the school is looking for. How does your profile stand out? Advanc’edge MBA July 2018

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ccording to a Harvard Business School admissions committee member, a successful business school application takes years to create, not a few months. While it may be true, let’s be honest about the whole thing. Nobody really knows that they will go after an MBA degree when they’re in, for instance, their 8th or even 10th standard. One doesn’t attain the maturity to take such a decision that will probably stay with your career for the rest of your life until perhaps one is well into one’s teens, perhaps even later. However, the essential basis of the statement is most certainly true — it does indeed take some time to build a profile that will ensure that you have a better chance of getting an admission into your dream B-school. But there’s hardly any need to despair, even if you feel that you have only a few months left. This is the time when you build on your profile, and hone it properly, and if you do it right, this will see you past

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criterion. No B-school in India will turn away freshers, i.e., those who don’t have any work experience before applying for MBA. This is unlike certain B-schools overseas, such as those in the US, which don’t accept freshers at all. In India, work experience is given a certain weightage during the admission process in most of the top institutes. However, after we’re past all of this, we come upon the “profile” criterion. During admission, B-schools tend to gauge the applicant’s profile, which is why it is called a profile-based selection. Unfortunately, this is usually accepted to be the most unclear part of the selection process, as B-schools jealously guard what parameters they use to determine the candidate’s acceptability to their programme. This means that apart from a few generic pointers, such as extra and co-curricular activities, involvement in sports and other events, etc, everything else is subjective. This is why it is imperative that before applying, or even thinking of applying, to a management institute, you take a good, long, hard look at yourself. Try to understand where you stand, and what you think you have to offer to the institute to which you’re applying.

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What kind of candidate are you? There are three categories of students who apply to a management institute. First are those who are already working in the industry and want to further their career. The second comprises candidates who have

received their undergraduate degree, and are concentrating full time on preparing for the entrance exams. Finally, the third are the freshers, who are still studying, and plan to move directly from their undergraduate colleges to the B-school. One can argue that those with work experience have an edge over the others. While that might be true, the advantage is quite overrated. The admission selection process takes into consideration far more. Candidates who have work experience do indeed have a slight edge, but it is only slight,

Every institute’s selection process is profile-based, but the parameters of a candidate’s acceptability are jealously guarded. and at times, may even be nullified by other applications. For instance, take the case of Vasumathi S, an IITKharagpur graduate who was applying for an MBA from the top management institutes in India. Vasumathi has regularly taken part in almost every event in her college during her engineering course, from dance, drama and debate through to voluntary field work and giving tuitions to underprivileged children through the Teach for India initiative. “I knew that it would be far better to do something than to just sit in my hostel room and study,” she said. “After all, education

is about much more than just learning up theories and sitting for exams.” Now, if you compare Vasumathi’s profile with all these activities apart from her studies, with an applicant who has only worked in a company for two years and hasn’t done anything much besides, Vasumathi emerges a far clearer choice for admission into a B-school, doesn’t she?

What you can do There are a whole host of things that B-schools look for in a candidate, and it is impossible to name them all, mostly because these parameters aren’t revealed by the institute. However, there are some factors that will be taken into consideration. And with just a few months left, these are the ones you can focus upon to try and build on your profile.

Cultivate a serious hobby This is probably the first thing you can do, and might even sound silly to many, but it isn’t as easy as it might seem at first glance. Almost everyone has some hobby or the other, but a serious one is something that not many cultivate. For instance, “reading” is a hobby that many people list in their application, along with other tired examples such as listening to music, watching movies, et al. However, the admissions committee (AdCom) members who will be evaluating your application are not looking for such worn out material. Therefore, if “reading” is a serious hobby, it will mean that it is something that gives you pleasure, and what you do whenever you have some free

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3 qualities you need to cultivate a serious hobby If you want to cultivate a serious hobby, here are the three qualities you need to have. If you don’t, it will remain merely a pastime, rather than something much more meaningful. 1. Dedication: You need to give all your free time to the hobby, which shouldn’t be difficult as it is something you love, right? What B-schools are trying to look for is how much time you dedicate to your hobby, and therefore, can you manage your time well. 2. Discipline: To cultivate a serious hobby, you need to maintain a high level of discipline, which is true for any hobby. If you get distracted and leave off your hobby, then it is not a serious one. The AdCom will not be impressed. 3. Focus: How focused are you on your hobby? Is it one of several you spend time on, or do you have one particular arena that keeps you focused? This again factors in the dedication you have for this hobby. Remember, the motivator to cultivate a serious hobby may be the admission process around the corner, but at the end of the day, this is something that will stay with you all your life. understand responsibility, and that you can follow through on your own commitments. There is another perspective to all of this. Your hobby, and your seriousness in it, tells a lot about yourself, so never discount something you’ve done as a hobby. Let us consider some other examples – travelling, playing the guitar in a band, mountaineering, etc. Why do you like to travel? Is it about the people that you meet, the nuances, the thrill of exploring someplace new? This speaks a lot about you. If you play the guitar and have performed at a number of gigs, it shows you have experience working with a team. If you’re a mountaineer, it means that you are a driven individual who can still keep his focus despite hardships. These are simply examples. The hobby can be anything else. Think of something that you love doing, but haven’t devoted much time to. Why you haven’t spent a lot of time doing something you loved can

be for any number of reasons – you were concentrating on studies, you had too much work on your hands, what have you! But, now is the best time to connect with yourself through this, gain a perspective about yourself through what you like.

Volunteer There are so many NGOs out there that are working for the betterment of society in whatever way possible. Have you ever thought of lending a hand? Probably not. But this is the sort of community service that B-schools like to see. The AdComs like to see a candidate going out of their routine to do something meaningful, productive, and which benefits society as a whole. Unfortunately, many candidates misinterpret this completely. In this race to build a good profile, many of them simply do some volunteer work for a few months until they get to the selection stage, and afterwards, forget about

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time. More importantly, just like any other serious hobby, this will define the sort of person that you are. According to IMS’s PG India Program Director Soumen Dutta, “I didn’t really read much when I was growing up. But lately, I’ve been reading a lot. And it’s about how I’m responding to what I’m reading, and how I find out about the sort of person I am through my reading.” For instance, Soumen recently read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and loved the book. He then started another book by the same author, but realised that according to him, the underlying themes were very similar. He then decided to keep reading works by different authors. He also realised the kind of genres that he loves, the ones he’s okay with, and others he just doesn’t prefer. His hobby, which was only a pastime earlier, has now turned into a serious hobby. “It’s all about finding order in the chaos. Instead of reading anything and everything, without rhyme or reason, you find a pattern in the randomness of your preferences. This will not only give you a very wholesome idea about the things you like, but also about yourself as a whole,” he said. Another example — start a blog. And maintain it. It can be about anything — writing what you feel like, a kind of personal diary, a photojournal, what have you. Maintaining that blog constantly will require a lot of discipline and effort, so if it is something you love doing, all the better. If you can ensure that you post something meaningful at least once every week, it will mean that you do have accountability, you

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Volunteering to work for an NGO is a great way to improve your profile, but meaningless unless you believe in the cause. it. However, whoever they might fool, rest assured that the AdComs won’t be taken in by this. If your volunteering work was done solely, so that you can list it among your achievements, they will see through it. Instead, think of something that you want to do for society. Stop a moment in your rushed, hectic, perhaps humdrum life, and put your mind to it – according to you, what do you think your society, especially what you see around you, needs? Look for an organisation that has a mission that you want to be a part of. Find an emotional connection and work on a problem that you have a passionate interest in solving. Once you have an idea, go to the NGO that works in that area. For instance, if you feel that it is imperative that children deserve better than to be made labourers on the street, volunteer with groups like Save The Children India or Goonj. If you feel that these children need to be educated, volunteer with a foundation that imparts education free of cost to these children, like

Pratham. If you think the most important thing to do is to conserve our environment, sign up with NGOs like Green Future Foundation or Ramakrishna Mission Lokashiksha Parishad. What you must not do is to run to different NGOs in the hope that a lot of community service would mean an advantage for you. Be sincere about it, identify your interest, and then volunteer. Naturally, your NGO work should be steeped in who you are, your personality and background. This is important to convince the AdComs that your interest had always existed, and not just a flash in the pan for a B-school admit. The AdComs really want to see that you have engaged with a community that you are passionate about serving and that the volunteer work you have done has importance and meaning to you. Remember, the quality of the experience is more important than quantity when it comes to community service. One significant leadership achievement can outweigh a laundry list of more limited volunteer work. You must also be aware

that various modes of money collection for an outfit such as HelpAge India doesn’t carry much weight. For an AdCom to assign any importance to your volunteering, you need to have made a meaningful, tangible impact on a person, community or to the NGO. Remember, even something like financial accounting for an NGO is a powerful contribution. On another note, what many B-schools look for in such examples of volunteer work or community service is whether you’ve achieved something on your own or not. If you’ve been able to make a significant contribution, that would certainly weigh in for you. And think about it, don’t you feel that you will be able to make a significant, important contribution only if you know what you’re doing, and love it?

Take up a part-time job or internship If you’re not already working somewhere, why not take up a small role in a company somewhere, part time or as an intern? But before you decide upon this, do your homework, and remember, never assume that the AdCom fellows are stupid. According to a faculty member and an AdCom member in one of the Symbiosis institutes, anything that you’ve done merely to boost your efforts of getting into their institute will be seen through. However, if improving your profile is only one of the reasons, and the others include the fact that you’re actually sincere about it, two thumbs up! “Think about where you want to be after your MBA, which field or industry you want to be

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in. Then identify a company in that sector, and take up a part time job,” said the AdCom member, and added, “This will serve several purposes, apart from strengthening your profile. Firstly, you’ll find out yourself about the sector, first hand. There’s absolutely no substitute for this. Wanting to work in an industry and knowing about it theoretically is all well and good, but actually working in it, knowing what it is all about and then making an informed decision to work in that field counts for much more. This will also show the AdCom that you’re serious about working in a sector.”

Learn a foreign language We don’t mean another Indian language that you don’t know. The best languages to learn today are Mandarin, Spanish, French and German. Study the language not just to improve your prospects of a B-school admit; it will also help your job prospects later. It will also show the AdCom that you like the prospect of a challenge, since learning a new language is a tough proposition, and that you are open to learning something new.

Do something out of the ordinary For those who are working, a lot of free time is a luxury rarely

enjoyed. So while they can still do all of the above, it would perhaps be unrealistic to expect the same level of dedication and commitment. Instead, ask yourself this: What kind of career progress have you made? Did you receive an out of turn promotion or appreciation? Did your responsibilities increase in your team? Have you acquired new skills? You will be evaluated on all of this. Therefore, volunteer for stretch assignments and unique projects. Showing up for work and doing what you’re told is a good formula for staying where you are, but it won’t get you promoted and it won’t get you into business school. If you want to earn a spot in a top business school, then you have to show initiative and distinguish yourself from your peers. Furthermore, if you’re working in an over-represented field for MBA applicants like finance or consulting, you will have to pursue unique projects that will set you apart, which may mean volunteering for projects that others are unable or unwilling to tackle. For example, one successful applicant from a consulting firm volunteered for an international assignment in the Middle East in the middle of summer that none of his colleagues were

willing to sign-up for. His admit letter was a great reward for the months he spent outrunning sandstorms and baking in the desert sun. Apart from all of this, you have to improve your own self, so that your profile stands up to scrutiny when you’re being interviewed. You need to have an idea about how businesses function. The AdCom doesn’t expect you to be the next Azim Premji or Ratan Tata in the making, although you might well be. What they do look for is basic business sense. For this, the only prescription is to keep reading up financial publications like the Economic Times, Business Standard, Bloomberg Businessweek, etc. Keep talking to people around you. This doesn’t mean gossip, but developing a meaningful conversation. Build on your communication skills. And don’t forget to be creative in what you do. Often, the difference between two candidates’ profiles lies in how they approached a similar situation – in their lives, workplaces, at their hobbies, etc. So remember, it is not too late to build a profile that will give you a good chance to get an admission. Be sincere, be honest with yourself, and be creative. For all the rest, it’s up to you. A

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Learning a foreign language like Mandarin or Spanish shows that you are willing to take up new and challenging projects.

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Understanding the GMAT story While the GMAT structure is quite well known to most test-takers, there is much more to the test than meets the eye. Understanding the nature of the test will really help you get the right perspective for your preparation and practice with the right purpose. The Advanc’edge Team

he GMAT is a statistically valid and universally understood measure of your aptitude (as defined by the GMAC, an association of business schools) for doing a business course. The scores and percentiles have only marginally changed over all of these years. Moreover, your GMAT score will be valid for 5 years.

GMAT vis-à-vis CAT Indian GMAT-takers need to understand this precisely, since

unlike Indian tests like the CAT, the GMAT is not a test of elimination but a measure of your aptitude. Thus, while a 720 on the GMAT means something precise, the same cannot be said about a score on the CAT — there is no standardised score to percentile conversion. Also on the CAT since difficulty levels, question types and number of questions vary drastically from year to year, it cannot be statistically proven that people getting

99 percentiles in different years have the same aptitude. This is not a problem for the Indian schools since the CAT is not intended to provide testtakers with a valid measure of their aptitude, it is for institutes to eliminate a bulk of the approximately 2 lakh testtakers appearing for the CAT every year. With the Select Section Order feature, the above sections can be taken in one of the following order:

The GMAT structure Test Structure

Duration

Question

AWA (Analytical Writing Assessment) IR (Integrated Reasoning)

30 minutes

1 essay topic

30 minutes

12 questions

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Quantitative Section Verbal Section

Total Duration of GMAT

Duration per Question

Question Types Analysis of Argument

150 Seconds Multi-Source Reasoning per Graphics Interpretation Question Two-Part Analysis Table Analysis 62 31 120 Seconds Data Sufficiency minutes questions per Problem Solving Question 65 36 108 Seconds Reading Comprehension minutes questions per Critical Reasoning Question Sentence Correction 210 minutes (including breaks)

Scoring System Scored on a scale of 0-6 Scored on a scale of 1-8

Scored on the scale of 0-60 (practically 7-51) Scored on the scale of 0-60 (practically 9-44)

Total Score on the scale of 200-800

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The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) measures your ability to think critically and to communicate your ideas. During the AWA, you are asked to analyse the reasoning behind a given argument and write a critique of that argument. The Integrated Reasoning section measures your ability to evaluate information presented in multiple formats from multiple sources — skills you need to succeed in our technologically advanced, data-driven world. The GMAT showcases all of your skills — not just math. The Verbal section measures your ability to read and understand written material, to evaluate arguments, and to correct written material to conform to standard written English.

Standardisation runs right down to question-level The GMAT is precisely defined not only at an area-level, but also at a question-type level. For example, within Critical Reasoning there are fixed question-types like Weaken, Strengthen, Conclusion, Assumption and Inference and so on. The same is the case both with the errors tested on Sentence Correction and the topics tested on the Quantitative section.

A computer-adaptive test One of the unique things about the GMAT is that it is a computeradaptive test — a test where

questions are calibrated to the level of the test-taker. So easy questions are not posed to a testtaker likely to get a high score, and tough ones are not posed to a test-taker who is not likely to do well on the test. Hence, everything hinges on the level of the test-taker, which the test’s algorithm predicts. The test will thus start with a question of moderate difficulty. If the test-taker answers it correctly, the algorithm poses a question of slightly higher difficulty and if the test-taker answers it incorrectly then the algorithm poses an easier question.

The GMAT is a computer adaptive test, meaning that the questions are calibrated according to the level of the test taker. A great test of competence The beauty of the GMAT is that despite the fact that everything is so transparent and so many actual old GMAT questions are available for practice, the test is not a cakewalk, with only 2% of the takers likely to score a 750 or above. Every question-type needs to be tackled with a precise strategy. For example, there is a foolproof test on how to solve the Assumption question type on Critical Reasoning. Once a testtaker understands this properly, there is only a certain amount of practice that he or she would need — not more than 20 questions

to ensure that 9 out of 10 times you get an assumption question right. The specific content of the question then becomes just a wrapper once you have mastered the underlying algorithm. The same applies to all other question types tested on the GMAT.

The GMAT score Verbal and Quant scores have a range from 0 to 60, but the actual range of scores that test-takers get is narrower. The actual range of scores is from 9 to 44 for the Verbal section with 45+ being rare and 7 to 51 for the Quantitative section, with 52+ being rare. The sectional scores are calculated based on • The number of questions answered within the stipulated time • The number of questions answered correctly • The level of difficulty of the questions posed There is no negative marking in the test, but if you run out of time and leave questions unanswered, the penalty is very steep — 1 point for every unanswered question would be a rough estimate. If you’re running out of time, randomly guessing and choosing answers can be done, however inadvisable it may be, under other circumstances!

It’s not just about the GMAT Given the fact that in India, fates are decided solely based on test scores, be it 12th boards or JEE or AIEEE, Indian GMATtakers tend to place an inordinate amount of importance on the GMAT score. They book a date for the test just a few weeks before the application deadline, giving themselves enough time and more time to crack the test. While the GMAT score is an important component of your

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1. Analytical Writing Assessment -> Integrated Reasoning -> Quantitative -> Verbal 2. Quantitative -> Verbal -> Integrated Reasoning -> Analytical Writing Assessment 3. Verbal -> Quantitative -> Integrated Reasoning -> Analytical Writing Assessment

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application, an equally important component is the quality of your application essays. A great GMAT score, even a 780 out of 800, does not guarantee an admission. Apart from the GMAT score, institutes look for academic accomplishments, quality and diversity of work experience and personal profile, extra-curricular accomplishments. All these can be captured in a resume format. The institutes also evaluate your vision or life-goals, your leadership qualities, your attitude towards life, your approach to adversity, etc, all of these things are measured through your application essays.

of the bag, in terms of all results being declared, only by the end of May. This is when the GMAT — the usual plan B — starts rearing its head and in actual prep starts in June after a recuperation period of a few weeks! Plan a test date keeping the application essays in mind. Given the importance of your application essays in the selection process, it makes sense to arrive at a test-date with at least a 30day window before your first application deadline. The ideal sequence for planning an MBA should be:

phase is to work between tests to gain the maximum score increase possible between your first and your last mock. This means that you will need to • Spend time analysing your test with a fine-toothed comb and precisely identify problem areas. • Work on these areas so that when in the next test, you make fewer mistakes from those areas.

Up to 3 months in prep phase The duration of the prep phase purely depends on the test-taker’s ability, and the following table provides a classification of test takers (and

Preparing for the GMAT In terms of preparation, quality of practice becomes much more important than its quantity. A lot of test-takers preparing for the GMAT erroneously believe that just solving more and more questions will bump up their score. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The GMAT is a test that demands very limited, but intense and precisely targeted preparation rather than an extended prep, involving endless practice.

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Start prep with a test date in mind The application deadlines of schools start towards the end of the year (around September). Now, the GMAT can be taken all the year round, but test-slots are not available with equal ease all year round — test-slots are easy to get during the first six months of the year, but as the year draws to a close it is almost impossible to get a slot of your choice! This is because either you want to give maximum time for your preparation and push closer to the deadline, and the queue gets crowded, or the CAT is finally out

Optimum time for GMAT prep The short answer is — a minimum of 2.5 months and a maximum of 4 months. The optimum time needed depends on the test-taker, but the prep phase for any test has two components — the prep-phase and the testing-phase. A 15-30 day testing phase is must The GMAT is a long test with the test duration totalling up to 3.5 hours, including the break time. So, in a sense it is as much a test of mental stamina as it is of quantitative and verbal aptitude. You might be used to working long hours, but 3.5 hours of intense, sustained test-taking effort is something that is qualitatively different from the effort required at work. So, the first goal of your testing phase is to develop test-taking stamina, by ensuring that you take a certain number of mock tests before your actual test date — from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 15. The second goal of your testing

t h e time they’ll need) on the scaled scores that they can secure without any prep. Whether you join a classroom course or prepare on your own,

Quant Verbal Prep Phase Score Score Duration 45

45 days

75 days

90 days

your prep-phase if done diligently and with regularity should not last more than 3 months in most cases. The only exceptions are test-takers with a lot of work experience or those that are really weak in one of the two areas, Quant and Verbal. In such cases the prep-phase can be stretched up to 4 months. So the optimum time to prepare for the GMAT would be 3 months — 2.5 months of prepping and 1/2 month of testing. Now that you know all about the GMAT and what it takes, is it for you? A

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MBA BUZZ

GMAT: Facts you should know You are currently preparing for the CAT — and other tests like the XAT, SNAP, NMAT, etc. But do you have a Plan B in mind, in case you don’t crack the tests? In this article, we explore the merits and advantages of the GMAT, which you should consider as a viable alternative. Aninda Basu

Program Director, IMS Centre for International Education

GMAT – Some facts Let’s get a few myths out of the way first. It is widely believed that the GMAT is a test for international B-schools or Indian executive MBA programmes and therefore it’s a test to be taken by aspirants with significant work experience. Well, that’s true. The fact is that through the GMAT, you can get into many top notch schools worldwide (such as London Business School, Kellogg School of Management, etc) with

limited or no work experience at all. And as of today, the GMAT is steadily finding acceptance in the flagship programmes (including ones that require no work experience) of top notch Indian B-schools (such as ISB, SP Jain, Great Lakes Institute of Management, MICA, XUMB, IMT, TAPMI and more). In this issue of Advanc’edge, we shall focus on the top international B-school programmes that require little or no work experience, and are worthy of being considered as an alternate to your top Indian B-schools. But, before we get into this discussion, let’s focus

It is a myth that the GMAT is a test only for global B-schools, since it is steadily finding acceptance in top Indian flagship programmes.

on the GMAT and why you should definitely consider this test as your alternate test.

Why GMAT is a “perfect” alternate option? Apart from the fact that there is a plethora of good B-schools you can get into, with or without work experience, the test too offers a lot of advantages over other tests. Let’s have a look: The GMAT is a safe bet: One of the most scientifically designed tests, the GMAT is extremely standardised and has no “shock elements”. Here is why nothing can beat the GMAT when it comes to standardisation: a. The test structure (section sequence, timing and breaks), question types, subject areas and even sub-topics are extremely well defined. b. The GMAT is computer adaptive. This means that the test adapts itself based on how you perform. If you keep getting questions wrong, you start getting easy questions, and with higher levels of accuracy, you start seeing

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ost of you are planning to appear for Indian entrance tests for MBA, such as the CAT. Given the high competition in such tests, you must have quite a few questions lingering in the back of your mind at this stage – what happens if you don’t do well in this test? What if there was an alternate option which could save a year for you in case you don’t get a school of your choice? There is certainly an option that’s worthy of being considered an alternate to the best of our national entrance tests — the GMAT. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

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MBA BUZZ

accuracy. Thus the score that you get in the end is extremely predictable. c. Tests such as CAT typically see a wide variation in scores and their corresponding percentiles since the student base (and therefore the percentile pool) changes every year and so does the test. The GMAT, however, does not discard the percentile scores every year. Therefore, historically there has been limited change in the score – or percentile conversions. A 700 on the GMAT has historically been close to 88 percentile. d. With the GMAT, you need not go around preparing for anything and everything. Instead, you need to do an extremely targeted preparation. If you have prepared well for the test, your score will certainly reflect that as deviation. As compared to other tests, the standard deviation of performance in practice tests and the actual GMAT test is extremely low.

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Take less time to prepare: While candidates normally spend anywhere from 6 months to 1 year to prepare for Indian entrance tests, the GMAT takes 1 to 4 months to prepare. This is basically because the question types and topics are well defined. The level of questions asked in the Quantitative section is basic high school mathematics. You can prepare for the GMAT along with Indian tests: If you have prepared for the CAT or other Indian B-school entrance tests, you have basically covered a lot of concepts in the GMAT. What remains is the test specific strategies.

Unlike the CAT, percentiles don’t change every year. Hence, a 700 on the GMAT has historically been close to 88 percentile. You can retake the GMAT after 16 days, up to 5 times in a year: Indian tests are typically held once a year. If you took the test and weren’t happy with your scores, you have to wait for another year to reappear for the test – delaying your plans by a year. The GMAT, on the other hand, is held all through the year. Also, if you are not happy with your score, you can simply cancel it and retake after 16 days. And finally, you can take the test up to 5 times in a year — so basically you get 5 attempts a year. Who can beat that? GMAT scores are valid for 5 years: Imagine you took an Indian entrance test this year and scored a 96 percentile. You were not happy with the schools you were getting and planned to retake the test next year and score a 98 or 99 percentile. What if your score takes a dip instead – say you end up with a 92 percentile? What will you do

now? You can no longer use the 96 percentile that you scored the previous year. The GMAT gives a huge advantage in this aspect – your scores are valid for 5 years. You can retake the test and use the score 2 years later, and B-schools will treat you equal to those who are applying with fresh scores. Power of score cancellation and re-instatement: The moment you complete your test, you see your unofficial score report (no more aching fingers for keeping them crossed for months before you get your CAT scores). Now there can be two scenarios – you either get a score that makes you happy, or you get a score that doesn’t match your expectation. The GMAT allows you to cancel your score in such a case. So, if you scored a 710 while you were expecting a 750, cancel your score and it gets wiped off the records. However, if you like, you can always get back the scores by reinstating them, for up to 4 years and 11 months from the date of the test! Choose your test date and time slot: You can choose your test date and time slot as per your convenience at any time in the year, since the GMAT is held all through the year.

Cracking the GMAT & CAT Abhishek Aggarwal, a student of IMS Delhi, who appeared for CAT and GMAT and scored a 99+ percentile in both. Today, he has admits from London Business School (ranked 6th in the world) as well as IIM A apart from a host of other league international and Indian B-schools. Another interesting fact is that Abhishek, like many of you is a recent graduate with no work experience – but we will come to that later.

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MBA BUZZ

Some Indian B-Schools accepting GMAT

IIM Bangalore - EPGP

Praxis Business School - Business Analytics

IIM Calcutta - PGPEX

ISB, Hyderabad & Mohali - EEO

IIM Calcutta - VLMP

ISB, Hyderabad & Mohali - YLP

IIM Lucknow - IPMX

Xavier University Bhubaneshwar (XIMB) -MBAGlobal

IIM Indore - EPGP XLRI - PGDM (GM) MDI Gurgaon - NMP

SP Jain School of Global Management - MGB

SPJIMR - PGPM

S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research - PGDM

IIM Bangalore - PGP-PPM (Public Policy) XIMB - Executive MBA SP Jain School of Global Management - Global MBA

Great Lakes Institute of Management -PGDM MICA - PGDM-C

IMT Ghaziabad

IIM Udaipur - PGPX (with Purdue Krannert)

IMI Delhi

ISB Hyd / Mohali - PGP

MISB Bocconi

Great Lakes Institute of Management -PGPM

TAPMI

Top MBA options for aspirants with 2+ years of work experience USA

Top MiM options for aspirants with 0-2 years of work experience Univ of St Gallen

Switzerland

HEC Paris

France

University of Pennsylvania: Wharton

IE Business School

Spain

Harvard Business School

London Business School

University of Chicago: Booth

ESSEC Business School

France

Columbia Business School

MIT: Sloan

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Asia National University of Singapore

Singapore

Nanyang Business School

Singapore

Singapore Management University

Singapore

CEIBS

China

HKUST

China

Europe INSEAD

France

HEC Paris

France

London Business School

University of Cambridge: Judge

IE Business School

Spain

IESE Business School

Spain

To summarise Based on all the information above, whatever your current plans might be, you can always consider the GMAT as a parallel option to reduce the risks that you bear. Now, even if you are impressed with the flexibility that the GMAT offers, remember that at the end of the day, it is just a test. Your objective is to get into a top ranked B-school. How does the GMAT help? We are well aware that many international B-schools look for 2 year of work experience for their MBA programmes. But what about those who do not have the required work experience? There are many programmes for such students, typically called Masters in Management, or MIM programmes. Keep a lookout for the next issue of Advanc’edge to read all about MIMs.

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IIM Ahmedabad - PGPX (min age 27 yrs)

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COUNT DOWN

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SUCCESS STREET

Why should marketers NOT talk? Yes, you read the headline right. Contrary to what you must have been hearing all around you, there is a very good reason for marketers not to jabber on in an effort to make a sale or reach out to a customer. Read on to find out.

Soumen Dutta

Program Director, PG India

arketers are prone to talk, talk and then talk some more. After all, Sales is the major indicator of marketing success for most companies. And the commonest myth about Sales is that you need to be a great talker to sell. But busting that myth is for another day. Today, we talk of the poor marketer. Having contracted the ‘talk bug’, most marketers believe in talking – the bedrock of assertive, convincing communication only. What they forget, however, is to use their auditory organ and their visual organ in a more meaningful way. A marketer should listen, observe and converse, not separately hear, see and talk.

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So how are these ideologies different?

two

Let’s start with talking. In plain vanilla, talking is all about speaking aloud what’s on your mind or whatever your agenda is for that day. You decide the topic, you build the tempo, you reach the climax and you bask the glory of your own verbal orgasm. As you can see, you become the most

important element here. The listener, unless he’s the proverbial believer, would have been left behind somewhere along the way, perhaps even before you had reached a quarter of your monologue. If you are a little more considerate, you would have

A marketer should listen, observe and converse, not separately hear, see and talk, in order to have a meaningful conversation. allowed the listener to interject a few guttural sounds of acceptance. Even better — he would have managed to get a few words in edgeways, at least beyond the simple Yeses and Uhhuhs. A conversation, though, is a

different waltz altogether. First of all, it has got to be a togetherthing. To strike a conversation with someone, the topic has to be of mutual interest; positive or negative interest is irrelevant. Building a conversation will always need the right pointers and fillers. If you want to be the one directing the conversation, you will need to put in feelers and leading points to the other unsuspecting participants. This will help avoid straying unnecessarily from the primary topic, or even a necessary lateral movement to a different topic. Sometimes, you control the flow merely by giving it a direction. That is the subtlety that creates the difference between a great talker, and one who is great to talk to.

How not to conversation

have

A: What’s gone wrong with the weather? Today’s terribly hot! B: Why? What’s wrong with it? Isn’t weather is supposed to be chaotic? It is in nature’s domain and so highly unpredictable.

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How to have a conversation A: What’s gone wrong with the weather? Today’s terribly hot! B: Why? What’s wrong with it? A: Don’t you feel it? Yesterday was cold and today it’s blistering hot. B: I do. But, well, weather is supposed to be chaotic. Isn’t it? A: Yeah, but this much of fluctuations. No wonder the met is going wrong everyday. B: It’s nature’s domain. And you know how it is. That is why maybe people have used weather as a metaphor for unpredictably changeable things. C: That’s true. I was reading a book yesterday on the ....

So how does all this relate to being a marketer? In most cases, our visual stimuli dominate our thought process. But sometimes, these are left out. Our mental faculties are employed to continuously churn out the auditory combinations (words and sentences) for others to digest. However, we fail to register the much more important visual and auditory stimuli given out by the other participants. In other words, talking is mostly

accompanied by two things: Inadequate hearing, and selective seeing of what others are doing; we speak without observing how others are reacting to us. This is the exact sequence of activities that brands today are following in their marketing practices. Promises, prophecies and projections of self-glory supersede the basic observation of customer behaviour and the fundamental requirement of listening to customer views. Very often, marketers fail to notice the shifts in customer preferences, because they don’t pay heed to the small changes in the behaviour and conversations of customers. To correct such a precarious situation, one needs to have more conversations, accompanied by hawkeyed observation and careful listening to others.

So here’s the million dollar question: How? If I were to cull out the essence from the meaningful conversations that I have had in my decade-old career, the following would be a gist. The Conversation: How to converse? 1. Don’t dictate the flow of conversation. Let it flow. Let people contribute. 2. Put in feelers and pointers to guide it in the direction you want. 3. Bring in exciting facts. Do not convert it into a debate of how your point is better. 4. Try maximum involvement of people. 5. It’s okay to be emotional. Once in a while, vent and let go of the outburst! And then go back to observations. The Observation: A few things to observe 1. Physical body shifts: Whether

someone is changing from an active position to a laid back leaning position. This means the person is losing interest or becoming a passive observer. 2. Facial expression changes: Exasperation, anger, dismissal are emotions that are very difficult to hide. Try looking for them, and react accordingly. 3. Intent to participate in the conversation: Identify who really wants to participate, and who moves out on the pretext for drinking water. The Listening: A few things to note 1. The tone with which someone converses about a particular topic shows the person’s emotional involvement with it. Notice the tonality of the general segment and not just a single person. 2. Active or passive: Is a particular segment more active in the conversation, or are there particular people who are completely passive? Can you find the reasons behind people being passive or active? 3. Are people voicing their own concerns, issues and feelings, or are they following someone or something? Who or what are these influencers in the context of that topic? Of course, neither is this article a complete guide to a conversation, nor is a single conversation about a topic enough to give a complete picture. It will only fill a part of the jigsaw puzzle. And the more conversations that marketers can have, the better will be their understanding of the market and the consumers. After all, a world where marketers and consumers understand each other is a better one, right? A

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A: Yes, but… B: That is why the Met department’s predictions are going wrong every day. And for thousands of years people have used weather as a metaphor for something that is unpredictably changeable. And most of us are pretty unaffected by weather. A: But... B: You live in an AC condo, travel in a SUV and work in an air conditioned office 4 blocks away. So what are you complaining so much about? You hardly feel the change in weather at all. So don’t complain. Let’s get back to work. B: …!

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NEWS SNIPPETS

News in brief

Here are some interesting titbits from over the last month Kim Jong Un met Donald Trump In a historic meeting, US President met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Singapore. This was the first time sitting American and North Korean leaders had a face to face meeting. The meeting resulted in several significant developments; North Korea has stated that it will start denuclearising itself, joint drills between the US and South Korea have been halted. But the most important can be seen as the de-escalation of nuclear war that had been a possibility after weeks of the American and North Korean leaders exchanging hostilities. Furthermore, Trump has gone on record saying that he trusts Kim Jong Un to keep his word regarding denuclearisation, and that he believes the North Korean dictator ‘wants to do the right thing’.

US withdrew from UN Human Rights Council The United States announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling it ‘hypocritical and self-serving’. The US blamed the council for refusing to eject member nations that were violating human rights, naming Russia, Cuba, China and Egypt. The US’s exit comes after earlier withdrawal from UNESCO and the UN climate treaty. Notably, the withdrawal came during a time when the US administration was facing a lot of flak for its immigration policies, wherein children were being separated from parents during several deportation rounds.

Swiggy raised its biggest funding of $210mn Online food delivery service provider Swiggy raised its biggest funding round every, to the tune of $210 million. The funding round was led by South African group Naspers and Hong Kong investment group DST Global. This funding brings the Bengaluru-based startup’s total tally of funding to $465 million, in seven rounds. Existing investor Meituan-Dianping, a Chinese internet firm, has also invested in the latest funding round, along with new investor Coatue Management.

ICICI’s Chanda Kochhar on leave Beleaguered ICIC Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar has gone on leave, even as the bank board instituted an independent probe after receiving notices from various agencies, as well as the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The board has also created the new position of Chief Operating Officer, and handed the portfolio to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance head Sandeep Bakshi.

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Can serve notices over Whatsapp: Bombay HC The Bombay High Court upheld that a notice served through popular messaging platform WhatsApp is acceptable. Traditionally, a legal notice that a matter is being taken to court is physically handed to the party, and was later updated to include email as well. In a recent case involving the SBI Cards and Payments Services, Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay HC stated that the message sent to the defendant via Whatsapp – containing a text with the details of the case as an attachment – had received the blue tick, which signifies that the user has read the message, and upheld that the notice was served.

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Audi CEO arrested in diesel emissions scandal German automaker Audi’s CEO Rupert Stadler was arrested in connection with an investigation into the diesel emissions scandal. Munich prosecutors are investigating him for suspected fraud and false advertising in connection with emissions test cheating by Audi. The company and its chief executive has been under fire ever since Audi admitted to using cheating software in November 2015, barely months after Volkswagen admitted to the same. The technique of using software to detect a pollution test procedure, and to increase the effectiveness of emissions filters to mask pollution levels during tests, was first developed at Audi.

Football fans’ excitement caused earthquake? The delirious excitement and movement of Mexico fans at a stadium in Mexico City led to a non-government agency declaring via Twitter that an artificial earthquake had occurred. Fans cheered Mexico’s upset win over Germany in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and caused noticeable vibrations that were picked up by Mexico’s National Seismological Service. However, the official agency later clarified that the recorded seismograph vibrations were in fact a natural occurrence. Moreover, other experts have clarified that vibrations of this sort are often recorded as ‘white noise’ in the seismograph report.

India’s utility solar capacity grows 72% in 2018: Report According to report by solar consulting firm Bridge To India, India’s utility solar capacity grew by a massive 72% in 2017-18 over the previous year. A total of 9.1GW of utility solar was installed, against 5.5GW in 2016-17. The total solar installation in the country has been pegged at 10.4GW, including rooftop solar plants and off grid solutions. This has boosted India’s cumulative solar capacity to 24.4GW. In 2018, Karnataka added the most capacity, followed by Telangana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. China is leading in the world, with solar capacity passing 100GW in 2017, followed by the US at 55.9GW.

India to face suppressed wages by 2030? India will be the only economy in the world that will not enjoy an upward revision of wages by 2030, according to a Korn Ferry report The Global Talent Crunch. This is ostensibly due to a surplus of talent in India, in contrast to the global shortage of skilled employees that will drive up salaries of the most sought after workers. Japan is expected to pay the most.

The Global Talent Crunch analysed global demand for labour at three key milestones, 2020, 2025 and 2030, in 20 markets, including in India, across three sectors, financial and business services, technology, media and telecommunications and manufacturing.

In a first for India, a team from the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad discovered a planet revolving around a sun-like star around 600 light years away. The planet is six times bigger than the earth, with its mass about 27 times that of the earth’s. The planet and the star have been named EPIC. However, the planet has been deemed to uninhabitable as it is too close to its star. It is important to note that the discovery was made with indigenous equipment, in fact using a spectrograph designed by the PRL. With this discovery, India joins the list of only a few countries that have discovered planets around stars.

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Indian team discovered planet

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NEWS SNIPPETS

Hyperloop plan in India still in its nascence Months after reports surfaced in November 2017 of a Hyperloop channel from Bengaluru to Chennai, the Maharashtra government has declared that it is also considering a Hyperloop corridor between Mumbai and Pune. This, according to reports, will reduce the 4-hour travel time to around 25 minutes. The Richard Branson-led Hyperloop One has been in consultation with the India for launching Hyperloop systems in the country, and feasibility studies have been underway for a while now. Currently, the Maharashtra government has announced that a test run has been scheduled for 2019, following which the project will be thrown open to the public by 2025. However, clarity is still lacking on both the technology and regulatory fronts.

Indians shifting towards automatic cars? High traffic congestion and technological improvements have been driving more and more Indians towards adopting automatic cars. In the last two years, the Indian market for automatic cars has nearly doubled, currently accounting for between 10-12% of overall auto sales. The automatic passenger car market is set to cross sales of 5 lakh units by 2019, with the current tally at around 3.7 lakh units. For instance, about 65% of Toyota Yaris bookings are for automatic variants, while for the new Honda Amaze, this is about 30%. The automatic variant share of Maruti Suzuki, the passenger vehicle market leader, has also seen an increase of 65% over the previous year; the company sold 1.52 lakh automatic vehicles. Interestingly, while the automatic car market for Maruti’s sub-`12 lakh space is at around 14%, the same for pricier cars shoots up to 50%.

Data consumption in India is exploding India will consume 14 exabytes (or 1 million TB) of data per month in five years, compared to 1.3 exabytes last year. While metros accounted for an increase of more than 60% in mobile subscriptions between 2011 and 2017, the rest of the country saw a roughly 85% increase. The data hunger in India is driven, to a great extent, by video streaming, which contributes as much as 70-75% of mobile data traffic. According to Prasanto Roy, vice president of NASSCOM, Internet in India is penetrating into the next 300 million users, who consume less text and more video because they are largely nonEnglish speaking and have lower literacy levels. Meanwhile, data usage at railways stations is higher than ever, with 75 lakh users consuming more than 7,100 terabytes (TB) of data in April 2018, alone at 370 railway stations offering WiFi services. This is up from 1600 TB last year across 110 stations.

India bagged a 2nd Grand Prix at Cannes 2018 Advertising agency Ogilvy India bagged a Grand Prix in the Creative Effectiveness Lions category for its ‘Healthy Hands Chalksticks’ for the ITC-owned soap brand Savlon. India’s winning spree at Cannes Lions stood at 21 medals, including two Grand Prix, four Gold, six Silver and nine Bronze Lions. The first Grand Prix was won by TBWA, India for ‘Blink to Speak’ campaign. In addition, old Ogilvy hand chief creative officer Piyush Pandey, along with brother and noted ad filmmaker of Corcoise Films Prasoon Pandey, were awarded this year’s Lion of St. Mark award for outstanding contributions to the industry. The duo became the first Asians to be felicitated with the honour.

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Sikka named in complaint against SAP HANA Cloud-based data and analytics firm Teradata has filed a complaint in a US court against German firm SAP alleging trade secret misappropriation, copyright infringement and antitrust violations. The complaint said that among other instances of misappropriation, SAP used Teradata trade secrets to optimise the processing of certain Open SQL queries for large volumes of data, enabling improved performance speed and opportunities for parallel processing and other enhancements on SAP’s HANA. On information and belief, key SAP employees, including Vishal Sikka, the so-called ‘mastermind’ of HANA, were aware of and supported SAP’s misappropriation of Teradata’s trade secrets during the development of HANA. Sikka has denied the charges, terming the accusations ‘baseless and outrageous’.

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CORPORATE WORLD

Modi Govt: Taking stock after 4 years In the 4 years since the current government came to power, the economy has seen upward and downward spurts of growth, large scale initiatives like the demonetisation and the implementation of the GST, and banking sector reforms. In the wake of the 2019 general elections, a report. Dr Suresh Srinivasan

Economic growth The overall economy recorded growth from the first year of the new Modi government’s rule. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was around 6.4% in 2013-14, which was the last year of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. This

figure increased to around 7.4% in 2014-15 and 8.2% in the 201516 under the BJP. Some sceptics and analysts attribute such increase in the GDP to the method of capturing the GDP, moving from a ‘factor cost’ based method to ‘market price’ method. There is certainly logic for such an

Capturing India’s GDP moved from the earlier ‘factor cost’ based method to the current ‘market price’ method. argument — at the market price basis does throw up a higher growth, compared to the earlier method. However, such change in calculations more or less aligns India’s GDP calculation criteria to the way many developed and developing economies calculate their GDP. Hence, it must be admitted that

there is a component of change in calculation that inflated India’s GDP for the first two years, as well as subsequent years of the Modi government, especially when comparing with earlier GDP figures.

Public sentiment That being said, we cannot ignore the strong mandate with which the Modi government came to power, and it is a fact that at the time, expectations were sky high — all of these had a positive impact on the public sentiments. After years of the UPA regime, the country was expecting things to change at the swing of a magic wand, and believed that the Modi government would deliver on such high expectations. A few of these included sharp economic growth, deepening and strengthening of the manufacturing sector, largescale employment creation, relief for farmers across rural India and bringing back black monies that were being hoarded abroad. During the first two years of the Modi government, this expectant mood was visible at

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he current NDA government assumed office under the prime ministership of Narendra Modi on May 26, 2014. The government has now completed 4 full years in office, and will be going back to the people of India in 2019 for a second term mandate. The journey of the government over the last 4 years has been anything but smooth; it has been quite volatile, to be precise. Especially in the light of the mandate that was given to the BJP, political analysts had in fact predicted that the Modi-led government would flawlessly coast to victory and to a second term, thereafter holding power undisputedly till 2023. However, the prediction isn’t as set in stone as this, and after 4 years, it is interesting to revisit the situation.

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CORPORATE WORLD

all levels across most of the country. The high optimism naturally led to very positive market sentiments. To add to it, the diplomacy of Modi’s frequent overseas visits to other nations spread the word of optimism across the globe. Expectations were building up among Indian voters that a major breakthrough was in the offing. Most foreign governments reacted favourably to Modi’s diplomacy and initiatives — be it make in India, Startup India, Swachh Bharath or the several ‘town hall’ type of talks that Modi conducted in many cities across the world.

Demonetisation In spite of all of the positive vibe, the economic growth in 2016-17 and 2017-18 saw a significant dip — first falling to 7.1% and subsequently to 6.6%. The demonetisation and note ban that was implemented on November 8, 2016 shook the economy irrespective of caste, creed and strata, and had a

lasting impact for almost 7 to 8 months. The demonetisation seriously impacted the GDP growth figures for 2016-17. Although the impact in terms of numbers is a mere fall from 8.2% in the previous year to 7.1% in 2016-17, the damage the note ban caused to citizens and the industry was quite far reaching, and left a scar and a dipping of sentiment in the minds of people that may become difficult to erase. The arguments in favour of the note ban lauded the courage and confidence with which the Modi government implemented the ban. However, the benefits that were to be reaped from such an exercise that, in reality, adversely affected even the lowest strata of the society, remain unexplained even almost two years after the implementation. It may well be that this experience will go down in history as a good bout of learning for any government that comes to power, albeit with unprecedented mandate!

Introduction of GST The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced on July 1, 2017. There were several short term glitches in the implementation, and these had a bearing on the economic activity and did actually cause further slowdown in the country’s economic growth during 2017-18. However, this initiative is different from the note ban. Was there ever any doubt about whether the Modi government should have implemented the GST? The answer is quite simple: No. The governments, both past and present, did not have a choice. The GST had to be implemented, and country’s complex indirect tax structure had to be simplified, no question about it! The issue had finally boiled down to this fact: Which government would take the risk of actually implementing the GST, especially given the quantum of change management that the implementation

INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE M&A deals total `15,000 crore Close to `15,000 crore worth of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions were agreed in 2017 as the Indian e-commerce industry witnessed a high pace of growth. With the actual execution of the Flipkart-Walmart deal likely to happen soon in 2018, many more such deals will certainly be in the offing.

Sistema sells RelComm stake, exits market

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Russia’s Sistema JSFC has fully sold its 10% stake in Reliance Communications, becoming the latest foreign operator to exit the troubled Indian telecom market. Sistema has purportedly lost around $4 billion on its investments. Other foreign players who decided to exit the Indian market include Telenor, which had formed a joint venture with Unitech Wireless, and Videocon and Loop Telecom, which sold off their spectrum to Bharti Airtel.

Voltas-Ardutch JV on home appliances start manufacturing setup Voltbek Home Appliances is a joint venture that came into in May last year between Voltas and Ardutch BV that is setting up its first manufacturing facility in Sanand, Gujarat to manufacture home appliances, including refrigerators and washing machines. Voltbek has laid the ground to start construction of their first manufacturing facility in Sanand, spread over 60 acres.

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would entail and the potential backlash in the short term. Over the last 18 months, the GST and the system are certainly stabilising. The Modi government should be given its due for completing an exercise that had remained pending for decades and aligning our tax practices towards a structure that is similar to other global financial superpowers.

Banking sector reform Serious reforms in the banking sector carried out by the Modi government cannot be ignored. Amendments to the Banking Regulations Act of 1949, and bringing in the new Banking Regulations (Amend) Bill of 2017, the involvement of the Reserve Bank of India and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and initiating proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code of 2016 are all far reaching reforms. These together have the potential to solve the stressed asset problems of banks to a large extent, should these reforms be continued in a sustained manner in subsequent terms.

Year Four The

fourth

year

Modi’s

India’s ranking among the countries of the world with respect of ease of doing business from 134 to 100 over the last 4 years. governance has been a bit challenging, especially with the increase in the global crude oil price that had remained quite benign over the last 3 years. With this increase comes a host of other complexities like inflation, interest rate hikes that could hamper economic growth, a weakening of the currency and depletion of foreign reserves. More importantly, the increase in fuel prices at the pump is highly visible, and the common man is straight away impacted, both financially, and more importantly from 2019’s election point of view, emotionally. All of this brings us back to the question: Does the Modi government have an impressive report card that will bring it back to power in the forthcoming general elections

of 2019? This is the million dollar question, one to which we don’t have an answer at the moment! What is certain is that winning elections in a country like India is a totally different ball game when compared to offering good governance and strengthening economic reforms as vote-winning initiatives! Stock market sentiments are interesting and have remained quite high all through the 4 years. The market may just be intelligent enough to digest the economic positives, but could react quite negatively in the coming days as global crude oil prices increase and its implications fully set in! A number of other smaller but powerful reforms were brought in, and these have steadily improved India’s ranking with respect of ease of doing business from 134 to 100 over the last 4 years. Again, while the short term pain points of these reforms — the GST implementation and process for stressed assets resolution — were handled by the Modi government, these reforms will have longer term benefits, and governments (either the current one or others) in subsequent terms will enjoy the harvest. A

INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE Regulatory body approves Telenor-Airtel merger

AT&T gets nod for Time Warner acquisition AT&T Inc won court approval to buy Time Warner Inc for $85 billion, which translates to around `6 lakh crore, rebuffing an attempt by US President Donald Trump’s administration to block the deal. This move is likely to eliminate a lot of the uncertainty in the global acquisition space, and set off a wave of mergers in this space.

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The slew of consolidations continues in the telecom sector, as yet another telecom merger moves towards conclusion; the department of telecom (DoT) recently approved the merger of Telenor India with Bharti Airtel. This will increase the size of Airtel’s subscriber base substantially, and give it an edge over the competitors Vodafone and Reliance Jio.

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Tata Motors and its turnaround trials Having lost its competitive edge and market share, Tata Motors has been trying to effect a turnaround story, in efficiencies, technologies and among the workforce. A number of strategies has been implemented, and results seem to be encouraging. Dr Suresh Srinivasan

ata Motors operates three divisions: the domestic passenger car division, the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) business and the Indian commercial vehicle business. Over the last decade or so, Tata Motors has been weathering through a tough time, with the market share of Tata’s domestic passenger car business steeply dropping from around 16% to less than 5%. A number of issues have contributed to the Tatas losing the competitive advantage in the domestic passenger car business.

Why the erosion?

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Large investments in terms of money, time and management resources in the JLR business, and the unsuccessful launch of the ‘people’s car’ Nano, eroded Tata Motors’s focus on the domestic

passenger business. In contrast, competitors like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Mahindra and Renault were going all out, aggressively spending resources, launching successful new models and gaining market share, while Tata Motors had been at its most ‘reactive’, thereby steadily losing market share. Erstwhile Tata head Cyrus Mistry attempted to flag some of these issues, and insisted on the closure of the Nano project. However, this wasn’t given the importance or ear by the board at that point in time. Today, Tata Motors enjoys a market share of around 6% in its passenger car business. Its commercial vehicle business continues to remain strong, albeit seeing a slight downward trend from the earlier 55% to the current 45 - 50%. This erosion of Tata Motors in the commercial vehicle space can be largely attributed to the entry of global players like Volvo, Benz and Scania and Navistar, which entered India looking to capitalise on a lucrative market.

The beginning of a turnaround Guenter Butschek, who had earlier been working for Airbus

Tata Motors currently holds only 6% market share in the passenger car space, and 45% in the commercial vehicle space. and other automotive companies like Daimler, came into the Tata fold in the early half of 2016, and N Chandra moved in from Tata Consultancy Services to head Tata Sons, a year later. These movements started bringing in some serious thought processes in terms of working out a turnaround plan for the beleaguered Tata Motors. Almost a year into the modified turnaround plan, after the entry of N Chandra in 201718, the company seems to finally have raised its head above the water, and is posting financial results that are far better than 2016-17. This has also given the staff and the management a feeling that they are moving in the right direction, and a hope

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that the company can possibly turn its fortunes around during 2018-19. And to a significant extent, it did. The company reported operating profits for the last year, and its cost savings has showed up in the financials.

Improving efficiencies

Things looking up?

During the current year, sales grew more than 15% across the entire portfolio. In the domestic market, sales of trucks grew 16%, and passenger vehicles sales grew by around 20%. New products like the Tata Nexon have started gaining traction, and customers have started taking a second look. The current portfolio of passenger vehicles, including the Tiago, Tigor and Hexa, are continuing to deliver strong growth for the company. The performance in the quarter reflects the results of the turnaround strategy, which involves focused actions on filling up portfolio gaps, rigorous cost reductions; at the same time,

Tata Motors’s share in the commercial vehicle segment has fallen from around 60% to around 47%. taking steps to improve the reliability of their supply chain seems to be working as well. Tata Motors is expecting to capture around 7% of the market share in the near term future once the full year impact of the successful Nexon flows in. As per the company, the monthly sales figures of the Nexon are already saying that story. Given the turnaround plans, the domestic business is gaining traction, and over the next few years, will likely to contribute to the overall Tata Motors that includes the JLR business. Although the efforts have been significant and employee morale in the factories is being reported to be turning upbeat, such efforts have not fully translated into the Tatas’ endgame: Increased market share.

The commercial segment

vehicle

However, the real difference could potentially come from strengthening its commercial vehicle business, which is a low hanging fruit. In the heavy commercial vehicle segment, Tata Motors was leading the pack around a decade ago, with a commendable market share of

around 60%. This has now fallen to around 47%. In fact, it must be noted that Tata Motors is the only company that has lost market share over the last decade; all companies have gained market share at the cost of the Tatas. Indian competitors like Ashok Leyland, Eicher, Mahindra and Bharat Benz have all shown substantial increase in market share. Isuzu, Scania and Volvo are changing the game as well, primarily by throwing in high quality and reliable products extracted from their global operations. The logistics and transportation sector is considered to be the sunrise sector in the near to medium term, especially given the fact that e-commerce companies are generously investing in the logistics component of the value chain. For the Tatas too, this should be a key area of focus for them to regain their lost market share. In fact, this sector is also extremely dynamic, with the electric trucks likely to become ubiquitous in the next 4 to 7 years. Moreover, these industrial commercial trucks are expected to be autonomously operated,

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In terms of its domestic passenger cars, the company has drastically reduced the number of platforms on which it builds its cars. Traditionally, the company had 6 platforms, but now, it is moving towards just two. Intelligent design is about maximising the models that are distinct from each other, that meet the requirements of a diverse segment of customers using minimum number of platforms; these will share common production design, engineering, efforts components and other resources. Hence, a reduced number of platforms have a substantial bearing on the overall costs of the automaker, and this is what Tata Motors has been driving towards.

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bringing in enormous challenges to the existing original equipment manufacturers (OEM) like the Tatas. Hence, in addition to turning around this business and gaining market share, Tata Motors will also need to invest in research and development, and the technology that will power such future commercial vehicles. Naturally, this will involve more investments for the future, especially ones where immediate returns will not accrue.

The electric story

Tata Motors has now showcased its electric car — the EVision — in the recent Geneva motor show.

At the same time, Jaguar has brought out I-Pace, which is JLR’s first electric outing that throws down the gauntlet at Tesla, head on. The I-Pace is a premium, battery-electric crossover, with a range of up to 240 miles that can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in as little as 4.5 seconds. It is also significantly lighter than Tesla’s Model X, and most importantly, is priced substantially lower than its competitor. This is an extremely positive development, and given JLR’s brand premium, the timing for the positioning of such a model couldn’t have been better. Although, the JLR division

and the TATA Motors passenger car division are being run as two very different entities, they do work together. For example, both companies are participating in a project on autonomous driving for the United Kingdom government. In summary, the Tata Group is looking at each of its companies to make them more competitive in their respective businesses — this includes companies like TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Chemicals, etc. The initiative with Tata Motors seems to have gained a modicum of focus, but the results are yet to justify saying that a complete turnaround has been achieved. A

INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE Idea sells its standalone towers to ATC Idea Cellular has announced that it has completed the sale of its standalone 9,900 towers to ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited (ATC) for `4,000 crore. ATC is acquiring towers, which will become the non-core business for the telecom players. Closure of the captive towers deal with Idea will conclude the Boston-based telecom tower company’s two-stage acquisition of Vodafone India and Idea’s 20,000-odd combined standalone towers. Vodafone’s sale of its standalone tower business to ATC was completed in April.

HPCL to acquire Mangalore refinery Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) is reportedly considering acquiring Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals before the end of 2018-19, given the synergies arising from the merger. Recently, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), recently completed the acquisition of HPCL for `36,915 crore. Plans are being made to bring the two refining units under one roof. HPCL sells more petroleum product than it produces, and bringing MRPL’s 15 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) refinery under the fold would help bridge the shortfall.

Danlaw acquires Titan Time Danlaw Technologies India has acquired Titan Time Products, a subsidiary of Titan Company, for a cash consideration of `18.5 crore. Danlaw is a leading global supplier of technology and services to the automotive and aerospace industries. According to Danlaw, the acquisition will give it a manufacturing base for products designed in-house, and help with backward integration.

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Hyderabad-based Danlaw Technologies is engaged in the business of providing automotive engineering services, developing software products, software services and security solutions.

Comcast eyes Murdoch-led Fox Cable giant Comcast has launched a hostile bid for 21st Century Fox, the media empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch. It is very likely that Disney will conclude the deal with Fox, especially with after a USA court extinguished the US government’s objection to AT&T’s takeover of Fox’s rival Time Warner.

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Govt’s divestment plan for Air India shelved? The government’s plans to find a strategic investor the beleaguered Air India came to nought, as nobody came forward to express interest. What were the reasons that drove investors away? How can these be solved, if at all? We present an analysis in this article.

Dr Suresh Srinivasan

international and domestic parties. Unfortunately, not even a single bid was received, clearly showing the lack of interest of investors in the national carrier. It must also be noted that this is the second attempt to divest. Earlier, in the year 2000, the government attempted a similar exercise, and the response back then had also been quite similar. Clearly, there seemed to have been no learning gained from the earlier experience

Then vs Now During the earlier disinvestment initiative of Air India in 2000, the structure that was put up for sale was complex, comprising operating companies across different aviation and nonaviation businesses, including airline, ground handling, aircraft engineering, hospitality, etc. In that situation, valuing the company transparently became

The government had agreed to infuse around `30,000 crore into Air India over a 10-year period leading up to 2022. difficult. But this time around, there was a lot more clarity, as the assets put to sale were limited to 76% equity stake in Air India, the airline’s low cost unit, the Air India Express and 50% in the Air India-SATS Airport Services Joint Venture. All other entities like aircraft engineering and the hotel businesses were clearly excluded from the disinvestment process. But in spite of all this, none of the investors appeared to be interested. Even IndiGo, the Tata Group and Jet Airways, which

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ir India has again approached the government to infuse funds to the tune of `2,000 crore; India’s national carrier has gone back to the government, seeking a way out of its tight working capital situation. It is being reported that Air India has delayed payment of salaries for around 90 days, something that had been unheard of in the past. The government had agreed to infuse around `30,000 crore over a 10-year period leading up to 2022, but, with this `2,000 crore infusion, almost 95% of the agreed funds would have been sunk into the airline, with still four more years to go! The government recently issued a proposal for divesting ownership and management control of Air India, and sought expressions of interest from

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had initially shown keen interest, failed to express interest.

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Why is nobody interested? One of the main hindrances for investors to take a plunge is the ever-present possibility of government interference. The government still has the mandate to hold the remaining 24% equity in the airline, and investors have always been quite sceptical about whether they will actually enjoy complete management control with no government interference in the day to day operations of the company. In spite of the government clarifying its stands and giving the required assurance through a rejoinder, investors do not seem to be convinced. There were also restrictions on the level of foreign ownership that would be allowed in Air India, especially the level of equity which foreign airlines could hold. In fact, the most interested investors would actually be the foreign airlines, who could gain synergies in integrating their operations with that of Air India’s in the event they are given ownership and management control. Another major contention that the investors would have had relates to the quantum of assets and liabilities that they need to take over as a part of the airline’s ownership. The information memorandum clearly mentioned that, out of the total debt and liabilities outstanding today — totalling `58,000 crore — liabilities amounting to `33,000 crore would remain with Air India, and the remaining would be retained by the government. Similarly, most of the non-core assets like buildings and real estate in prime locations would actually

be retained by the government, and would not be part of the Air India transaction, leaving only the core assets to be taken over by the strategic investor.

Mismatch between and liabilities

assets

This has led to a mismatch between the assets and liabilities that form the offer, which in effect drives the valuation of the airline. This may be the reason why the offer did go down well with the investors, and the financials would not have made a viable investment option. This is even starker when you consider the current state

The mismatch between the assets and liabilities that form the offer, which drives the valuation, may have caused the lack of interest. of the aviation market and the country level attractiveness that is a big plus for the strategic investor. With less than 5% of the Indian population travelling by air and ‘per capita trips’ being ridiculously low, there is huge potential for air traffic growth. With the new Udan ‘regional connectivity’ program in place, the government’s intention to maximise the currently underutilised regional airports and air strips adds potential for higher growth in this sector. Overall, this is a very favourable signal to potential strategic investors! However, the assets vs liabilities carved out under

the proposed disinvestment process must have not made financial sense for the investors to express interest. This is definitely something that needs serious introspection!

The human factor Another factor in the offer is the Air India staff. The employees will naturally need to be taken over as a part of the deal. The covenants that the government may have stipulated in the information memorandum requiring the investor to safeguard the interest of the employees could again have not gone down well with the investors.

The political angle Politically as well, there were dissents from the RSS as well as from the Opposition, which demanded that the disinvestment process be cancelled outright. This again could have signalled an unfavourable scenario. No investor would feel comfortable sinking in their monies in such investments when potentially, the deal could become a political hot potato. It is very clear that the government has been unable to strike a fine balance between an equitable deal. The government needs to incentivise the strategic partner, and at the same time not give way too much within the realms of an acceptable riskreturn trade-off. All this needs to be done, keeping in mind the strategic investor’s commercial compulsions and financial viability.

Way forward Some quarters suggest that a private sector honcho be brought in to run the airline successfully.

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In fact, names of people like E. Sreedharan, the metro man, have been making the rounds. Unfortunately, people don’t realise that the success of E. Sreedharan in the Delhi Metro project was primarily due to the fact that he had clearly laid down his terms before agreeing to join the project. Sreedharan had made it clear that he would brook no interference from the government, and would join the Delhi Metro project only if this condition was found to be acceptable to the government. In effect, this ultimatum of sorts put the government on the spot, and it had no option but to accept his terms, as time was running out for the commencement of the Commonwealth Games, before which they had to commission

There have been suggestions that a private sector honcho be brought in to run the beleaguered airline successfully. the Delhi metro project. In effect, the reasons for which the investors have rejected the transaction — the government interference — might turn out to be the very reason that impedes people like E. Sreedharan to take a leadership role in Air India. Of course, the airline will

require many more rounds of funding, and will regularly turn up at the government’s door, say once in a few months. This was definitely not the way it was supposed to be, and for sure, it is a missed opportunity for the current Modi government. If a government that came to power with such a powerful mandate was not able to successfully pull through this, who else can? A

Dr Suresh Srinivasan is a Chartered Accountant, has an MBA (Bradford UK) and a Doctorate in Strategy. He is the Director of the 2-year PGDM at Great Lakes Institute of Management, as well as a Professor (Strategy & Accounting). He is also a management consultant.

INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE Bayer to acquire Monsanto German chemical and pharma major Bayer AG has declared that it will acquire the US-based biotech major Monsanto. In India, both entities have presence in production and sale of vegetable seeds, cotton seeds as well as in production and sale of non-selective herbicides.

Whirlpool to acquire Elica Whirlpool India, the white goods manufacturer, is ready to acquire a 49% equity stake in Elica PB India, and agreements are reported to be in place. The parties expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2018. Elica PB India is a subsidiary of Elica SpA Italy and has been operating in India since 2010; Elica has established its name in several markets across the world for its kitchen hoods and chimneys. As part of the JV, Elica will manufacture and distribute cooking and built-in appliances under the Whirlpool brand in India.

Cisco to take over July Systems

Infosys acquires consumer insights firm Infosys has completed its acquisition of Wongdoody, a US-based consumer insights agency. Through this acquisition, Infosys believes it can enhance its digital experience services ecosystem and improve creative and digital marketing across the customer experience value chain. The transaction will also help Infosys further expand its worldwide network of digital studios.

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Networking equipment producer Cisco is set to acquire US-based mobile location services provider July Systems. The acquisition will also enable semiconductor maker Intel to exit. July Systems has built a scalable cloud software platform known as Proximity MX. It connects to a building’s WiFi system to understand the customer who walked in the door, how many times they have shopped at the retailer, loyalty point score, etc. This is an interesting acquisition for Cisco, and takes advantage of some of its strengths as a networking company, given the WiFi component, but also moving in the direction of providing more specific customer experience services.

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Are you a Brainiac? In this section, we shall explore several different types of questions from the various areas of entrance exams like the CAT, CET, GMAT, etc, and how to best solve them.

Quant Q.1 Find the sum of the first 15 terms of the series.

, ......

Solution

The terms of the series are:

The terms are in G.P. with the first term,

a=1+

The sum of 15 terms of the series

= = =

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0.25 × 0.18 × (1 – 0.33)

, ...

and the common ratio r =

3] 4] Solution P(student gets a carry forward for next year) = (1 – 0.56) × (0.33) × (0.25) × (0.18) + (0.56 × 0.33 × 0.25) × (1 – 0.18) + 0.56 × 0.33 × (1 – 0.25) × 0.18 + 0.56 ×

= 0.086867

0.087.

P(Student loses a year)

= 1 – [P(he passes) + P(he gets a carry forward)]

P(he passes) = 0.56 × 0.33 × 0.25 × 0.18.

= 0.0084

Q.3 In ABC, BC = 15 cm. D and E are midpoints of AC and AB respectively. BD and EC intersect at F. Find ratio BF : FD.

Hence, [3].

Q.2 The probabilities of a student passing in four subjects are 0.56, 0.33, 0.25 and 0.18. The student gets a carry forward for next year if he fails in 1 paper and passes in 3. If he fails in more than 1 paper, he is declared to have lost the year. What is the ratio of the probability of a student getting a carry forward for next year to that of him repeating the year?

P (Students loses a year) = 1 – 0.087 – 0.0084 = 0.9046 0.905 Required ratio =

Hence, [3].

1] 2 : 1

2] 1 : 2

3] 3 : 1

4] 1 : 3

Solution BD and EC are medians. F is the centroid. F divides BD in the ratio 2 : 1 i.e., BF : FD = 2 : 1. Hence, [1].

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Verbal

Q1. A.

Lessons learnt from crashes such as the crash of Swissair 111, which pitched into the sea off Canada in 1998, is a painful way of improving air safety.

1] B, D & E

2] A, C & E

3] C, D & E

4] A, B, C & D

B. The plane’s flight recorder stopped working six minutes before impact, though the aircraft lost power.

C. New Scientist called for black boxes in aircraft to have back-up power.

D. In 2005, the Federal Aviation Administration decreed that black boxes should have batteries

E. that could keep them working for at least 10 minutes after a crash.

1] A, B & C

2] B, C & E

3] B, D & E

4] C, D & E

In statement A, there is a subject-verb mismatch: the subject of the main clause is ‘lessons’, so the verb should be ‘are’ not ‘is’. B makes no logical sense: the flight recorder would have stopped working because the aircraft lost power, not ‘though’ it lost power. Note that ‘aircraft’ is both the singular (as in B) and the plural (as in C) form of the word. Therefore, only statements C, D and E are grammatically and logically correct. Hence, [4].

Q2. F.

Although half of the world’s people now live within a hundred miles of an ocean, a few today have a working knowledge of the sea.

G. As a science, oceanography is still in its infancy.

H. ‘More is known about the dark side of the moon than known about the depths of the oceans,’ writes the sea explorer David Helvarg.

I. Yet large numbers of people know the sea in other ways, through the arts and literature.

J. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, fiction has been imagining undersea worlds that explorers were unable to reach.

The conjunction ‘although’ in statement A indicates that the second half of the sentence should have an idea contradictory to the first. Since the first half is positive, the second should be negative. But ‘a few’ has a positive connotation (meaning at least a small number), while simply ‘few’ has a negative connotation (meaning ‘not many’). So the correct term should be ‘few’ not ‘a few’. In C, there is a parallelism error: the forms of the verbs after ‘more’ and ‘than’ should be parallel, i.e. ‘than’ should be followed by ‘is known’. The rest of the sentences – B, D and E – are correct. Hence, [1].

DIRECTIONS for questions 3: Each question has four sentences pertaining to a subject, which may or may not be in sequence. One of the sentences is contextually/logically incorrect. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence that is incorrect or inappropriate.

Q3. 1] The Zhou centuries were a seminal time for China’s civilization, yet they get short shrift in some history books. 2] The third and the last of the pre-imperial ‘Three Dynasties’ (Xia, Shang, Zhou), the Zhou, supplanted the Shang as the supreme power in the lower Yellow River basin in c. 1045 BC, and would still be there nearly 800 years later. 3] None of China’s subsequent ruling lineages would last more than half as long; in fact the Zhou probably hold the world record for dynastic longevity. 4] In the course of this dynastic marathon, some thirty-nine kings followed one another, mostly in orderly father-to-son succession.

Sentences [2], [3] and [4] – which can be arranged in the order [2]-[4]-[3] ¬– all speak about the longevity of the Zhou dynasty, while [1] speaks of the importance of the time period, and its neglect in history books. Therefore, [1] does not fit into the context. Hence, [1].

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DIRECTIONS for questions 1 and 2: In the following questions, there are sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is/are correct in terms of grammar and usage (including spelling, punctuation and logical consistency). Then, choose the most appropriate option.

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WORD DOSE

Guests at dinner Bernard Hinks, the vicar of Chadfleet, was a bachelor, and any change from the nourishing but unpalatable meals produced by his housekeeping sister – who was never herself tempted away from the vicarage to dine – was a relief which left small room for the niceties of social intercourse. He was a gentle, sweet-faced man who looked older than his fifty-four years and who had a reputation for vagueness and timidity except on points of doctrine. Theology was his main, almost his sole, intellectual interest and if his parishioners could not always understand his sermons they were happy enough to accept this as sure evidence of their vicar’s erudition. It was, however, accepted in the village that you could get both advice and help from the vicarage and that, if the former were sometimes a little muddled, the latter could generally be relied upon. To Dr. Charles Epps the dinner meant a first-class meal, a couple of captivating women to talk to and a restful interlude from the trivialities of a country practice. He was a widower who believed that there was little any doctor could do to influence the decision, that there was wisdom in knowing when to die with the least inconvenience to others and distress to oneself and that much medical progress only prolonged life for a few uncomfortable months to the greater glory of the patient’s doctor. An excerpt from P.D. James’s Cover Her Face

MAT CH T HE WO R D S W IT H T H E IR M EA NING S 1. Vicar (vik-er) (n) –

7. Theology (thee-ol-uh-jee) (n) -

13. Interlude (in-ter-lyood) (n) -

2. Nourishing (nuhr-i-shing) (adj) -

8. Sermons (sur-muhns) (n) -

3. Unpalatable (uhn-pal-uh-tuhbuhl) (adj) -

9. Erudition (er-yoo-dish-uhn) (n) -

14. Trivialities (triv-ee-al-i-teez) (n) -

4. Vicarage (vik-er-ij) (n) 5. Niceties (nahy-si-teez) (n) -

11. Captivating (kap-tuh-veyt-ing) (adj) -

6. Doctrine (dok-trin) (n) -

12. Restful (rest-full) (adj) -

a. the residence of a vicar

e. the study of the nature of God and religious belief

b. talks on a religious or moral subject, especially those given during a church service and based on a passage from the Bible

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10. Muddled (muhd-l-d) (adj) -

c. a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, political party, or other group d. the quality of having or showing great knowledge or learning; scholarship

f. containing substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition g. capable of attracting and holding interest; charming h. continuing for a long time or longer than usual; lengthy i. not pleasant to taste; difficult to put up with or accept

15. Prolonged (pruh-lawngd) (adj) -

j. insignificant details; trifles k. fine or subtle details or distinctions l. A person acting as a priest of a parish, or a representative of a religious community m. not clear or coherent; confused n. an intervening period of time; an interval; a break o. Having a quiet and soothing quality

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STUDY HOUR

April 2018

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A quiz to boost your General Knowledge 1. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared which of the following countries to be the first country in WHO’s South East Asia region to eliminate trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, particularly common in young children? a. India b. Nepal c. China d. Sri Lanka 2. World Music Day is observed every year across the world to highlight the importance of music. Citizens are allowed to play music outside in public spaces, free concerts are organised, where musicians play for fun and not for payment. On which day is World Music Day observed? a. June 21 b. July 21 c. June 12 d. July 12

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3. Who has been named the Most Valuable Player in the 2018 Indian Premier League? a. Shane Watson b. Rishabh Pant c. Virat Kohli d. Sunil Narine 4. On the 2018 International Yoga Day, held every year on June 21, this city set a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people performing yoga at one

place at the same time, with around 1.6 lakh people led by the state’s chief minister and yoga guru Baba Ramdev. Name the city. a. Kota b. Rishikesh c. Mysore d. Goa

5. Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, passed away recently. He had gone into space twice, and was also known for his paintings, all of which were inspired his space travels. Which country did he belong to? a. UK b. Australia c. USA d. Canada 6. Which of the following countries will host the third annual meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), jointly hosted by the AIIB and the country’s Department of Economic Affairs? a. China b. India c. Japan d. Singapore 7. Which of the following countries will become the first Latin American “global partner” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), joining other global partners like Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, Australia, Pakistan, etc?

a. Costa Rica b. Cuba c. Peru d. Colombia

8. The world’s first International Centre for Humanitarian Forensics was recently launched in June, 2018. The purpose of this centre is to use forensics for humanitarian services. In which of the following countries was it launched? a. Maldives b. Australia c. India d. US 9. A unique scheme to provide life insurance to farmers of up to `5 lakh per farmer was announced recently. The entire premium will be paid by the state government, which has tied up with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), and nominee will get the amount within 10 days of the claim, irrespective of the reason behind the death. Which state government has announced this scheme? a. Telangana b. Andhra Pradesh c. Tamil Nadu d. Gujarat 10. The Ambubachi Mela started recently, wherein over 10 lakh devotees are expected to attend. In which of the following states is the Mela held?

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a. Haryana b. Assam c. Uttarakhand d. Odisha

11. The Nairobi-headquartered UN Environment has signed an agreement to promote green cricket, which entails reducing environmental impact of cricketing operations, and encouraging cricket clubs and fans to engage in green initiatives, as well as phasing out singleuse plastic stadiums. With which of the governing bodies has the UN Environment signed the agreement? a. England and Wales Cricket Board b. Cricket South Africa c. Cricket Australia d. Board of Control for Cricket in India 12. Which of the following has been selected as the 100th Smart City in India by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, with a total proposed investment of over `2 lakh crore? a. Shillong b. Guwahati c. Aizawl d. Ranchi 13. The first ever Global Wind Summit will be held in September 2018, with focus on dynamic markets, cost efficiency and smart energy. The event will provide a platform for experts from across the world to discuss innovative and green technologies for harnessing wind energy making. In which of the following countries will the event be held? a. Netherlands b. Germany

c. Japan d. Ireland 14. Which of the following Group of Seven (G7) countries is the first to have legalised the recreational use of the drug marijuana nationwide, allowing citizens to buy and consume the drug legally? a. US b. Italy c. Canada d. Uruguay 15. An Indian cartoonist has won the international award in the best caricature category at the 2018 World Press Cartoon awards. The awards are given to the best works published in 2017 in newspapers and magazines from around the world. Name the cartoonist, who is also only cartoonist selected from Asia. a. S. Jitesh b. Raj Thackeray c. Shivram Dattatreya Phadnis d. Thomas Antony 16. The fictional character of George Smiley is the protagonist in a series of books focusing on the Cold War. Recently, the actor Gary Oldman portrayed the character in the film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Name the author, who also writes under a pseudonym, who created the Smiley character. a. Frederick Forsythe b. John Le Carré c. Len Deighton d. Tom Clancy 17. Which state police has launched a mobile-based messenger app ‘Cop Connect’ to provide real time information to over

60,000 police officers across the State? a. Telangana b. Maharashtra c. Kerala d. West Bengal

18. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali has tied up with which of the following telecom companies to launch Swadeshi Samriddhi SIM cards, which also come with medical insurance and life insurance covers, and a 10% discount on Patanjali products? a. MTNL b. Bharti Airtel c. BSNL d. Reliance Jio 19. This company has announced a training programme for journalists in India, in order to raise awareness against misinformation and providing new tools against fake news. The initiative will train over 8,000 journalists in English and six other Indian languages in the next year. Name the company. a. Facebook b. Google c. Twitter d. Press Trust of India 20. Sudha Balakrishnan has been appointed as the first ever _________ of the Reserve Bank of India, and will have a 3-year term. a. Chief Regulatory Officer b. Chief Technology Officer c. Chief Operating Officer d. Chief Financial Officer 21. The Talakona waterfall is located in the Sri Venkateswara National Park, and its 270 feet fall makes it the highest waterfall in the

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24. Which of the following states has banned the manufacturing, use, sale, distribution and storage of plastic materials like bags, spoons, plates and other disposable items, as well as packaging material and thermocol? a. Andhra Pradesh b. Maharashtra c. Gujarat d. Sikkim

ANSWERS GLOBESCAN

SUDOKU

1.b 2.a 3.d 4.a 5.c 6.b 7.d 8.c 9.a 10.b 11.d 12.a 13.b 14.c 15.d 16.b 17.a 18.c 19.b 20.d 21.c 22.a 23.c 24.b

For more similar puzzles, visit: www.sudoku.com

WORD DOSE

1.l 2.f 3.i 4.a 5.k 6.c

23. Which of the following famous personalities has been appointed as the brand ambassador of the Sikkim government, to promote and project the state’s achievements nationally and globally? a. Danny Denzongpa b. Baichung Bhutia c. A.R. Rahman d. Geetanjali Thapa

How to Play Fill in the grid so that every horizontal row, every vertical column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1-9, without repeating the numbers in the same row, column or box. You can’t change the digits already given in the grid. Every puzzle has one solution. Hint: Don’t fill in numbers at random. While filling a particular square, write numbers 1-9 on a pad and start eliminating those numbers that already appear in the same row, column or 3x3 box.

7.e 8.b 9.d 10.m 11.g 12.o

22. The Government of India’s Union Water Resources Ministry has teamed up with this technology giant to generate flood warnings. The ministry will leverage the company’s technical expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning and geospatial mapping to improve flood prediction systems, and help visualize and improve flood management. Name the company. a. Google b. IBM c. TCS d. Amazon

13.n 14.j 15.h

state. Which state are we talking about? a. Kerala b. Meghalaya c. Andhra Pradesh d. Manipur

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