EDITORIAL
Greetings from the Creative Team of Crucibles!!! I hope all of you reading this are in the best of times. Most of us are busy with our internships so it is the juniors who are handling most of the work. The Crucibles Day could not be held on the 26th of June but the new team is onto it. We have two new contributors for this edition1. Sri Harini 2. Ankita Shah Thank you for your contributions and we hope you continue your association with us. I would like to quote Walt Disney- “All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” This is one of my personal favourites. It means that anything can be achieved in life if one keeps enough courage to go after it. Never fear from chasing your dreams and always do that in which you find happiness. All the best and Happy Reading!!!
Harshita Gardner PGP/F-FW/12-14
FIRST WORK EXPERIENCE: Here‟s just a short summary about my experience with my very first job and the changes between the college and the corporate. There was a time where in I would get all thrilled and excited when I heard DELOITTE in College. And now I can‟t believe I am finally here. It‟s an honor to be associated with such a company. Generally speaking, the more quality work you put into your job-search, the better your results. But I did not really have to put an effort for a job search as my ultimate dream was “what I am living”, though it wasn‟t that easy to get in. Generally people have a hard time facing the reality of going to work every day, five days a week. And it's not like the 8 a.m. class that you often skipped when you hit the snooze button too many times on your alarm clock; show up late one too many times and you'll find yourself unemployed. Trust me it was not that tough for me, not because my shift starts from 2.00 in the afternoon, but because I am all excited to reach this place. The kind of support and guidance which we got is something which can‟t be explained. It had been very awkward in the initial days, but as time went by, felt very comfortable. Not to forget to thank all the seniors who were always ready to help. As days goes by we realize that our responsibility towards our work increases, that‟s when we start finding ourselves busy and not give ample of time to your friends and family. I find myself scheduling outings with friends and family weeks in advance. College didn't teach me working 40 hours. College didn't teach me a bedtime, but those are all things you learn with necessity. I think if I had worked during my college hours. I would have learned that. I would say, if you are educated at college but gain lots of experience in the corporate world. But lately I realized that “being busy is not an excuse for neglecting your personal life because everyone is busy. I have tried to follow this thought and it seems to work the majority of the time.” You ought to learn to manage things. As days pass by we find a lot of changes. The only way to live happily and enjoy the days is adapt to those changes.
Ankita Shah (HR Trainee at Amazon)
It has been more than a month since the personage of one Mr. Edward Snowden hit the news. Various emotional responses followed this, exhilaration being the first and foremost, slowly followed by a sense of insecurity and caution particularly while surfing the tides of the Internet. This may not have made a big difference in the life of an everyday User, but the consequences of Mr. Snowden‟s disclosure seem extensive. To lay it bare on the floor, this is definitely one of those “grey” areas that ironically remind us of our humanly quandary. Are we to subject our communications for the scrutiny of a power hungry establishment? Or are we supposed to shut our ears to the millions of open channels that help the terror activists to carry out their assignments? Edward Snowden, faced with the same dilemma decided to act upon it in the best way possible today. Pour his heart out to a Journalist. Let‟s appreciate for a second what this really means. Espionageas a noun simply means “the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments”. This little means of small talk can be traced back to well beyond modern times. Empires were lost and won with these small packets of information passed on to the competing sides by nimble hands and sharp eyes. It can be agreed upon that the most exciting part of this process is the gadgetry and technology that aids it. A generation fuelled by the exploits of the one and only 007, much thought has been put into innovative methods of collecting confidential matter. Technology in this decade has become slightly more subtle than glove pistols and button-hole cameras. Most of it does not even happen in the real world. Consider for instance, in an age where babies are born with smartphones strapped to their waists, the entire world is, in a way connected. Your own devices can be culprits in somebody‟s espionage agenda. Your multi megapixel cameras can open up at their command and swallow information as it goes. All the worldly sensory receptors that the phones come with can pick up environmental signals. Eventually culminating in a close-to-real 3D virtual model of the surroundings. Now isn‟t that very convenient!
Back to Mr. Snowden‟s predicament, during his lifetime as an employee of contractors who worked for the CIA and NSA, he fell upon information that threatened to leave no byte unmapped that found its way into the internet. This, he understood, left a huge gaping hole in the right to the freedom of expression and led him to begin his crusade. Customarily Mr. Snowden skipped the country and took sanctuary in one of the nationsthat "(has) a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent": Hong Kong. However, the authorities at Hong Kong were bound by the Extradition Treaty signed with the Unites States, whereby “one country transfers a suspected or convicted criminal to another country”. In his interview with The Guardian at Hong Kong, Mr. Snowden confirms his suspicions of being chased across the world by the kingpins of secrecy – the CIA and the NSA. Having then hopped away to Moscow and shacking up at the International Terminal of Sheremetyevo Airport, his suspicions were given weight by the fact that the flight carrying the Bolivian President Evo Morales from Moscowhad been diverted upon the suspicions that Mr. Snowden may have been stowed away with them. In the meantime, the Guardian Angel of Whistleblowers – Mr. Julian Assange has been working day and night to get Mr. Snowden to the safety that he deems is his birth right! Mr. Snowden‟s life hangs on a thin thread held by the remaining nations to which he looks up for help. Of late, Venezuelan President Mr. Rafael Correa has expressed his country‟s interest in providing asylum to this crusader of justice! As time passes by, these grey areas become more so in its essence itself that to be or not to be spied upon will not be the correct tight spot anymore. Whichever way we decide to look upon this, an odd adage comes to mind; If you don’t want anyone to know about it, Don’t do it!
Lee Balki
Indigo’s crown at stake It’s all over the news that AirAsia will eat out market share from Indigo airlines and in a year or two will be dominating the LCC aviation market. Poaching pilots is a natural step to take on a leader head on a glance in to history can amplify that in better ways. Let me tell you pilot is not the ones who just fly the plane but also does the critical weather checking, flight planning, responding to radars and quick decision making. In other words they are the major success factors for airline industry. Obviously, reason of using same kind of planes (Airbus 320) in operation, shortage of experienced pilots will make Indigo run for money in coming years. Challenging USPs like on time performance and lowest cost will hurt Indigo even more. Unfortunately it’s the part of every business. The brighter side is Indian aviation market already has some 150 million travellers passing through its airports, and if Indians begin to travel with the same frequency as their American peers, then the years ahead could see the market boom beyond the two billion mark. AirAsia is also the first foreign airline to set up a subsidiary in India and Tata's returning to aviation industry after 60 years is as good. By 2020 traffic at Indian airports is expected to reach 450 million, making it the third-largest aviation market in the world. There is enough opportunity to grow for both the players. At present, India’s aviation industry has seen continued losses due to high operating costs and regulatory uncertainty makes it very dull, at this time having largest budget carrier of Asia with lower airfare is nice. There are no Indian companies who have held the crown for long and neither have deeper understanding of airline Industry. Indigo is only profitable Indian airline today, and after this AirAsia brush up there won’t be more reasons to rejoice. It is well known fact AirAsia is the world's best low-cost airline.
There were research reports from KPMG, Oxford and Moody's of 2011 indicating threats but beloved UPA's outlook at Aviation as a revenue seeking destination has created cracks all over the Castle. AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes says "We will offer free tickets, one rupee tickets, and cheap tickets. Our bookings start almost one year in advance. We will offer online booking, booking through agents. For people who don’t have a credit card, we will tie up with things like Tata’s Chroma stores where payment can be made for tickets." This implies in coming days we will see AirAsia's aggressive financial structure vs. moderately growing financials of Indigo at competition. While customer retention and creative marketing will help Go Indigo to take on Now Everyone Can Fly.
Rahul Patnaik PGP-FW-(11-13) IIPM-D
MANAGING THE “OPEN SOURCE” VERSUS “PROPRIETARY DECISION”. Everything in this modern era is linked with the computers and the base is linked with the software. Being sensitive to the lack of „right‟ answer. There is no reason to expect different firms to make the same choices on terms of open source and proprietary software. There is no simple ranking of open source and proprietary software. The basic reason is that open source and commercial software pose different trade-off in terms of costs and quality, and companies are heterogeneous. These users do not all attach the same weights to the different dimensions of cost and quality. Moreover the trade-off‟s regarding the various dimensions of cost and quality, and the weights the users attach to them, are likely to depend on the particular task for which software is needed. When considering the costs and benefits of open source and proprietary software, approached the received wisdom with caution. The survey of firms regarding the costs of different types of software suggests that some of the commonly accepted patterns about the differences in costs and benefits between these two types of software do not hold. For instance the relative differences in the cost components are not as sharply different as we would have assumed. Therefore it is important to do a precise analysis adapted to each specific case. The appropriate mixture between open and proprietary software will vary with the company‟s circumstances. This suggested a number of patterns that drive firms to engage in open development. For instance, not surprisingly, larger firms were much more likely to engage in some open source activity than either small-or-medium sized companies, but less likely to specialize in open source. Similarly companies that work on customised software, bundled software, and support services are significantly more likely to engage in some open source than pure software developers. Synergies are likely to make it more attractive to combine open source with some business models than others. The appropriate mixture between open and proprietary software will vary with the stage of development of the nation in which the company is based. Meanwhile the complementary costs grow in importance in wealthier nations. There are really two kinds of quality differences, vertical differentiation, where on product clearly dominates the other (the BMW Vs the YUGO) and horizontal differentiation, where different consumers with different needs would choose different options (the YUGO and the PICKUP- TRUCK). The vast majority of instances in software involve horizontal differences, where different customers will make different choices. As a result co-existence between open source and proprietary software is the rule rather than the exception. Managers must make choices with a keen eye to their target audience and awareness that no one product is unlikely to satisfy all users. Mixing is the rule, not the exception. Moreover the extent to which open source is used and the degree of mixing between open source and
proprietary software both depend on user characteristics, in ways that are consistent with economic principles. This situation necessitates policies that can facilitate the ongoing competition between the open source and proprietary software camps, ideally in a way that promotes both efficiency and innovation. Companies should see the use of open source and proprietary software not as and either or decision, as it so often depicted in the literature, but as a continuum.
Kranthi Paritala PGP/WIN/13-15
Reasons why companies are going the SOCIAL way
The recent year have seen the unprecedented proliferation of the social media sphere. The primary paradigm on which this sphere functions on is that the human is a social animal. Without company or people around him/her, he would die out of loneliness. Thus, almost every human being on this Earth, besides being concerned about himself/herself, also inquires into the activities of his circle of friends, family and the like. In this regard, the social media platform has latched onto this basic principle and as they say, the rest is history. It is heartening to see the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Dick Costolo, and many other such eminent entrepreneurs and visionaries have launched prolific websites and companies such as Facebook, Twitter and other not so prominent websites like Flickr, Hi5 etc. Now let us look into the business implications of this phenomenon:
Most of the target customers are on this sphere, giving them an opportunity to improve their visibility and promotion. A very cost effective means as compared to offline advertising. To acquire new customers. An informal space to advertise in the same manner, however not intruding into people‟s privacy and then seeing the phenomenal results
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Gives us real time statistics and information regarding the number of views, number of translated website hits and responses to discount/promotion campaigns etc.
More Statistics reveal that an average internet user spends around 1 out of every 5 minutes online. Facebook has around 1.1 billion users, and Twitter around 400 million customers, which means that more than 1 out of 7 people around the world, including people not having access to the internet, are on the social media sphere. ASOS, one of the highest churn ratio websites of 2.1%(ie where 2.1 people out of every 100 people who visit the site make at least one purchase, an overwhelming stat) made summer sale- Facebook Points and garnered touch points by playing a series of online games to access the sales first.People joined the virtual queue-174,000. Views of the app-above 1 million.ASOS fan base growth- by 32%. Thus can infer the amazing scope that the social media platform has to offer.
Benjamin Taylor ISBE/FW/11-13/E
Understanding the Gold Perspective
Gold is a metal that needs no introduction. This metal has been a valuable and highly soughtafter precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since long before the beginning of recorded history. Gold standards have sometimes been monetary policies, but were widely supplanted by fiat currency starting in the 1930s. The last gold certificate and gold coin currencies were issued in the U.S. in 1932. In Europe, most countries left the gold standard with the start of World War I in 1914 and, with huge war debts, did not return to gold as a medium of exchange. The best estimates available suggest that the total volume of gold ever mined up to the end of 2012 was approximately 174,100 tonnes, of which around 60% has been mined since 1950. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. These figures reveal the fact that only 10% of the gold actually has industrial significance, whereas the remaining 90% of gold is used merely for speculating the cost. No wonder the price of gold has been rising, since majority of the people believe in the absolute returns of gold. For the past few years, there has been deep economic crisis, and most governments seem to be in some kind of debt. Fear drove people into pouring money into precious metals, as they worried that the cure for recession would result in hyperinflation and undermining of the currency value. It's a sad outcome for individuals who might not have suspected such losses were possible in an investment that's been touted as a safe haven. Gold at that time hit a peak, more than $1,900 an ounce, but last week investors were stunned as it plunged below $1,200 an ounce. Gold prices have been declining for months as Europe's financial crisis has relaxed, the U.S. economy has slowly recovered and analysts began predicting an end to the massive Federal Reserve stimulus that fueled fears of inflation. This has been a typical scenario. People generally tend to buy gold, when they lose faith in their currency,
but what happens as a side-effect is that, when the currency starts to stabilize, it brings down the gold price. Today, India is the world's largest consumer of gold. South Asian jewelry is generally of higher purity than western jewelry--22 karats, compared to 14 karats. Over the whole of last year, India imported $56.2 billion worth of gold. The attraction for gold is driven by its rising value. The Reserve Bank of India is increasing its reserves as is the US Federal Reserve. India currently has about 20,000 tonnes of gold in all forms: jewellery, bars, coins etc. Increase in demand is tied to the decrease in value of rupee; however this economics is not something that can be communicated to the average Indian. For India, gold is not an investment, but a tradition that is closely knitted with our culture. The demand is bound to increase during the wedding months, and there is nothing in sight, that can help Indians curb with this fascination towards a metal, that aids only the ego.
VineedUnnikrishnan Sr. Systems Engineer Global Data Center Infrastructure Recovery Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Why are IT hubs moving out of India? The Information Technology sector also known as the knowledge economy or more recently as the Quaternary sector is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. It has grown from the use of punched cards to the use of USB sticks and Cloud computing where anything and everything can be saved in the virtual clouds. The advent of Information Technology in our very own country happened in the 1960’s offering new prospects as well as new realms to be conquered. In the beginning the computers used in India were imported from the Soviet Union i.e. today’s Russia. They were only used in very large organisations to perform specialized and sophisticated operations. The first complete IT services industry was set up in Mumbai in the year 1967 by The Tata Group in collaboration with Burroughs (a leading software company). With the encouragement given by PanditJawarlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of our country, India developed a scientific force whose numbers were second only to the USA and Russia. In the 1970’s during the technological drive in the USA, its’ immigration rules were relaxed. This provided an opportunity for Indians to explore the technological developments in USA. Indians can claim a considerable part in the establishment of the Silicon Valley in the USA. Globalization enhanced this exchange of technology and took it to a greater and higher level, where the companies dealing with Information technology started establishing their counterparts, as well as striking up partnerships with existing companies in various countries. India was mainly chosen due to the relaxation of laws after the implementation of the LPG model.Many employment opportunities were created in this industry that can be mainly classified into IT services and BPOs(business Process Ousourcing). Bangalore,Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune are the major IT hubs in India. Bangalore is also known as the Silicon Valley of India.This industry contributed to over 1.5% of the GDP of our country that amounted to over100 billion US dollars in the year 2011-12. After the financial recession the growth of this sector slumped and slowed down all around the world. The fall in the value of the US dollar was a major blow to the MNCs having their counterparts in various countries like India. The profitability of these counterparts and alliances was turning out to be a question mark. This resulted in outsourcing their concerns from India. Lack of speed in the improvement of infrastructural facilities in our country has created problems for the MNCs as they needed to start their concerns from the basics according to their requirements. Technology is one thing that changes by the minute, and in most cases updation did not occur that was a definite setback for the MNCs in India. And protestations have been seen among a few organizations that the technology which is provided by the MNCs itself is outdated and that the technology used in the same corporation in its parent company is different and much more sophisticated. It has been argued that the whole concept of technological exchange throughout the world was being distorted for their
own profit. With such protestations among their own workers, the MNCs find it hard to function smoothly. The BPO sector having a significant financial importance in our country is facing many problems that did not occur in the beginning. The experience of working in a BPO is not considered by most organizations to qualify as work experience. This is causing lesser and lesser number of people to be interested in working in a BPO. In countries like Philippines the experience of working in a BPO is considered by all corporations and industries and also is implemented by law. This factor is attractive to the MNCs as it attracts more employment at a cheaper rate. In countries like China, work force is being obtained at a cheaper wages when compared to our own country. The high populace in China provides for an abundant and easily replaceable work force, which is the main reason of outsourcing that at present is occurring in India. Today our country is facing a lot of social challenges, like the abuse of women, social disparities, pleas for state separations, improper implementation of law and order, corruption among those who must implement it, instability in the government, social riots etcthat are causing hindrances to the smooth functioning of the IT concerns. As we all know that the main motive of most of the Multi-National Corporations is profit. Thus all the decisions taken by such concerns will be having profit as their main objective. As they are finding better green pastures for their companies, IT hubs are moving out of India. I personally think that this outsourcing can be reduced and maybe even completely stopped if the government as well as the populace of our country take the necessary steps to retain them in our country like better infrastructural facilities, importance given to all the various levels of jobs and experiences and prevailing of proper law and order in our country.
Sri Harini B.Com Computers III yr,
R.B.V.R.R. Womens College