Jatin Pancholi

Capacity Utilization

2007-10-29T08:01:00.000Z

In the light of the concepts of the Cost Volume Profit (CVP) Analsis, respond to this comment:

“We are unable to meet demand for our product, yet you refuse to let us operate all our processes at least practical capacity. I think that is a waste of equipment and personnel. What am I supposed to do, have them sweep the floors and let this expensive equipment sit idle?”

Word limit: 250-300 words

Contribution Margins

2007-10-28T13:52:00.000Z

My Guru, Professor John Shank has said that the use of contribution margins to select products is “a snare, a trap, and a delusion” because a firm will never drop a product that has a positive contribution margin for fear of losing even a small amount of profit. Explain the meaning of this argument with an example of an imaginary Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) company with imaginary numbers.

Word limit: 400-500 words(!)

Change: The only constant

2007-10-27T12:44:00.000+01:00

Peter Drucker, the famous management guru, once said, “Every three years, an organisation should challenge every product, every service, every policy, every distribution channel with the question: If we were not in it already, would we be going into it now?”

Why do you think this question is important? How can managers help pose and answer this question? How Cost Accounting contributes to other functions of management in order to implement Druker's suggestion? Explain giving atleast 1 company example.

Word limit: 500 words

In the land of dragons

2007-04-08T23:22:00.000+01:00

Had been to China on a professional assignment. It was my first (and definitely not the last) visit to the land of dragons. And my first impression for China is ‘WOW’! In fact, I didn’t have had this much big WOW while I visited the big apple - New York City last summer.

A colleague came to receive at the airport with the name of the organization that I was affiliated with. We reached the hotel and then freshened up myself. She had brought some fruits for me as well so had ‘Made in China’ fruits to start with and then went out for a walk since the work was to begin from the next day. The work went very well during my stay and I enjoyed each and every moment of this assignment. It was great to learn about Chinese style of working and this visit has really changed my perceptions about living and working in China.

Before going to China, some of my friends had given me a few Chinese (Mandarin language) words and phrases. Special thanks to Phyun that she gave me a long list of English to Chinese words conversations. Also Fan gave me couple of ideas beforehand regarding Chinese culture. I am not too sure as to how much I could actually ‘implement’!

One night in Shanghai’s hotel I had a memorable episode. I had some food from home with me which I wanted to warm it up. And for this I needed a microwave oven. Hence, I went to the restaurant on the ground floor to see if I can get some help. I observed that people in China take their dinner quite early as compared to other countries. In fact, I was invited at 4:30 pm in one of our dinner meetings and the dinner got over by 7 pm.

It was around 8 pm I found that the kitchen and the restaurant were closed. There was only one gentleman at the counter watching TV. I approached him and tried to request to him if he could warm some food packet for me.

Now one can imagine that I don’t know Mandarin language at all and this guy does not know English! Not only that I had to show my food packet but also had to do gestures to communicate my request. That was so funny and I recalled ‘charades’ (or called ‘dumb charades’) that we use to play during our school/college days. And we both were laughing and having a great time in communicating with each other. He was shouting on me saying that the restaurant is closed and no food is available. While I was not bothered about the food and I was trying to communicating that I don’t want your restaurant to be ‘open’ but I simply want to use your microwave for couple of minutes. At one point of time he thought that I want to buy some drink so he offered me a beer can! Finally, I had to actually hold his hand and take him to the kitchen, find out the microwave oven and point towards it and then again gestures (!) saying that ‘I wish to use this!’

After around 15 minutes another guy (apparently the cook) joined the chaos! And then suddenly I realised to show an empty plate to both of them and then I enacted to both of them by my actions that I would put the contents of my food packet in that plate and put the plate in the oven. That’s it! That was my only request! And then it was ‘AA HAA’. They both burst out of laughter and so I did. It was half an-hour operation and finally I got my food warm! But this was a very hilarious episode!

I observed and thought on this later as to how fascinating it is that though we all human beings have different languages, different cultures, how similar and compatible are our basic styles of communicating in terms of gestures, eye movements, tone of voice, pitch, smile, etc. In fact, after some point of time, we could actually ‘communicate’ with each other though we belong to a complete different cultures and language background.

In some aspects, I found that the town planning and infrastructure (read ‘roads’) were slightly superior especially in the cities that I visited as compared to even New York and London. And yes the population is really quite dense and one can see this on the streets, roads, everywhere you go. But then it appeared to me that the town planning and infrastructure is designed to meet this population pressure. You see a lot of people everywhere but you don’t have a feel of ‘crowd’. Everything is ‘big’ – roads, lanes, public places, etc. Even the cycle lane is as broad as a car lane (see photo )

There is a right-hand side driving so I was feeling bit odd when I was sitting on the right hand side on the front seat without having a steering in my hand! I also observed that quite a large proportion of people in the cities that I visited were young. May be they were like school/college students. When I visited hotels, restaurants, bars, etc., I realised that a large proportion of working population seemed to be very young.

It was extremely difficult for me to make any conversation with anyone outside our hotel when I was alone. Fortunately, the staff at the Holiday Inn were quite comfortable with English but the moment I stepped outside the hotel (especially alone!) the only words I had to rely were ‘NIHAAO’ (meaning, ‘Hello’) and ‘SE SHAI’ (meaning, ‘Thank you’).

During this visit, I made some new friends (including those two guys in hotel!) and found some interesting observations regarding China in general and their culture. One of such observation is that whenever you are a guest and some Chinese person is your host at his/her home or any restaurant he/she will always order/make more food then what all can eat! The culture is that the food quantity should not be ‘just sufficient’! It should be quite ‘more’ then the required quantity. Another thing for which I was really surprised and delighted to know was that they have great varieties in Vegetarian food dishes. And they were all great in taste!

The work culture in China in my few days’ experience had a lot of elements of ‘modesty’ and ‘humility’. It was not just because I was a foreigner for them and therefore they were apparently more modest towards me. In fact, I also observed in other meetings and also in surrounding tables in public places that in general people were extremely humble and modest to each other. When I shared this observation to a friend there, he told me that since the majority of the population follows Buddha religion, these elements of modesty and humility are in built among them since their childhood. Also I learnt that the economic system and the industries are highly clustered. Perhaps, this can be an interesting area for my future research and publication.

Overall, it was a nice trip with lots of work and loads of fun. Your feedback and suggestions for the next trip would be most awaited!

PS: This cute little boy is Kevin, son of one of my colleagues.

Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

2007-02-06T13:50:00.001Z

Kindly find the following article authored jointly by my research partner and friend Dr. Justin Paul and myself.

This article titled ‘Brain Drain or Brain Gain?’ is published in today’s (6^th February 2007 Tuesday) ‘Knowledge @ Work’ section, page no. 23 of the Hindustan Times Daily Newspaper, that is India’s one of the leading English newspapers.

This article is also available on-line on the following link:
Brain drain or BRAIN GAIN?

Your feedback on the same is most welcome. Please click on 'comments' at the end of this post and send your feedback.

Thanks in advance!

Brain Drain OR BRAIN GAIN?
Authors:
Justin Paul (justiim@gmail.com and http://www.geocities.com/justiniim/)
Jatin Pancholi (www.jatinpancholi.com)

The young generation always has a penchant for the latest and luxuries. It seems money matters everywhere. IITians and IIM graduates are passionate about going abroad.

Most of the students fly to the US and the UK for pursuing Masters Doctoral and Postdoctoral studies. Many of them crack ‘fundoo’ scholarship packages: Grants-in aid, in dollars and pounds, which normally be at least twice of the salary offered by Indian companies, if they take up a job here (in rupee terms). Hence, application (popularly known as ‘aping’) process starts early in the month of August, for the next academic year.

Clearing GRE (Graduate Record Entrance), GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test, TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) has become a part of third/fourth year curriculum, for B.Techs in IITs and various other institutes in India. The majority of IIT-IIM graduates show the ‘enthu’ of young generation for working abroad and earn name, fame and money. Should we encourage our skilled and bright engineers to leave India and to settle abroad? Should we call it as ‘brain drain’? Do IITs really help the country in reaping benefits? Where do you exactly draw the line? The term, ‘brain drain’ was coined by Royal Society of London to explain the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada in the early 1950s. Though the topic ‘brain drain’ has been a subject of hot discussions amongst intellectuals in India, still it remains unresolved. Going abroad paves the way for effective brain utilisation and provides exposure to different cultures, people etc. Since it is not a problem, there is no rationale for its solution.

If the right conditions develop in India, backflow and ‘brain gain’ of the technocrats will be automatic. However, the views are varied and diverse. Those who believe in the traditional Indian culture would articulate vehemently against the western culture. When we compare the lifestyle and western culture, one has to agree that life in those countries is totally different from our Indian ethos and family values.

The work experience in advanced countries like the US and UK gives expertise and exposure to global practices. This expertise can be tapped for planning and development programmes through the establishment of a good communication network and organised time-based calendar of schedule. Undoubtedly, it will be difficult to curb individual aspirations of living in a more affluent society. There is a rare possibility to achieve ‘brain gain’ without creating a non-law abiding society in India.

Policy makers will have to work out strategies for collaborative work with Indian diasporas abroad realising that the immigration of human capital does make India poor, otherwise, so called ‘brain drain’ will continue as long as the asymmetry in career opportunities in India and abroad exists. In fact, one has to take efforts to get into developed countries for studies and jobs because ultimately it brings expertise and wealth back into the home country.

It is better to have a ‘Human Capital Export Policy’ (HCEP) rather than calling it ‘brain drain’. The HCEP will encourage the skilled and knowledgeable people to explore the job opportunities in foreign countries, which would help the country to get more and more foreign exchange resources in the form of non-resident deposits.

Primarily, there is an urgent need to simplify the passport, visa procedures and sanction them without delay.

Secondly, the government can introduce a website and a weekly bulletin (like Employment News) exclusively for advertising and providing information on the international job opportunities.

The information about vacancies in foreign countries should be given in one column space, whereas advertisement can be given, depending upon the requirements of the company.

After all, what matters is the attitude that takes the decisions. We should take a pragmatic approach and try to create maximum opportunities in India too, on the basis of the expertise gained from developed countries.

As a matter of fact, we should encourage people going abroad for jobs and higher studies, but after the studies or gaining experience, those who leave, they should contribute to organisations and society at large in India, irrespective of the fact, if they are in India or elsewhere. And that will be the real ‘brain gain’ for India. Think twice and take decisions on: Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

Fama-efficient world

2007-01-30T22:32:00.000Z

Today, I had been to the LSE along with a friend for a talk by Fabrizio Gallo, Robert Ferstenberg and Professor Robert Engle.

Fabrizio Gallo is Global Head of Trading, Institutional Equity Division, New York, Morgan Stanley. Robert Ferstenberg is Managing Director, Institutional Equity Division, New York, Morgan Stanley. Robert Engle is Professor of Finance, New York University and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2003.

The title of their talk was 'Generating Return on Capital in a "Fama-Efficient" World'.

The summary as taken from the LSE website is as follows:

"The equity investment management business has undergone dramatic change in recent years as a result of regulation that has induced competition between market centres and provided equal access to financial information for all market participants. Consequently, global equity markets are becoming "Fama-efficient" in the sense that it is increasingly difficult for any single investor to outperform the overall market for an extended period of time. Within that context, the speakers will first provide an overview of the evolving competitive landscape of this business at a strategic level. They will then describe a specific initiative undertaken to improve the efficiency of their customer order execution business by applying econometric methods to the process of pricing, hedging and liquidating risk. The presentation concludes with a brief overview of models developed to analyse the risk-return trade-off in executing large orders and how this influences portfolio formation."

Overall, it was an insightful presentation. I particularly enjoyed understanding algorithms development by Prof. Engle.

Unfortunately, I could not get the ticket for yesterdays' speech (29th January 2007) at LSE by India's Financial Minister, P Chidambaram. However, his speech can be found here can be found here.

Short-term performance pressures

2006-11-17T21:32:00.000Z

A period study of short-term performance pressures: Case of the British Biotechnology industry
Dr. Angathevar Baskaran
Dr. Jatin Pancholi
Firoozeh Ghaffari

ABSTRACT

Since early 1990s, a number of studies argued that short-term performance pressures have deterred firms from investing in R&D, innovation, and training. Nearly all these studies focused on the failure of firms to invest substantially in long-term assets such as R&D. In contrast this paper focuses on the experiences of R&D intensive firms. This paper is a study of short-term performance pressures on selected biotechnology firms in the UK.

2006-10-06T01:06:00.000+01:00

Just finished 'Six Action Shoes'. I strongly feel that young people ‘CAN’ and ‘SHOULD’ read more.

YEH DUNIYAA AGAR MIL BHI JAAYE TO KYAA HAIN

2006-09-14T01:12:00.000+01:00

Interesting to hear from Dr. Tushar Shah (in Hindi language)

YEH SMIRNOFF

YES 7-UP KI DUNIYAA

YEH NOKIA KE CELL PHONE PE GUPSHUP KI DUNIYAA

SUBAH GOLF AUR RAAT MAIN PUB KI DUNIYAA

YEH DUNIYAA AGAR MIL BHI JAAYE TO KYAA HAIN

YEH SANTRO KA IMPORTED DHUAAN SAANSO MAIN

YEH NIGHT LIFE KI NEON CHAKA CHAUN AANKHO MAIN

YEH AMRIKA KI HALKI SI ACCENT BAATON MAIN

YEH DUNIYAA AGAR MIL BHI JAAYE TO KYAA HAIN

Transformation: The mantra for survival

2006-08-09T22:04:00.000+01:00

Transformation: The mantra for survival

Don’t just sit and crib about anything that you are unhappy about. Cribbing and gossiping will not improve the situation. It will merely waste your time and energy and bring in frustration. The key is to ‘do’ something.

If you want to change any system, be a part of that system and get yourself involved in leadership rol to bring the ‘transformation’ and ‘change’ that you want to witness.

As I read somewhere last week (I don’t remember exact words). One way is to ‘be different’. Another way in life is to ‘create a difference’.

MBA Programmes

2006-07-22T23:19:00.000+01:00

Based on my current knowledge and understanding, I present my current thinking regarding MBA programmes as follows:

1) MBA Programmes

The last decade of 1995-2005 has witnessed dramatic events and evolution of MBA programmes across the world. Around 12,000 students complete their MBA every year from AMBA accredited MBA programmes. The number of students in fulltime MBA programme from overseas (outside the UK) is rising. More and more USA students are now coming to the UK for MBA programme. Though, the number of domestic students from the UK is declining in fulltime MBA, the total number UK students doing an MBA is increasing. The UK students prefer to do an MBA by Distance Learning or Part-time MBA (also known as ‘Weekend MBA’ in some universities).

European MBA market is expanding in all the formats. Module format of teaching is still popular. European model of MBA is now diversifying. Blended learning (a combination of class room learning and online learning) is very popular among the MBA students. As per the GMAC, ‘Harvard model is not the US norm’. In the USA, there are around 1,10,000 MBAs passing from various universities every year.

2) Association of MBAs (AMBA)

AMBA is an accrediting organization and has accredited around 116 MBA programmes from 62 countries. AMBA is a global organization and evaluates MBA programmes all over the world. Usually, AMBA does accreditation for only fulltime and part-time MBA programmes. In some cases, they also accredit blended MBA programmes. AMBA has not yet accredited any fully online MBA programme. AMBA has rigorous quality criteria and less then one third of the MBA programmes in the UK are accredited. The AMBA accreditation is highly valued by employers and is benchmark of real quality.

There is a high amount of reputation attached to AMBA accreditation among the MBA aspirants and the corporate all over the world. It is believed that an MBA programme that is accredited by AMBA will attract better quality of MBA students from the world and they will fetch better salaries in their placements. The corporates all over the world regards AMBA with utmost respect. In fact, some of the multinational corporations make AMBA accreditation as a ‘condition’ in recruiting MBAs in their organization during placements.

Our MBA programme at the Middlesex University is accredited by AMBA and is one among those 116 MBA programmes of the world. And this is evident to me when I teach my finance and accounting modules both in MBA fulltime and part-time. The quality of our co-learners (I prefer to call my students as ‘co-learners’) and the diversity they bring into their class due to their culture, experience, expectations and capabilities, is really worth appreciating.

3) The New Global MBA student:

There is a remarkable evolution of a new global MBA student who is aspiring to do an MBA. There is an increased amount of information the students are accessing these days. They are more focussed and now specific about the information and knowledge that they want. Every time a student is asking ‘WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME?’ The emphasis now is on ‘soft skills’ and ‘specialization’. The students are getting higher and higher scores in GMAT now. They are using Internet as a strong tool for their information seeking and knowledge acquiring process.

They rely more on their own abilities to find information from their peers and websites rather then obtaining information from physical contact of persons from the universities. New students study a lot about our institutes and individual faculty from www.google.com and many other search engines.

Especially, in the USA and in the UK, the new students are seeking information from old MBA students (alumni) before deciding to take admission in MBA. And that is why alumni are increasingly used as ‘role models’ in majority of the leading MBA schools of the USA and the UK. Majority of the websites of the MBA programmes have direct access to the alumni and any website visitor can actually contact and alumni and ask about the programme. This helps an MBA aspirant to validate their decisions.

New MBA students do not take research and publication done by faculty very lightly. The students try to find faculty in their area of interest. They see MBA programme as an opportunity to develop network and professional relationships with the faculty. Many a times, the Corporate Training Programmes or Management Development Programmes done by the faculty are viewed by MBA students as a mark of appreciation.

The amount of resources invested by MBA programmes to develop in-house case studies, research and publication of the faculty members and interaction with the industry has become a significant indicator to attract global MBA students.

Today’s MBA aspirants are more questioning and are increasingly becoming techno-savy. A palm top on hand and a blog on the web is no more a uniqueness. In fact, blogs are increasingly influencing the MBA aspirants to exchange information and validate their decisions. Blogs have significantly helped the students to publicise the ‘grey’ shades of many MBA programmes across the world.

4) The future of MBA

MBA is expanding day by day as a global product. The competition is getting hotter. Many MBA programmes of Australia, Brazil, China, Eastern Europe, India, Latin America and Russia (can you see ‘BRIC’ here too?) are now vying for the global market share of MBA programmes. Dubai and Singapore are now added as destinations for MBA programme and attracts MBA aspirants from various parts of the world.

The case study still remains popular pedagogy and shall remain so at least in the foreseeable future. The focus on industry institute interaction and global learning is increasing worldwide and the institutes not considering these perspectives are rapidly getting extinct from the global MBA platform.

Why an MBA?

2006-06-06T23:25:00.000+01:00

Why an MBA?

MBA – A life time asset

MBA – a buffet dinner

MBA – transformation of life

More later...

Business and Entrepreneurship

2006-05-04T20:15:00.000+01:00

Creation of wealth and distribution of wealth is one the most profound economic objective. I do agree that ‘profit’ is not a dirty word. To me doing business is satisfying because it gives tremendous amount of opportunities for exposing one’s innate talents. Some more personal views on this in future.

Some of the people in business who have influence me include: (in alphabetical order of first name)

Alan Sugar

Dhirajlal Ambani

Donald Trump

Ghanshyam Das Birla

James Murray Wells

Jamshedji Tata

Kushal Pal Singh

Lakshmi Mittal

Liz Jackson

Michael Dell

Narayan Murthy

O P Jindal

Richard Branson

Richard Samler

Ruport Murdoch

Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Subhash Goyal

Swaraj Paul

Thomas Alva Edison

Tim Berners-Lee

Vikram Jain

Warren Buffett

William (Bill) Gates III

Let me narrate to you an interesting fable (story) of Panchatantra. The word ‘Panchatantra’ is a Sanskrit language word meaning in English ‘five doctrines of conduct’. Some of you might now that Panchatantra is a collection of five volumes of stories written originally in Sanskrit language by Pandit Vishnu Sharma around 200 BC in Mahilaropya (now known as state of Tamilnadu), India. It includes a collection of popular moral tales that are even relevant today. It is believed that these stories entered European literature through an Arabic version (750 AD) of the translation into Syriac of the Pahlavi (Persian) translation (550 AD) from the Sanskrit original. In fact, I read them quite often even today.

The following story is titled ‘Brahmin and three crooks’.

Once there lived a pious brahmin in a village. He used to perform religious rituals. On one occasion he was rewarded with a cow by a rich man for his service. The brahmin started to bring the cow to his home. On the way, three crooks saw the brahmin bringing the cow. They were lazy and wanted to cheat the brahmin so that they could take away the cow. They hatched a plan.

The first person approached the brahmin and said, "Are you a washerman that you're pulling a donkey." The brahmin was annoyed at being mistaken for a washerman. He went on. A little later he was met by the second of the three. The second person asked him why being a brahmin he needed to pull a pig. Now the brahmin was confused but he went on. Some distance later he was met by the third person who asked him why he was pulling along a wild animal. Now the brahmin was totally confused and also afraid. He thought that it was a devil animal which took different forms. He ran away leaving the cow behind. The three tricksters laughed at the brahmin at having obtained the cow from the brahmin.

Source: http://members.tripod.com/~srinivasp/mythology/storypa21.html

I think business and entrepreneurship are quite similar to the above story. When one spots a business opportunity, chances are that one is surrounded by people (‘crooks’) who are there to discourage you and misguide you as if there is no business opportunity exiting at all. People might label your great business idea as ‘loss venture’ (like crook labelling cow as donkey) and might internally wanting you to leave your ‘cow’ and go away. If you look at the history of great business people and entrepreneurs (including those listed above in this post), one would notice that they were invariably turned down by a lot of people around them.

If they too (like this brahmin in this story) would have trusted them (‘crooks’), they would have put their business ideas under the carpet and they might have not been at the position they are right now. But they did not and that is a great lesson that we can learn from this Panchatantra story.

Let me clarify that I do not undermine the value of ‘critics’ in business and enterprises. Critics are most welcome and they play a significant role but what is more significant is ‘healthy criticisms’ based on ‘facts’ and not like a conspired plot to pull someone down. More on businesses sometime later.

Business proposals - The world of ‘Finance’, where TRUST matters

2006-05-03T21:11:00.000+01:00

Business proposals - The world of ‘Finance’, where TRUST matters

I am really happy to note that you are very much ambitious and desirous for developing your business in global markets. I am also delighted and thankful to know that you have emailed me and found me worthy enough to be part of your ambitions.

Let me discuss with you a brief background about my activities and personal life. Besides being a faculty in the university, I am also professionally involved with research and entrepreneurial activities and am in the boards of the a few companies in the management consulting & training, chemicals, construction, media and venture capital financing organizations. After a lot of focused hard work and dedicated efforts, blessing of the almighty, now the stage have come in my life that I don’t need to work for money alone. I am fortunate enough to maintain a delicate and rare balance between Work and Life and enjoy leaning from both Work and Life. The hard realities of life have taught me to welcome so called materialist successes and failures both with equal comfort and modesty. I prefer to believe that if I win, I win and if I lose, I learn to win.

I receive several business proposals every week due to my professional network and a very wide friend circle spread across the world. Fortunately, I have a lot of friends and professional colleagues across the world that are in regular touch with me and always provide support and cooperation for even the smallest task of mine. Naturally, each business proposal does not reach the final shape of actual business due to many reasons. One of the primary reasons why many business proposals do not reach the final implementation is due to the lack of seriousness and commitment of the entrepreneur. The business all over the world is becoming extremely competitive, customer-friendly and tough and the international business is mouth-watering too.

I have seen and met a few of the ‘wannabe entrepreneurs’ who are careless, not flexible with the dynamic business environment and so due to them, the business suffers. I have also seen and met many other entrepreneurs with whom I am professionally associated in many ways, that are very much eager to learn, improve themselves, grow their business and sensitive enough to change with the dynamic business environment. I have been also instrumental directly and indirectly to the incubation of many business ventures and proposals.

Since XYZ has recommended your name, I would like to know you and your plans further in details. I am keen to know how serious and committed are you for your business proposal? How do you think your commitment and seriousness can sustain for longer time? What are your understandings of the international business? How do you keep yourself informed about rapid changes in the international business environment? How do you keep learning about business complexities? How do you wish to involve me in your business proposal? What type of role you would like to maintain in the same? How do you plan to grow?

I don’t think that money should be any problem or any constraint if you really wish to enter into international business. I have been able to influence several business groups in raising for finance. hence. I don’t think that lack of money should limit your ambitions and business plans.

Go ahead and you will get what you wish!

Research and publication

2006-04-27T23:22:00.000+01:00

Research and publication

Had been to a research workshop and had interesting ideas today.

The publishing process as described by the speaker is follows:

1) Design and implement research with a main target journal and a back-up in mind

2) Study the journal thoroughly

3) Choose the collaborators

4) Research/write/discuss/research/write/discuss

5) Send off paper after thorough checking.

6) Editor review

7) 2/3 blind reviews

8) Editor’s decision and letter

9) Revise and resubmit with detailed letter

I liked this as a concept of ‘back-up’ journal. Usually, I don’t decide ‘back-up’ journal before I submit to any journal or conference. I think this will help in my future strategy.

What he also said I think was that paper should ‘look like’ current and past papers of the same journal. He also emphasized a bit on importance of networking and collaborating in the world of research.

To my limited understanding the following are the most important 3 things of a research process:

1) Targeting Journal (or focusing on a few journals)

2) Attending Conferences to test validity of your research

3) RWD – which is Research, Write and Discuss

And of course networking and collaboration is very important but to my current view, collaboration and networking is not a ‘necessity’. Many good papers are written alone. In fact many of my own papers are my own products (so you blame it on me of you didn’t like it!).

Having said this, I think that collaboration and networking can help a lot. In fact, I enjoy working on collaborated research papers and projects. I have collaborated with various people till now and I really look forward for the same in future.

The ‘division of labour’ (as coined by my colleague NA) is a key in collaborated efforts. One need to divide an idea into different bits and pieces of the research paper/project and the entire team (2 or more authors) needs to agree on who will do which bit and by what deadline. This deadline setting is not to be undermined if one is targeting a specific journal or conference.

What I think now based on this discussion is that I would divide a research paper with the following bits and pieces (components) headings:

1) Collection of data

2) Contribution in writing text and critical commenting on else’s’ written work

3) Raising funds (in case of a research project)

4) Literature review and referencing

5) Research methods & analysis, etc.

6)Reviewing with other experts before sending it to journal/conference & establishing ‘common thread’ in various bits and pieces of the paper.

My current thinking is that I would be interested to collaborate for research if we can work as per the above mentioned division of labour. It would be an interesting collaboration if anyone can take responsibility of components in the above division of labour.

I think that research is more of a team effort and hence one need to understand personal strengths and weaknesses. I am not good in all the components of research paper and so it would be a better final paper if we infuse expertise of different expert people in one paper. Someone might be very good in data collection but not good in research methods and some one might be very good in literature review but not so resourced to collect data. I mean ‘primary data’ by data here.

In one of my research projects which was funded by European Union (this was called ‘EU-India Cross Cultural Innovation Project), we were 8 researchers and we divided ourselves into teams of 2 and 3 individuals and worked more or less on the concept of division of labour. This was a 3 year long study funded by European Union and it was a grand success!

There is a slight danger in this collaborative research. The danger I see is that if a research paper is worked on the above idea of components then there might be a situation where the final paper looks more of ‘paste’ job rather then a one single paper. If the co-authors do not communicate among themselves effectively and if some one does not take responsibility to establish a ‘common thread’ among all the components of a research paper, then this danger might arise. I think at least one of the co-authors should take responsibility of establishing ‘common thread’. May be we can show the final paper to our peers or senior colleagues for the review comments.

Over a period of time, I have established a habit (I don’t know if it is good or bad) that whenever I am writing any research paper, I send to my friends and colleagues who are experts in that area. I make the paper ‘nameless’ and request for their ‘blind review’. After getting review comments from them, I revise and rework on my paper and then only I send it to journals and conferences.

Many journals and conferences talk about ‘blind review’ and many talk about ‘double blind review’. Usually, my each paper is ‘blind reviewed’ at least 4-5 times before it gets submitted to a journal or conference. Also I welcome constructive criticism. This helps. Rather this helps a lot.

This idea of blind reviewing our own papers by peers helps in many ways. Firstly, it gives me a fair idea of critical problems in the paper and gives me new insights on the same. Another good thing is that sometimes when paper is co-authored and we have intellectual disagreement on some issue, this blind review comes to our rescue and proves to be an unbiased view on our disagreement. Sometime in February this year, I had a disagreement with one of my co-authors about keeping or removing a paragraph in the paper. When we sent to our colleague for ‘blind review’, she suggested to remove the paragraph and it worked very well. This way, we could really improve our paper.

And thirdly, it also helps our peers to develop their skills of reviewing papers. Reviewing papers is not an easy job!

Since I am practicing this since a few years from now, many of my friends and colleagues now send their papers to me for review. I review some papers myself and if the paper do not fall into my area, then I make it nameless and send it to other experts for their review comments (of course, with due permission of the authors!).

So now if I send you any paper hiding names of authors it is not necessary that it is authored by me!

There is one more danger in doing this exercise. There is a possibility that if you send your paper for reviewing to someone, he/she might ‘steal’ your idea and write a paper and get published without giving you enough credit or citation. This is not unusual in international academia. There are some ‘intellectual burglars’ in academia as I call them. Personally, whenever I review papers of others, I ‘guarantee’ for a life time that I never ever use their ‘ideas’ without any acknowledgement or citation. This is my personal principle that I never ever ‘steal’ anyone’s idea. I do get ‘inspire’ from ideas of other papers and even in that case I never forget to acknowledge about it. If one notices, in many of my papers you will find list of names of people in ‘acknowledgement’ and references. I think this is a minimum requirement for a professional researcher and author. If you steal, you will face a lot of copyright and legal problems. Even if you think that no one will know about this stealing, remember that God is everywhere!

Yes it is quite possible that some times paper written by someone is so good that I might end up sending an ‘invitation’ to write a joint paper together. This is very common of me. I send around 3-5 invitations to people for writing a joint paper and many of them accept. Sometimes we shuttle-cock emails to discuss various ideas and then narrow down to a topic and final working title. Many a times, I write a paper with someone whom I have never met before. And this joint paper writing exercise works. Now with the advent of internment, email, VOIP phone, etc. this is fairly comfortable and not so expensive. And that’s why the people with whom I am currently working on research belongs to various places such as India, USA, China, Australia, Canada, South Africa and of course, the UK.

In fact, in one instance I have become a victim of ‘intellectual burglary’. One of my old friend (no names!) and co-researcher has stolen ‘my idea’ and has not bothered to acknowledge it nor provide any citation. This has really pissed me off. And in fact, I have spoken to my lawyer regarding this and probably I might end up a filing a case against him/her. This is simply unprofessional and unacceptable.

I use to write the following as my quote sometime in 2001 on my the then website which is a reflection of my views on how research is linked with teaching and practice:

"Teaching needs information.

Research needs knowledge.

Consulting needs wisdom.

Business needs intuition."

John Hammond – Chairman, HSBC

2006-04-22T21:19:00.000+01:00

John Hammond – Chairman, HSBC

Had a great time with John Hammond, Chairman, HSBC. Very live, humble and analytical. A lot to learn from him.

Some issues in Finance

2006-04-11T23:28:00.000+01:00

The following are bullets points from my earlier presentation made to a group of senior managers of a large steel company. This presentation was titled at that time as ‘Emerging Issues in Finance Environment’.

Management Development Programme on Emerging Issues in Finance Environment
Programme Contents
• Introduction to Economic background
• International Evolution of Global Economic Environment & Geo-Political Issues
• Evolving Structure of Finance Environment
• The Road Ahead: International & India
Why I like finance and economics?
‘because one can get a Nobel Prize!’ See below:

Year Name Area
1981 James Tobin Liquidity and behaviour under risk
1985 Franco Modigliani Capital Structure & Dividend Policy
1990 Harry M Markowitz Portfolio theory
1990 Merton H Miller Capital Structure & Dividend Poobelicy
1990 William Sharpe Capital Asset Pricing Model
1994 John Nash Game Theory
1996 James Mirrless Asymmetric information
1996 William VIckrey Asymmetric information
1997 Robert Merton Option Pricing
1997 Myron Scholes Option Pricing
2001 George Ackerloff Adverse Selection
2001 A Michael Spence Asymmetric information
2001 Joseph Stiglitz Asymmetric information
2002 Daniel Kahneman Behavioural Finance
2002 Vernon Smith Behavioural Finance
2003 Robert F. Engle III and Clive W.J. Granger Time Series
2004 Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott The time consistency of economic policy
2005 Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling Game-theory analysis

Complied from www.nobelprize.org.
Alfred Nobel

Source: http://www.todayinliterature.com/assets/portraits/n/alfred-nobel-200x300.jpg

Introduction to Economic background
* ECONOMICS
* Capitalism v/s Socialism
* Economic Growth v/s Development
* National Income Accounting
* GNP
* NNP
* GDP
* NDP
* BOP

International Evolution of Global Economic Environment & Geo-Political Issues
* Civilizations: Barter to Money
* Twins of Brettenwood: World Bank, IMF
* Geo-Political Issues: Trade Tariffs, GATT, WTO, FTAs
* Environment Protection
* Cyberspace, Data Protection / Privacy

International Evolution of Global Economic Environment & Geo-Political Issues
* Role of Government
* Government Expenditure
* Y = C + I + G
* POLICIES
* Fiscal (Budget)
* Monetary
* Industrial

Evolving Structure of Finance Environment
* MARKETS
* Money
* Capital – Primary & Secondary
* Commodities, Metals, etc.
* PLAYERS
* INSTRUMENTS
* REGULATORS

Evolving Structure of Finance Environment
* Capital Market Evolution: Paper to Paperless (Depository)
* CCI to SEBI (Scams!)
* Capital Market Indicators
* Dow Jones (USA) & FTSE (UK)
* BSE Sensex
* NSE Nifty
* Investor Grievances & Protection
* Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The Road Ahead: International & India
* WORLD OR (GLOBAL) VILLAGE?
* CAPITAL ACCOUNT CONVERTIBILITY?
* USA – SUPER POWER(!)
* Goldmann Sachs Report (Brazil, Russia, India, China) – Super Power by 2050

The Road Ahead: International & India
* INDIA – double digit growth rate: A Dream or Mirage?
* WHAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM?
* Over-population?
* Poverty?
* Un-accountable leaders elected by us?
* Our own Work Ethics?

Thank You…

MARG London School of Economics Conference

2006-04-06T23:12:00.000+01:00

MARG London School of Economics Conference

A conference to be attended today at London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE).

I reached at around 9:00 am at Holborn Tube Station and then started walking towards LSE. LSE is at a walking distance from Holborn Tube Station in London. One finds range of shops on the road. Right from road-side stores selling newspapers, scarves, bags, etc. to chain of leading multinational brands. Passing through the Peacock Theatre, I finally reached the Old Building of LSE.

Several visits to LSE that I have made till now have made me learn various things. I suddenly realized that I visit almost twice a month (sometimes even 4 times!) in last 2 years. It seems to be at ‘GNYAAN KI PARAB’ in Hindi language which nearly means ‘at the place of knowledge’ (sorry I could not recall more appropriate English word for ‘PARAB’).

Lastly, I visited LSE on 10^th March during presentation made by the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Mr. Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim during which the chair was none other then the Director of LSE, Prof. Howard Davies. This was at Hong Kong Theatre (where one finds a statue of an Indian political leader and architect of the Constitution of India, Dr. B R Ambedkar), in Clement House.

After entering into the Old Building and passing through gallery of pictures of Noble Laureates, I checked on the electronic notice boards to confirm the venue. Yes everything was fine and as per schedule I had. I reached the 6^th Floor and completed formalities at the Registration desk and collected the conference kit.

Since I was a bit early, I was browsing the interiors of the lounge. Beautiful Victorian style furniture and oil painted paintings including landscapes and portraits. I realized that these portraits were actually of professors and leaders of LSE which were painted by various artists. This was awesome and so admiring that a university library has portraits of its professors and leaders displayed on the wall. To my view, this is a symbol of utmost respect. This is the first time I have seen in my life till now. I do have seen a photo of a renowned scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, (IIMA) in India since he founded the institute but not yet seen any portraits of other professors and leaders in IIMA or in any other university till now. May be, I have not seen all the rooms in many universities till now.

There were tables serving tea, coffee and cookies and so I had my cup of flavoured tea – strawberry. Meanwhile, a couple of my old associates turned up and we mingled with each other. Couple of new introductions and couple of old associations and we spent some time knowing about each other and about our current works. I realised that more then 50% of the participants in this conference were from industry. There were professional directors, CEOs, finance heads, management accountants, academicians, directors of universities and a few students too in the conference. Participants represented various sorts of organizations such as (in alphabetical order):

ABN Amro Bank

American Express Bank

Axiom-E

British Telecom

British Waterways

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)

Choice Hotels

City University

Copenhagen Business School

Coventry University

Cranfield School of Management

Daymar Ltd.

Delioitte & Touche LLP

Foresters Friendly Society

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

International Federation of Accountants

King’s College

KPMG

Lancaster University

Leeds Building Society

London Metropolitan University

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)

London Southbank University

Macquerie Bank

Manchester Business School

Manchester Metropolitan University

Middlesex University

Nottingham University

Pepsico

Pinnacle PSG

Rolls-Royce PLC

SABMiller

Said Business School

Sainsbury’s

Telewest

Thomas Miller & Co.

TIME International

Transport for London

Tuck School of Business

University of Bristol

University of Glasgow

University of Salford

Vodafone

There were stalls of professional organizations in the field of accounting and finance. The stalls were of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). There were representatives from both the organizations and they were distributing leaflets and booklets to promote their respective organizations. They were also distributing their research reports and white papers. Needless to mention, that many of the reports that they were distributing are very expensive ones but they were doing for free. In fact, this entire conference was jointly sponsored by CIMA and ICAEW.

What I really admire is the linkages between universities and professional bodies. This is worth appreciating that CIMA and ICAEW are partnering and sponsoring activities of LSE.

The conference started at 9:30 am at Shaw Library which is located on the 6^th floor of the Old Building on Portugal Street. The Chairman of the conference was none but a guru and an authority in management control and business performance measurement area – Prof. Michael Bromwich, Professor at LSE. He welcomed all the participants and briefly introduced the conference. The main them for the conference was ‘Risk Management, Cybersecurity and Financial Control’.

Since I received a detailed schedule of this conference last week, I was eager to listen to the presentation of my guru and role model Prof. John Shank from Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, USA. He was to make a presentation today on ‘Merging Financial and Management Accounting: Strategic Cost Management and Enterprise Risk Assessment under SOX’ (co-author: Prof. Joseph San Miguel). To my utter shock (and equally for all the participants), the chair of the conference Prof. Michael Bromwich (MB) announced that Prof. John Shank expired last week. This was very sad to know. God bless his soul and my prayers are with his family. MB requested all the participants to observe silence for a while for him and we all did so.

Very kind of the family members of Prof. Shank that they passed on his paper to us and we received it in our conference kit. This seems to be a very thought provoking paper on application of strategic cost management to tackle issues raised out of recent legislation of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) in the US.

The conference presentations included the following: (in order of time):

Mike Power, Professor at LSE on ‘Organizing Uncertainties: Operation & Reputation Risk Management Compared’.

Lawrence Gordon, Professor at University of Maryland on ‘Risk Management & Cybersecurity: A Management Accounting/Financial Accounting Perspective’.

Richard Sharman, KPMG on ‘Industry views of Risk’.

Bill Connell, CIMA Distinguished Practitioner on ‘Strategic Risk’.

All the presentations of during the conference were fantastic. They were all powerful and path breaking ideas and contemporary practices. Unfortunately, I don’t have PowerPoint slides soft copy otherwise I would have uploaded the same.

In between these presentations, there was also a lively and pragmatic panel discussion. And in between there was also an announcement made by Prof. Peter Miller, the head of Accounting Department of LSE that Prof. Michael Bromwich is retiring.

Overall, it was rich learning during the time spent at LSE.

Management Science: Practices v/s Theory

2006-04-05T05:35:00.000+01:00

Management Science: Practices v/s Theory

There are not always black or white answers in management. A lot of aspects in management fall in grey area. And that is really fascinating to me. I tell my MBA students since long that ‘There is no accurate formulae for any management success and that is where an individual’s capabilities come into demand’. One cannot guarantee that by doing an MBA or by reading a few books on management or may be listening to some management Gurus, one shall acquire all those managerial skills. According to my current thinking, management is more to be ‘learnt’ rather then to be ‘taught’.

Often I am remarked by some of my friends and colleagues that management is all bookish and theoretical. Coincidentally, in majority of cases, this kind of remark is made by people who might have not read sufficient management literature. Hence, you might agree that it is very ‘easy’ for them to build this opinion.

May be they are right according to their own experience and judgement. However, I humbly disagree on this school of thought. As per my limited understanding I view management more as an applied science. In fact, there are various evidences that first management was ‘applied’ (or practised) and then put into theory. Say for e.g Henry Fayol (1841-1925) first put his ideas into action and when his management ideas were successful, then he shared it with the world and named it as ’14 Principles of Henry Fayol’. More about him and his work on:

http://www.onepine.info/fayol.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fayol

http://www.12manage.com/methods_fayol_14_principles_of_management.html

There are umpteen numbers of such examples. Management theory and practice are intertwined and majority of management theory is drawn from practice. However, similar to many other theories, management theories would also operate under a set of circumstances, assumptions and models.

So if a management idea is not working in a particular business situation, then it is not a conclusive evidence of unreliable management idea. That is where corporate trainers and management consultants come to help. What is more important is need of expert people who are able to translate management ideas into palatable language that is understandable to people across organizations. These experts also help organizations in customizing those management ideas according to the structure, culture and specific needs of the organizations. In fact, that is what we also do in our corporate training and management consulting assignments. Our first responsibility is to capture all necessary facts of our client organization and then to translate a management idea into a customised of course of action through our solutions of corporate training and consulting projects. And it works.

We interacted with a fairly large size of organization recently in London. They were keen to explore on possibilities for restructuring their budgeting exercise. Due to a Non Disclosure Agreement conditions I won’t be able to divulge much details here, but we spent a great amount of time and energy and developing a customised model for their budgeting exercise which is also popularly known as ‘Activity Based Budgeting’ (ABB). Some more details on this in future.

A few links on ABB as follows:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/abb.asp

http://www.activitybasedmgmt.com/Activity_Based_Budgeting.htm

http://whitepapers.silicon.com/0,39024759,60003344p-39000561q,00.htm

Welcome!

2006-03-10T17:46:00.000Z

Welcome to JP's blog!

Welcome to my blog! This blog will have my reflections on my thinking related to life, careers, businesses, opportunities, travel, photography, ideas, influences, organizations, individuals and more. Depending on various factors and my schedule this blog may be regularly irregular.

karmanye vadhika raste,

ma phaleshu kadachana;

ma karma phala he tur bhuh,

ma te sangvasta karmani

The above stanza originally in Sanskrit language is from Bhagwat Gita which has a profound message for the mankind. It means that we as human beings do have right to do ‘KARMA’ which means work (duty) but we need not expect any fruit from the work. We have a duty and an obligation to do, but we have no right to expect a particular consequence or result or fruit to follow from what we do.

To conclude for the first blog, the following is my disclaimer para.

Please note that this blog shall be part of my website www.jatinpancholi.com and subject to disclaimer mentioned on the same. Kindly note that by visiting this website or any of the pages, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions mentioned in the disclaimer. For further information, please read http://www.jatinpancholi.com/disclaimer.html.

Jatin Pancholi

Capacity Utilization

Contribution Margins

Change: The only constant

In the land of dragons

Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

Fama-efficient world

Short-term performance pressures

Read More

YEH DUNIYAA AGAR MIL BHI JAAYE TO KYAA HAIN

Transformation: The mantra for survival

MBA Programmes

Why an MBA?

Business and Entrepreneurship

Business proposals - The world of ‘Finance’, where TRUST matters

Research and publication

John Hammond – Chairman, HSBC

Some issues in Finance

MARG London School of Economics Conference

Management Science: Practices v/s Theory

Welcome!