Created new blog

http://pksatyagrahi.blogspot.com/

Lots of fun last week with me meeting Pawan Kalyan...Let me update in my next post down the week end. I am in my native now, busy with the loan thing for Oxford. Signing off now and let me come back in the week end...

Dream Companies to work for...

After all, after doing an MBA one will wish to work in his dream companies with his dream positions. What are my dream companies?? hmm..I dont have any dream companies as such. I have dream people whom I want to share my desk with. These are they:

1. Bill Gates: Certainly the Badshah in the IT revolution. I want to work with him to find out how one can maintain the TOP LEVEL in the market despite of challenging products in the market which are better than theirs (Linux for OS, Mozilla/Netscape for Browsers etc.,)

2. Michael Dell: Competing with IBMs and HPs, its real difficult for one to go ahead. This guy had done it with his immense capabilities. Why should one deny to share a desk with him some day?

3. Narayana Murthy: The Out Sourcing guy. I certainly want to know a lot of things from him which I cannot discuss here for confidentiality ;-)

hmm..And of course let me see where I can go after my MBA and whom all I can meet....

If you want to work in India, you go to ....

I heard from lot of people in various forums and groups about this suggestion of picking ISB if some one is looking to choose b/n ISB and some X College. Is it really true??

In my opinion, this is completely faltoo. Why should one go to ISB over Yale, Insead, LBS etc., just for the sake of working in India?? If you are unable to arrange the finances, then probably you can go with ISB if you have no other options. I believe that Yale, Insead, LBS etc., can give you International Mobility and finding a job in India with degrees from these colleges is not a big deal. Also, I dont understand why people look after Overseas Placements if they want to stay back in India after ISB ;-)

I was giving same gyan earlier, but I dont see any reason to go to ISB over the Intl reputed colleges and that too if you are getting the same ROI. The 10 Lakhs Avg Salary with 5 Years of Avg Exp is no big deal for an institute like ISB. As of now I see that they are just as good as IIMs in terms of recruiters expectations. So, if you are investing 17 Lakhs and getting back a 8-9 Lakhs job, its not so easy as one think to repay it and get a better ROI.

Where to Invest?

A lot of my friends are investing their money in Real Estate, Mutual Funds, Gold, Shares etc., But what about me?? yes I am also investing in my education. Like them I also want to check my returns. I formulated my own formula for calculating my ROI. In 5 years with my current earning capacity at CSC, I will be earning around 200,000 GBP with all promotions being taken into account (Very optimistic here in assuming that I will be working for CSC UK continuosly for 6 years). The lost Salary and the expenses that I am incurring now along with the interest paid for MBA loan will come to around 92000 GBP. Assuming that I will getting the average salary what an Oxonian got last year I would be able to make around 320000 GBP even if I assume that there are no salary hikes which is very unlikely (In fact I am just assuming the base salary excluding the other benefits). So, still I would be able to make a decent return of around 3% on what I am investing now in 5 years, year on year. Though this is very less, this is a very pessimistic estimate of my ROR after MBA. I am sure that this would cross around 20-50% realistically. The best way to calculate is to ??

Come back and re visit this after 5 years...

Signing off for now...

Chasing was never so easy!!!

I was watching the SA Vs Australia match the other day. SA chased the whopping 434 that was scored by Australia. The way they scored was astonishing. They made it so simple. This remembered me of a match that we(college team) played against our brother's team(team formedby people residing near my home in my native). My brother's team scored some 120 odd runs in 16 overs. Chasing 120 was not so easy on any day and I opened the innings. We were down to some 20 for 3 in 5 overs. It was then Babu came into crease. We have the target of 100 runs in 11 overs and we cannot afford to lose another wicket. I was not a big hitter and I am generally good at nagging and getting 1s and 2s. The asking rate was 10 per over and we decided to go at a rfate of 9 for over for first 5 and 11 for over for next 5. Babu almost hit 1 four an over in the first 5 overs. This had made us accomplished the first target which gave us the confidence to drive along. For the first time in my career I had hit couple of 6s and we cruised to victory with 2 overs to spare. This was the same happened to South Africans. As per Smith, their target was 195 runs in 25 overs and they scored around 220 in 25 overs which had made the task easy.

Now lets play the real game. I believe chasing targets is pretty much easier than setting the target. You definitely know what you want to accomplish and its pretty much easier once you set the target and plan the execution. Its the same thing happened to me. My target was to do MBA this year. I had dings from Cambridge, ISB, Chicago and Michigan so far. Except Chicago I had interviews at other schools followed by dings. I am yet to hear from Kellogg, Stanford, Yale and Tuck. At this point I dont see much chance for me getting into those. Does all these matter?? No not at all. The Oxford was there for me. The first college where I was admitted. I definitely know that 41000 GBP is what I need. For the first 2 months I was just thinking of the huge amount and was unable to get the finances. I changed the game plan and divided 41000 into different components. I said to myself, let me get 20000 GBP first and think of the rest later. This strategy helped me to achieve the bigger goal as I was always thinking of the smaller parts. Now, this means that I AM GOING TO OXFORD THIS YEAR.

Yes and finally some good news that my brother got into Accenture and Satyam. Hes taking Accenture and joining tomorrow.

Management Consulting

One of the most aspiring careers for B-School goers. Infact I have also decided to look for a career in MC and have IT career as a back up. I have solved couple of sample cases given in Mckinsey.com and some other sites and felt confident about my problem solving skills to take up a career in MC.

On the other front, a lot of schools has started releasing decisions and I wonder about my candidature as my apps in few schools were marked complete only last week. This whole B School procedure is getting to be over very soon and as of now I have decided to go to Oxford. My L1 Visa was temperory refused for insufficient documentation and the Consular officer asked me to come back with few documents. But, I might not go back as I dont have plans now to continue in my job.

Loan Procedure of SBI

A lot of people who visit my blog asked me for the procedure of the bank loan that I am gonna procure. Here it is for those interested:

--> You definitely need to have a collateral Security of around 150% if you are going for a loan of more than 400,000 Rs. The bank will tell you 100% but you reuire 150% for the following reasons:
1. Bank will ask you to get an estimate from one of the bank vendors (Yuvraj Planners in my native in my case). Typically those planners will give you a very less estimate than what you will think of. For my brothers house, my estimate was 1,200,000 where as they have given 860,000. Infact the value of site itself is 400,000+ which means that for a house which is One storeyed with all posh tiles and all they have estimated 460,000 which is very less. This has happened for the other properties that I have given top them also. I found that this is a practise followed by those planners.
2. Once you get an estimate bank will again discount it by more than 20%. So, for my brothers house bank approval will be for the max of 688,000rs which is not so much higher than the plot value.

So typically after all these cuts, if you want to get a loan of 100% you need to have a collateral of 150%. Once you get the collateral it will be a cake walk to get a loan. After all we are giving a lot of security for the loan...Few FAQ from what I understood:

1. Can we get a loan with out collateral??
A. Mere impossible if loan is more than 400,000

2. Will the Oxford brand count?
A. I dont see it because bank guys just checked my document once and always kept talking about the collateral.

Hope this helps. Any question leave a comment.

Snakish Dreams --- Bush Visit to Hyderabad

One fine day I am going on the road and sudden say one snake started catching me to kill me off....argh!!!!!!! This is just one of the Snakish dream I got...I should get into Guiness records probably for the most snakish dreams I get......On an Average once in 2-3 days I will get a Snake in my dream...Probably its because of my name - "Naga Raja" which means "KING of SNAKES"..hmm..But the best part is that its good to get snakes in dream and its even good if they kill us...

Bush's visit to Hyderabad was fruitful atleast for the reason that US Consulate is getting started in Hyderabad in Oct 2007. Hyderabad is one of the happening places now with Fabcity news, Univ of Vedanta and Georgia Tech, and now US Consulate starting up.

Cambridge Interview

Cambridge Interview went decently and I see a 80% chance of getting in. Decision will be communicated on Monday. Oxford placement report is out and I am pretty much impressed with it. The questions of Cambridge interview are pretty much the same as what they have asked others like digging more on why cambridge and my profile.

I am travelling to my native tonite to talk to Bank people again and follow up. Need to get a lot of work done on this behalf for Oxford. But, I havent given up as I see a 500,000 gap which can be filled. I am travelling to Chennai this week end for L1 stamping. So, a hectic schedule around and I am hoping to get all things right.