Grab the Talent!!

In these days of globalisation and the ‘’competitive environment’’, change is the only constant. Surely, now the tides are turning in the corporate world, gone are the days where a person would join an organisation in his early age and stay on servicing that company till retirement. Today, young professional hop jobs especially during the first 4-5 years of their work life. Times have changed and now people cannot be rooted at one place for long time. It is therefore now proved, that with the advent in technology and knowledge, talent is on the hot seat. Now it’s for one who possesses it dictates and not the one who pays for it.

As Jack Welch says: "Any strategy, no matter how smart, is dead on arrival unless a company brings it to life with people—the right people."

Therefore, now the challenge is how to acquire the right talent and even bigger question is how to retain best talent? While there is no set map or wonder formula to manage talent, the trick is to locate the right talent in the organisation and encourage it. As Tom Friedman puts it across, that in order to compete in this ‘’flat’’ world, one needs to have (well) rounded people. Becoming a well rounded talent requires immense learning and development of skills. Organisations that aim to achieve that, must invest time and energies towards creating enriching workplace environment if they wish to attract and retain the high calibre talent.

It is now the duty of the global HR community to work upon building talent management strategies thereby nurturing the talented workforce. Talent must be spotted, well nurtured and most importantly preserved in the healthy environment.

Right talent for the right job – is the new mantra for organisations.

By Haider Jasdanwala
Proud Trendsetter

No need to say good bye

We 30 "Trendsetter" or as Sunny called us 30 beads of necklace are parting ways after one year of fighting, night outs, sweat and blood and above all friendship for life. Its a season of saying bye to each other. Some of us are elated that they are joining the corporate world while some of us are still in the process of finding the job. While it has already started one by one people are leaving this place and carrying on with life and saying "GOODBYE" to each other . I feel "No need to say Good bye" as we are not parting for ever we are and we will be together for ever , not necessarily physically but emotionally. In this moment of parting season a beautiful poem from "The Chronicles of Narnia " (movie)

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
Til it was a battle cry

I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never
Been this way before

All you can do is try to know
Who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light

You'll come back
When it's over
No need to say good bye

You'll come back
When it's over
No need to say good bye..

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
Til they're before your eyes

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say good bye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say good bye.


so friends keep in touch , luv you all

Paritosh
Proud to be a Trendsetters

UPDATES

this week started with some good news Shiva cracked TCS Business Development Role, definitely an enviable position for people who want to get into IT . Sanket got into Nihilent Technlogy as a Business Development Manager, as I was getting worried about my self , the results of KPMG were out and by grace of God I cleared it !! what put the icing on the cake was that Sanket also made it to the 3rd and Final round at KPMG.. and the last week it was Winston's turn to convert his internship @ Capgemini into a Job(I also interned their but did not get an offer :( )

We also celebrated our one year at MBS so it was double joy for us and we also had some nostalgic moments when we were addressed by our faculty member and staff .

Another big news on the placement firm 7 of us have been shortlisted by GOOGLE !!! isnt it exciting ?? so Guys keep an eye on this space for updates on placement ...

Your Correspondent

Paritosh

Trendsetter

A Proud MBSite

Placements blues

For all of us the time has come to move on from our student life and to enter into the corporate world. There have been some hits like Sreeram and Jayanto cracking the TCS, Richa,Pradeep and Ibby getting into Al Seer Dubai, and Sourabh,Zaid and Shahil getting into Marketing&design elements and Pallavi cracking lavasa and some near misses like me loosing out at L&T after 3 rounds of interview :( . But I am definately hopeful that we 30 are bonded even stronger than ever before and I am pretty sure that by 15th May when we will be graduating we all would have reached the Al dorado which Bhushan talked about earlier . All the best trendetters !!! lets rock it

Paritosh
Trendsetter

Are you ready??

Perhaps, this would be my first gyan post for this season, hence request all of you to bear with me…:)
5 months into MBA @ MBS, approx 1800 hours of grilling exercise. I wanted to take some time off from this busy schedule and reflect on the days passed by; trust me, journey has been enriching.
This blog might serve as insight to prospective MBSite, who wish to understand MBS better or rather himself better
Idea of doing an MBA was back of my mind from past 3 years and only this year it got materialized, I consider really fortunate for that.
What took me so long; was it lack of abilities?...
Answer to that introspection was; lack of preparedness
What do I mean when I say lack of preparedness??....anyone to answer..!!!
Let me tell you my perspective, it's just that whether you are prepared to take the responsibility of managing time, money and of course stress. This question haunted me until some days back. Well, now I can say that YES, I am!!
So, now time for all you to answer the same question….ask for yourself, why do you need to an MBA?, is it to accelerate your career prospects or for monetary returns or just that your parents/spouse wants you to have one.
Now onus lies on you to find an honest answer and only YOU can find an answer, hope you find an answer sooner than later…

Good Luck…!!!

Mervyn Lewis
Propagator

The figures for January are out – the inflation at the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) level is now 8.56%.

The RBI knows now that raising interest rates isn’t likely to help. But that’s all they can do really – the solution needs to be political. A number of things I’ve heard suggest the situation won’t get better very soon

NREGA is exacerbating it. Most harvest season hires are temporary workers, who now have permanent paying jobs with NREGA and therefore don’t want to bother harvesting. Farmers have reacted by reducing crop acreage; supply shortfalls will increase when the pattern applies country-wide.

Sharad Pawar talks his shop – people loyal to him take cues from what he says and raise prices when he suggests any commodity is under supply stress.

The middlemen in the food supply chain, politically very strong, have been hoarding; and the politicians are helping by not flooding the market with the FCI stored resources (of which 40% are wasted!)

There was a drought last year, which constrained supply. Not much of a drought, but it doesn’t take much to fuel a panic.

Food is a very small portion of our monthly expenses considering you dont own an apartment are living on a rental basis, about half of the rent we would normally pay if we dont own a house, so even a 30% increase isn’t going to kill you. But it hurts the poorest of the poor; while as a nation we don’t care about our poor, it is simply inhuman to let them starve while we consider stupid things like raising interest rates. Even if they don’t starve, the high prices of certain items makes them undernourished as they can’t afford what’s nutritious. It’s not yet too bad but it’s progressively getting worse. With oil prices set to increase this WPI looks like it’s only headed one way: UP

Winston Dsouza

RBI Mandates Single Base Rate for Banks

RBI has decided to curb the current practice of banks using different benchmark rates for different customers. From April 1, 2010 all banks will have to use a single base rate that will be the reference rate for all customers:

The Base Rate system will replace the BPLR system with effect from April 1, 2010. Banks may determine their actual lending rates on loans and advances with reference to the Base Rate. Base Rate shall include all those elements of the lending rates that are common across all categories of borrowers. While each bank may decide its own Base Rate, some of the criteria that could go into the determination of the Base Rate are: (i) cost of deposits; (ii) adjustment for the negative carry in respect of CRR and SLR; (iii) unallocatable overhead cost for banks such as aggregate employee compensation relating to administrative functions in corporate office, directors’ and auditors’ fees, legal and premises expenses, depreciation, cost of printing and stationery, expenses incurred on communication and advertising, IT spending, and cost incurred towards deposit insurance;and (iv) profit margin. An illustration for computing the Base Rate is set out in the Annex

The actual lending rates charged to borrowers would be the Base Rate plus borrower-specific charges, which will include product-specific operating costs, credit risk premium and tenor premium.

All categories of loans should henceforth be priced only with reference to the Base Rate. The Base Rate could also serve as the reference benchmark rate for floating rate loan products, apart from the other external market benchmark rates. The floating interest rate based on external benchmarks should, however, be equal to or above the Base Rate at the time of sanction or renewal.

Since the Base Rate will be the minimum rate for all commercial loans, banks are not permitted to resort to any lending below the Base Rate.

The Base Rate system would be applicable for all new loans and for those old loans that come up for renewal. However, if the existing borrowers want to switch to the new system before the expiry of the existing contracts, in such cases the new/revised rate structure should be mutually agreed upon by the bank and the borrower.

This is significant – many banks have had this kind of funda:

• Lure a customer using a fundoofied low interest rate like 7.25% floating
• Make the paperwork such that the loan adjusts with respect to a benchmark rate called “Home Loan Benchmark”, say 200 basis points below it. Set this benchmark rate at 9.25%.
• When the customer’s signed up and paid for a few months, INCREASE this Home Loan Benchmark rate slowly – to 10%, then 11% etc.. The customer now has to pay 200bps lower.
• Most customers won’t care because you will increase the tenure of the loan rather than the EMI. They are too busy or ignorant to realize that they are paying 10% more interest to the bank over the term of the loan if the loan tenure is extended, for each 0.25% increase!
• Example: 30 lakh loan for 20 years at 7.25% is 23,711 a month, and you pay Rs. 27 lakhs in interest over 20 years. If they bump up the rate to 7.5%, and keep the EMI the same, you’ll pay it for 20 years 11 months; the amount of interest you pay, though, goes up to 29.4 lakhs, or 9.36% more. Screw that – you pay 3% interest in the first year.
• But this means you can’t snare the new suckers – who want low interest loans. So instead of losing that juicy extra income from the already trapped customer, you create a different benchmark called “NEW Home Loan Benchmark” and offer loans at 7.25% only to new customers. That way you can milk the older customers who have no choice but to pay, and get new customers at lower rates.
• Your older customers can’t run off easily; you set up a pre-payment penalty.

This is at the retail end. At the corporate end banks were killing each other by offering rates way below the BPLR benchmarks (one of the many numbers) and since there is no “bottom” banks could simply lowball each other to whatever end.

A fixed base rate will solve some of these problems – all loans, corporate or retail, must benchmark themselves to the base rate. (Note: Floating rate products can take on external benchmarks also – but that’s good enough if the bank doesn’t control the external benchmark. )

What this will do though, is show you the huge spread between what is offered to corporates and what you and I get. Where corporates can get loans at 7%, we can only get them at 10% or more; once they put in the base rate at 7% we get some negotiating room to eke out a better rate. But honestly most borrowers will be too ignorant to even check a bank website for it’s current base rate, so who am I kidding. All it will do right now is create a more competitive environment for certain banks.

Public sector banks are most certainly going to benefit – they didn’t indulge in these kinds of practices. Private banks are going to see margin erosion. I hope they make pre-payment penalties illegal too – then private banks are hosed. But there are ways to make money – not as much as before but still, good money – for banks, and I hope they come around and offer better products instead of trying to squeeze the last naya paisa from customers.


Winston Dsouza