IIM-A GD/PI
The case study was about Anitha, marketing executive at Karma Kola Ltd (KKL). She has to increase sales, but a consumer group has alleged that KKL soft drinks have an excessive amount of pesticide, which causes cancer. Some more facts: like the study not being certified and KKL not violating any law, as government regulation state that potable water has to be used.
A nice and peaceful GD. Everyone got a lot of time to speak and nobody had to cut anyone out. Only no. 9 was very irritating, gave lots of silly points and kept disturbing others while speaking. Although nobody emerged as leader and there was no summary, I was satisfied with my performance.
We had to write a summary in paragraph form in five minutes. I could just write 10-12 lines.
As I was in the penultimate position, I had to wait for a long time. We had one more panel on our floor. So a total of 18 students were sitting together. I got to hear everyone’s experience, and it was fun in general. Nobody was distraught after the interview and everyone praised the panel. The wait was long and arduous. I must have gone to the loo 7-8 times.
IIM-B has these pictures with some quotations written on them. I used my loo-trips in reading all the pictures on my floor. The one I liked the most had three tortoises walking and one flying above them and had the line "Innovation is positive disobedience." Very true!
At 5:25 I was called in for my PI. There were three profs on my panel. One very old in his fifies(OP), second one in his 40's(MF, Basant Rakesh) and a young prof in his 30's(YP).
I was asked to take a seat.
OF was going through my form.
OF : Yashodeep you have been working somewhere.
Me : Yes, I am working at TCS.
OF : You have a experience of 3 years, right , and in the same company. Tell me about your job.
Me : I am working at ATC in tcs which was the brainchild of Dr. Vidyasagar. We have 2 divisions Security and Bioinformatics. I am in BioInformatics and we are developing a product called biosuite....etc...
OF: What is biosuite?
Me : Explain him about biosuite, collaboration with universities, four modules, cheaper price etc..
OF: You do some coding, development out there.
Me : I have been involved in all the stages from requirements to testing.
OF: OK, then list all the tools you have used in the stages.
Me : RC- word; Design -UML; Code - gcc, emacs, gdb; Testing - gdb
OF: In UML we have sequence diagrams. What are they?
I had forgotten everything about UML and was shocked at that question. I was expecting something on my course subjects or my work responsibilities. Anyways, I remembered some facts on time and explained with a diagram. He asked me some more details on sequence diagrams and then went on to inheritance. Asked me about multiple inheritance and some other concepts. I told him about aggregation. Here we had some confusion about where to put the diamond, which denotes aggregation, on the source or the destination.
OF: I am done. (Points to MF) you may take over.
MF: Yashodeep you have written that you oppose software patents. Why?
Me : Explained about software being different and one patent per product does not apply here. It is a collection of ideas and if one idea gets patented you cannot develop software.
MF : But that is a special case.. what else?
Me : Started discussing about innovation as an argument for patents and then took up the case of software where innovation has been happening without patents. And even after patents no increase in R&D has been observed.
MF : You have also written about economics and business aspects of open source. So how do you think companies can use open-source.
Me : Talked about finding the distinguishing and non distinguishing factor and open-sourcing the non-distinguishing part.
MF: And what is the effect of patents on open-source
Me: Patents and open-source cannot survive together.
MF: But I read a article which says that open-source developers are filing for patents.
Me: Yes may be it is being used as deterrence
MF: No-No they are using patents for preventing others from using the idea.
Me: But that won't work. GPL doesn't have provisions for patents but now linux developers have to release patents and mozilla license has specific clauses about this.
Some more discussion on this stuff. OF asks me for my files.
MF : The library BOOL that u developed , is tcs thinking of commoditising it.
Me: Actually Dr Raj, our gl had given a suggestion on these lines.. but we need to work on documenting it .. and enhancing the interface..
YP : You have leading a team of 8 people. What does it take for a successful team.
Me: Yes sir.. as successful team requires lot of sharing and delegation... explained him something about it..
YP: What else...
Me: A lot of motivation.. People see their colleagues going onsite.. u have to motivate them .. tell them that they are doing something for science..
MF: The product that u have developed will it be useful for small Indian biotechnology companies.
Me: Yes sir, it is low priced ... and has all the features... etc...
MF: And what about big pharama companies...
Me : No not at present. Big pharma will only use products with good pedigree.. we need to have a base for it... at present we are targeting educational institutes.. once some research papers come out using our product then we will have something to talk about.. our EVP has plans of asking US students to work on biosuite.. we may even pay them for using it..
YP : what are the weaknesses of tcs
Me: Big size.. lot of administrative issues.. and moving up the value chain.. developing products etc...
MF : What do you have in the other file...
Me : Nothing sir..
MF : u did not get ur papers..
Me: No sir..
MF : Are they published..
Me: One is published ... the other one is in the process..
YP : No other weaknesses..
Me : No sir..
OF : Ok yashodeep you may go now.. take a toffee..
Me: Thank you sir..
On the whole the PI was fine. I was able to get them to talk about things I wanted. All this because of good form filling, thanks tinni.
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