Strategies to score a 97+ percentile in VARC
Now that we are entering the final phase of CAT prep, it is important to make sure that we are in our best shape come the d-day. Now, all of us are preparing for the day when everything would go according to plan. But what about those days where you will find it extremely difficult to move ahead? The important thing to understand here is that you should be so prepared that you hit the mandatory 97 percentile in a section irrespective of the contents of the test, your frame of mind and other factors that are beyond your control. Let’s look at the sub-section wise things that you could do to be extremely strong on the defensive front. Reading Comprehension The time is pretty limited to start a reading habit now. Instead, my suggestion is to solve 2–3 good RCs every day. So, by the time you take CAT 2017, you should be done with at least 150-180 RCs which is sufficient practice. Where do you solve RCs from? Multiple sources: Past CAT papers: Easily the most relevant and the closest to CAT level RCs. Do all RCs from all available papers (1990-2008). The ones before 2001 should have longer RCs and more questions. But it doesn’t matter. What is more important is comprehension and accuracy. Don’t worry too much about timing yourself or reading faster initially. The focus is more on comprehension than on reading speed and so, you would need to improve that first. Once you can comprehend well and quickly, you can crack the speed code easily. GMAT RCs: The next best source after past CAT papers. Purchase the GMAT Official Guide (any edition works). So that will help you solve the difficult RCs as you desire. The good thing about GMAT RCs is that you will get good explanations for each question which will help you identify the traps come the actual test. Ensure that you understand the solution to a question completely before proceeding to the next one. The above 2 sources should help you get to the 150 RC mark till CAT. In case you wish to practice more, you may refer to GRE and LSAT RCs which again are extremely good. The other thing that would help you is maintaining a small document or a notebook covering the various new concepts/theories you come across. It is advisable to have a working knowledge of a few economics, finance, history, arts, geography, technology and biology concepts so that you don’t face an issue when you are reading a passage for the first time. If the first reaction to an RC passage is surprise/fear, you can pretty much promise yourself that it is going to be a rocky ride. 2. Paragraph Completion Paragraph Jumbles (PJ) questions and their derivative odd sentence out questions are the 2nd most common question type in CAT. Here are a few useful methods to help you decode these question types: (i) Pronouns/shortened name/surname/nickname: If there is a pronoun in a sentence (he/she/it/they etc.), there should be a preceding statement that introduces the subject in most of the cases. Paper setters try to negate this strategy a fair bit when they make sure that there are two subjects in a particular parajumble with one being named after the pronoun for the other is exhausted thereby confusing aspirants. The way to work around this trap is by making sure that you identify the subject and the action it is performing. In most of the cases, there will be a difference between the ‘deeds’ of the two subjects which will make you choose the right link by simply maintaining continuity of thought. (ii) Tenses: Ideally, all the sentences will be in the same tense. If there is a reference to a past incident, you have to make sure that all the statements involving the past incident are adjacent to each other. If there is a present and a futuristic scenario being told, you need to make sure that all the arguments of the present point towards the future and so on. This is not a difficult thing to do and once you have sufficient knowledge of tenses, you should be good to go. (iii) Transition Words: Words such as ‘but’, ‘therefore’, ‘hence’, etc. are transition words. Sentences starting with these words generally give an idea as to which sentence comes before this sentence. For example, for sentences starting with ‘hence’ and ‘therefore’ among others, the sentence coming before this current one will convey the same idea as the current one. On the other hand, sentences starting with ‘but’ and ‘however’ among others, will convey an opposite idea to the sentence coming before the current one. Hence, noticing transition words can be pretty useful in solving these question types. Sources to prepare from: Past CAT papers, current and past mocks 3. Paragraph Completion A majority of the rules for solving parajumbles are applicable in paragraph completion questions. The things to keep in mind here are logical consistency, continuity with the preceding part of the para, non-introduction of a fresh topic, keeping the trend of generic to specific or vice versa depending on the preceding sentences, continuity in terms of tenses and so on. Sources to prepare from: Past CAT papers, current and past mocks 4. Grammar For grammar, the way to go about is to know the more important topics and focus on them. Focus on articles, subject-verb agreement, modifiers, parallelism, idioms and tenses. Almost all questions will fall under these categories. A good book for knowing these concepts is the Manhattan Sentence Correction Guide (Not Wren and Martin!!!!). Although the Manhattan SC Guide is meant for the GMAT, it covers these topics from the basics. So it should help you understand these concepts. 5. Vocabulary CAT has moved away from testing aspirants on vocabulary over the past few years. However, with IIM-L conducting the test this year, it’s better to be prepared. The best source for preparing for vocabulary will be a
Strategies to crack CAT 2017
Now that you will be at the peak of your preparation phase, it is highly recommended that you do not lose focus and avoid getting stagnant. The aspirants who will sustain their energy through this phase and will scale it up a bit will be the ones who will do exceedingly well at CAT 2017. A few things that I would like to share that you can keep in mind while going through these last couple of months. Regular practice While you would have graduated from the reference material and booklets, it would make sense to go for filtered practice at this point in time. Instead of solving tens of questions on a particular topic, you can go for solving a mixed bag of questions. Typically, active social groups, forums and trainers will be your primary source of practice. It is recommended that you solve at least one Reading Comprehension passage and an LRDI set a day along with 30 odd challenging questions from Quantitative Ability. This will lead to a solid set of questions that you will have solved before CAT 2017. Also, at least a couple of mocks per week should do the trick for you. With around 60 days to go for CAT, you can target around 15-20 mocks depending on how much time you can eke out towards preparation. If you have already been taking a couple of mocks per week, you can try to go a bit aggressive on the mock front and touch 3 mocks a week. Mock taking You will see the number of takers falling with each passing mock and your percentile will get a bit lower than what it used to be. With only serious candidates in the fray, it is obvious that this will happen. So, however bad you feel about your percentile, don’t give up! The percentile that you get has no correlation whatsoever with what you will/can get at the actual test (except maybe in situations when you are scoring 99+ in pretty much each mock in which case, you are on your path to glory). Just make sure that you analyse your mocks well and do not repeat your mistakes. If you are able to find the optimum solution to most of the quant questions that you are solving, are able to select the best sets in LRDI and are not getting lucky in VARC, you should be fine. Maintain a repository of the interesting questions that you come across and go through these at least once a week or so. Things to avoid during prep There is a basic set of commandments that I advise my students to not follow while preparing for CAT. Here it goes: Overestimating the level of difficulty of the test: It is not as difficult as everybody makes it out to be. There have been survivors, there will be survivors Asking everyone around them who has ever scored a 99 percentile how to score that 99 percentile: I haven’t seen anyone asking me how to get a 100 percentile get a 100 percentile. If you are good enough, you will know the right questions to ask Falling in company of incapable mentors/fake gurus: I need not elaborate more on this point Burning out before the test: Taking a mock every day is not recommended if you are doing it out of hope that it will lead to a better score. The day prep stops being fun is the day you have started burning out Putting all your eggs in the CAT basket: Do not make a do-or-die situation out of a measly test. A test hasn’t decided anybody’s fate yet and it won’t in the future Taking mock percentiles too seriously: Don’take success to your head or failure to your heart Quitting your job/Not concentrating on your final year at all: Don’t spoil your CV simply because you cannot manage to eke out a couple of hours from your daily schedule Not having a life: Disciplined yes, self-punishing no Overestimating your ability/Not being ready to accept that you are probably not good enough for ABC: Keep your expectations in check. Aim for higher than what you are capable of but understand firmly what you are capable of Solving random questions/Freebies come at a cost: Most of the free content available is not curated and simply downloading and printing 10 kg of material never translated into a 99 percentile Things to keep in mind during the test It is very important that you are subconsciously aware that your performance will be relative to that of the other aspirants and so, you do not criticize yourself too badly during the test. If you have been consistently solving 25 questions in QA but on the 26th, you are solving 20, don’t panic. If it is difficult for you, it will be difficult for everybody else. Over the last couple of years a lot of good aspirants have not done well simply because they panicked because of a difficult LRDI section (in which they did fairly okay) and messed up their QA performance. So, I would suggest that you go through the various scenarios while taking mocks so that you are not surprised during the actual test. Because the moment you are off balance, there is a huge chance that you will not end up a happy person at the end of the test. So, content and skill notwithstanding, temperament is probably the biggest factor that decides your fate at the test. Wish you all the best for CAT 2017! Download Brochure
Strategies to score a 97+ percentile in Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation
Now that we are entering the final phase of CAT prep, it is important to make sure that we are in our best shape come the d-day. Now, all of us are preparing for the day when everything would go according to plan. But what about those days where you will find it extremely difficult to move ahead? The important thing to understand here is that you should be so prepared that you hit the mandatory 97 percentile in a section irrespective of the contents of the test, your frame of mind and other factors that are beyond your control. Let’s look at the sub-section wise things that you could do to be extremely strong on the defensive front. The following question types will encompass everything that appears in the section: Arrangements (one to one, one to many, many to many) Critical Path (single vs. multiple) Binary Logic (truth tellers, alternators and liars) Blood Relations Numerical Logic Tournaments (Round Robin and Knockout) Venn Diagrams (2 factor and 3 factor) Maxima and Minima (2 factor, 3 factor, multi-factor) Sticks and Coins games Graphs (snapshots, rolling/progressive) Tables (complete, incomplete) Caselets Data Sufficiency The entire point of having this section is that, students should not be able to prepare for it. This is the section where nobody has an edge over the other candidate because nobody would have seen the logic beforehand (unless it is a bad CAT year and the sets are straight lifts from past years). So, a lot of aspirants are not very sure of where to draw the line when it comes to practicing LRDI sets. To start with, the best sources to practice LRDI are past year CAT/XAT/IIFT papers. Also, if you are able to crack the easy-moderate sets in your mock tests, you should be fine. There is a paradox with solving difficult sets that most aspirants fail to notice: if you solve 100 difficult sets, you will probably be able to solve the logic of the 101st set, however it will still take 15-20 minutes to be solved and hence, has to be skipped. In short, there is no point figuring out extremely cryptic sets simply because they will not be worth it. So, with regard to preparation, you should ideally be looking at these aspects: 1 LR and 1 DI set every day: The more you practice offline, the better you will get eventually. It is better to do small things everyday than pushing yourself in the last few days. You can refer any of the books available in the market or material provided by your coaching institute. Mocks: In every mock, no matter how difficult the paper is, focus on hitting 50% of total number of questions. Higher accuracy is always better especially if your attempts are under 20/32. Fixing approach for different types of questions: There is a limit to the sets that can be made. Exposure to variety, traps, and fixed approaches to problems will help you do well in the section. Also, focus on the thought process. When you see a set, if by the end of first reading, if you know what you are supposed to do, you’re already ahead of a lot of people. When it comes to compiling and revising sets, here is what you can try: Note down anything that you haven’t encountered before in a separate book. For example: An Erdos number set or a naya mixer grinder purana mixer grinder set from past CAT papers. What won’t go in this book are sets that are straightforward tick and cross based. For example: 5 people from 5 cities married to 5 people staying on 5 floors. Don’t save the entire set and questions based on the set. Write down the approach in your words or summarise the set. That way, your brain remembers better. Also, just revising the logic is enough than solving the entire set again. Too much time will be spent without any returns Have as much variety as possible. There is a limit to how much test setters can push their creativity. So, a set based on water supply from source to multiple places can have 3“4 different variations. Once you’re familiar with these, you can solve any question of similar type. The spread is better than the depth when it comes to LRDI, in my opinion. D-day plan Understand whether you need to solve 4 sets*4 questions or 5 sets with*3 questions: This is where a lot of people lose the battle. It is not mandatory that you solve every question under a set. If you have got three correct, and fourth requires you to write multiple cases, might as well move to the next set. Don’t give up irrespective of the level of difficulty: As it is the second section in the paper and not doing well can have impact on your performance in QA, avoid getting tensed and frustrated. If it is difficult, it is difficult for all and in such cases, even 16“20 attempts will result in an extremely strong score (a scaled score of around 42 would be good enough for a 97th percentile in CAT 2017) Limited risks: There will be times when you have to take small risks that can be compensated by a good set. If you have solved 20 correct questions and have 5 minutes left, try solving one more set even if you know that it is not possible to solve the whole thing. Take a risk by guessing what the answer could be. You might get unimaginable rewards. On the other hand, be extremely defensive if you have figured out that the section is a scorcher. Risk taking is more a function of the situation than anything else Having said this, CAT has always surprised students and it may happen that the difficulty assumption is proved false next year. We never know. But, the preparation remains more or less the same. Understanding and adjusting to the level of difficulty, maintaining composure, and keeping attempt accuracy
Porsche Consulting – Be a consultant for two days
Written by Chaitanya Naik, PGPB Candidate 2018 Winner of the Porsche Case Study Competition 2017-18 organised for the students of Bocconi University It started on the first day. My professor for management consulting Prof. Ferdinando Pennarola announced that we have partnered up with Porsche Consulting. We all were excited about this news. We were told that Porsche Consulting would launch the Porsche Case Study competition 2017-18 for all the students where a case study will be presented, and the group with the best solution will win an opportunity to be assessed by Porsche Consulting. After the assessment, the three students will be selected to work with Porsche Consultants on a real-life project for two days. The case study was presented orally by our professor, in a classic case interview format where the entire class was interviewing the professor. This session went on for nearly ninety minutes. Post this we were given a deadline to submit our proposal in seven days. In the end, we presented our proposal. After two days, we received our results to know that our group had won the first round. Soon we received emails from Porsche Consulting congratulating us and inviting us for the second round “ a thorough assessment at Porsche Consulting office at Via Giorgio Stephenson 53″ Milan, Italy. Our group of eight people underwent a rigorous assessment lasting for nearly four and a half hours. We had group discussions, presentations, logical assessments, individual assessments, and interviews. In the end, we all were just happy with the fact that the grueling evaluation was over. The next class, our professor, called Porsche Consulting on a speakerphone to announce the names of the winners. I was pleasantly surprised to hear my name in the three winners. Soon enough we were assigned our clients and asked to prepare accordingly. The first day I was driving in a Porsche Cayman from my university to the client location. I was in action from the first minute. I was working as an analyst to my mentor a senior consultant, who was conducting the workshop for our clients. This is where discussion of problems, solutions, and hypothesis takes place. The best thing for me was the entire session took place in Italian, and I was asked to make observations and present my recommendations at the end. Post this, my mentor asked me to assess the financial statements of the company and asked me to analyze the financial health of the subsidiary company and conduct their restatements. After the analysis, we made the suitable changes and updated the final presentation. I had realized that we were working for nearly thirteen hours. The second day was somewhat similar, this time we were working at Porsche Consulting office, where I continued to work with my work as instructed by my mentor. I was especially impressed by the open and friendly culture. I was surprised when the CEO Josef Nierling walked in and congratulated us, the mere fact he knew and took cognizance of our presence humbled me. According to the Porsche culture, they have monthly meetings usually held in German or Italian, but as I am a non-native Italian speaker, the CEO announced that the meeting would be held in English. We all exchanged information on the projects we were working on and their progress stages. It was like a startup where everyone worked as a close-knit family. “At the end of the experience, I was thrilled with this experience of a lifetime but also sad that it was over. These two days had been some of the best of my life. I was inspired as I could see myself work like them and had the fantastic opportunity to represent MISB Bocconi at such a competitive stage”. Chaitanya Naik PGPB Candidate 2018 To connect on LinkedIn – Click Here
How to manage time effectively at the NMAT?
As would have been obvious by now, the NMAT is more a function of speed than of content. While a few candidates are pretty natural when it comes to speed tests, a lot of aspirants end up getting confused and too worked up in an attempt to solve questions quickly. Order of sections I would suggest you take your strongest section at the very beginning, your weakest section post that and the section you are okayish with at the end. This is primarily to ensure that you don’t face any issues when you are starting the test and are pretty much in full flow when it comes to your weakest section. The confidence would get carried forward and you would be able to finish the test well. Take a few mocks before the actual test to make sure that you are used to the order of sections and it is not a surprise come the actual test. The 15-second rule Simply put, if you cannot read a question in 15 seconds, it is not worth solving (except of course in the LS section). Candidates who are good at speed tests will tell you that they have a Spidey sense when it comes to skipping difficult questions. Of course, it depends completely on a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses as to which questions will be easy and difficult but generally, if there is a big story attached to the question, it doesn’t make sense to attempt it in the first round. A few topics that could be blindly left in round 1 will be: Allegations, interest rates, series, input-output, data interpretation, logical reasoning caselets, and reading comprehension passages Remember the Pareto principle 80% of your score will be from 20% of the topics that you would have prepared. Of course, you would need that 20 % to gain an advantage over the test-taking population but you also need a base score to clear the cutoffs. Remember this bit and back yourself to be able to solve around 80% of the test. As had been mentioned in the previous article, if you prepare your topics well, you should not face any issue in clearing the cutoffs. Even if it means that you are not solving even 4-5 questions at a stretch, it won’t matter much in the final tally. So, instead of getting desperate during the test, keep your calm and you should be fine. Using the timer wisely Make sure that you are fluent throughout the section and are not getting stuck anywhere. Unless you have the range and the speed to make a comeback it will prove fatal. Even a 5-minute idle time is enough to push you from a 200+ score to a low 190s score and so, be extremely fluid throughout the test. If you can subconsciously figure out the time spent on a question, it would be brilliant. However, you can keep track of time and always try to stay ahead of the per question time limit (i.e. say for example you are at question 20 in QS. Ideally, you should be somewhere around the 15th minute. If you are falling behind by a bit, you need to pick it up) Understanding E + (M/2) If you are not sure of the cutoffs or of how good your performance has been, you can simply do a quick count of the Easy + half of the Moderate questions. If you are at that level, chances are that you will clear the cut-offs. Typically the split will be approximately 40% Easy – 30% Moderate – 30% Difficult and so, the cutoff will be around 55-60% of the total marks. So, if you are aware of your strengths and weaknesses and can be fluent without losing hope/confidence, you should do fairly well at the test. All the best! This article has been written by Dr. Shashank Prabhu, who has been a CAT 100 percentiler, CET Rank 1, and IIFT 100 percentiler. He had a scaled score of 249/360 in NMAT 2016 and 99 percentile in each of the sections and overall score. This article is written by our Guest Writer Shashank Prabhu CAT 100%iler, 5 times AIR 1, Director, learningroots.in, Ex ITC, Pagalguy, TAS. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not MISB Bocconi.
The danger of ‘running the extra-mile’
Exhaustion takes a toll – at work and at home The connection between stress and productivity is well known and well documented. The first study on this link dates back to 1908, when the psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson demonstrated that a relationship between the two phenomena exists, but it’s not a linear one. When the stimulus (stress) is too low, our productivity suffers. But as the stress level rises, so does our productivity. This means that stress gives us more focus and helps us stay on task – but up to a point. In fact, when stress is too intense, our productivity drops because fatigue kicks in. If we turn up the pressure even higher, the outcome could be much more severe, not just for productivity, but in personal consequences too. At first, individuals who are motivated and committed put all their energy into going the extra mile, and they feel they can make it. They try to cope with stress simply by ignoring the subtle danger signs and getting on with things, juggling all their duties as best they can. But then comes the breaking point. Excessive stress takes its toll: work exhaustion, depression, illness, divorce. This is the limit, and the personal price to pay is far too high. Organizations increasingly expect people to be willing to go the extra mile, in other words, to adopt habits at their own discretion that go beyond their formal roles. This could mean anything from helping a colleague without being asked to taking on greater responsibilities, working long hours or spending weekends or late evenings on call. These kinds of behaviors are generally associated with higher commitment, a sense of identity built around one’s career, and individual motivation. What’s more, organizations where extra-mile behaviors are commonplace can gain collective advantages in terms of developing social capital, boosting productivity and diminishing turnover. So there’s no doubt that when people show they’re motivated beyond the call of duty, when they work hard and put in the extra effort, they generate positive outcomes for themselves, for their careers and for the organization. But on the flipside, there is evidence of physical and cognitive limitations to this approach. These are particularly evident when the extra mile isn’t just one, but turns into two, three, five, ten miles – ultimately becoming an all-out marathon, a never-ending rat-race. The breaking point of the extra mile The dark side of the extra mile emerged in a study run by SDA Bocconi, an Italian business school, involving 650 participants. According to the findings, when people feel pressured by their company to do more than their jobs require, they experience a significant increase in fatigue. In fact, individuals under intense extra-mile pressure present a 50% higher rate of fatigue compared to others who are not subject to the same kind of stress. The study defined fatigue as an individual state in which feeling worn out, tired, or on edge is attributed to engaging in behaviors that go above and beyond individual’s duty. But what are the reasons behind this outcome? Briefly, people face a twin challenge: they’re expected to go the extra mile as a matter of course, with the sort of striving that might once have earmarked someone for promotion or an excellent performance review now seen as the status quo. At the same time, the core responsibilities haven’t gone away, so people’s limited stock of time and concentration is over-stretched. Expectations of excellence in the role combined with pressure to go beyond the role. The cumulative effect of this is fatigue. But what may be the most interesting aspect that emerged from the study has to do with the spillover effect, which touches people’s private lives: they need more time to recover the energy they’ve expanded at work, and they display more aggressive behavior with family members at home. The study also involved employees’ partners, asking them questions such as whether he/she gets irritated easily, or is very critical, or ignores others when they get home. What can companies do? Asking people to make an extra effort is justified – if it’s the exception and not the rule. What does that mean? In taking this approach, organizations can employ many different tactics which must constitute a comprehensive strategy: – Raise awareness among supervisors on the essential role they play in guiding individual behaviors. Supervisors are fundamental to striking a balance between the working lives and private lives of their personnel. They are the ones who need the insight to realize when extra exertion is necessary, and when instead they have to give their people more space. For example, consider an auditing firm that might expect superhuman effort from employees to close year-end financial statements, but then would (or should) give them the flexibility of extra vacation days. – Implement organizational policies that promote a balance between professional and private life. Some companies don’t let their personnel read business emails after 6 pm or during the weekend. For example, the power distributor Elektro, voted the best company to work for 5 years in a row in Brazil, automatically switches people’s computers off after 10 hours. Others allow their employees to write emails after work, but they program the office servers so that these emails aren’t delivered until the following morning. – Grow an organizational culture oriented toward long-term results, one that takes into consideration the well-being of all collaborators, instead of simply looking at short-term performance indicators alone. Foster a culture that can intercept the danger signs of stress and take appropriate action, that rejects the attitude that working 60 or 70 hours a week is normal, and refuses to let work hours and quick response time after hours become the primary criteria for hiring or for awarding promotions. – As leaders and managers, we have the duty to both stretch people with challenging goals and protect their mental and physical wellbeing. The extra mile benefits no one if it becomes a breaking point. Written by Paolo Gallo, Chief
Diversity & Inclusion – An Evolution Over the Ages
With a lot of transformations occurring worldwide regarding the demographics of a workplace, there has been a drastic change in people’s views about what Diversity in a workplace is. Above all this debate and commotion, one particular question has always remained constant. Whom do we include when speaking of Diversity and Inclusion? The reason behind the permanence of this question lies in the constantly changing global work scenario which in turn leads to constant changes in the very answer to the question above. This calls for a journey through time. Back in the years before the Industrial Revolution, work was segregated. The men worked outside; women were responsible for managing the house. This was what was considered appropriate then. With the advent of industries and the need of industrialists to capitalize from the ever increasing demands, women were considered as an option in the workforce keeping in mind the socially appropriate tasks for men and women in that era. Women were included in the workplace. The changing political dynamics in the world with the outbreak of World Wars where the conventional breadwinner -men went to war, and there was need for money to run the house and industrialists wishing to produce goods to sell in its colonial markets, that was when the potential  of women workforce was first utilised to a great extent which led to many revelations of her dexterity. Going forward a few decades, we come across the question of racial diversity. The world agreed that people from all races and ethnicities had the right to pursue the career of their choice, thus changing what diversity and inclusion in a workplace entailed. Coming to the 21st century, from the need for survival to working for a better lifestyle, men and women have both become a part of the workforce. Diversity and Inclusion have perhaps never been more debated than it is now. A rise in awareness amongst the global population has led to organizations recognizing the need of expanding the umbrella of Diversity and Inclusion to cover Sexual Orientation in addition to Gender and Race. Organizations like Apple want themselves to be a reflection of the world around them. The ProEves Gender Balance India Survey shows that men still dominate the majority of the workforce in workplaces. However, the numbers are growing, and that hints at a bright future in the course of Diversity in Workplaces. We know from prior researches that millennials tend to be more tolerant and encouraging of alternative perspectives than older generations. According to a 2015 study by the Learning Center for Inclusion, Deloitte University, in collaboration with the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, on The Radical Transformation of Diversity and Inclusion, The Millennial Influence, there is a generational gap between baby boomers (born 1946-63), Gen X-ers (born 1964-79) and millennials (born 1980-95) whose understanding of diversity and inclusion differs greatly. Millennials are more likely to define diversity as pertaining to the individual mix of unique experiences, identities, ideas, and opinions, i.e., cognitive diversity. Prior generations, on the other hand, frame diversity in terms of demographics, equal opportunity, and representation of identifiable demographic characteristics. Progressive baby boomers and Gen X-ers have globally made great advances (from point A to point B) in providing traditionally inclusive workforces in terms of equity, fairness, acceptance, and integration of individuals of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. Millennials believe that to be considered as inclusive, organizations now need move from point B to point C by focusing on equally accepting and integrating alternative points of views through forming teams on which everyone has a say, valuing a culture of connectivity, and capitalizing on a variety of perspectives in order to make a stronger business impact. Millennials and Gen Z-ers (born 1996-2012) will form 75% of the global workforce by 2025. Businesses that don’t expand their notions of diversity and inclusion will increasingly lose their millennials and certainly won’t retain Gen Z-ers, who are even less focused on traditional diversity than their older brothers and sisters and are even more engaged in socially collaborative platforms. Cognitive diversity is essential for an inclusive work culture where employee experience– defined as engagement, empowerment, and authenticity– can be maximized. For diversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords or boxes to check, they are essential to business success. MISB Bocconi Leadership Summit will host distinguished HR Leaders to discuss various HR best practices and insights on Diversity and Inclusion. Mr. Yogi Sriram Senior Vice President Corporate HR (Larsen&Toubro), Lead Function for L&T and Mr. T K Srirang Senior General Manager and Head Human Resources at ICICI Bank will be at MISB Bocconi Leadership Summit 2017 for Thinkers Dialogue discussing Diversity & Inclusion at the workplace. Written By Raj Gohil and Kritika Singhania – PGPB Class of 2019
The New HR – Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention
By 2020, the average age of Indian population will be 29 years. Leadership without technology will not get us anywhere. Despite various apps, the best systems and processes, if organizations do not focus on leadership or processes, they will not succeed. The aspirations of yesterday and today’s generations are almost similar. They are concerned about the following things: A satisfying job role and workplace Respect and dignity at work Meaningful contribution to the company Nowadays, there is an increased scrutiny on HR practices as the importance of an efficient workforce becomes more apparent, even though these needs seem very similar to earlier times when technology was not an evident part of the organization design. At the same time, HR practices are going through a paradigm shift partly because of the use of technology and also because of a more mobile workforce with more choices becoming available – all this while edging towards disengagement. In the midst of this, HR’s existence is being debated with two clear sides emerging. Here it is the organization culture, no matter how old the organization gets nurtured by the leadership, it will define the success of the organization. Despite having various technology and applications in place, if the organization is devoid of any values, culture, it will be difficult to succeed. To put it simply, one school of thought says that HR roles can be incorporated in the job description of the team leaders of respective domains, while the rest can be done with the aid of Artificial Intelligence. The other side, however, believes that with so much change taking place HR becomes more important to lead the way through this shift. With so much skepticism, it will be interesting to discuss newer avenues like engaging a more mobile workforce and the changing style of recruitment for a different generation of employees. MISB Bocconi Leadership Summit will host distinguished HR Leaders to discuss various best practices. In 2008, the HR Coach Research Institute conducted a Generation Y study in which Gen Y’s conducted interviews with other Gen Y participants. Results showed that they felt harshly judged by other generations. At the time, there was low employment and an undersupply of employees, so Generation Y had bargaining power, and they were mismanaged. (http://hr4smes.com.au/news/92) We can infer from the article that with the emergence of AI and analytics, the way HR deals with each employee or each team has gone through a significant change. It is no longer an impossible dream to customize every individual employee experience, but a necessary reality. In situations like this, it is the tenacity with which an organization strives to retain talent that comes into the picture. As talent leaders, they must work towards motivating good talent – which essentially stems from having a strong rooted Organisation culture. Written By Shruti Srivastav and Raghav Chaudhary – PGPB Class of 2019
Are Structural Reforms in India Paying off?
Over years, much buzz around about the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) took place. Let’s then look more closely at India, in order to find out if and how much it can be interesting. Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. This verse by Rabindranath Tagore (1891-1941) may be the metaphor of the Indian growth: faith in a development that would come, indeed. India’s potential growth is rising, not falling. That is the conclusion to be drawn from a number of structural reforms unleashing the economy’s productive power. The reform momentum buoys confidence in India’s prospects. Structural reforms – including a nationwide goods and services tax – are weighing on growth near term, but clearing the way for faster potential. The Reserve Bank of India cut rates in August and is likely to ease policy further, which could help tamp down real borrowing costs and spur growth. With inflation slowing and anchored below the Reserve Bank of India’s 4% medium-term target, there’s scope for a rate cut in December 2017. Favorable rains have led to productive crop sowing – which bodes well for rural growth. The economy is poised for a gradual, non-inflationary recovery in the months ahead. The government is laying the groundwork for faster growth by reducing bottlenecks. The Prime Minister’s office has streamlined regulations on agricultural distribution and bankruptcy. It is also bringing public services online and lowering reliance on cash transactions. These spell accelerating potential growth. Structural reforms are pushing up potential growth, but high real interest rates are preventing a full-fledged recovery. This suggests the output gap – which the Reserve Bank of India estimates at 1% of GDP at end-2016 – will persist or even get wider. In the meantime, inflation continues to surprise on the downside, therefore prompting the central bank to cut rates again at its policy review in December 2017 or February 2018, without fear of stoking inflation to allow actual growth catch up to potential. Looking ahead, inflation is likely to inch lower in coming months, undershooting the central bank’s projection for 2H fiscal 2018. This would provide scope for a rate cut at its December policy review to spur growth. India’s GDP growth is expected to edge up to 7.2% in fiscal 2018 from 7.1% last fiscal, and then recover meaningfully to 7.7% in fiscal 2019. The rupee is expected to appreciate further against the dollar to 61.1 by March 2018 from 67 in March 2017, on a quarterly average basis. As capital flows and trade seasonality align in 2H, the rupee is likely to post sharper gains. India’s economic stability, reform momentum, and political stability are attracting strong capital inflows. The result: foreign exchange reserve accumulation at the central bank and appreciation pressure on the rupee, which is supported by the traditional pattern of rupee’s relative strength against the U.S. dollar from December to April each year. The table and chart below track actual and forecasted key statistics about the Indian economy. Source of data: Bloomberg Source of data: Bloomberg Let’s now take a closer look at some key sectors of the Indian economy. Agricultural growth is projected to hit the 4% mark in fiscal 2018, thanks also to more rural areas connected to the electricity grid. The mining sector should also see a gradual pickup in the coming fiscal year as higher growth generates demand for coal, crude oil, and minerals. India’s industrial gross value added is likely to rebound to nearly 8% year-on-year growth in fiscal 2018, after a slowdown to 6.7% in fiscal 2017. High real borrowing costs – the main reason for the 2017 slump – started coming down, with banks cutting lending rates following demonetization and manufacturing inflation picking up. The implementation of the goods and services tax adds impetus as well. India’s service sector gross value added is set to pick up to 8% growth in fiscal 2018, with most areas performing better (public and social services are exceptions). That would be up from the official estimate of 7.2% in fiscal 2017. Lower rates and interest subsidies on low-cost-housing may drive construction. Pent-up demand from the demonetization squeeze is set to boost retail trade, real estate, and banking services. Higher government capital expenditures may spur transportation. As Finance is – at its heart – a forward-looking discipline, chances are the favorable prospects of the Indian economy are discounted by financial markets. The chart below shows how the Indian Sensex equity index is closing the gap that opened up in late 2015 against the broader MSCI World equity index, in Indian rupees. Source of data: Bloomberg Keep your eye on India: it could be a rather good place for your investments… Author – Prof. Leonardo Etro, MISB Bocconi Leonardo Etro, Italian, SDA Professor of Accounting, Control, Real Estate, and Finance Department at SDA Bocconi, Milan; Professor of Corporate Finance and Corporate Valuation at Bocconi University, where he is also Director of M&A Observatory. His main areas of research are Corporate Valuation, M&A transactions, Corporate Restructuring and Private Equity.
Strategies to crack a perfect 99 on the NMAT by GMAC Test
NMAT by GMAC is primarily an important test for more reasons than one. It is the kick-start to a long season for most serious aspirants and the one test from which, aspirants can either derive a lot of confidence or get so scared that the entire season that follows is a blur. As someone who had scored a perfect 99 on the NMAT by GMAC (99th percentile across all sectionals and overall), I would be sharing a few strategies and tips that would be immensely helpful if you are taking the test. Understand the test Unlike most of the other entrance tests, NMAT by GMAC is a fine balance of knowing a huge range of question types and switching between those at breakneck speed. While the test does not have negative marking, it does have timed sectionals and a ratio of a minute per question on an average. You are expected to read the question, understand it, represent it on your rough sheet, solve it and mark it in that minute. Even if you decide to let go of the question in the first round, you would need to make that decision within 30 odd seconds of seeing the question. So, your knowledge of yourself as a candidate becomes crucial especially in these tests wherein a lean patch of 5-10 minutes during the test can result in your downfall. If you know at a question-level whether you should spend time attempting it or not, you will do extremely well on the NMAT by GMAC. SDA Bocconi Asia Center is accepting NMAT Scores. Like other top B schools in India offering postgraduate programs, SDA Bocconi AC offers International Master in Business. Admission requirement – http://sdabocconiasiacenter.com/international-master-in-business/admission-requirement Preparation before the test terms of content Language Skills: The main challenge in this section would be to read faster than you normally do. 32 questions in 22 minutes would be a blur and solve two around 500-word Reading Comprehension passages (with 4 questions each) would take a big chunk of your time. The best strategy would be to focus on vocabulary based questions (synonyms, antonyms, fill in the blanks, cloze passages, etc.) and grammar based questions at the start which will take lesser time. With regard to preparation, keeping track of common word roots and a few expressions should be enough in addition to basic reading comprehension practice and understanding the basic grammar rules (parallelism and subject verb agreement are the ones that will be tested most often). Quantitative Skills: Arithmetic, linear equations and numbers would be the important topics here. There were a few questions that were of the apply-the-formula-directly type, especially from co-ordinate geometry and numbers and so, even if you do not have a thorough understanding of a topic, at least remember the formulas that you would come across. The data interpretation sets are generally of a moderate-difficult level and will be useful only once you have cleared the cut-off. Ideally, you should be done with the quantitative part before you jump to the data interpretation part of the section. Logical Reasoning: Arrangements and input-output can be pretty challenging at times, and unless you crack it within the first few seconds, it would be prudent to let go of these. Coding decoding, almost all of the series based questions, verbal logic (assumptions, inferences, conclusions) would be ones that will boost your score. Test taking strategies: Which window to choose? Doesn’t matter to be very frank. Ideally, it would be best if you could plan for an additional attempt in case you are not satisfied with how things went the first time around. Considering that CAT, IIFT, and SNAP will be the ones that you would need to word around, you can go for an attempt around the last week of October and then take a call. Multiple attempts vs. single attempts: Again, it is completely up to you. You can of course plan a bit ahead and have a window to be safe just in case you need it. Order of sections: If you are someone who faces fatigue issues, keep your best section for the end. That way, you won’t run out of steam throughout the test. Also, try not taking reasoning right at the start (unless of course, you are exceptionally good at it) as it would include a lot of surprise elements which might throw you off guard.QS-LR-LS or LS-LR-QS are both fine. Also, the speed at which the sections pass should be enough to keep you on your toes throughout. Leaked questions, stay away from rumours Almost every year since the test went computer-based, there have been leaked questions that are floated by the takers. A few of them are genuinely right and would have appeared, but a lot of them are half baked, without options and perpetuated by quite a few shady elements to entice people rather than help them with prep. Also, if you look at these questions, they are pretty much manageable the first time around (except may be vocabulary based questions) and so, do not deserve undue attention. You will also find people claiming that 50-60 percent of the paper was from the circulated leaked questions which would be ridiculous. So, stay away from these things and focus on your prep. End of the day, leaked questions are available to everyone and so, solving them would not give you any edge. What score to expect? Typically, anything above 205 should be the bare minimum target. To put it in context, I had attempted almost the entire paper genuinely (except a DI set which was too long and a couple of logic based questions; I had expected to get around 24-25 questions right in LS) which got me a QS (89) + LS (75) + LR (85). So, the score is not scaled heavily as far as my knowledge goes although it would completely depend on your performance in comparison to that of your slot-mates and the performance of your slot vis – vis