October is an international project travel month for EMBA 2010. Most of our classmates travelled directly from Palisades right after international finance final and couple of teams travelled week after. Some of the projects taken by our classmates are very impressive and relevant to current pressing world issues. One of such project is a smart grid project which is in the news multiple times this month. Some of you may know, President Obama’s administration announced to spend 3.7 billion stimulus money on the smart grid technology.
Our team also travelled the same day after the international finance finals to India. It was a long 15 hours direct flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi, India. After the long flight, we had the first meal at a roadside Dhaba somewhere in between Delhi and Chandigarh highway. The food was delicious. After the meal I realized that how much I missed those Indian spices. Each trip to India, I could see the country's infrastructure is slowly but studiedly improving. Our blackberry worked everywhere, highways are getting better and the wireless networks are amazing. Other than numerous Indian television networks most of the international networks are also available now (like CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and all other premium movie channels). Even though roads are improving, it is still long way to go.
Part of our project, we interviewed several industry leaders and CEOs to understand the potential of outsourcing pharmacovigilance to India. Even though we live in the electronic communication world, still there is no replacement for face to face meetings. During these meetings, we are able to understand strategy and vision of individual CEOs. For the interview and the presentation, we used material from Vithala Rao's marketing course, advance business strategy course and other finance papers.
After these meetings, we had some time to visit family and friends. October is holiday time in India and the festival is called Diwali (Festival of light). It is a best time to visit family and friends. I had been living aboard for more than 15 years now. We rarely get time to visit family during festival time because of kid's school schedule and work. I really enjoyed this trip and missed my family back in USA.
Our trip was great success. All meetings went beyond our expectation and the information collected in these meetings are very useful. After a useful trip and Diwali celebrations, we are back in US and now it is time to focus on final deliverables for the third semester. There is only three more weekend classes left in this semester and the volume of deliverable from now to end of semester are so many. I could see myself sitting in long meetings with team mates and studying long hours in the next three to four weeks.
Fall is a wonderful time of the year, the trees are beautiful with multiple colors and the holiday season is around the corner.
Good luck with everything. See you all in couple of weeks in my blog.
Thanks
Patham
